Sucking less, on a budget

Rain or Shine

When a concert says "rain or shine", they mean it. That's exactly what happened to us at Meriweather Post on Sunday night, when a long line of thunderstorms moved through during the concert and soaked those of us cheapskates on the lawn. Thankfully we stopped at the mall right beforehand and picked up umbrellas, but we were still wet by the time we left. It rained pretty much from the minute we sat down until the minute we drove off. At least John Mayer seemed moved by our plight, but not enough to let all of us backstage.

The concert was pretty fun regardless, though I still have no clue who the opening act was. Some guy that looked like a girl. We couldn't really hear them or see them (everyone was huddled under umbrellas). Things opened up a bit when JM came on as everyone stood and most of the umbrellas came down (not the ones in front of me, however, so I couldn't see except for the screens). He's a great guitar player and worth seeing live if you ever get the chance. I may have to go buy his last couple of live albums.

Walking out in the darkness and mudslides at intermission, i almost wished for an iFlashlight on my phone. I said almost. I'm lying.

Pink 2.0

Things have been really hectic of late with Jo and Alaina moving in this month, so I haven't had much time to blog. My life has become very different, now suddenly being a full-time parent and my house is a lot smaller. Not in a bad way, just different and new. At least I'm drinking less, that's probably good, though the reverse of what I would have normally expected.

I was one of the foolish who downloaded the iPhone 2.0 image, but thankfully for me it didn't apply (I even tried twice, what was I thinking!?). I gave the other foolish mortals a day to let iTunes activation shake out (tvl?) and tried on Saturday where it went through without a hitch. I miss the days of iPods with Firewire, restoring 8gb of media takes like a half an hour! We're still holding off doing Jo's phone, but will probably do it once she builds her music collection back up on her Mac. You think I'd let a PeeCee in this house!?

Along those lines, I'm having to rely on my router (a linksys that's destined for the landfill, I hate this POS) for parental controls since the iMac in A's room isn't souped-up enough to run Leopard. I'd like to swap it for a TimeCapsule, but I can't find anything (anything!) on Apple's website that talks about its parental control functionality. Yes, I get it, it can do backups. Anything else!? If Apple is assuming that everyone can (and will) run Leopard, that's t3h suck. Tiger runs just fine on this little iMac, why should I be forced to upgrade?

The app store is fun and kinda cool, it's nice getting to run what I want, though I think I'm still one of the few who is more than happy to cede all control to Apple to ensure that my phone doesn't flake out or brick because of some rogue app. I do have some issues with them controlling what can and can't go on the store due to fears about competition (c'mon Apple, just don't be evil!), but as an end-user, my sanity thanks them. I don't think I need 3 flashlights, 10 tip calculators, or 8 todo apps, though. My currency converter is better than yours!

What I really want is a way to easily blog from the phone, but maybe that's asking too much. What I've found is that my main obstacle to doing things on my phone is that nothing remembers passwords. So if I want to make a note in FaceBook or sign into my blog, I have to re-log in, and that's a serious pain. Yes, I'm lazy. There, I said it.

I've also taken on a new role at work, leaving the Desktop team for something more exciting. After almost three years on the same team, it was time, but doing so simultaneously with Jo moving in certainly adds to my stress. I can't talk about the project, but you'll find out eventually. Or you won't and I'll go back to drinking.

Going to see John Mayer tonight, should be fun, though any long car ride with a tween is an adventure. No, damnit, we're not there yet.

Molé Molé Molé

In less than eight hours, one of my favorite reality game shows will be be re-airing on Fox Reality: The Mole, Season One. Right up there with the first season of Survivor, The Mole helped define reality TV and is, IMHO, one of the most influential shows of recent time.

The premise is the usual group of contestants competing for the usual prize, but with one crucial twist: one of them isn't competing at all. The Mole's job is to fuck it up for everyone else so that the challenges go haywire and the winner doesn't get as much $$$ as they ultimately should. However, nobody knows the identity of the saboteur, and it's that person's job to keep everyone guessing right up to the end. If they're too obvious, the game's no fun. Each week, all contestants (even The Mole) answer questions about the identity of The Mole and the person who gets the fewest correct answers gets the proverbial boot. At the end, there are three left: two contestants and The Mole.

I won't ruin it for you, because you should be watching it, but I'll give you another reason to watch it: Lord Anderson Cooper. Once again, I'm straight, but god he's dreamy. Dream-my. There have been other iterations of this show, but he makes Season One with his presence and wit. Nothing is better than the one where he shows them how to pour wine without spilling a drop (because he was once a starving waiter). That's bravado, and even though he spills the wine, he stills pulls it off. I mean come on. He's Lord Anderson Cooper. He could pull off thermonuclear war.

No Stuart, this isn't Parking Wars. This really is good television.

It is what it is

This blog post is seven words long.

Package Store

I downloaded the 10.5.3 update tonight (see, I do update sometimes!!) using the "install and keep package" option in SU. It's 420Mb, for goodness sakes, and I've got several machines to upgrade. However after the upgrade, the package wasn't anywhere. I looked around using some search engine and found it's supposed to end up in /Library/Packages. Nope. There's not even a Packages folder. Wonderful.

I bought GranTurismo5:Prologue over the weekend. Yeah, it's basically a glorified demo, but the graphics are gorgeous. Stunning. Wow. I want to write software like that.

I wanted to buy Crash (2005 Best Picture winner) as I really enjoyed the movie and figured that I should buy it on BluRay now that I have a player. What I found was interesting, and not in a good way. I can get the 2 DVD Director's Cut with several commentaries and loads of special features for $9.99. The BluRay version is only the theatrical release with no features (none at all), and costs $29.99. WTF?