If ‘Fit Happens’ shouldn’t the customers be encouraged to walk around to the back of the building? It seems like even more fit would happen.
J.P.
Rdio.
One of the really bad jokes that is omnipresent in the Manor is how much money I spend in iTunes. It’s really pitiful if you think about it. Having worked in radio for 15 years, I tend to remember every one hit wonder that hit the Top 40 stage anywhere from the mid 1980s to the mid 2000s. I have this habit of remembering a song, getting it stuck in my head and subsequently buying it on iTunes. Then I’ll play it a dozen times and forget about it completely, the ear bug having been completely squashed. It can be (and is) an expensive habit and something that I needed to rectify. There was the Great Zune Experiment last year, where I bought a Zune and used the Zune monthly subscription service to satisfy these musical needs. The Zune is a nifty little device, but it seemed like every track I looked up on the Zune Marketplace would show the album cover, artist and everything and then come with a little note to the side “Not Available.” Why show the damn thing if you’re not going to make it available?
I have mentioned before that I follow several tech podcasts (net casts) from the TwIT network, more specifically iPad Today, MacBreak Weekly and This Week In Google. I will admit that I am a little hard to deal with in the morning and this mood doesn’t usually dissipate until 11:00 or so, but I have been finding it hard to get through the MacBreak Weekly episodes lately, especially since there are screeching Edith Bunker impersonations (no one but Jean Stapleton can do Edith Bunker), hosts that have apparently not prepared for the episode and are subsequently asking repetitive or downright moronic questions, instances of ultra hamming it up with needless accents and carrying on more appropriate for a Top 40 Morning Zoo show and singing and dancing to a song called “Rat Hole”.
But I digress as I just had to get that little venting out of my system.
The reason I bring up the music consumption habit and the podcasts in tandem is because amongst all the inane chatter I got through this morning, the always lovely Veronica Belmont brought up the fact that she has moved away from using iTunes altogether over the past six months and is now using a service called Rdio. She mentioned that she has used Pandora and a couple of the other alternative music services. Like me, she mentioned that Pandora seems to play the same songs over and over again. (I have an additional problem with Pandora in that as the playlist progresses the tempo gets slower and slower and slower until I am snoring through a suicide inducing track that is suspiciously part of what should be a 70s disco love fest).
Again, I digress.
Rdio is brilliant. It is a subscription service that lets you stream music through a web browser, to a whole assortment of mobile devices or through native applications built for your favorite computing platform. Well, not entirely native, some apps are written through Adobe Air, but that’s better than nothing.
The best part of Rdio is that you can store tracks on your mobile device for offline listening, perfect for those that are copping some wifi in the office and lose connectivity once in a while. (I don’t know who would do that).
There are a couple of subscription price levels. I believe the most expensive is $9.99 per month for unlimited offline music downloads, which is far less than what I was paying for Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace and a hell of a lot cheaper than my monthly iTunes habit.
An added bonus for Rdio is that it has social networking features built in, much like the Ping service on iTunes. So I can see what my Twitter followers are listening to if they use Rdio and then try those songs out. In fact, I took a look at what Veronica Belmont was listening to and discovered Foster The People, which is an awesome band that I highly recommend. They had me bopping in my cubicle this morning. I even downloaded the Scissor Sisters, which I haven’t done on iTunes because they keep getting moved to the back of the “purchasing agenda”.
I think everyone will hear a sigh of relief from my husbear when I settle on using Rdio for my music listening needs. If I find anything that breaks the deal I’ll be sure to share my findings here, but I have a good feeling that this service is going to be a keeper for my musical needs.
Now, if I could just find a way to avoid the bad stand up routines on the TwIT podcasts.
– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Hills.
Last night I hit the road on my bike and made a 14 or so mile trek around the area. It was a beautiful night for a ride; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the breeze was strong enough just to keep things relatively decent as far as temperature goes and the humidity wasn’t stifling.
I have been wanting to get in shape for the next long ride I’d like to conquer, which I think is going to be 80 miles or so during the Fourth of July weekend. Because we live in a hilly part of the state, I can’t really avoid hills if I want to ride somewhere interesting, so last night I decided to tackle some of the bigger hills in the area.
One of the things asked of a cyclist is “what do you do about this hills and mountains?” My cheery answer is: “I ride down the other side. Really fast.” The climb up the hill north of the city was slow but steady. It took about 30 minutes to go four or so miles and I was in one of the lowest gears on my bike. I usually end up stopping along these types of climbs so that I can catch my breath, but last night I trudged my way up without having to stop. Once I was on top of the hill I made my way over to our road so that I could make the quick journey down.
That was fun.
The ride down took about four minutes to go two miles. Top speed was 39 MPH (according to the GPS). I went from 950 feet ASL to 550 feet ASL. The road had just been paved so it was really smooth. It was awesome and scary.
And I’d do it again in a second.
– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Handicapped.
“I’m going to give you something to cry about.” I can’t count the number of times that I heard this statement being shrieked in the middle of a public venue when I was a kid. I have to admit that I don’t recall my mother ever uttering that phrase, she was too busy screaming at the top of her lungs that she was going to scream, but I remember seeing kids in the market or whatever crying and their mother threatening to give them something to cry about. I didn’t ever really feel particularly bad for the kid as I figured he must be some sort of monster if his mother was screaming that instead of just screaming. I couldn’t really relate.
But as an adult I can relate to that sort of hostility that was displayed by the screaming parent. I feel a similar sentiment towards people that needlessly have a handicapped decal hanging from their rearview mirror.
I know quite a few people that actually need these handicapped designations on their vehicle; they have a genuine reason to need to use one of the spaces near the front door, for example, they have an artifical leg or the fact that the wheelchair ramp is very hard to open when you’re wedged between an empty shopping cart corral and a lightpost. But if appearances mean anything, the handicapped sticker/badge has become a status symbol in these parts, where the only handicap exhibited by the driver is:
1. They completely lack parking skills
2. They’re lazy
3. They have an unfortunate sense of entitlement (the American way!)
4. All of the above
This afternoon I saw a bright blue, 1980s vintage, unnecessarily big pickup truck zoom into the handicapped spot in front of the Dollar Tree at an unusually high rate of speed. The driver, a woman, parked at a 30 degree diagonal to the lines denoting the space. Because of this, a state owned wheelchair capable van had to park further down the lot next to the aforementioned cart corral. The big truck had a handicapped sticker dangling from the mirror; I noticed then when the woman RAN from the truck to the front door of the store.
Unfortunate.
Once the wheelchair van was unloaded of it’s two passengers, both in wheelchairs, the driver calmly walked behind them as the folks in the wheelchair wheeled themselves to the same store.
The fault of this idiocy really does belong to the town halls or whatever layer of red tape is responsible for giving out these handicapped badges that hang from the mirror. “Give me a box of donuts, Gertrude, and I’ll give you a handicapped sticker so you can park closer to the donut shop.”
You wouldn’t ever see one of these people spring for the paperwork necessary to get an actual DMV-issued handicapped designated license plate. Too much work and effort required with the need to prove that you’re indeed handicapped.
It would cut into their entitlement time.
Fulfillment.
I have been contemplating buying another vehicle. The 2005 Acura RSX has been serving me well and is quite comfortable for commuting back and forth to work and the like, but it’s rather small if I want to take more than one person with me. We once picked Jamie up in Buffalo on our way back from St. Louis and I think we had to fold him up to a more compact size in order to get him to fit into the back seat.
I have had my eye on another Jeep.
The thing about buying a new Jeep is that I don’t really like the new body style that they introduced in 2007. It looks a little too modern for me. I know that Jeep has made strides in making it quite comfortable for the whole family, including the introduction of a four-door model, but there’s just something about the new style that doesn’t feel ‘raw’ enough to me. So I have been looking at the last of the older body styles on line. They look appealing and I could see me buying one, especially a Rubicon.
But then I start to wonder why I want another vehicle.
There’s nothing wrong with the Acura. It drives beautiful, is relatively maintenance free and more importantly is completely paid off. The only downside to it is that it has high taste in that it will only sip premium fuel, but it keeps the sips reasonable. Commuting expenses are reasonable given the economy and the price of fuel. And as I mentioned before, I still love it and it feels good to drive.
There’s a part of me that wants to drive off-road. I want to take a Jeep and go up the side of a gravel bed, much like we did when we were kids. I want to take it out on the beach, though right off the top of my head I can’t think of a beach nearby where I can do that. I want to drive back roads, through the woods. I don’t want the worry about my suspension handling the rougher roads.
But when do I have time to do these things?
Our former Jeep is living a very happy life with our friend Scott and it was absolutely the right thing to do to sell it when we did. No regrets there. But I think the next Jeep needs to be something a little tougher and with a used one. But I wonder what need I’m trying to fulfill by getting another Jeep.
I guess I can be complicated.
Cat Cam Secrets.
So I have had a couple of people ask how the CatCam works. Here’s the short version of it.
In the kitchen we have a MacMini acting as our kitchen television. This allows us to stream internet content, Netflix, Hulu, etc. to a new 19-inch display, which is a vast improvement over the 13-inch television that used to sit in the corner. The remote included with the MacMini allows us to move around the FrontRow software, much like you would on an original Apple TV. The MacMini isn’t really anything exceptional; it’s several years old and is the first incarnation of the Intel-based MacMinis. In fact, it’s not even a Core2 Duo, I believe they call it a “Core Solo”.
Since the MacMini is a full blown computer, it can do a whole lot more! We had an original firewire iSight camera that was left over from my old PowerMac G4 from back in the day, so I decided to hook it up and see if it works. It works beautifully, as you can see.
I found a nifty piece of software called EvoCam. EvoCam has a bunch of features that I haven’t even begun to explore yet, but I like it because it has motion detection and timestamping. It also has the ability to upload pictures to the webhost that serves up jpnearl.com. The cam is always active, looking for some sort of motion in front of Tom’s food and water bowls. When it senses motion, it snaps a picture and overwrites the previous picture on the server. That way, I can easily display it using one line of HTML code on the webpage, instead of having to accommodate different filenames.
The motion sensor is looking at a particular spot, so from time to time you’ll notice that one of us walking around in the kitchen will trip the sensor, even when Tom is somewhere else in the house napping or whatnot. I have reminded everyone of this fact so that everyone can make sure they’re properly clothed when passing through the kitchen (Tom included). So far the system is working pretty good. The software is currently on a 15 day free trial. I’m going to mess around with it a little more before deciding if I want to plonk down the money to buy it or try something else.
The things we do on a rainy day.
Cat Cam.
I’m a geek. I added a new feature to the sidebar. It’s down near the bottom. It looks something like this.
Weekend.
So first the first time this season I am sitting on the back patio with my MacBook enjoying the late spring day. It’s funny to think that it is still spring, but it is for the next 10 days or so. After all we have had record heat this past week. Of course the weekend has been rainy and chilly. It’s only 66º F right now.
I’m still quite content.
The weekend has been mostly about relaxing and getting stuff done around the house. While everyone was still asleep I relocated two computers and extended the range of the wireless network to all points in the house so I could easily watch the “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” cartoon on the kitchen computer. That computer is named hestia. Hestia replaces our old television we had in the corner before we remodeled the kitchen earlier this spring.
Last night we went to see “X-Men: First Class”. I enjoyed the movie very much and was delighted to see Rose Byrne as Moira. We had just seen her a couple of weeks ago in “Bridesmaids” and I have to admit that she has moved to the top of the list of my favorite females. She is stunning.
Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert.
There are a lot of birds singing here in the back yard. They are probably spreading the word that the five bird feeders have been refilled and are now quality rest areas again. Occasionally a random bird will stop by, examine the situation, poop and then move on. On the feeders closest to the house they seem to favor one feeder over the other but I don’t know why.
Time to get back to relaxing.
Grounded.
I just became a site project leader for a huge, company wide project at work. Right before this current lunch hour, we had our kick-off conference call. Not completely comprehending the scope of the project, I had a little silent freak-out when I found out what this project is going to entail.
Step out for lunch, and call the husbear.
He is my rock, he is my anchor, he is my voice of reason. I trust him like no other person on the face of this planet. When my head goes into overdrive, he is there to pull back on the throttle and say, “believe in yourself, you can do anything.”
He’s right. I can do anything. Especially when I’m surrounded by the people that love me. This project is going to give me the opportunity to grow professionally in ways and directions that I have never grown before. This is playing with the big boys.
It’s time to act like one.
