Fun and Games Dept

Frost., originally uploaded by iMachias.

The big camera is out and about today. Here’s my first shot at trying to be a little more serious about taking photographs. Bent license plate notwithstanding.

087.365, originally uploaded by iMachias.

I have been saying for a while that I want to get better at photography. Now I’m never going to be able to take breathtaking shots like my friends Kevin, Dale or Terry in Grand Rapids, but I feel the need to have a camera at my side and snap some slices of life from time to time. The camera on my iPhone is like taking an old Polaroid, you get the jist of the moment but you don’t really capture the quality of the photo, no matter how much you shake and blow on it. However, at times I’m lazy and I just take a picture with the iPhone that’s usually within arms reach.

I have a fairly new Sony Cyber-shot that I use for most of the photos I take. I was mentioning to Greg (another very good photographer) over the weekend that I want to take more photos, so naturally I left the camera in Connecticut when I headed home yesterday. Just mentioning the fact that I wanted to take more photos said to the Universe that I should leave the camera behind.

So tonight I pulled out my older Cyber-shot, a DSC-S40 that has a really small viewscreen but takes pretty good pictures.

I’m thinking that I’m going to start dragging around the “big” camera we bought five years ago, a Sony DSC-F828. I have to admit that camera was quite pricey when we bought it, we should probably use it more. Our friend Marcus always has his big camera with him, maybe I should follow his example in that department.

087a.365, originally uploaded by iMachias.

So this past weekend was spent in New Haven, Connecticut. Aside from the E-Z Pass fiasco of yesterday, it was the perfect weekend and luckily, a long weekend for me.

The reason for the trip was the spring performance of the Connecticut Gay Men’s Chorus. This year’s theme was “69: Still Divine.” They sang songs from the year 1969. The show was comprised of several medleys that were themed: “TV themes” (my friend Greg can belt out the theme from Star Trek like nobody’s business) “Girls Night Out” and “Keep The Faith”. And of course, no celebration of 1969 would be complete without the Laugh-In joke wall and someone dressed up in a Cindy Brady wig as the guys sang the theme from The Brady Bunch.

Here’s Earl, Jamie, Jeff and I waiting for the show to start at the Shubert Theatre.

There is one more show of the season, next weekend at the Bushnell in Hartford. If you’re in the area I highly recommend attending the concert. It’s a lot of fun.

After the concert we headed over to the York Street Café for a couple of O’Douls and then called it a night.

Sunday we had a breakfast brunch at Greg’s. Earl and Jamie headed back home, Jeff headed back to New Jersey. I had a long weekend at my fingertips so I stayed around was joined by our friend Dave.

Here’s Greg and I waiting for Dave’s train from Manhattan to arrive.

Sunday night Greg, Dave and I went to ‘Bar’ in New Haven for pizza and salad. When it comes to pizza I prefer a thin crust and ‘Bar’ is really good at the thin crust. Their mashed potato pizza is really, really good. Dave and Greg pose by the brewing apparatus as we are waiting for our seats.

As our table was being cleared, the previous guest there decided it was important to tell the hostess how terrible the service was. This proved to be just the yapping from a cranky woman, as the waitresses provided us with excellent service. Perhaps we were friendlier looking or something.

Yesterday I took Dave back to LaGuardia and then tried to navigate to the Major Deegan without a map. I ended up taking the long way around a bit (the Battery Tunnel was involved) before I found the West Side Highway and made my way up to the GWB and jumped on the Major Deegan, but all in all it was a good ride (aside from the E-Z Pass fun).

The weather was spectacular, the company was grand, the hot tub was bubbling and those important to me were all generally in the same place at the same time.

All in all it was a great weekend.

Great minds are great because they can be changed.

Marriage. It is what I want. It is what I demand.

078.365, originally uploaded by iMachias.

So here I am posing next to my newest toy, which has been dubbed “Io”. This is my newest computer: a Lenovo Quad Core 2.33 gHz with 8GB RAM and 1 TB hard drive. It is running Windows Vista Home Premium Edition (64 bit version).

I. Am. Loving. It.

I have been a pretty avid Mac boy since switching to primarily OS X back in 2004. I don’t have a lot of experience with Windows Vista; I haven’t really used Vista extensively since the Release Candidate version was released in July 2006. So far I’m liking the operating system, but then again I have a pretty powerful computer to run it on.

One of the things that I’m really liking about Windows Vista is that I can essentially replace my MobileMe subscription ($99/year) through free offerings from Google and Microsoft’s Live Essentials suite of programs and still have complete access to my iPhone. This is a good thing.

With 85%-90% of the world on Windows and since I work in a technical center that supports thousands of customers on Windows, I suppose it makes sense that I continue to be thoroughly familiar with Windows.

I still love my Macs, my MacBook Pro is in the server room backing itself up to the server and my two PowerMacs are purring away in various parts of the house, but I have to say that I’m loving my Windows too. I think I’m going to start a separate blog detailing my little computing adventure. I’ll post the link once I have it set up.

I’m such a geek.

Oh, by the way, the bushy beard wasn’t working well with the spring weather we have had this weekend, so to the delight of many, I went on a pruning spree yesterday.

Dandelion., originally uploaded by iMachias.

Walking around The Manor today, I noticed a couple of definite signs that spring is here. This dandelion inspired me to get the camera out of storage and to stop relying on my iPhone for photographs.

I love dandelions. So many people go out of their way to make their life hell through unnecessary chemicals, but I find that dandelions bring a much needed burst of colour to our existence. I’m happy to see their appearance this year.

“Right beside you I feel
Right beside you I am
Right beside you I kneel
Right beside you I stand
Right beside you I see
Right beside you I stay
Right beside you I’ll be
Right beside you always”

Thirteen years ago tonight Earl and I had our first date. That first date is never ending. I still see fireworks when he walks into the room.

One of the most aggravating things about today’s digital world is that the music industry refuses to give up it’s old business model (and the shady deals that go along with it) and step into the 21st century when it comes to music track distribution.

As a former Program Director of a Top 40 Dance radio station, I spent many years working closely with record label representatives and playing the game associated with getting a track on the radio and into the ears of listeners. The system “back in my day” (the 90s) was rather shady; there’d be ominous warnings of a song coming out but we couldn’t play it before a certain date, though we had the record right there and were trying to compete with a similar station across town with who would play it first. Then the week before the “big date” would come along and there’d be flights to New York for dinner, schmoozing and flirting (regardless of sexual orientation) going on, all with the hope of getting the “big add” on Tuesday, when two or three songs (of my choosing, depending on my mood from the schmoozing) would make it to my playlist. I really didn’t like playing the game back then, though I admit I liked the jet set lifestyle that was associated with it, but I went along with it in the interest of doing what everyone else was doing in the industry and making the Spice Girls or whomever look really popular by joining every other station in the country adding “Wannabe” at once. (I met the ladies at a convention right after “Wannabe” hit the air, they were cranky.)

A while back I mentioned, courtesy of Joe.My.God. – a man who has a VERY good ear for music and an awesome knowledge of dance music, that U.K. artist Shena was releasing a ‘Nu-Disco’ track called “Can’t Stop The Rain”. The song is outstanding, has a very cool retro vibe to it and quite frankly is a blessfully wonderful breath of fresh air when compared to the shit that passes off for pop music these days. The video has been available on YouTube for a while. Like a law abiding consumer I have waited for the opportunity to legally purchase the track from iTunes before loading it on my iPhone. Despite my renegade ways from my radio days (for example, I played a song called ‘You Thrill Me’ by Madonna, which prompted a cease and desist order from Warner Brothers Music as a result of label reps passing through the area and hearing my station), I figured it would be best to support Shena through her label and play the game the right way.

I went to Shena’s site this evening and noticed that “Can’t Stop The Rain” is now available on Amazon, iTunes, HMV and 7Digital. Here’s the rub: it’s only available to consumers from the U.K.

So, despite the fact that the internet is worldwide and credit card companies are quite capable of managing an exchange rate on overseas purchases, I am not allowed to purchase “Can’t Stop The Rain” from Amazon, iTunes, HMV or 7Digital because I am a resident of the United States and NOT a resident of the United Kingdom.

I don’t know when the U.K. label is going to strike a deal with the U.S. label to offer “Can’t Stop The Rain” over the WORLD WIDE WEB and quite frankly I don’t care. I tried to play by the rules and purchase the song. I made an attempt. If the record company can’t adapt to the 21st century then why should I have to wait for them.

I now have “Can’t Stop The Rain” in glorious 320kbps on my iTunes and iPhone. It took a little effort but it’s mine to enjoy.

Here’s a lesson: you can tell me to go to hell, you can tell me to eat crap, you can tell me to go hang, you can tell me to jump off a bridge.

But don’t ever, ever, ever, tell me what I CAN’T do.

All you gotta do is ask.

070.365, originally uploaded by iMachias.

So today Earl and I headed to the lovely Capital District of New York State (Albany) and went on a little bit of a shopping spree. Earl likes to say that we stimulated the economy during our travels today, but I think he just likes to say that word “stimulated”.

I know that forking money over to a clerk several times made my heart race.

I have been feeling a little behind the times at work doing the Network Operations Center Technician thing when it comes to Windows Vista. Living in an all Mac house (aside from one Linux laptop that I revived this morning), I tend to think as a Mac Geek and I have to admit that Windows Vista is the one version of Windows that I’m least familiar with. More and more of the customers we support at work are using Vista (I know, it’s a little shocking) so I thought I should invest in a new PC that had Windows Vista on it so I could get myself back up to speed. After all, the new commercials from Microsoft made it look wicked easy to accomplish this fact.

I try to pay as little money as possible in the way of sales tax to the county we reside in, mostly because we have the highest sales tax in the state and also because I believe our county government is beyond being described as corrupt, so we drove to Albany to take a look at the offerings there. With the recent demise of Circuit City and the earlier demise of CompUSA, this leaves us with Best Buy in this area. Best Buy knows they’re the only game in town and quite frankly they’ve let themselves go to crap as far as selection and service go.

I browsed the selection of desktop computers that were on display. I have to say that the displays were less than appealing; there were monitors not connected to computers, computers missing keyboards, mice missing balls and areas of the display where it said “place sale placard here”. Nevertheless I navigated through the busy area and found a computer that fit my expectations: an HP desktop with a quad core processor, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB hard drive and a 24-inch widescreen monitor. The entire package clocked in around $1125. I thought the specs were sweet and I felt confident in the purchase.

I flagged down a person wearing a Best Buy shirt. He said he’d find someone to help me. Apparently that was not destined to happen because no one really paid attention to me after that, but I did have the opportunity to listen to another salesperson assist a customer with a laptop purchase.

Said customer wanted to buy a laptop to do some video and music work, edit his photos and surf the net. The customer showed the salesperson the computer he thought he was interested in. It was then that I discovered that something was just amiss; the salesperson proceeded to tell the customer that he had switched to using a Mac five months ago and would never recommend a Windows computer again.

This is a guy that sells Windows based computers at Best Buy.

Now, to the salesperson’s credit, this particular Best Buy did sell Apple computers. They had a very old 20″ Cinema Display and one lonely iMac that was marked as a clearance item but still $200 more than a more powerful iMac that could be found at the Apple store in the same mall.

I took this all as a sign that I shouldn’t buy a Windows based computer. So we left Best Buy.

Earl and I then walked around the mall a bit and found ourselves in the Apple store. We looked over the iMacs and found some pretty good deals, but I wasn’t feeling the urge to buy another computer (and besides, the online financing deals are much better than the ones found in the store) so instead we bought a couple of other goodies for the house: speakers for a couple of rooms with an additional Airport Express so we can stream music from our computers pretty much anywhere in the house, an iPod Touch 16GB for Earl, new ear phones for the both of us and a couple of other Mac-centric incidental items.

Thoroughly famished after all this flinging of money around we grabbed one of our gift cards and headed to Carrabba’s in nearby Latham where we followed our tradition of eating at the counter that flanks the kitchen area. I struck up a conversation with the surly pizza and dessert girl that was working. By the end of our stay I had her smiling. The picture at the top of the entry is Earl and I sitting at the counter.

I have been alcohol free (aside from 1/2 a beer a couple of weeks ago that I didn’t really enjoy) and I must say that I feel much better for it. I have been inspired to remain this way and I think it’s been a good decision.

After Carrabba’s we made the obligatory stop at Target, though I’m not sure if it was *the* Target where the iBears are usually found, as I didn’t find any bears nor did I find a dolphin. Nevertheless we picked up a couple of things and then headed home – taking back roads for the 90 or so miles back to the house.

All in all it has been an excellent day.