View Roadtrip 09 – Day by Day in a larger map
Posted some photos on Flickr, by the way.
Monthly Archive for August, 2009
Put 250km behind us today, from our Holiday Inn Express just south of SFO over the Bay Bridge, off the freeway through some surreal all yellow hillsides filled with windmills — and locals tail-gating me to push past the 55mph limit — into Modesto, ate at Denny’s, looked across the street and saw Lucas Plaza, where a statue commemorating American Graffiti has been erected (yeah, as if I wasn’t already looking for it; but it was by chance we found it nonetheless). Quick photo op, and then on down to Merced where we’re currently staying at a motel.
Lessons learned so far: Easy to drive over here, people don’t seem to be assholes about driving, like they are in Denmark. Everybody goes at least 5mph past the speed limit. At least. It took me a while to figure out where to turn on the lights on the Mustang. The Mustang has a USB port and line-in, making it hella easy to play music from iPods etc. Oh, and it’s a very nice ride. Oh, and automatics… Droooool. Finally, if it’s hot now, how will it be in Death Valley? The mind boggles.
Before we left the San Francisco area, we stocked up on various supplies and bought a TomTom XL 340-S, despite having bought the US TomTom app for the iPhone. But getting a signal on that was a royal pain in the ass, and I wasn’t going to bet our trip on something so frail, so… And what a pleasure the real thing is to use. How people roadtripped before GPS, I’ll never know. I’m currently updating the maps and hoping to install Homer Simpson…
Anyway, mind is melted. Tomorrow the mountains.
Spielberg, Hemmingway, Einstein, any number of presidents not named Bush, that guy at the gas station, the gal at the drive-in, you and of course, me. We’re all connected in that great human struggle: Our inability to chose books for travels.
Or so I like to believe.
It’s one of those things I spend the most time on when going traveling, and I often find myself skimming through and reading passages of about 10 – 15 books, stacking them this way; that. Trying to insure myself against that harshest of human realizations; the 80-page-in realization of “shit dude, this book sucks”.
Currently I’m leaning towards bringing a single previously unread book, which is currently Alastair Reynolds Absolution Gap, though Cryptonomicon has been drawing me for some time, it having been 8 years or so since I last read it. Also, I’ve got World War Z just sitting there, staring at me, begging me to prepare for the coming Zombie apocalypse…
Now, had I owned a Kindle, this wouldn’t be a problem, but this is Denmark, a country so small and cozy that Amazon wouldn’t touch it with a stick tied to another stick.
Ugh.
Like every sci-fi internet geek, I’ve been in love with Neill Blomkamp’s short films for years. I had high hopes for his Halo adaption, which unfortunately will never see the light of day now. But, at least he got to make District 9, which I just saw today, and which almost makes up for the loss of Halo.
I’ve got little else to add to what every other reviewer has said, except that it was a great film from start to finish, even though I would personally have liked some more characterizations of the bad guys, than the at times over-much action scenes. It’s not that I dislike the action scenes, but the the soldiers taking pleasure in the misery of the prawns, the cold and cynical corporation heads; these people very much exist in the real world, and especially with the commercialization of war in Iraq, their motives, other than the fairly 2 dimensional stuff the film serves up, would have been a great addition to an already very relevant film.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some packing to do.
I love me some Chrome, let there be no doubt about that. On Windows it’s my browser of choice, no contest, and on OS X it’s getting to a point where it’s usable as a default browser. But, there is one thing that is really grating me on OS X.
That’s Chrome’s 100 vertical picels toolbar highrise vs. Safari’s lean 72px. Even with its bookmark bar folded, Chrome is taller than Safari…
28 paltry pixels don’t seem like a whole lot, but considering that all of Google’s web apps also take up at least 25px at the top for links to other Google apps, sign out, help and settings links… Well my 13.3” MacBook Pro’s screen is starting to feel vertically challenged.
I actually ahppen to love Chrome’s ‘oversized’ address bar and on-top tabs, but something’s gotta give.
Update: After some discussion below, it should be noted that Safari actually exceeds Chrome in vertical… eh… chrome pixels if you also turn on the status– and tab-bars.
Spent the last few evenings glued to the screen, bouncing from hotel to hotel, trying to find the right fit between price and location for our stays in LA, SF and Vegas. Maybe I’m picky, but that stuff is draining. I don’t know what I’d do without Trip Advisor to be honest.
Originally we had planned to stay wherever, but as our plans started crystalizing, we decided for peace of mind, to book places while in the cities, rather than trying to find something in the stress of it all.
Everyone, the demo for Io Interactive’s latest game, Mini Ninjas, is out, now. Comma. Congratulations to all my friends and coworkers who worked on it. Now Go get it, and while it downloads, read some impressions.
I immediately imagined the possibility for a multiplayer tabletop strategy game, along the lines of Warhammer 40.000, in which there is no board and no pieces, just players. Bring the game with you, when you meet up with your opponent, have a quick round, wherever you are. I was going to say, that all you’ll need is a flat surface; but you obviously don’t even need that, when everything is virtual.
Another thing struck me. Since the iPhone knows where it is, which way it’s pointing and how it’s tilting, it should theoretically be possible for it to apply that data-over-time to a video stream and in essence create Google Streetview-like spheres; employing some clever math, no doubt.
Exciting stuff, though of course not the first example of augmented reality on the iPhone.
In an attempt to halt the furry-fication of my workstation wallpaper, I have my screensaver kick in early and leave any assailants at a login screen. Today I returned from a meeting, only to find that as I tried logging in, Vista, as a part of our network policy, persisted in asking me to change my password. Now. Not tomorrow, not five minutes from now. Now.
How do you change your password you ask? Choose ‘Change User’, which automatically logs you out, only for you to then log back in so that you can change your password. “But won’t that cause any open applications to close?” you ask. Yes, it will. “But isn’t that like extending the middle finger to the user, rather than protecting his data?” you ask. Yes, yes it is. And I may be mistaken, but I swear I heard a gleeful cackling as it did so.
Of course, when Vista was done hurling my sacred and precious user data into the sun, it promptly changed the resolution to 640×480, asking me for a new password. I relinquished one, and was reinserted into the hell that is Vista. I immediately tried changing the resolution and setting my primary/secondary monitors back to their original order, but couldn’t. Blink. Blinketi-blink. 2×24” at 640×480; live with it.
So I restarted. Again.
Thanks Microsoft.
PS: And this isn’t mentioning the times the login screen has been black with a cursor on top. Vista loves playing ‘guess a course of action, fucker’ with me. I wish the feeling was mutual, that would really raise my quality of life.
PPS: “Windows 7 is coming, it’ll make everything better.” Dude, I doubt it. I really do.
War Stories by UNKLE. I recommend finding the two-disc limited edition, and complete it with the Australian/Japanese bonus tracks Buying a Lie and Mistress. Also, get End Titles… Stories for Film, End Titles… Redux and More Stories. Why it has to be so hard to get the full ‘album’ is beyond me, but it was worth it.
