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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.
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