by

Late Adopter

It’s funny, with some technology I’ve been an early adopter; I had a Wii before anyone else I knew locally, for instance, and I was using a second generation iPod before there was such a thing as Windows support. (Ah, back in the day where you had to use something like XPlay to transfer your music to and from your Windows machine.) I had my Palm Centro before the advertising campaign even really kicked in.

But in the past week I finally embraced the Bluetooth earpiece for cell phones, and bought an iPhone. Which makes me perhaps one of the last people on the planet to do so.

Dark Side of the Tooth [365portraits: 313]I’d actually given a Bluetooth earpiece a try a few years ago. The experience was horrible; constant crackles of static, echoing voices, and sound regularly cutting in and out. I try and use a hands-free device for if I have to use my phone while driving and after a week I gave up on the Bluetooth and went back to a wired earpiece. Said earpiece just died a few weeks ago, and after a trip to Target revealed no wired earpieces being sold, I did some research and gave Bluetooth another try.

The nice thing about not being an early adopter? They fix the bugs. It’s amazing how much better things sounded. So while I still feel like an extra in “Rise of the Cybermen,” I’m sold. Mind you I only use it while driving. I still draw the line at just wandering around with it on. It always makes me think that there are crazy people talking to themselves walking down the street until they get close. Why give people another reason to think I’m nuts?

As for the iPhone, while I liked my Palm Centro, there was a lot less functionality between it and what was coming out now. I thought about a Palm Pre, but a combination of there being far less apps available (and let’s face it, that’s half the attraction) and Sprint not offering a reasonable deal to re-up my contract and give me a discount on the phone, and the choice was easy. So, my contract expired on Saturday, and on Sunday afternoon after brunch I walked out of the Apple Store with my new phone. So far, so good. (Although I am a tiny bit surprised that plugging the iPhone into the computer won’t charge it, like any other iPod-like device up until now. Slightly annoying.)

And of course, one nice thing about being the last of my friends to get an iPhone is that I already have their huge recommendation list of apps to get. I’m already on the third screen worth of apps…

by

Nine Down

I’ve now had nine “adult” teeth removed, although on the bright side each extraction has gotten easier. The first four removed were from back when I had braces as a teenager. As part of the re-arranging of my mouth, they had to come out. Two of them came out quickly, but the other two had double-roots and weren’t so willing to budge. I still have vivid memories of a dental hygienist holding my head in place, while the dentist and a second dental hygienist simultaneously tugged at the stubborn tooth. When it finally came free, they shot backwards across the office and slammed into a wall. Meanwhile, I had so much novocaine pumped into my face that my eyelids were asleep.

The next four were my wisdom teeth, which came out in 1993. It actually wasn’t a bad experience; the teeth came almost all the way in (and were actually cutting up the sides of my mouth) so there was very little cutting that needed to be done. A new extraction, though, happened yesterday. Years ago after a tooth cracked, I needed to have a root canal that went through two teeth. (Eek.) It started bothering me this summer, so I went to an endodontist who was able to fix the one closer in that was causing pain. Unfortunately, the other one (which wasn’t actually causing any pain) needed to come out. So after a lot of delaying, I finally bit the bullet.

Pre-Extraction [365portraits: 312]I have to give the oral surgeon credit, that was much less painful than I’d imagined. I’d been warned that the tooth was brittle (as all root canal teeth are) so I “might hear some cracking noises.” Eeek. I had mental images of the tooth shattering in the process and then them having to dig the roots out of my gums. Not good, right? But I was worked on for less than five minutes and suddenly the surgeon was taking the brace out of my mouth and saying, “All done.”  You know it’s gone well when even the receptionist is startled at how fast it was taken care of.

That unfortunately meant lots of packed gauze and painkillers for the rest of today, and I’m still taking some 600mg of Motrin to ease the pain today, but it’s not that bad. (I actually just feel unusually tired and run down today more than anything else. We’ll see how the day progresses. Hopefully all will still be well.) I’m also not looking forward to the implant that will need to come for replacing the tooth, as I know that’s the more hefty of the procedures. But still, that’s a few months away.

Hopefully this is the last tooth extraction for a long while. I appreciate that they’ve been getting less and less painful, but still. I’d like to not have to gum my food down the line, right?

by

Epileptic Disco

I just heard the most awesome thing ever, and it was on my local NPR station, WAMU. One of the classical music CDs they were playing as part of their program “The Big Broadcast” started skipping. And not just a little bit. It sounded like an old 33rpm album cranked up to 45rpms, during an earthquake so the needle jumped every half second.

I normally reserve my hysterical laughing at NPR programs for “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” and “This American Life” but it turns out there is something out there even funnier.

After about five minutes, I gave them a call and let them know what was happening. Much to what I’m sure was great disappointment to the other listeners, they did then fix it about 90 seconds later. (Or rather, the station went silent, and then turned on a BBC radio news feed.)

Craaaaaaaaaaaazy radio!

by

The schnozberries taste like schnozberries!

While heading up to a friend’s shindig this afternoon, it hit me that if I took the Baltimore-Washington Parkway up to the top of the Beltway (instead of the George Washington Parkway up to the side of the Beltway), I’d drive right past IKEA. And since I recently used up the last of my lingonberry preserves, well… a trip to the IKEA “grocery store” might be in order.

If you’ve never had lingonberries before, it’s a tiny bit hard to describe them. They’re a little tart but sweet at the same time, and they’re an essential ingredient on swedish pancakes. (Places like IHOP actually offer a lingonberry syrup for their swedish pancakes.) As I’ve been on a pancake kick lately (and really, why not?), more lingonberry preserves was a must.

I actually picked up two other similar foods that I’ve never eaten before, though; cloudberry preserves, and gooseberry jam. I have no idea what either of them taste like, but how can I resist something called a cloudberry? It sounds like what Frodo and Sam would have picked off of bushes on their trip to Mordor. Or maybe something Mario would eat to get a temporary power-up while trying to save Princess Peach from Bowser. I, for one, can’t wait to try them. (A gooseberry doesn’t sound quite as interesting. But in the interest of trying something new I bought it.)

If I had been going directly home I suspect I would have bought stuff out of the frozen section, too, but I was saved by warmer temperatures outside this weekend. Perhaps next time I’m up in the area…

by

Quote of the Day

[Sandra] Lee’s official Food Network bio states that, “Lee then attended the world’s leading culinary art institute, Le Cordon Bleu.” Lee enrolled in a recreational two-week course at the school’s Ottawa outpost, which she acknowledges that she did not complete.

by

Victory Comes To Those Who Wait

You know when you see a really good deal online, but it’s for something you wouldn’t have otherwise bought? Those are so often my downfall. “Oooh, but it’s so cheap!” I hear in the back of my head. “I should get that!” That said, the best way to avoid such a thing is to just steer clear long enough. My latest victory is avoiding buying the first four hardcover collections of The Walking Dead for a ludicrously low price. I read the series for quite a while, but eventually grew a little weary of it and decided to move on. So I didn’t need the collections, not one bit. But they were so cheap… and calling…

Happily, by stalling long enough, the deal expired. Phew! Saved from the evil voice in the back of my head.

Besides, I did recently spend some money on getting a netbook; it was also ludicrously cheap, but in this case it was something I’ve actually wanted for a long time. Perfect for travelling and the like, in size and weight, and has more than enough power to watch videos and surf the internet. Yay! (I’m also happy to see that Amazon, in an effort to keep up with B&N, is going to be rolling out a Windows version of their Kindle application. Which means that I can put it and/or the B&N software on the netbook and then download free books for it. There are enough ones that don’t cost a dime that I don’t need to actually spend any money on such a venture.) Really, this netbook is going to be attack of the free software. Firefox, OpenOffice, Avast, public domain books… hurrah for free!

by

Bill & Ted’s Bogus TV Series

Just about everyone knows about the film Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I suspect a lot of those people know there was a sequel in the movie theatres, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. And a fraction of those people know about an animated series spin-off that ran for 20 or so episodes. (We’re already in obscure territory at this point. Comics fans may even know about the 12-issue series helmed by Evan Dorkin.)

But even I didn’t know until this week that there was also a live-action tv series that lasted a whopping seven episodes on Fox in 1992. And now that I’ve seen the trailer, I cannot un-watch this nightmare.

On a scale of 1 to 10, it’s a negative 17. I love how the two leads were clearly chosen based on the fact that one of them was be easily given blond curly hair like Alex Winters, while the other one could do a semi-recognizable impersonation of Keanu Reeves’s voice (and had a gnarly wig slapped on his head). There’s even some full clips from actual episodes of the show on YouTube, but I don’t recommend watching them in the same way that I don’t recommend staring directly into the sun. I mean sure, you can do it if you really want, but don’t come crying to me when your retinas are burnt to a crisp.

Then again, it also turns out there was a Benji television spin-off involving a hunt for aliens (no, really) so this clearly is not the most inane movie-to-tv-series decision ever. But it’s still pretty impressive in a bad sort of way.

by

Five Things That Make Me Happy (part 10)

Been a while since I’ve done one of these, but things have been so nuts this week otherwise…

Trader Joe’s Pear Sauce. Where has this been all my life? I’m actually not a big fan of applesauce, it’s always very bland and uninteresting to me. I will buy ones that have berries or some other fruit mixed into them, although finding applesauce with both something else added in but not having sugar added can be tough. Well, Trader Joe’s is now offering pear sauce. No sugar added, and using pears instead of apples. Quite frankly, it’s outstanding. It’s got a crisp taste to it, and there’s actual texture to the pear sauce, you aren’t just eating mush. Yay!

Visqueen – Message to Garcia. In March 2005 I went to see Shonen Knife at the Black Cat in DC; super-small show, a ton of fun. But the group that grabbed my attention even moreso was Visqueen, the opening act. I ran out and bought both of their albums and absolutely loved them, a group of indy rockers from the Pacific Northwest. After what’s felt like a small eternity of waiting, their new album hit about a month ago and I’ve been entranced with it ever since. More and more of the songs are slowly lodging their way into my head. You know that normally I would never send you to MySpace, but I’ll make an exception here so you can listen to some of their songs. http://www.myspace.com/visqueen

Sushi for lunch. Such a simple but easy pleasure. Mmmmmm.

Marathon training almost being over. It’s so nice to know that I only have one more long training run this year, for January’s Disney World experience. As much as I enjoy running, 20+ mile runs are no longer exciting or interesting or something to look forward to. It’ll be good to focus on shorter distance runs for a while once it’s all over.

Finishing mind-numbing pieces of work. I know that doesn’t sound great. But after spending seven hours fixing two PDF files (more if you count all the time spent on them yeserday), it is a genuine relief to finally have those two nightmares out of my non-existant hair. Seriously, I almost did a dance of joy, I was so excited that they were finally working properly.

by

Utter Terror

If you don’t have a problem with heights, you may develop one after watching this video of someone walking across Caminito del Rey.

In the words of Wikipedia:

The walkway has now gone many years without maintenance, and is in a highly deteriorated and dangerous state. It is one meter (3 feet and 3 inches) in width, and is over 300 meters (984 feet) above the river. Nearly all of the path has no handrail. Some parts of the concrete walkway have completely collapsed and all that is remaining is the steel beam originally in place to hold it up. One can latch onto a modern steel safety-wire to keep from falling, though it can’t hold much weight. Several people have lost their lives on the walkway in recent years; after four people died in two accidents in 1999 and 2000, the local government closed the entrances. However, many adventurous tourists still find their way onto the walkway to explore it.

Seriously, I actually felt dizzy watching this 6-minute video, and had to stop several times because it was scaring me so much. There are plans to restore it but I think they should take that money and just demolish the trail instead. *shudder*

by

Flu Shot! …psych!

Today was supposed to be the first of our office’s annual flu clinics. One or two times in the fall, the company pays for a nurse to come in and administer flu shots (at no cost to the individual employee) plus a luncheon. It’s a nice little perk to have and it’s fun because everyone hangs out and has lunch together.

Yesterday, someone from the office called the company that was sending the vaccine and the nurse, and we were told that yes, it was still on. Today? Noon arrived, the food arrived, the nurse and flu vaccine did not. After fifteen minutes went by, we called and were informed that no one was coming. The company was apparently out of vaccine and wouldn’t have more until November, at which point they’d show up. How nice of them to let us know when we’d called to confirm just 24 hours earlier.

Seriously, professional courtesy is dead in this day and age.

I was actually more than a little annoyed because I’d just had my annual physical last month and had passed on getting a flu vaccine shot then because I knew the work one was around the corner. But, undeterred, I called my doctor’s ffice this afternoon and was told to just stop by. Went over, and two minutes later had my arm swabbed and jabbed. So it turned out to be flu vaccine day after all for me, but just not in a way I’d planned.