Monthly Archives: January 2010

Another Ode

Twas the night before Apple, and all ’round the net,
All the rumors were flying, but no real news yet.
Speculations were read, with the utmost of care,
With the hopes that the keynote, soon would be aired.

Apple faithful were restless, their iPhones held steady,
In hopes that Cupertino soon would be ready
To announce a new tablet, for which they’d been fawning,
Ever since Newton left consumers, well. . . wanting.

A capacitive screen, is a definite must.
Since fans of multi touch gestures are us
A size 10″ screen is most likely, “Yes.”
But a front facing camera, perhaps GPS?

Wifi is a given, and the app store is too,
As for syncing iLife, well now that’s nothing new.
Perhaps unlocked iPhones, for non AT&T folks
Since that network’s the butt of quite a few jokes.

Then fanboys will come from within every city
To post about how Apple’s business is shitty.
More rabid than wolves, to the forums, they’ll fly
And tear apart lie after lie after lie.

So iPad, iSlate,
or whatever you’re called.
(I’ll admit that these names
have me somewhat appalled.)
On the web I will read
and on printed news too,
“Apple tablet is out!
It’s brand spanking new!”

So tomorrow I’ll find, on my usual sites
News about Apple with included soundbites.
I’ll witness his Steveness, his demeanor quite proud
About Apple solutions, he’ll talk to the crowd.

But then he’ll announce, how much it will cost
As banks everywhere groan from cash reserves lost.
But there’s always a point, in my ears it will ring,
“Thank you all for coming. But there’s just one more thing.”

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Metro

It stops, it starts.  There is an unconscious, subliminal vehemence to the motion.

I think the metro transportation engineer hates people.

That’s the only explanation I can offer for the abrupt accelerations and decelerations, the jerky movements that disturb the cilia in my inner ear just so.

Another wave of nausea comes and goes, although it’s worse than the last time.  I seriously consider getting off the train and walking the rest of the way.  I work out the locations and travel times in my head, decide that for now it’s easier to stay on board and just tough it out.

I realize that it’s for safety’s sake, that a real human being is there to make sure that everyone gets to their destination.

But I also hope that they get the safety systems fixed so that the smooth rides are restored.

A Long Walk

Just about any time I take a long walk in the city, I remember how much personal history I have here.

The long walk down Wisconsin Avenue back to Tenleytown, done more than a few times after a night out at Georgetown.  The sudden realization that sometimes, I’m not lost above ground downtown and know where I am.

Today I walked to Georgetown from Dupont Circle.  It’s not a long walk, just down New Hampshire to M, and Georgetown is a straight shot from there.  It’s an interesting walk, the dense city suddenly giving way to a bridge over Rock Creek park and then into the three story tall shops of Georgetown.  Everything gets more dense, more compact as soon as you get into Georgetown.

You start downtown, where a block contains one or two buildings with wide sidewalks, to walking a block with a dozen storefronts and sidewalks just barely wide enough for all the foot traffic.

As I walked, I remembered the late night burgers at Johnny Rockets, the weekend clothes shopping, and giggling at the Pleasure Place window but never going in.

When I reached Georgetown proper, I even recalled an interesting story about the intersection of M and Pennsylvania.  I’ll have to relay that story sometime.

Not Titration

Baking is chemistry, I know this.  This appeals to that geeky part of me that likes to think about all of the ingredients coming together and performing an experiment.

When the experiment is successful, I’ve got something to share and give to friends.  When it’s not, well, I hope I don’t have that many baking failures.  I’m hoping that this will give me some extra impetus to get the kitchen remodeled in 2010.  Right now it’s a horrible work area, even when the counters are clear.

Tonight’s experiment was cranberry pecan blondies. Which ended up much better than I thought they would, although there was a pan under greasing error that makes them difficult to remove from said pan in one piece.

Knowledge has been gained, which qualifies this experiment as a success.  A delicious success.

Star Trek Online

Man, they patched the hell out of this thing.

UI improvements are the first thing that caught my eye.  I can’t say anything about stability yet because, well, I’m here writing this and not playing the game because it crashed out when I started typing in chat during a heated space battle.

Still, it’s a lot of fun when I’m not waiting around for it to verify all of the files.

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