Oh, like you never have?
Sitting, looking into the monitor, working out some ideas in my head, I take a bite of my lunch I am eating at my desk unaware of the plotting going on against me.
Cut scene to Beau's Brain: "Dude, this is gonna be cool..." Brain begins to rub imaginary brain hands in a menacing way while laughing an imaginary menacing evil laugh.
Meanwhile Beau is just begining to chew said food when..
Sneeze in 3....2....1....
Rita, Texas Tourist.
Hurricane Rita is headed to the Gulf of Mexico and my family down in Southern Texas has decided to do the smart thing and head for higher ground. Rita has been reported to have a bigger temper than Katrina did, the only positive aspect of Rita is that it's headed a little further west and has potential to lose more steam before hitting land. These rarely come so far in the Gulf of Mexico, but they do on occasion. My Aunt was saying that her town had accepted many refugees from Katrina's disaster, imagine having to evacuate the town you sought refuge in?
I think God is Pissed.
Seems to be with the southern states too.
repent, the end is nigh!
Update The eye of the storm is expected to go right into Port Author, Texas and Beaumont where my family lives. 6000 homes a predicted to be destroyed. I'm relieved to know everyone I know has made it north, I only hope they have a home to go back to. [ Live Coverage of the Storm ]
Update 2 Rita has passed by and the family is all safe. My grandfather decided he wasn't going to stay away another day longer and headed back home to a house with no electricity and no running water. My mom and her husband and my nephew went back with them. Some minor damage but nothing unrecoverable from.
It's been, One Week since you looked at me.
One week free of diet coke and I don't feel any different. No, scratch that. I feel worse. I have headaches and I have a constant urge to nap and I have chewed a bit of ass this week, plus I still sweat too much.
If I don't see some significant improvement around here over the next week, there's going to be some wagon falling on the aspartame defense front. The surprising thing is, is that it has less to do with jonesing for diet coke, than there is no substitute with convince that is more healthy. Yes, yes, water, I know I have water. Water is friggin fan-tastic but I can only do so much of it and it does nothing for you during a 3am all night project deadline. I don't smoke and I don't do coffee so my vice choices are limited.
One more week and the verdict will be in.
Rain Explainer
Email from Nate, yesterday:
hi dad i just wanted to ask you how rain is made thanks
My response to Nate's email, returned shortly after I recieved it:
Rain is made by condensation.
Water on the ground, in the lakes and in the rivers and oceans, heats up by the sun and slowly evaporates (turns from a liquid to a gas, like steam) into the air where it gathers and makes clouds up high. The cooler air in the atmosphere changes the water back from a gas to a liquid. It's then too heavy to remain in the sky so it falls back to the earth in the form of rain. Let me know if that makes sense. I hope that helps answer your question.
Returned email from Nathan today:
it does not make any sence the way you typed it really it ditent
Love nathan
Of course my first response was going to be "It's God crying and probably from something you did." but I decided against it.
Silent Ring
Standing in line at the post office, I dropped my phone for the umpteenth time and it decided that it wasn't going to live through it again and took it's own life today. So until further notice, I am phone-less.
Update The phone sort of works after it rested for a while but with limited function. Still going to need to get a new phone.
Update 2 Today the phone decided it wanted to live after all, and I was just getting my sights on a black razor phone too.
Tivo going stray?
The new TiVo OS will limit the time a show will remain on your hard drive (as defined by the publisher) and won't allow you to back up to dvd. Just a thought, but if your main core of users are enjoying the fact that your product subverts the tired system of corporate target marketing, it's not really wise to then to become a pupet of the tired corporate system thinking your users wont mind.
Remembering
Walked down to the World Trade Center memorial today and I had mixed emotions at what I saw. The memories of what happened here four years ago seem like a lifetime removed from someone who didn't experience it first hand. It's good to remember the people whom have fallen in tragedy like this but in some ways it was sad to see it become something like a tourist attraction. It's a fine line I know. Most of it was respectful, some of the panhandling made me sad to see someone making a buck off of this tragedy. But then, it's an honest look at something to be said of America.
Apparently the site has become a popular event for the Harley bikers. Many of them drove in over the weekend and filled the streets on downtown Manhattan with bikes of all types. It's truly a healing moment when you see a hard-core biker on a hog making conversation with the kid next to him on the crotch rocket. Some of them were funny, most were covered in red white and blue, and all were a good representation of Americans. Lately being a patriot has gotten a bad rap and it's good to see that it's still okay to be proud of your country, even if your country needs improvement.
Be well America.
Cyan Worlds
I remember when I first bought my own Apple Macintosh computer, it was in college and I had to scam my way to get it, involving my American Express Card, Consumer Credit Counseling Services, and what turned into an interest free loan that dinged my credit for a few years. It was an Apple Performa 600CD, one of the first Apple computers that sported a CD player built in.
One of the first CD-ROM games I ever bought with it was Myst. This game was beyond its day. It was engulfing, beautifully rendered in an artistically drawn 3D world, and kept me up night after night trying to see where the story would go next. A few brothers named Robyn and Rand Miller built the game and they built it on an Apple computer using HyperCard. I bought a copy later when I found out it was what they used to make the amazing game.
Robyn and Rand miller went on to build up Cyan Worlds just at the very dawn of the tech bubble into a really neat company that was leading the way in game environment design. I talked to Robin Miller once over AOL and asked about an internship but never pursued it, as I was busy in college plus way under qualified. I remember he was a very nice guy.
Still, in the back of my mind, there are two places I always had posted up on a mental sticky note filed under dream jobs. One being Pixar and the second being Cyan Worlds.
Cyan Worlds laid off their workers recently and are seeking new funding. Most of the talented people there are now looking for new work and it makes me sad to see them go other places. It makes me sad to scratch them off my mental sticky note.
Good luck guys. I hope the worlds you created live on and you find a way to continue in the future.
iPod Nano and ROKR E1
Apple unveiled their newest member to the iPod family today, the iPod Nano. This pencil thin gadget is really cool looking and has an amazingly long battery life considering that it comes with a full color display and can work with displaying photos as well. Starting at around $199 it's impressive to see Apple keep pushing new boundries on what can be packed in to tiny sizes. Steve Jobs bragged about the fact the Nano is 80% smaller than the first iPods that held the same storage capacity, about 1000 songs.
Also unveiled was the Motorola ROKR E1 Phone with iTunes built in for $249. Finally, a phone and an iPod merged together so I have one less thing to carry around. Hopefully time proves to be the phone worthy in both roles. Also, call me greedy, but there is no reason they can't include a high quality camera on the phone as well except to keep consumers buying different products. Make it happen Apple and Motorola and you have me enslaved for another decade.
Also, there is a new version of iTunes 5 available for both Mac and PC. Cleaned up the interface mostly, but I'm sure there are many bug fixes as well.
I have to say that Cingular is doing some leaps and bounds on marketing in the last year. Sprint has arguably been the foremost company in advanced phone selection but thanks to Motorola, the very impressive Razr Phone and now the ROKR E1 are changing that. Which is good news because I hate the way sprint does their billing.
One Year in NYC
It was a year ago to the day that Australia was said goodbye to in a tearful farewell and New York City was the new address. It seems like it's only been months really, time moves at a much faster pace here. Winter came a short time after arriving and seemed like it just left, now it's just around the corner again in another month and a half.
I miss Australia. I like New York just fine in many ways but it's not the same fit that Australia was.
