random pondering throughout the day (Friday, July 15th, 2005)

not sure when i'll post this, but i'll try and write things down as i think of them. we'll see how this concept of a running journal goes.

had a good drive into work today. not as nice as the drive in last night (see last post for details) but compared to most of my early morning commutes, it was one of the better ones. i did prepare with a large ice. yum.

TK stopped by to drop off a laptop. it's got a flakey keyboard which seems to be the biggest problem we have with the laptops aside from the latch issue. he was wondering if they are pounding on the keyboard to generate these issues. i wouldn't be suprised. you need a light touch with laptops, not this banging pound the crap out of it typing style.

the flea market committee here at work was providing a complementary breakfast stuff (muffins, yogurt, coffee, fruit) so i grabbed a yoplait raspberry. i'll save it for mid-morning when i get that mid-morning munchie feeling.

scanning thru one of the boards i frequent, someone was asking if Led Zeppelin ever played a bad show at the LA Forum. quick and dirty answer: no, they did not. even their 'lacking' shows were oftentimes better than other shows from the same tour. but as the discussion grew, a fan of the 1977 tour posted the following:

what surprises me is that out of all the shows they played in Los Angeles and LA being the media mecca it is... that there is NO pro-shot or at least really good quality footage out there... you would think someone out of the thousands of attendees in LA didn't have access to a top of the line camera themselves or through a friend in the movie business.

good point me thinks. i've seen some of the footage that does exist and it's all audience stuff, but we at least get to see some of Keith Moon on 6/23/77 which is neat. anyways, someone else replies with the following:

....I think Bob Crane was using his video equipment for other things.....

....sorry I just couldn't resist such an easy shot..

heeheeheehee....

well, that's it for this moment in time. more as the day progresses....

on thursdays, the New York Times (soul-sucking registration required) sends me a thing called Circuits and David Pogue writes the lead article for it (weekly thing) and the last few weeks he has been on a cruise. so upon his return to the column, he wrote some of his observations, and i couldn't help but think of the lesson to be learned. he needed up upload some 70MB movie file, and the cruise ship he is on has web access, but costs an arm and leg, only available in public areas (leaving a laptop alone in public area = BAD idea) and is painfully slow, so his story of how he got it uploaded was pretty funny. i can certainly sympathize with him, having had similar situations of my own. he was able to do it in the end, using a cyber cafe and a USB key to move the file, but it got me thinking.

the lesson i learned, and i'm sure he (and others) have learned is this:

buy a USB key, the larger the capacity the better. think about what you need/want to be able to do with it. in my case, i want to be able to browse the web, using my bookmarks, check mail and send files via FTP. (his ultimate goal)

then, before heading off on your trip install a web browser (Portable Firefox), a mail client (Portable Thunderbird) and an FTP client (don't really use one currently, so i cannot offer a suggestion, but look around, there are some pretty easy to use stand alone products.)

you can configure Firefox, and if you are an IE user, it has the ability to import all of your bookmarks, so you'll keep all of those. i've found Thunderbird to be a very nice email client, and it's certainly (IMO) easier to use than Outlook Express. plus the spam filter it has is pretty good and it certainly gets better over time. anyways, using the portable versions of software, or software that doesn't install files all over the place is a definate plus for you when travelling. you can control your 'private' information a little more tightly (Portable Firefox will keep a cache on the USB key rather than the hard drive, same goes for your email) and you get to keep all of your bells and whistles w/o having to remember a URL, or even a password if you want. w/o compromising your own personal security. of course, if you lose the USB key, you are potentially screwed, but that's like losing your wallet, you'll be screwed anyways.

so the ultimate lesson? lock yourself in your house, disconnect everything and sit on the edge of your bed with a shotgun shooting at anyone who comes within 100' of you. or don't travel. become someone who lives 'off the grid'. a hermit. recluse. nutjob.

now that was rather random. friday's at work are a bit of a dress down day (like most places these days) and today i'm wearing sandals (nothing new, i wear them to work all the time actually) and decided to take them off for a few mins to wander around the immediate area of my desk, and as i'm walking around, KC walks by and asks if i'm airing my tootsies, to which i reply no. as she passes me on her way back to her desk, i comment that i prefer being barefoot when walking around and she replies 'how asian of you'

well, it's now Saturday, so i'll fill in the rest of the details. unfortunately, i came up with a brilliant idea which generated at lot of busy work that i needed to get done before RB, TK and i headed off to see Charlie. we seem to run short of loaner laptops at work, and i figured out a way to add 4 more to the mix in short order, so i spent the last hour of my day fussing with those much to my frustration. but i finished at 3:58, so we were able to get out pretty quickly. the original plan was to get out of there sooner than that, but as i commented to TK, it always seems that when you have a quiet day or quiet start to a day, the last hour comes back to bite you in the ass and hard. so, it was a mildly frustrating end of the work day, but once out, it was nice.

tailed RB to the theater, used the ticket kiosk (no service charge thankfully) so we wouldn't have to wait in line. gave into the blue raspberry icee urge (RB and TK got stuff as well, and i didn't want to be left out). it exploded as i was paying. the girl behind the counter filled it and then gave it a stir, placed it on the counter and i handed my money over. then it erupted like a science fair volcano. so i start scrambling to get napkins to start cleaning up the mess, comment to RB and TK who stare at it wondering what's going to happen next and she hands me my change.

completely oblivious to the fact that my blue raspberry icee blew up all over the place. it wasn't until i pointed out the fact that it had exploded (my 3rd attempt to tell her BTW) that she finally realized that something was wrong.

so we head off to the theater and find our seats. as it filled, it was an interesting experiment in human behavior. the door to the theater is on the left back corner, so as it got close to the start of the movie (things started 5 minutes late and had a few false starts), the left side of the theater was more filled than the right side. we really are a lazy society. (for the record, we sat in the middle of the theater)

the movie was really well done, and i enjoyed it for the most part. the only thing i was less crazy about was the ending, which revolves around Willy's issues with his father (a sub-plot not in the book). i won't ruin it, but up until that point, i really enjoyed it. it really is a lot more faithful to the story than the Gene Wilder version. the songs the oompa-loompa's did were funny, the effects were pretty good. the boat ride was fun, altho we only get the 1st and last lines of the 'poem' willy recites during it (the 'there's no earthly way of knowing' bit). i thought it would have been fun to have willy do it in a fun sing-songy voice. the elimination of the kids was pretty good. the demise of veruca salt was my favorite, and the squirrels did a very good job of cracking the nuts.

all in all, it was lots of fun, and given how good the movie was, i can forgive the tacked on ending. definately worth seeing.

headed home afterwards (after dropping TK off at work so we could get our laptops) and settled in for new episodes of Stargate, Atlantis and Battlestar. Battlestar still rules and picked up with a bang. hopefully they'll be able to keep the intensity up like they did last season. should be good. afterwards i pretty much collapsed and crawled my way into bed.