Ptown Monument at night 2

I just love how creepy this looks.

Ptown at night

Ptown at night

Wild Weather

What the hell was up with the weather today? I was walking across town to my writing group and the weather went nuts. The clouds gather, the sky goes dark and then rain pelted down. Once I'm thoroughly drenched, I notice the temperature had dropped like 10-15 degrees (or at least it felt that way) and then comes hail.

This is not the New England weather that I'm used to!

The new Bruce Willis movie is filming

The new Bruce Willis movie is filming

Rainbow

This is what I saw on the way home tonight.

I think the coolest part was that there were two rainbows. One fading as the other became more pronounced, but as always the human eye is much better at picking out vague patterns than a freebie cellphone camera.

Best Father's Day Ad ever...

Asus Eee Pc redux

I've been playing with it for a few days. It mounts thumb drives in Windows format, but seems to have problems with an iPod formatted for the Apple. I'll have to explore further.

USB keyboards and mice seem to work without a problem.

Sunset over the Charles

A group that I'm in had a picnic on the Charles here in Boston and I really liked how this came out.

Note: I'm trying to use the wayback machine to post his on the day I took it, rather than when I posted it.

KatrinaRitaVille Express

KatrinaRitaVille Express is in Boston by Boylston T stop on Sunday and Monday to illustrate FEMA's failure.

For more information:

• http://www.FindingOurFolk.org/


• http://www.KRVExpress.org/


• http://www.uusc.org/katrina/

Ryan's Birthday Party

Ryan's Birthday Party
Update: The party was at a laser tag arena. It was a lot of fun. Though running around in the dark was inadvertantly painful at least to my knees and shins.

A question of scale

The Asus Eee is as big as a hardcover.

Bonus!

I love when Karma works my way. I was looking for some place to kill some time before my memoir workshop started and found out that the class will be right next to Doyles, an institution here in JP. The food's always been good here, so I'm really looking forward to it.

And to think this is the first time I've been here without someone driving. The nice thing about being clueless is that the world has many more welcome surprises that way.

The food didn't disappoint. The garden burger frozen and adequate, but then hand-carved garlic fries and crisp lettuce and tomato on the top were fantastic. Even better was listening to the two men next to me handicapping the democratic Veepstakes like they would a racing form. Clearly, my kind of bar.

Asus Eee PC

I was looking for something tiny to take on trips and my father was looking for something cheap that he can't screw up.
This might fit the bill on both counts. It'd be a little easier if the keyboard wasn't built for hobbits, but it's not too bad.

Pictures will be coming...

Update: Yes, it's that small. Sadly, difficult, but not impossible to use with my big hands. I can only imagine it will be worse for my Dad. I can't wait to give it to him and watch him suffer. (Does that make me a bad son? Or just passive-aggressive?)

Book Reviews

A friend challenged me to write haiku reviews of the last several books that I've read:

Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine"
Friedman's neo-cons -
Crisis, exploitation, greed.
Perhaps, Keynesian?

James N. Frey's books on writing
Remember: premise,
character driven stories
for damned good novels.

Neil Gaiman's "Anansi Boys"
A modern fable,
entertains as it teaches.
The old become new.

William Landay's "The Strangler"
Boston terrified:
memorable characters,
weak plot - adequate.

Robert W. Cabell's "The Hair-Raising Adventures of Jayms Blonde"
Cliches, every page.
Vanity press - no surprise.
Dear God - Don't read this.

Update on the tv

Ta da. After all the trouble, we got it working.

Technology and Customer Service...

We got a new flat screen tv for the office. It's supposed to be used for watching client logs, etc...

We rush ordered the TV from Philips, paying extra to get it there right away. Unfortunately, they sent it to the CEO's home rather than the office. We had to jump through four days of hoops to get UPS to send to the right address.

When we finally got it, we opened the box to find a beautiful TV, but no screws, mounting brackets, remote or power cable. We called the manufacturer. The remotes were back ordered, so we can't get that any time soon. They did have the rest. But they can't rush order it to us, because of company policy. We've already paid for that, but that doesn't matter. The power cord is different than the TV, I guess.

We complained and they said they could put it in expedited, which will get it up to 3-5 days. Of course, that would assume that they wrote our name right on the box. UPS couldn't deliver it (but somehow the post office was able to deliver the post card telling us that UPS couldn't deliver to us, even though the postcard had the same information on it). A quick phone call. They now had our company name and they're ready to go.

Three more days later, the problem is that there was no suite number. There's no suite in our address only a floor. Sure, the company name is listed in the lobby and by the elevators on our floor, but that's enough reason not to deliver our package.

Today, we finally got our package. Power cord, but still no remote. (Still on back order, I assume.)  Unfortunately, powering up the TV, we can't get past the initial set-up screen without a remote. Wouldn't it be nice if the idiot on support that we talked to initially let us know that at the same time she was arguing that we didn't need a power cord for the expensive TV that we just bought?)

So today's recommendations are not buying Philips or using UPS if you need something.

FW: It's raining,it's pouring...

Ah,Boston. Pouring to nothing in the time it takes to set back outside from the errand that couldn't wait.

Train ride to NYC through Conn.

This is why I love train travel. You see the land you travel and if you're lucky, relaxation and comforl is interpersed with glimpses of beauty.

Boston Common

Best day yet, and all I want to do is sleep in the sun.

Monkey!

Monkey!