Category: tech

Talk about software, hardware, electronics, and a myriad of other sex-repellent topics.

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where’s paris?

Greetings from early America.
The Big Apple; I knew I’d arrived when it cost me $45 and took an entire episode of Lost to get from JFK to Manhattan. Getting in under cover of dark last night, I got a decent view of Manhattan skyline while crossing the bridge – but I’m so unfamiliar with the layout of this city that I didn’t know where to look for anything. The hotel, like many hotels it seems, is insanely posh on the outside – the lobby lush with giltwork and marble, brass fixtures and fountains, etc. But the insides are likely the same insides that were built on day-one – chinked and dirty baseboards, funny-smelling behemoths of air conditioning units, and worst of all no in-room broadband aside from the citywide pay-as-you-go access I can pickup in the room (thankfully). In this day and age I don’t understand how a hotel that caters to a business crowd gets away without having high-speed access, it seems unthinkable… Maybe I’m spoiled by the Sherwood, the measuring stick to which I hold all hotels to.

Getting up at 6am here is hard for my I-know-it’s-really-3am sleeping habits, and I found myself snoozing the alarm for forty some-odd minutes, all the while telling myself I’d padded the wake-up time anyway. One interesting thing about this trip – I probably have less of an idea what I’m actually going to be doing here than any other trip I’ve been on in recent times. I mean, I know I’m presenting at some point – but I just received the material last night; and I know I’m standing on the conference floor flogging product. It’s the logistics of it all that’s got me wondering. I don’t know when the thing starts (I did read that 8am today is when we can 1st access the conference area to setup), what the running times are, when I’m presenting, etc. Heck, they didn’t even have my reservation in the system when I arrived last night – I’m lucky I even got a room here. But… in the end, things worked out. I flopped into this ratty old office chair around 11pm last night and promptly ordered a sammich from room service while firing up the wireless radio in search of a signal. Watched a couple more downloaded episodes of Lost (yes, I am hopelessly addicted), and called it a night.

Oh, and I was totally pumped to learn that the San Francisco to JFK United flights have AC outlets in all their seats, even economy. I plugged in mid-flight and was able to run the laptop the entire time (of course, continuing to tear through season one of that damn addictive show). Seeing how impressed I was by the power, the attendant told me that all their planes had also been wired for wireless access – and we’re simply awaiting the FAA’s nod of approval to “flip the switch” and turn it on. How cool is that? I really don’t think it will be long before the internet is as ubiquitous as radio is today, and you’re able to pick up a signal just about anywhere and get online. My kids will laugh when I tell them that we used to have to plug our computers into the wall to get online – how antiquated – like having to get up and “flip” a record or tape to listen to “Side B.”

It’s 8am here now, which is when I wanted to be walking downstairs. I wanted to give myself as much time as possible to set up, in case the show happens to start at 10am or something. I think, I think I remember hearing somewhere along the lines that this thing doesn’t officially “kick off” until tomorrow – and operating under that very sketchy info I opted not to shave this morning, figuring it for a preparation day only. I truly hope this is so. I would like nothing more than to be able to head downstairs now, be setup and configured in a couple hours, and then have the rest of the day to tour the city. Otherwise, I’ll be headed back up to the room for a shave and change of clothes before being thrown into the fire.

And well, now it’s time to head out. Glad I could manage an entry today, the outlook was grim around 1am last night when I was too tired to write. See ya.

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even my balls are tired

Shiiiiiiiiiiit...
Mmmm…. glurp… ssshhlppp… ulmg…

Delirious. 12:30am and working again. Finished #1 of two presentations which must go out tonight. So far this week, haven’t had time to work much on the materials for my big conference. I present next week, but I have no time during the days to get it done. So it festers, unfinished. Tomorrow has to be the day… I have to destroy it. I shouldn’t say that I’m not working on it, I’ve had meetings every day this week with key contributors – going over speaking points, getting source material from which to draw, and trying to educate myself. But it’s not 100%, and that’s what I’d like being this close to presentation-day (Tuesday, if you’re curious, 8am sharp). On top of it all, my laptop problems from last night got worse today – and around 4pm the thing just gave up. So, I’m laptop-less. Luckily, I got worried and did a last-minute backup of my critical files to a portable hard drive I keep at work. So tonight, I’m working off that. Only problem, my PC is now entirely open-source and OpenOffice.org’s PowerPoint editing is all different from MS’ – and I have no time to learn it. So, I’m using the real-deal MSOffice on Sharaun’s PC.

So, why am I writing, you ask? I need a break. Be it just 15min, whatever it takes to write a short entry. I need a break from thinking about crap. I’m tired, and I’m hot, and I’m once again frustrated. I’ve been trying to cheer myself up by listening to new music – hoping there’s an inspirational ray of light in there. I’ve been sticking mostly to some deep-catalog classic rock albums I’ve got over the past few months, trying to get better associated with some of the b-side gems that I’ve never heard before. Good stuff, but my ears aren’t really in prime listening mode. Now it’s my music? What else will be blurred into work? Can’t I have anything to myself anymore? The other night, while masturbating, I happened to look over and was shocked to see my left hand typing out e-mails… I know, I was as surprised as you likely are! Who even knew left hands were good for stuff?

Today it rained. I thought we were through with the rainy days, but I was apparently wrong. The sound of it woke me up around 4am, and I noticed Sharaun was awake. “Is it raining?” I asked, a little unbelieving. “Yes,” she replied, “and your snoring is keeping me awake.” “Too bad, get over it,” I grunt out of sleep-rudeness and roll back over. It rained all day, I think… I don’t really know because I didn’t leave the building between 8am and 7pm… but I can tell you it was raining at both those times. I actually kind of liked the rain, I always like to hear it at night.

Goodnight, I’m spent.

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what brings you here?

Seemed appropriate for some reason.I’m just gonna get right down to it and say I’m not happy with this entry. I had all weekend to write it, and I ultimately came up with nothing. But I’m under pressure y’all. Last week’s blog performance was hampered by travel and catch-up sleep, and the weeks prior weren’t much better while I was in Taiwan. I guess I wasn’t motivated to write this weekend either though. Hopefully this week will change that. But for now, try to enjoy this crappy entry…

It’s the weekend and I’m writing as a procrastination tactic. I woke up early to maximize the day, and then spent two hours watching family guy and eating breakfast. Stupid traveling. I’m behind in everything that matters to me. Mowing the lawn, keeping the house clean, finishing the backyard, everything. Plants are dying and shower doors are becoming obscured with soapfilm. It’s really frustrating to me, mostly because of my compulsive nature. I start to freak out if things aren’t right, and I think I have my dad to thank for it. I try. I try and tell myself that stupid things don’t matter, but it’s ineffective if those stupid things really do matter.

Anyway, it’s a gorgeous warm weekend. In the mid 80s with sunny blue skies. And I’m writing about the weather… which is about as good as admitting ya got nuthin’…

Saturday I got the urge to do some web tinkering… the end result being a redesign of my index page. I’m pretty happy with the result, which uses an original image I took for the purpose, and an imagemap/rollover effect I pieced together from some tutorials online. Anyway, I’m happy with it. It’s much more stylized than my old design.

My TiVo got the 6.2 software update while I was away this week, which is awesome. The menus are 100% faster, and I can group shows into folders – making organization much easier. My one complaint though, you can’t delete a group. Now, why would you group shows if you can’t bulk-delete an entire group? What idiot at the TiVo company thought, “Lets give users this awesome feature where they can sort their shows into folders. It’ll simplify and speed up the interface, and make things much more intuitive. Oh, and if they want to delete an entire program group, let’s make them have to go into the folder and delete each one individually. Y’know, temper the rad with the suck, so they don’t get too much user-friendliness all at once.” Stupids. I hate them.

Also, on the upgrade theme, I successfully upped “sounds familiar” to WordPress 1.5.1.1 this weekend. Muddled through some bonehead “oops!” style accidental deletions and some CSS issues, but with a little work and the help of my pre-upgrade backups I was up and running shortly. You won’t see much of a change from the front page, but the backend has some small updates for me – namely a faster loading dashboard when I first enter the behind-the-scenes area. Nothing major seems to be broken, but lemme know if you see something not working right or looking funny.

I know I told you how much I love this Architecture in Helsinki album, but my affair with it has become even more heated in the last week. I daresay it’s my favorite album in a while. And do you think I care that I’m still dirty and sweaty from mowing the lawn? No! I sure don’t! I still sit here listening to this album at deafening levels, windows open so the sun can stream in and I get a nice breeze. I mean guys, I know, as albums go, this one is young… but, man, I love it. I don’t care what you say, we are in love – I know it’s 20 some-odd years younger than me, but we are in love I tell you! We could get married. We could! Age ain’t nothing but a number, and we’re in love… with each other! No, I dunno, I mean, it makes me feel good about myself – is that so wrong? Why are you so prejudiced? You can’t fight the feeling. You keep stifling us like this and I swear I steal away with it and elope. Don’t test my feelings, this is real.

For grins, some of the best search queries from my referral statistics. I’ve done this before, and the explanation is the same – these are words/phrases that people typed into search engines for which my blog was returned. They are naturally funny, so I don’t feel the need to dress them up with additional commentary. Enjoy.

www. ass massage
bathtub meth recipes
alaskan whore house
depressed lonely college blog
bipolar husband and infidelity
monkey riding an ostrich
self hogtie story
dudes saggin balls
swallowing my hot pants
ass wiping techniques
Molly Hatchet naked
“I know you have to pee” dick boy

Molly Hatchet is a band. People want to see anything naked I guess. If they were clued in, they’d really be looking for that homemade porno Molly Hatchet shot on her honeymoon with Jethro Tull. You get my joke? You get it?

Dave out.

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broken sidewalks and exposed pipes

The dinosaur that is the US cellphone martketplace.
Some thoughts on Taiwan:

I like visiting this city. I like the people, the food, the atmosphere and the culture. And yes, I’ve said all that before. I don’t, however, know if I could live here. When I make the mental shift and start thinking about this place as a primary residence rather than a temporary place, little things start popping out in my mind. The city is packed; packed with people, with scooters, with buildings… on and on. All of this stuff crammed into once place is kind of depressing to me. Some of the little things would also depress me I think. The fact that people wear masks over their mouth to protect them from the air pollution. The thin layer of grit and dirt that seems to coat things. I know, most of the things I’m complaining about are just “big city” characteristics. Taipei isn’t really all that dirty, it’s just that my uppity whitebread “planned community” back in California pays a lot more attention to public works. I’m not used to broken sidewalks or exposed pipes, I’m used to having things nice and neat with the ugly guts considerately hidden away from public eyes. These aren’t big deals, mind you, just small little things that, overall, I think tend to bring me down over time. This could be due more to the fact that I’m a “country boy” at heart, and given a choice would live outside city walls every time.

One thing that I do like about Taiwan is the way these people embrace their technology. If something is cool and people will use it, they build or implement it and sell it in the open market. The whole invention-to-market seems much less restrictive than US. All the cellphones have every possible feature enabled, are completely unlocked to any one service provider, and you can buy SIM cards everywhere. It’s much more intuitive, and it just works. If there’s a demand for some computer gadget of questionable legality, for instance something that could be used to circumvent copyright law, producers don’t blink while rushing said gadget to market for the public to decide. From my perspective, this willingness to meet consumers’ needs acts to speed up the whole iterative process of technology advancement. Not being hindered by overly restrictive terms and conditions or attempts to cash in on current offerings by holding back new and useful items or services really lets the people judge what’s good and what they will ultimately decide to pay for. This way, things that people actually perceive they want or need are naturally promoted over technology or services that people just plain don’t give a crap about. Sure, maybe this model does give some more “working room” to those rogue users who plan to do illegal things with good and services, but I think the added usability and convenience it gives to your honest customer base is worth it.

I’ll give you an example, when I bought my new Nokia phone in the US, it’s locked to the Cingular network, and is feature-limited. No authorized Cingular stores sell any accessories for the phone, despite the fact it’s been out in the states for quite some time now. You can’t get cases, covers, headphones, etc. In Taiwan, the same Nokia phone can be bought at any of the millions of cellphone outlets, with no contract, completely unlocked, and with all the features originally built-in by Nokia turned on by default. Not only that, but there are any number of places, from streetside cart-vendors at the night market to more “official” feeling cellular retail outlets, where you can get all kinds of cool accessories for it. Your choices aren’t limited to Nokia or Cingular branded expensive accessories, there are a myriad of Taiwan-made accessories which in many cases are not only cheaper but more fashionable or practical. I wish the US would start to handle technology like this, because when you compare the producer-consumer models, Taiwan is rabid for new stuff. In the states, I think we are less excited about new technology because it’s often poorly supported, marketed, and overly restricted in the interest of the big corporate players. I think some Taiwan-style decentralization would be good for the US. I think people would eat up the idea of being able walk into any 7-11 and pick up a new SIM card for their mobile phone without signing a two year contract.

And that’s it for now. I got up at 4am to call into an important meeting in the states, and I wanted wrap up this entry before going back to bed. I was able to download some of the US TV shows I’m missing while in Taiweezy, so I can keep up with what’s going on with Ryan and Marissa (I know, I’m pathetic, but I still think it’s cool that I can have an HDTV rip of a US show hours after it’s broadcast). Also, I’m able to keep up with the latest in pirated MP3 goodness as well – so I’m not as entertainment-removed as I usually am (I made the right preparations since I knew this would be a longer trip). OK OK, I’m outta here. Back to sleep for a few hours before it’s into the office.

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second guessin’

Rippin'
It’s 11pm now on Sunday and I wrote most of this entry throughout the weekend while I was sitting at the computer. The more I listen to this new Nine Inch Nails album, the more I really, really like it. I mean really. For real. No foolin’. You should get it and check it out, it grows on you something fierce. You should check it out; no, I’m serious.

Since I last wrote about it, my disdain for retrieving and sorting the mail has grown. I have come to dread sorting through the piles of paper that I get every week. My frustrations are compounded by the fact that near 90% of what I get goes straight into the dustbin (What? “Dustbin?” I’m practicing should the Queen Mother mount an offensive to take back her colonies). It’s got the to the point where the things I used to save, the stock statements, the medical insurance statements, whatever – I now just toss them directly. I used to keep them for some reason, and I still don’t know what that reason is. When I can, I’ve switched my billing options to “paperless” statements – keeping only online records. I’ve switched all my bills to auto-debit, and keep track of all my finances online. I really only need the mail for one-off ordered items and very critical stuff. Man how I wish there was some way to restrict the incoming flow to that stuff only… and get rid of the ~5lbs of paper I just waste each week.

I’ve been back at my ripping project lately, finally having the guts to tackle my Beatles and related discs. I purposely left them for last, for a few reasons. First, there are so dang many of ’em. Second, the majority are bootlegs or rare releases, and their information tends not to be in the automatic FreeDB database. See, when you put most commercially available CDs into a ripping program, the program goes and queries the huge FreeDB database and automatically names the disc and songs. Then, when you rip the disc all the files are named and tagged correctly. If a disc isn’t in the FreeDB database – you get a bunch of songs called “AudioTrack01,” and so on. You then have to go in and somehow rename these, which is an extra and laborious step in the whole conversion process. Anyway, I started ripping through the solo and group Beatles material a couple weeks ago, and at my estimate I’m about 20% through the task. Considering I’m already at about 9GB of MP3 – I estimate I’ll end up with somewhere between 50GB-75GB of just Beatles and related. Impressive when you consider that my everything-but-Beatles tally was only ~120GB.

In other news, I waffled once more on the ripper I’m using for the project. I know it seems sorta silly to switch mid-project, because it’s like admitting any pre-switch rips are inferior – but I couldn’t help myself. Partway into the Beatles ripping, I started noticing CDex throwing a few “jitter errors” on some of my discs. Not CD-Rs, not discs in bad condition either. So, for the millionth time in the span of this project, I went online to search for information about jitter errors and ripping. And, also for the millionth-and-oneth time, I decided to re-download EAC and try using it. Turns out, EAC is much better suited to high-quality ripping than CDex is. It auto-detected the features of my CD-ROM drives and actually recommended the drive I haven’t been using as the better drive for ripping audio. It then pre-configured my LAME codec with some research-proven “best” settings for MP3 quality (which, to my surprise, was using variable bitrate encoding – I’ve been using a constant bitrate of 192Kbps up until now). So, midway through my project my MP3s have become variable bitrate and ripped with a different drive and program. Being incredibly anal, you’d think this would grate on me until I finally submit and re-rip the entire pre-EAC library. But no, I’m not doing it. I’m happy with the rips I’ve done so far, and if I ever find a rotten one – I’ll just re-rip with EAC (providing I haven’t yet sold the source CD, in which case I’ll just download it).

Friday morning at work, my little Gmail notifier popped up saying I’d got a new mail. I only needed to see the little hovering summary box to know what it was – Sharaun and I had won the World Cup 2006 ticket lottery. Out of the three individual matches we put in for, we won tickets to only a single match – #7 in Nuremberg. Since a group of friends had also cast their lot in for tickets, I fired off a message proclaiming my success. Almost right after, Ben replied that luck had also been on his side – and he’d scored a pair of tickets, amazingly, to the very same match in Nuremberg. Out of the others who applied, I think only one other couple managed to get a match – and a different one at that. Seconds later Ben was over at the desk delivering a high-five for victory and talking about World Cup Fever. Too bad the thing is a year and half away. Anyway, it has the makings of an awesome vacation… and Pat later sent out an e-mail where we could see what our odds of winning really were, I was even more pumped.

Goodnight.

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still pooping taiwan

Put da needle on da rekkid...
Home is a good place to be. Even though I’m back around the same unfinished things that have been bugging me for months: the perennially unfinished backyard, the shower that needs new grout, the unpainted walls and unfurnished front room. Yes, it’s all here and all still calling to be completed. For the long term projects at least, it looks as if they’ll have to remain unfinished for the next month or so. Talking to Sharaun the other night, I realized that I’ll be away from work-proper for the entire month of May. Two and a half weeks in Taiwan again, then one day at home before leaving for another two days in Oregon, then a week off while my sister-in-law and her husband are in town. And poof! The month of May is gone.

When I was a kid, my cousin Nathan introduced me to U2 and Depeche Mode, funnily enough – he also introduced me to music in “compact disc” form at the same time. Anyway, I became a die hard Depeche Mode fan… collecting all the cassettes I could find at the local mall’s Camelot. Remember that “frequent buyers” card they’d stamp each time you bought a cassette? I think I got my Ah-Ha or Pet Shop Boys or Wang Chung tape that way, y’know, the 10th one is free or something. Yeah, my head was fried on tunes even at that age. Wow, I apologize for getting off track – but there’s something good about that – it’s writing for writing’s sake! It’s feeling free to follow my thoughts as I go. Back to the story. Today I was sitting around hacking up a bunch of MP3s with Audacity so I could import some nifty new ringtones into my phone, and I was browsing the collection for good songs to splice and dice. I fired up Depeche Mode’s Black Celebration and eventually came to the closer, “But Not Tonight.” I tell you, something incredibly meaningful from my youth is associated with this song. I can’t remember specifically what it is, but just the first few strains of the tune are enough to elicit chills and nearly stir up tears.

Ben and I were talking the other day about open source and free software, and how we’re all proud of our legal machines. However, and it sounds stupid now, I had never really thought about a piece of software that I use on all my machines, and the fact that it includes pirated warez. I’m talking about the K-Lite Codec Pack, which contains several key codecs for all sorts of file types. I use it for DivX and Xvid movies, and all sorts of other junk. Come to find out, it ain’t good y’all. So, I promptly uninstalled it and went looking for an open-source alternative. As usual, SourceForge did not disappoint, offering up the Gordian Knot Codec Pack, which contains everything I need. I am writing about codecs, what’s wrong with me?

For some more semi-tech talk, a couple things. First off, I think it’s totally awesome, and pioneering actually, that the Grateful Dead has started to sell their famous Dick’s Picks and From the Vault series of CDs as digital downloads. For years, the Dead allowed tapers to freely record their shows, offering special tickets for the tapers section. Free distribution of these recordings was also encouraged, although everyone knows that exchanging tunes for money is bad karma. Trading of tapes and eventually DATs or MDs was done in large tents at the show, where people were always in search of an upgrade to their favorite shows (because 10th generation tapes sound like ass compared to sweet, sweet binary cloning). Anyway, you can currently buy all the CDs in MP3 or the lossless, and open-source (again, pioneering) FLAC format. To me, this is the future of music: compressed, lossless online sales for reasonable prices. And when I say reasonable, I mean we get to subtract all the costs that go into a physical disc: manufacturing, packaging, transport, storage, etc. We pay for raw music, right off the soundboard or out of Pro Tools.

Soon, I think we’ll start to see more and more bands offer their music this way – at least, if their big corporate contracts have expired and they are free to do with their art what they will. I mean, who needs packaging? A sweet animated Flash experience or interactive online event is way more cool than glossy inserts. If you think about it for more than a little, you can actually visualize a world in which record labels and contracts are not nearly as important as they are now. At least, as a mode of distribution. Conceivably, you could record and “release” your efforts online without any middle-men. No contract, no percentage to someone else’s pocket. I realize that labels are currently still important as PR machines and the deep-pockets behind payola-funded radio play lists. But there is a hint here of a new paradigm in music publishing and distribution. Homogenized radio is dying, and digital music is reaching an adoption rate where Marketing 101 tells us it will begin to drive a secondary wave of goods and services. Perhaps, with good marketing and some initial investors, you could circumvent the majors altogether. Problem is: you gotta be good. The internet, the global audience, is the A&R man of the new century – we decide what’s good. Hey, I think we just cured another symptom of the majors. So, c’mon expired-contract open-minded artists… let’s do this thang.

And, because it fits really well here, considering the context – I’ve been busy listening to the new, and freshly-leaked, Nine Inch Nails album, which comes out in a few weeks. I like it. I like it more than that double album I bought in college and hardly listened to, and consequently can’t remember the name of right now. Anyway, some songs are very good, some are OK. Oh, and the contextually relevant bit of this rambling? Seems that Mr. Reznor has released one of the album’s tracks via the NIN website as a GarageBand2.0 file. What that means, essentially, is that he’s released the source multi-track recordings – just like a producer would get before mixing down a final track. He’s encouraging fans to “… create remixes, experiment, embellish or destroy what’s there.” What an awesome idea. At least there are some musicians out there who are embracing this age of everything-on-demand, no-secrets digital freedom.

On a completely unrelated note, caught this story via Slashdot over the weekend. The part that really caught my eye was the statement: “They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament.” Things like this always intrigue me, and I must admit that it’s not always for the most noble of reasons. Somewhere in me, I have this secret wish that some long-lost Christian writings would come up that really through a wrench into modern Christian dogma. No, I’m not rooting for some discovery that would completely deflate billions of peoples’ believes and values – I’m just talking about something that might force people who are staunchly set in their ways to think outside the box and perhaps view their religion in a different way. And I don’t mean things like the Dead Sea Scrolls or Nag Hammadi texts, which stubborn believers can easily write off as offshoot-group documents which simply aren’t part of the Biblical canon. With the whole process of canonization having effectively relegated any non-canon writings to irrelevance; something like an early version of on of the New Testament gospels, maybe on rife with all sorts of Gnostic ideas, would be an awesome rock in the pond. Some small evil imp in the back of my brain would really love to see some self-important, card-carrying Southern Baptist have to chew on a lost verse of John in which Jesus says, “Verily I say unto you, women can speak the word of God as well as a man.”

Holy crap this turned into a long entry… I hope I didn’t blow my week’s wad in one shot. Stay with me, we’ll see what we can come up with. Actually, I haven’t written an entry this easily in a long time, maybe my near week off last week did some good for my writer’s block or something.

Goodnight.

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war memorial

Cute, and yummy!
Stupid United Express terminal… always smells like hot dogs, and everything’s always delayed. At least I got here today in time for the first flight – so I can actually be the one that starts the domino delay for the poor travelers later today. Anyway, if it wasn’t made clear already – I back. Taiwan was, Taiwan. I had a good time as always, but missed home as always.

I felt much more “local” on this visit. The “acquaintances” I’d met on my previous trips have started to turn into full-fledge friends, and where I used to need a local intermediary to schedule outings with them – now we just get together directly and do things. I had a good time with the usual crowd from the hotel bar, and managed to spend some time with Eric and Suzy as well, who are staying in Taiweezy for 6mos. Towards the end of the week, I really started burning the candle at both ends tho… wandering the streets of Taipei as the sun came up, and somehow managing to make it into work. It’s OK though, because all I needed to catch up was my flight over here – which I slept through solidly, I might add. I guess 48hrs of waking-time doesn’t match too well with ~4hrs of sleeping-time. And, the MP3 player on my phone (you’ll read about it below) faithfully served up tunes for the entire ~10hr flight, without a single bar reduction in battery – I was impressed.

And, because I’m lazy and I did the work anyway… I wrote the following paragraphs sometime this week, but never posted them… so here’s the dump.

Well, being in Taiwan, I managed to pick up a 1GB MMC card for my new Nokia 6230 phone. I’ve seen on the web that there are 2GB cards available in Europe – but I can’t seem to locate them here. So, I settled for 1GB, and now I can hold a pretty decent amount of tunes on the phone’s built-in MP3 player. I tested the functions a little bit, and it seems pretty neat. The stereo headphones I got off Ebay have an integrated track-advance button and microphone, and will automatically pause the music and allow you to use them for incoming calls when needed. My only gripe would be that it’s kinda hard to setup playlists, and you can’t do any folders on the MMC card – so everything gets all jumbled. I did manage to make playlists and get albums playing in their right order, but it’s a little bothersome. Also, the phone doesn’t support any kind of “in flight” mode like some other phones with MP3 players. This means that the radio/antenna is active at all times, which is technically not allowed during flight… but… I’m going to ignore that. Anyway, it’s kinda cool to have a reasonably sized MP3 player built into my phone, handy for long trips when you get a yen for some good tunage.

Today (Wednesday in Taiwan) turned out to be a pretty busy day. Had a lot of work to do so spent most of the day at the office doing e-mail and meetings. Also managed to book my travel for the next trip out here, as well as get Sharaun’s ticket and make sure we had adjoining seats. I hate booking international travel, and trying to coordinate my booked-through-work tickets/seats with her normally booked tickets/seats didn’t make anything easier. But, I did finally manage to square things away, and we’re both set for the upcoming trip. I’m actually looking forward to being here with Sharaun, but not really looking forward to being away from home again so soon. On the plus side, since I had some previous engagements back home in mid-May, what I thought was going to be a three-week stay turned into only two-weeks and change. The bad news though, is that my “previous engagement” was yet another travel-trip, this one to Oregon. So, I’ll get home from Taiwan, get one day back at work, and then hit the air again. And, since Breck and her husband are coming to visit the last week in May, I’ll effectively be out-of-the-office for an entire month – a first for me.

All the times I’ve been to Taiwan, and I’ve always assumed the “dark” tofu was just some variant of the regular tofu. Y’know, different ingredients, different flavor, whatever. Only today did I come to find out that it’s just gelatinous hunks of coagulated duck’s blood. Mmmmm… duck’s blood. It’s funny how something can become unpalatable just because you find out what they really are. I mean, I had no problem eating it when it was tofu – but when it was duck’s blood, I had to really work at chewing and swallowing. Scenes of strung-up ducks spilling out their life’s blood into inch-deep pans filled my mind, and thoughts of just how they form liquid blood into little jello-like cubes… ugh. Anyway, Taiwan never really disappoints when it comes to food experiences. But don’t let my tales of duck’s blood and fish eyes and chicken heads scare you off, the food here is really good – it’s just different.

Until Monday then, welcome home.