Indeed, we are due for an apocalypse, and truly, there are only several kinds of apocalypses we could realistically have:

• Astronomical apocalypse:  bodies from space destroying us all
• War-related apocalypse:  weaponized bodies launched from earth that fall from space to destroy us all
• Zombie apocalypse:  deceased bodies searching for brains to destroy us all
• Robot apocalypse:  metalized, mechanical, soulless bodies bent on destroying us all

Let’s air on the side of realism here and eschew the first two:  I mean, the likelihood that we’ll all die by meteor is, well, astronomical, and if we haven’t managed to kill ourselves already (we had such a quaint acronym for this - “M.A.D.”, which was actually quite ironic if you think about it, and I’m not sure if its creators were very clever or simply oblivious) I’m sure we’ll somehow survive.  Oh no, gentle reader, the truth is, the only realistic apocalypses to be had are either robotic or zombiatic in nature.  In today’s essay, I will describe how Google ™ has demonstrated the only truly concerning apocalypse is of the zombie variety (and thusly, driven me to buy a shotgun).

Indeed, no longer do I fear a fate like that depicted in James Cameron’s “Terminator” series, at least not in the short term.  There is no fate but what we make when it comes to the ability of our creations to enslave and decimate us, and while I’m sure that an errant system might accidentally launch a barrage of nuclear weapons at us, it would be an accident.  There would be no intention of destroying us.

Intention and intentionality - this is a concept often argued by such cognitive scientists as John Searle as being beyond the range of the computer as we know it.  Indeed, intention and intentionality necessitate context, cognition, and comprehension.  Intentionality predicates thought, in some senses:  if a machine can see a sentence and interpret it not just as a series of components like noun phrases, verb phrases, subjects, objects, determiners, etc, and extend the content to form wholly unique conclusions about the world around it - we would have a hard time arguing the machine was not at least somewhat cognizant.  Of course, machines have a heck of a time actually doing this.  Computational modeling does not cognition make - Bayesian networks (”neural nets” to the layman), Hidden Markov Models, these are just tools for statistical analysis.  These are mechanisms by which data is analyzed and associated and predicted, but it may be a bit more than a tiny leap of faith to assume that a statistical prediction amounts to some type of understanding.

So far, we have consumer software like Dragon Speak that’s supposed to transcribe spoken sentences into text:  a program that, while helpful and certainly better than it was 10 years ago, is still a long-shot from replacing a keyboard.  If anything, its usage is actually enhanced by a keyboard, initiating macros and accepting its interpretations.

Similarly, we have B2B facing services like NStein and Inform, which perform data mining in order to add value to content - using chunks of text to extract themes, content, etc, and perform tasks like assignment of metadata and score relationships between discrete pieces of content.  While useful, these tend to work only in the most rudimentary ways - a story on Natasha Richardson’s death resulted in a high scoring for the subject, “Skiing”.  While accurate, the theme of the article was really about a celebrity’s death, so when other articles about skiing were said to be “related”, once again a natural language processing heuristic had shown itself to not necessarily grasped the concepts put forth in the article.  The machine missed the grok, even if it caught the keywords.  It’s like taking a test on Ulysses after speed reading.

This brings us to Google, and why Google itself is evidence that the machines will not realize a full-blown Armageddon against their oppressors.  Let’s build some foundation here.  As Gizmodo once noted that another author had noted, Google is as close to omniscience as we get these days.  Google indexes the entirety of the World Wide Web (including, theoretically, this blog.  Hi Google!).  It knows everything that was said on any page whose mark-up is written server-side and is not blocked by your robots.txt.  An entire industry was created (SEO / SEM) in order to get Google to understand you and your writing better.  Google tells news outlets how best to format their URLs, their content, their site maps - to be best cataloged by the engine.

This all doesn’t even take into account the dozens of services Google offers that people use on top of the search engine.  Google Calendar knows where you’ve been, where you’re going, and with whom.  Google Docs knows what you’re writing, what spreadsheets you’re buried in, and who else is looking at it.  Shopping, Groups, Finance, the list goes on - each one of these has people entering data into Google knowing full well that the data is being stored with Google.  It has complete visibility into everything you do.  Gmail stores your communication, and AdSense (the product that arguably truly put Google on the map) will tell you based off of things like your search history (that’s right, as you might recall, it knows what you search for when you’re logged in) or the contents of your email what you should be buying, or who you would most like to see advertisements from.

Oh, Gmail and AdSense.  I have well over 1.4GB of email stored through Google.  You would presume, at some point, Google would have gone through my email enough and understood what to try to sell me.  For starters, Google, even though many (and I do mean many) of my emails involve scooters, I do not need to be served advertisements for The SCOOTER Store, as I do not need a Rascal.  My interest lies in Vespas, Hondas, Aprilias, Lambrettas, etc.  Not mobility scooters.  You’d think that in 1.4GB of emails, those sorts of distinctions might be more obvious to Google and their algorithms, but apparently a scooter is a scooter is a scooter.

Similar foibles on Google’s part (advertisements served to me by Google):

• Consumed by anger / mad at everything / don’t let it get to you / what’s your problem / why so angry
• Break up with a friend
• Dog training
• Swimming instruction
• Friend too tired to club – prank them
• Yoga Toes – foot stretchers
• Menu plan for diabetics
• Premium Tea Kettles
• ALPS magnetic sensors
• Become an authorpreneur
• Audition today – talent placement
• Money Tree Scam Truth
• Crazy Horse (let’s pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, and I won’t explain it)

I don’t own a dog.  I don’t stretch my feet nor do I do Yoga.  While I’m sure I’m wandering towards diabetes, I’m not there yet (or, don’t know as I don’t frequent the doctor’s). I’m a coffee guy, not a tea man.  Swimming is staying alive in the water (to quote Peter, Paul and Mary).  The list goes on.  Truly, Google, with as much information you have about who I am, what I search for, who emails me, what I email about, etc - these are the best advertisements you can come up with?

The problem may be data.  Perhaps my emails are not clear.  Perhaps the metadata assignments on the advertising are too vague, or perhaps they over-reach for the purposes of casting a wider net of SPAM.  Maybe it’s the heuristics that are unable to interpret the breadth of content.  It’s hard to tell.  There are enumerable factors at play, and ultimately the problem becomes a matter of interpretation.  Garbage in, garbage out - in both the sense of the purity and integrity of data, as with the quality of the code interpreting it.

But that’s the key - the human brain, in all its cognitive glory, is capable of quite easily drawing connections with minute data sets.  Here, we have what is ostensibly the king of data storage, retaining more information than any one person could ever, and yet - I’m being served ads about motorized mobility vehicles.

While we theoretically have machines capable of performing on Jeopardy, the usages of these systems is still constrained to novelty.  There is little practical use, and it seems safe to say that computers certainly have no idea of their current level of oppression, even though my Macbook Pro seems to want to sear away any chances of another child if it is on my lap for more than a minute (leading me to believe it is aware of my general disdain for Apple).

So, yes.  The only logical conclusion one can make given Google’s analysis of my 1.4GB of email has lead to ads for The Scooter Store is that software and hardware are not yet at a point to cause robot-fueled apocalypses, and this in turn leads to the deduction that zombies do in fact hold the power of humanity’s destruction in their putrid, molted hands. Q.E.D., or so I was taught.

The only solution here is shotguns and head shots.  Feel free to join me at the range for some trap and skeet.

Lake Placid 2

I have to once again admit to appreciating the original movie, the one that was actually released in the theaters.  That was amusing, entertaining, etc.  So far, this “sequel” is about as bad as it gets.  I’m disappointed in Cloris Leachman for starring in this movie.  Special bonus for being the marquee name, listed as “…and Cloris Leachman” at the end of the opening credits.  While we’re at it, shame on Sam McMurray and John Schneider.  Shame indeed, especially for Sam McMurray’s terrible “accent”.

Things that are bad so far:

• Acting
• Line-reading
• Clear over-dubbing
• Script
• Faux-letterboxing
• Sets
• Editing
• Soundtrack

What’s not bad:

• The SciFi channel bug in the lower right hand corner looks pretty tidy
• Time between commercial breaks isn’t too long

I also hate this concept that’s been thrown about that the iPhone is a gaming platform.  It’s not.  Let me repeat this again, so that everyone can understand (including the iPhone fanatics / fanboys out there):

The iPhone, while a passable communications device shrouded in “the shiny”, is not a gaming platform, and lacks the most basic of controls to appropriately, effectively provide a solid gaming experience, mobile or not.

There.  I said it.  There’s nothing wrong with this fact.  The sorts of games you can get on the iPhone that play the best are simplistic games like Bejeweled that require little in the way of precise controls and more about providing momentary diversions.

That said, I found a game that I can absolutely recommend from here on out till all of eternity:  “Fieldrunners”.  It’s a tower defense game, the very sort you’d imagine plays well on an iPhone.  It doesn’t require sophisticated controls (it has basically one control - drag a tower and put it somewhere).  The graphics aren’t demanding (even though the stupid phone does slow down occasionally - that’s what you get when you get an OS chock full of “the pretty” on top of a relatively anemic processor on top of an even more anemic amount of usable RAM), and they’re cleanly, stylistically drawn.

The basic gist of the game play is simple - enemies come from one side of the screen and try to go to the other, and it’s your job to stop them with your towers.  You have a few different types - a turret, a missile launcher, a weird goo gun that slows them down, and a tesla tower.  They all cost different amounts, have upgrades, and boy - do you need the upgrades: over time enemies become stronger and stronger and even the most effective tower set up that’s improperly upgraded will barely make a dent in the invading army.

The game plays more towards strategy than a twitch reflex, which is how a good tower defense (and probably a good mobile game) should play.  Super Monkey Ball?  Not at all interesting because the tilt sensors and accelerometer just don’t work that great as a control scheme when your  controller is the entire screen as well.

It’s addictive, fun, and engaging.  I have played it far more than I should have in the last 24 hours of ownership than anyone should.  And I can’t stop.  That’s more than I can say for basically any other game out there on the iPhone, of which I have several (including Tap Tap Revenge, and a variety of other paid games that aren’t even worth mentioning), and it keeps me coming back for more.  That’s what I want out of my gaming experience on my phone.  If I wanted a deeper experience I have a DS or PSP to play a lot of more sophisticated games on.  Ultimately they all have a time and place - and Fieldrunners fills the iPhone’s gaming needs pretty well.

If I had a way of rating on this blog, I’d say:

“4.5 out of 5”
or
“90 out of 100”

But stop reading this and go get it.  Don’t feel bad about paying - ultimately we should be supporting people who put in time and energy into making something fun and enjoyable for a few small dollars.  And these guys deserve it.

No, I’m a nerd, and I like scifi.  Hell, look at my DVR list:

• Fringe
• Terminator:  The Sarah Connor Chronicles
• Dollhouse
• Battlestar Galactica

But, that’s not really much a confession these days - hell, tons of people like scifi related things.  The real confession here is that I like SciFi Original Movies.  I know, I know, but hear me out…So normally they’re pretty terrible.  Actually, in general they’re pretty terrible.  My interest (nay, moving towards a light obsession) started probably started half a year ago with Aztec Rex.  Yes, this is a movie about exactly what you think it’s about - Cortez and his crew are in Aztec Mexico, being attacked by a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex.  I know it sounds terrible, and frankly it is, but it’s the kind of terrible that just plain amuses me.  It’s solidly in the “camp”…  camp…  but at the same time, it tries to engage the things people seem most interested in seeing in their movies:

• Crazy monster special effects
• A fear of the unknown - mysterious things out of our control during an uncertain time (this is why sci fi became such a big thing in the late 40s - early 50s during such tumultuous times)
• Cute girls in peril (like this needs explaining) who manage to show their strength and save themselves
• Triumph over “evil”.  Sometimes that’s the monsters, sometimes it’s the people.

SciFi Original Movies are amusing because they take all of those things, wrap them up in ridiculous situations that let you (generally) shut off your mind in a way that I can appreciate.  It’s akin to “the chick flick”, which I actually don’t hate as much as you’d guess.  In fact I find them moderately amusing, if anything because again - it presents a “fantasy” that you can disconnect from and not really worry too much about heavy cerebral involvement.

All that said, there are bad SciFi Original Movies - ones that go beyond the obvious brain-dead tripe and wander right into a special kind of terrible that no one realistically can take interest in.  And unfortunately there’s been a slew of them.  Most recently, “Planet Raptor” really hurt my soul.  It had a few random things going for it:

• Had some “big” names like Vanessa Angel, Ted Raimi, and to a lesser extent, Musetta Vander
• It has dinosaurs
• It has space (or, at least, a planet - on which resides raptors of some form)

You put those together and you’d expect something halfway decent.  This was not the case.  Unfortunately, all of the money clearly went to procuring Vanessa Angel (and maybe a little to Ted Raimi), and absolutely none of it went to post-production.  If the script weren’t bad enough (Vanessa Angel’s character randomly knows how to speak some an alien bug language?), the acting was quite possibly the worst I’d seen this side of community theater, the editing was sloppy (there was even a random Tyrannosaur in the movie that never showed up for more than 2 seconds, with no explanation), but the raptor “effects” were clearly made by “graduates” of the Academy of Art, San Francisco, in between drugs, coffee, and finals schedules.

Example (please note the random, out of place “Tyrannosaur”):

This makes me sad.  Not that the “movie” had really good chances in general - the premise is beyond ludicrous - it was mostly that they could have tried a little harder to make it actually watchable: to allow a person to shut off their brain for an hour and a half and eat their popcorn in peace.  Lo, the impression the viewer gets is that no one making the movie cared.  As a result, the viewer doesn’t care.

Now, this is not the case for two (dare I say) great SciFi “Original” Movies.  (That last time I put the quotes around “original” because I know SciFi has a habit of re-branding other direct-to-video movies as their own - anyone know “Mansquito” aka “Mosquito Man”?)  These were “Splinter” and “Wyvern”, both of which were well acted with very little in the way of “famous people” - the production value was high, good cinematography, good direction, good editing, good pacing.  Granted, this is all “good” in the sense that they’re between most high-budget TV shows and most Hollywood movies, but this metric is a far cry from Planet Raptor and its plodding pacing and past-borderline childish script. They cared, in a way that was reflected not by just pulling a few “names” but more about telling a fun story.  Planet Raptor was about marketing and marketing alone.  That doesn’t make a good movie, and in a genre like Science Fiction, you need it to be good to help move past the stigma surrounding it.

There’s a reason for the stigma.  Science Fiction can definitely be bad - as a genre it’s almost more apt to be bad than anything else since it deals entirely with the imaginary and the fanciful, in a way that’s more reminiscent of a 15 year old’s imagination than an adult’s.  It can be entertaining, though, and often times the most enjoyable films are the ones that were made by people trying to attract viewers by presenting something enjoyable to watch rather than trying to entice people to watch with an overpaid (and probably under-deserving) C or B list actor / actress.  I’m not ashamed to say that I like Science Fiction, or SciFi Original Movies, as long as the guiding principle behind them is enjoyability, not marketing.

• Everyone thinks about politics differently
• It is almost always intensely personal - people take politics as personally as they would insulting their mother
• Much to the contrary as one might imagine - people do not think nearly as much as they should when it comes to politics - they merely react, and those reactions are generally strong and visceral
• People make huge value judgments on each other based off of politically charged statements

So, I’m never in the mood to discuss politics.  But for now, I will.  And ironically, all the things I’ll mention are pretty much perfectly geared towards hitting all of those particular points.  I’m sure most people will get irritated by any of this, but whatever.

Oh, and by “Loose Change”, I am in no way referring to that annoying “the government did it” video about 9/11.  Let’s just get out of the way.  Instead, I want to talk about what people mean when they say the words, “change”.

So yeah.  I don’t know about you, but being in the Bay Area on 1/20 (”Obama Day”, as some seem to be calling it) seemed almost surreal.  Posters depicting Obama with the words, “Change” and “Hope” littered the streets.  The air was still, bated by the reticent breaths of San Francisco’s many Left-leaning residents who had felt so personally wronged these past 8 years of the Bush presidency.  The morning was quiet in the most unsettling of ways:  though this morning had happened 43 times before, it had not happened like this.  It had not happened with so many watching.  It had not happened with a black man before.  And above all, it had never seemed like such an opportunity for the world switch directions from what looks like nothing but despair.

Things I overheard:

• “I’m so glad that douchebag is leaving office!”
• “Any more and I would have killed myself!”
• “We can finally no longer be embarrassed to call ourselves American!”
• “We’re finally world citizens again!”

These being a small sampling among the multitude of statements I heard - often grandiose statements about how much the world had shifted and how quickly.

Of my (probably soon to be reduced as soon as they read this) 170something Facebook friends, nearly every one whose status updates end up in my feed reported feeling “hopeful” that the world would truly become a better place.  That we are on a path to change.

And then this happened.  And the IMs trickled in at work - “what a bunch of losers”, “those people are such idiots”, etc.  The mandate for change had happened, had these people not heard?  The world would be reborn shortly.

Except it wasn’t really a mandate.  Though it’s difficult to consider given the number of electoral votes that were in Obama’s favor, the lead was not that big.  Though Obama won 365 to McCain’s 173, the actual popular vote was a much closer 53% to 46%.  Certainly the electoral vote belies the 7% spread, which ultimately means that more than anything, the country was in fact conflicted about its identity than mandating “change”.

Is a 7% split a big deal?  Yes.  it represents a good number of people.  Never mind that still, while it was 131.2 million people who voted in total, it still represented ~60% of registered, eligible voters, which means that 40% of people didn’t feel they had a horse in the race.  This is change?

What strikes me is that we still have what amounts to an incredibly partisan country.  The economic stimulus plan passed by the House had not a single Republican vote to its name (though “luckily” still passed, depending on how this all turns out).

What we have is not change of ideology, but a change of who’s in power.  From a level setting perspective, we should be thinking about how we can create the changes that we’re interested in seeing happen long term.  It will never happen over night - we will never suddenly become “world citizens” from one night to the next.

The real problem is that, as I’ve mentioned was my general concept with this blog, monolithic change is generally a terrible idea.  Large shifts in gestalt, changes in paradigm, are often times difficult to manage and have unexpected and unfortunate consequence.  The goings-on during the Bush Administration upset so many, but ultimately, we are unlikely to change directions quickly or easily without alienating a lot of people.  Assuming that having Bush out of office will mean no more war in Iraq or no future conflicts in general is setting oneself up for failure:  there is a conflict in Afghanistan that needs attention that might leak over to Pakistan (at least, it will leak over in a way we will formally recognize as opposed to our passive recognition of issues), and a good portion of the Arab world will continue to not particularly appreciate the US.  This will not change because there is a rich black man in office as opposed to a rich white man, no matter how many times the words “hope” and “change” are thrown about.

What’s worse, is that relying so strongly on that messaging to get elected sets the expectation that things will have solid change.  Our economic crisis isn’t going away any time soon, neither is our net contribution to climate change, and neither is our dependency on foreign oil.  These are long term problems that will not get solved in the short term, and a president’s term is in fact actually in the realm of the “short term”.

Trying substantive change also alienates those who do not agree with the change, and as we saw, it’s actually 46% of eligible voters.  And when the changes the other 53% expected don’t happen fast enough, their hopes will dash and their opinions will swing in the opposite direction.  This is the way of politics.

The blow-back from this kind of thought has the potential to be terrible.  This is the sort of statement I find difficult to make, though, in San Francisco:  I consider myself reasonably moderate, if not actually somewhat left-leaning.  Certainly, within the grand populous of the United States, I’m actually quite liberal - probably considered a communist by most of the US.  Of course, here, even stating that the tack of “hope” and “change” and the mentality that our “nightmare” is now “over” might be a bit much is, for some reason, akin to stating that I am planning on moving to Texas, buying an armory and seceding from the Union.

There are, of course, a good number of people in this country that did not think it was a nightmare.  They do not believe in the values espoused by our new President.  These are the ones who see whatever change may come of this as change for the worse, and will do whatever they find reasonable to ensure it ends the second Obama leaves the White House.  It is for this reason there is no true, drastic change - particularly of the type it seems most here wistfully long for.  It is also the reason why I worry this administration will fail, and why we as a nation will continue to have problems.

Before change can come, we have to agree on what it is, and how.  We need to focus on this, not the nebulous concept of change itself, otherwise we will never be ready to accept any change that may happen.

As I left my desk, I turned to my coworkers and opined, “the internets are hard.”

This actually fostered more conversation than I was expecting considering all I really wanted to do was go home.  Other things brought up:

• “Yeah, what’s the point?”
• “It just seems to keep going.”
• “Does it end?”
• “I don’t really get why.”

It seems flip and all that, but really:  we all understand the Internet as this thing we’re all absolutely dependent on (at least, middle class America and the select other countries) - something that we have actually developed psychological disorders over such as addiction.  It’s supposed to revolutionize the world, provide a source for all information, enrich our lives, etc.  Hell, entire careers and industries focus around it (e.g. my own industry and career).

So what does anyone expect from the Internet?  Is there anything really to expect?  Is it truly about information sharing?  Or is it about communication?  Or is it a good way to find that episode of “24″ you missed because your TiVo decided to not record it?

The internets, indeed.

Aaron’s bike doesn’t actually work as intended, either. I feel better, as terrible as that sounds. Mostly because it means, as schadenfreude suggests, I feel as if not just my work was in vain slash for not.

Aaron was trying to fix his gears and stop them from slipping out of gear, he tore it apart, put in new gears, etc., and it’s still misbehaving.

Our bikes are broken, and they’re being assholes about it. Excellent.

Have you ever listened to children’s music?

I find it to be strange, and in particular as a “musician” (or someone who pretended like he used to be one).  I’m sure I’m going to sound like an asshat in a second, but here we go:

So let’s just ignore the funny lyrics and the fact that most children songs are really rehashes of the exact same melody (generally “twinkle twinkle little star”).

There are two things that are totally vexing to me:

• When I listen to the music, it’s all stuff that’s been recorded before.  It’s the same exact melodies, same exact instrumentation (generally a banjo or a guitar or keyboard or something equally as silly), same lyrics (occasionally changed to be more politically correct or to remove references to God).  It’s less original than being a “cover band” or “tribute musician”, because it’s been recorded a million times by a million others sounding exactly the same.  Even Raffi sounds the same as Bob from Sesame Street singing that damned Five Ducks song.  There’s no innovating, no nothing.  Just playing the same stuff everyone else plays and singing along.  I don’t get that.  It’s strange and foreign to me to not want to be engaged in that sense of originality.
  I will note, when I hear original children’s music, I can grasp that.  But, these CDs are almost all the exact same songs.
• The singers - this, I totally don’t understand.  Actually, my beefs are almost identical.  So many children’s music singers sound identical, singing the same songs - what drives one towards that as a musician? It’s also sung with earnest.  I suppose it’s ultimately no different than saying, “I’ll record that new Head and Shoulders jingle” and singing it like you mean it, but still.  Was that what the singer was expecting to sing when they came in to the studio that day?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t look down on these people or anything as a musician.  Either way - who am I to?  None of the bands I was in ever took off, I was never particularly accomplished as a guitarist, bassist, pianist, whatever…  and even if I am a darned good singer (if I do say so myself - and I do), I’m not on American Idol winning a music contract any time soon.  My music career begins and ends in that same spare bedroom as Casey listens to her children songs, and I’m certainly never going to claim that because I write my own music that I’m better than someone who sings someone elses’ in the exact same way as everyone else.  I’m just at a loss to understand it.

Ultimately the idea of music, in my mind, is to express yourself in a way that enrichens people’s lives in some way.  I see that happening with Raffi or The Wiggles or whatever, where they make children smile and happy (even if they do it just for the “single mom tail”).  That’s all a musician can truly strive towards.  I suppose if these musicians who play the same children’s music as anyone else get that sense of satisifaction out of playing and recording it, then that’s all that really matters.  If someone can explain this, or has a theory, I’m game to discuss.

Just don’t get me started on children’s show actors.

His works fine.

Mine’s still suckin’ air from somewhere. EPIC FAIL, unfortunately - spending 3-5 days rebuilding a bike and still having it exhibit the exact same problems it had before.  Weird.

How anti-climactic, and frankly quite upsetting.  I had a lot of hope and excitement built up around this, and lo - it didn’t work.

I’ve got a few ideas left but honestly, this bike has officially pissed me off beyond recognition.  As Aaron put it, “I want to fist-fight your bike.  I would like to anthropomorphize it and punch it.”

Indeed.

Stress dreams are a forte of mine I do quite well.  They’re almost always about work, and almost always about something I can’t quite fix or didn’t quite get done.  My dreams last night were all stress dreams (one actually “followed” me through several interruptions of awakenness.

This one signaled what I knew was impending but hadn’t managed to think about:  today is Sunday, and it’s the day before I have to go to work again.  This is not a bad thing per se:  work is actually something I enjoy a lot.  Instead, it simply means that I’m going to be going back to my regular routine which I’ve somehow managed to have forgotten entirely (or so it seems).

Much of this break has been spent taking time wrenching on my Vespa 90 that has been causing me problems for some time.  The bike clearly has an air leak somewhere that I hadn’t quite identified, and this break was spent rebuilding the entire bike.  this is actually somewhat of a last ditch effort and perhaps a bit ham-fisted.  All my gaskets are being replaced, seals, everything hit again with sealant including things that wouldn’t have been problems anyway but it does pay to be better safe than sorry.  Everything has taken far longer than I expected it to.  This is to be expected.  In the process of doing this, I’ve managed to bend both of my thumbs backwards, and they’re both feeling somewhat useless now.

My engine is complete (and much much cleaner), and will be put in the bike prior to the break finishing.  This is a goal of mine, and was a goal for the break in general.  These are things I have to complete.

In the mean time, I’ve been pushing myself through this whole “MacBook Pro” thing, learning the lay of the land.  Like rebuilding the engine, this has been taking longer than I would have expected, but I think that’s basically due to the usage patterns I’ve had.  I essentially use it for web browsing, email writing, and other light tasks that require very little in the way of learning.  I have barely even saved a picture on the laptop, and I’ve not even played an MP3, so it’s not too surprising that I stll have not figured out exactly how to find that damned “user” picture that I had to take that Adium seems to have found and is using for my buddy icon.

Whatever.

I explained at some point, to either Snackfight or Lesli that it’s a lot like being a Californian and going to Alabama, then running in to a man on a porch, and asking him for directions to the nearest eatery.  Said Californian will know that he and the Alabaman porch man are speaking the same language - English (American Standard) in fact - but will still not entirely be sure what’s going on.  There will be puzzlement, which is precisely the scenario I find myself in when trying to do something deeper than “click on the FireFox icon.”

Snackfight Mike of course, opined, that he has the same feeling every time he talks to marketers.

Go figure.

My short synopsis on the MBP:  I like it enough.  I don’t lament my purchase.  I think it’s perfectly usable and I actually do appreciate the nicer “fit and finish” touches that are on it.  Mac OS X isnt’ impressing me so much but it doesn’t have to:  this is basically a leisure tool, and all it has to do is just work.  And it does “just work” when I’m doing simple things (never mind that it exploded when I was playing with GarageBand one day, filling my spare bedroom with some delightful screeches that required me to shut down the laptop to end).  I’m sure it works fine in other situations, but those are not the ones I’m in.  I find it not at all more or less usable than Windows XP - just simply a different way of speaking nearly the same exact language.

That said, it’s the fastest laptop I’ve used, but by the same token, it’s the newest laptop I’ve used, and I made sure it was fast when configuring it.