March 2005 Archives

Ever since I bought the Passat back in November and the Saturn has been taking annoying automotive shits on an irritatingly regular basis, Mrs. Dave's decision to buy herself a Passat wagon is looking more and more justified.

Not only did I make it through the winter with nary a chilly buttock thanks to my pimpin' seat warmers (and I find it greatly entertaining that this is primary on her list of reasons for wanting to acquire said Passat wagon), but I was able to defrost my rear-view mirrors and never had to chip out the windshield fluid nozzles either thanks to their heatedness on command. In other words, despite having nearly 90,000 miles on it, it has proven itself to be damned reliable even when faced with the nastiest conditions that a New England winter can throw at it.

Now that things are warming up, the car is acquitting itself quite nicely once again - today the temperature rose to the dizzying heights of 60 degrees, so while driving home from work I decided it was time to test out the ol' sunroof. I've never owned a car with a sunroof, but my father had a Camry wagon with one back in the day. It was cool if a bit noisy, but one of the odd things about it was that you had to push and hold the button down to open the thing. Let go of the button and it'd stop opening, wherever it was. Who wants their sunroof open just a crack? C'mon, you've got it, USE IT. In the Passat, on the other hand, all it takes is a little twist of one knob and the whole shebang slides back, inner cover included. Twist the knob back and the roof slides forward again, leaving the inner cover retracted so I can at least get some tinted sun on my head. And it's even fairly quiet too, thanks to a little baffled lip that pops up once the sunroof opens. It was weird sensing the sun on my scalp while driving, or hearing the air without feeling it whooshing through the window next to me.

I just think the car is happy and treating me well because I bought it a new pair of windshield wipers last weekend. Maybe it knows that Mrs. Dave bought it a complete and thorough detailing for Christmas, and is just waiting for winter to completely depart the premises before it gets coddled...

Hypothetical situation:

Let's suppose that there's a band that you've basically dedicated the last ten years of your life to. A band you got to like in college and never really fell out of love with, and whose management you eventually became friendly with. A band that allowed taping, and as a result, convinced you to spend thousands of dollars on concert tickets, plane fares, hotel rooms, taping equipment, tapes, cabinets to store said tapes in, etc., etc.

Then imagine that the management of this band called you up one day and said that they were going to open their vaults to get more recordings out to their fans...and asked if you'd be interested in helping out.

Yeah, you'd be wetting your pants a little too.

Gas at the local Mobil over the weekend: $2.09
Gas at the local Mobil on Monday: $2.01 (Wild Mondays!)
Gas at the local Mobil today: $2.13

Gas at the local Hess on Monday: $1.92
Gas at the local Hess this morning: $1.96
Gas at the local Hess this afternoon: $1.99

If I hadn't just quadrupled my commute to work, it's almost enough to make you start walking...

Mrs. Dave and I just returned from a week in lovely sunny Florida. I'm sure she'll have a more cohesive and comprehensive summary of the week at some point, complete with photos, but other than the expected - a great two days at Disney (Animal Kingdom and the Magic Kingdom) and some decent Red Sox baseball (two games in Ft. Myers and one in Ft. Lauderdale) - we did have two unexpected happenings that made for quite a vacation.

The first was our means of transportation - because it was spring break week, and because we were going to Florida along with the rest of the Western world, it was damn near impossible to find a relatively cheap rental car, even as far back as January when we made the arrangements. Things were $70 a day and up, even for a compact car. So being the industrious, persistent person I am...I put it off for two months. Two weeks before we left, I tried again, and couldn't find anything under $90 a day. Oog. Finally I remembered that we had a USAA card that had gotten us discounts in the past and I gave it a shot...bingo. Well, not bingo - we ended up paying ~$50 a day as opposed to my parents paying $135 for the whole WEEK - but we had something that would cost us less than our plane tickets, at least.

Of course, at such a low price, comparatively, I imagined that we'd be driving something with three wheels, or perhaps the Fred Flintstone special that we'd be propelling with our feet for close to 800 miles (Ft. Lauderdale>Orlando>Ft. Myers>Ft. Lauderdale). But upon arriving at the counter and getting the slip for our car, I figured out that "Red Must" could only mean two things: either it was somehow both red AND mustard-colored...or we'd be driving a bitchin' red 2005 Ford Mustang (cue "Oh Yeah" from Ferris Bueller's Day Off). I loved driving it. It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up. A very satisfying growl from the muffler when you start it up, and it even garnered a few comments from parking lot attendants at the ballpark. Didn't matter that it was an automatic, or that it was a hardtop, or that the interior accessories had all of the charm of a phone booth...it was just cool going back to the parking lot after a game or after dinner and saying "Yup...that's MY car."

So that was the good. Now on to both the bad and the ugly.

After our second game in Ft. Myers was rained out in the 6th inning, we hopped in the car and headed east to meet friends for dinner. We were staying in Ft. Lauderdale, and since we were getting in early, we decided to freshen up before heading down to Miami. In the shower, I dropped the soap in the corner, and as I brought my head up after picking it up, WHAMMO, I smashed it into the soap dish that was cemented to the shower wall, about 5 feet off the floor. Fortunately for my head, it was hollow (the soap dish, not my head). At 6'3", I'm used to banging my head against stuff...but I'm not used to my head winning the battle. The thing absolutely shattered, and one of the pieces fell into my right palm, leaving a deep 3/4" gash just below my pinky. I wrapped it in a washcloth, got dressed rather awkwardly, and hobbled to the front desk to ask for some gauze and tape. While waiting in line, two businessmen came in behind me and overheard me telling the desk clerk what had transpired, and of course they had a good chuckle at my expense, commenting "Damn, and you weren't even drunk!" Unfortunately, all the clerk had were some large bandages, which weren't effective in the least at stanching the blood flow, so off we went to the hospital - and there went our dinner plans.

Mrs. Dave had the presence of mind to bring her camera, so she got some good shots of me in the waiting room (after the triage nurses had had their way with me...that's about 15 layers of gauze and some tape wrapped around it) and then post-op after the doctor (whose name, oddly, was a combination of our friend's fiancé's first name, and her last name!) put three stitches in. And here's a close-up of the hand (a caution to the queasy of stomach, some blood is visible). Close observers will note that I have on a fancy wristband complete with name, bar code, and even a little picture taken with a web camera as we were having our insurance info taken. Quite schmancy, and the woman who took our info was a riot, so that helped a bit as well. It actually didn't hurt much - it still doesn't - but the damn thing just wouldn't stop bleeding...

Except for that little episode, the vacation was quite relaxing - a little mini-golf at Disney on an INSANE course - that's Mrs. Dave all the way at the end. Another view of the hole - note there are no real walls to keep your ball in-bounds, and there are sand traps! On the plus side, you can really whale on the ball without overshooting the hole...

The baseball was fine if a little boring - I did manage to snap a picture of Jason Varitek chilling out by the batting cages in Ft. Myers, and V got a picture of a shirtless Johnny Damon chatting on his cell phone in the dugout runway before one of the games and another of Sammy Sosa goofing around with Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz and Edgar Renteria in the outfield during batting practice - but the games themselves weren't all that great. Papi dinged one off the top of the center-field barrier (410 feet away and ~20 feet high) in the 5th inning of our first game, but except for that inning they were mostly held scoreless and lost 5-4. The second game's highlight was Mrs. Dave getting her picture taken with V-tek in the background after reaching first, because David Wells got whacked around and the game ended in a 6-6 tie after 6 innings. The weather was beautiful for the last game, for which we got free seats thanks to V's insider connections. Another tie - 5-5 this time - but we did get an extra inning out of it, as they played 10 before calling it. Dinner the last night was at a quaint little restaurant called Cap's Place, which is on an island off of Lighthouse Point, and you need to take a boat to get to it. The place is pricey but the food was good and the atmosphere was certainly unique. It's supposedly the only place in the country where you can get a heart of palms salad - they've been outlawed but this place was grandfathered in, and they grow their own...but they were out of them that night. At least we got a nice view on the way there!

And now I'm in my office, looking out at the gray sky, drizzling rain and grit on the ground as the snow banks finally give up the ghost. I'm ready for summer...

I began my job in what is now referred to as "the old office" back in late 2001, a mere six months after OS X was unleashed upon the world. While the tech guy at the old office was an enthusiast of the latest hardware - he rolled up with a vanful of the newest iMacs shortly after I arrived, and replaced them with four iMac G4s a couple years later - we were stuck in the crash-prone OS 9 environment for the duration of our 3.5 years there. I finally got sick of it and started using the OS X on my new machine, and converted one other co-worker over to it (who had also gotten tired of Quark and Word hanging on him), but for the most part we were OS 9 creatures.

After years in the Dark Ages, and after our move to the new location, I finally convinced my boss to convert the entire office over to Mac OS X. This also necessitated us upgrading to the most recent version of Microsoft Office, which everyone is now using. However, after a week of using Word and Entourage, their new little quirks are already driving me absolutely bananas.

Let me first preface everything by saying that I am a keyboard-based person. I prefer not to use the mouse unless absolutely necessary, so I'm always using hotkeys like Cmd-Tab to flip through applications (you PeeCee users can do the same thing with Ctrl-Tab, in case you have a similar mousal aversion). Well, my business - publishing - involves great amounts of word processing and email-writing, so I've taken to using liberal amounts of keyboard navigation shortcuts to move quickly around a page, document or email.

In the old version of Word, you could jump ahead one word in a sentence by using either Option-Right Arrow or Cmd-Right Arrow (aka Apple-Right Arrow). I tended to use Cmd-Right Arrow because a) it's a bigger button, and b) it's a more natural place for my thumb to go without contorting itself. But suddenly, in the wonder that is Word 2004, Cmd-Right Arrow will ROCKET you to the end of a line - rather bothersome when you were just expecting to move four or five characters ahead.

But that's ok, I suppose - I can learn to adapt. Adding extra functions into a program is a natural progression, what's the point of having two key combinations that do the same thing?

Ah, but wait, there's more.

In Outlook Express, the pre-cursor to Entourage, Option-Right Arrow would jump you forward a word, while Cmd-Right Arrow would send you to the end of the line. You see where this is going, right? Some pencil-neck at Microsoft decided that the whole-line jumping was too useful, so now Cmd-Right Arrow and Option-Right Arrow do the exact same thing.

In other words, keyboard-based navigation in Entourage and Word are now the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they were before.

My brain hurts.

These are the things you think of while spending extra time in the car on your newly-longer commute to work...

Why is a moon described as a "crescent" if it's waning? The word "crescent" literally means "growing" - shouldn't a waning moon be a "decrescent"? And are non-identical female twins called fraternal twins or sororal twins? How about non-identical mixed-gender twins?

A recent radio ad said "If you're like most people, you spend most of your time at home in two rooms - the kitchen and the bathroom." Who are these people? Considering I spend seven-ish hours a night in my bedroom and another two to three hours at the computer or in front of the TV, that leaves precious time for me to be cooking/baking/washing dishes or...uh, doing other stuff. I mean, I enjoy a morning movement as much as the next person, but there's only so much time I can spend as a resident of Stankonia before I need to evacuate the premises.

Note to nobody in particular...if your boss has to tell you that popping bubble wrap for ten consecutive minutes is distracting to everyone in the office, that's not a good thing. TAKE NOTE.

"Heh. 'Office manager' my ass."

"Yeah...as in she 'manages' to make it to the 'office'..."

If this guitar wasn't so expensive
And I didn't need it night and day
It'd make a pretty good blunt object
To convince you to go away

--Mieka Pauley, "Blunt"

In talking to a friend recently, I figured out that I'd seen three different shows the last three Saturdays. First I saw rane at the Main Pub in Manchester, CT (download a copy here if interested), and then my friend Misha's band Amun Ra played up in Portsmouth, NH and he asked me to come out and tape. First time I've done it officially...pretty cool. Then I found out a couple weeks ago that Mieka Pauley, who we'd seen open for Edwin McCain and Blues Traveler last summer, was playing a co-bill at the Paradise Lounge with Toby Lightman (warning, Flash-o-rama ahead). Then next Saturday it's the John Butler Trio at the Paradise before we take a Saturday off to go to Florida for spring training...though we may trip down to Providence to see Marc Broussard, Aslyn and Will Hoge the day after we get back. Holy linkage, Batman. Then April gets nutty...but we'll deal with that then.

Amun Ra was definitely a different kind of music than I'm used to - kind of trippy organica, keys-bass-drums-guitar with a female vocalist. I had my doubts at first but after a few listens I'm coming around. Of course, the half-dozen listens come because my transfer woes are back...I can't seem to get a clean DAT transfer to hard drive over the last month or so. May be time to replace the 64MB RAM chips...

The Toby/Mieka show was very enjoyable - I'm surprised by how many female singer/songwriters I've seen over the last year or so...first Erin McKeown opening for Matt Nathanson - who I went back and saw again last April - then Aslyn opening for Bob Schneider, now these two. Toby was bluesier and edgier than I was expecting, and Mieka's voice was surprisingly powerful. The crowd was SILENT - a very captivating performer. I managed to get a great tape of both sets, as I got to set up right next to the center support column, and Mieka's manager even came by to ask for a copy of it before the show began. I'm glad I went; with Guster and Blues Traveler both in the studio writing albums, it's a bummer not to get to see them but new music is always exciting...

Well let's see
You want a disc for free
For your friend who works down
In the music industry
Well have your good friend Clive
Call my best friend Chuck
He works for Sallie Mae
You owe me fifteen bucks

The old TV cart is doing laps around the floor. Tea packets are strewn all over the kitchen table and nearby desks. Stacks of computer boxes are knocked over as they're converted into a jungle gym. Wall dividers are unstacked and used as ramps. A mad scientist is mixing up potions in the microwave.

EARTH TO BOSS: Allowing your child to play with office supplies and render them useless is not a good way to save money in the early stages of starting a new company.

Apparently in a decision reminiscent of the Bag Makers' Collective of North America opting to phase out the previously "normal" style of sealable plastic bags, the World Federation of Frozen and Boxed Seafood has decided that 2005 is the Year of the Refrigerated Breaded Fish Products. It's been a subtle ramping up of commercial awareness, but for those of you who start your hour-long shows 12 minutes late just so you can watch them and TiVo your way through the ads, no fewer than two (2) purveyors of pre-frozen, pre-processed pollock are currently assaulting the airwaves with their promotional onslaught.

While it may lack the panache and/or underhandedness of, say, Fox coming up with a pale and blatant ripoff of a show (ok, the entire programming slate) from another network, there's just something - dare I say, fishy? - about both Van de Kamp AND Gorton's launching ad campaigns at the same general time. And to think, I was unaware of just how heated and passionate the battle was for the American palate when it came to frozen fish sticks...