Disorderly Content

And I thought I was obsessive!

Way back in February I blogged about I Love My Mac, a song on the iTunes Store that expressed how we few, we proud feel about our computers. Which, I thought, would be the end of the story. And which shows how little I truly understand about obsession.

Flash forward to a couple of days ago, when I got an email from Daphne Kalfon, that selfsame Macoholic. It seems she isn't the only one to feel that way, or to want to put those feelings to music. On Daphne's website there are now versions of I Love My Mac in Swedish, Italian, Swiss German (which I am told is sufficiently different from German German as to give native speakers of the latter heartburn) and Japanese. The story of the Japanese version, which you'll find on her site, is particularly entertaining, involving a singer who speaks no English, an initial translator whose bilingual skills weren't quite up to the task and an English speaker whose skills were. Mostly. It's a collaboration that could only happen in the Age of the Internet.

Oh, and Daphne had to tell me that she's extended her Apple obsession to that other object of desire, the iPod. Is having songs about an iPod on an iPod too meta? Or am I the only one who'd even ask the question?

Not the War on Christmas, but more of a difference in perspective.

I'm not big on Christmas, in the same way I don't get excited about Guy Fawkes. Put simply, it's not my holiday, although I'm happy enough to have the day off and wouldn't for a second begrudge a believer his or her right to celebrate. But occasionally amid the holiday schmaltz one runs into something so cool that even a nonbeliever like me is entranced. Thanks to TV Squad for linking to this video of voice actors performing the classic Night Before Christmas. If you don't care for the poem, it's fun just for the chance to play Hey, Who's That Guy?

In the spirit of the season, I have to thank the folks at Boing Boing for turning me on to Panda Smash, and their minor key renditions of traditional Christmas carols. I like 'em so much better this way...

I'm a huge fan of retro entertainment, especially when it knows how to laugh at itself. Which may explain why I so love Decoder Ring Theatre, purveyor of fine radio adventures to the podosphere. And why, when they recommend some other creative endeavor, my usual suspicions that I'm being send astray don't kick in right away. Hence my viewing of the first episode of Smash Moron: Intergalactic Dolt, and my willingness to pass on the recommendation even before watching episode two. Heck, it's only a minute and a half of your life. And surely you can spare that much.

I drove back from my Vegas adventure on Monday, and had to turn around immediately (okay, early Tuesday morning) to fly to Seattle for work. After worrying about driving through northern Arizona and southern Utah in almost-winter, how ironic to have weather related problems in San Jose? But it's twoo: our 6:30 AM flight was delayed almost two hours due to ice on the wings. It seems the deicing crew doesn't show up until between 6:45 and 7, after which we had to wait our turn. Just as well my other colleagues were all scheduled to arrive later, so we all got to the customer on time.

The return was rather a challenge as well, albeit for different reasons. A combination of bad weather and wholly inadequate roads had me crawling and parking all the way from Redmond back to Sea-Tac; it took two hours to go all of 25 miles. Good thing my colleague's flight was delayed a couple of hours. And mine? Well, that was already scheduled to just make the San Jose Airport curfew. Which it did. Barely.

Coulda been worse, though. Those poor Denver travelers...

I'm on another road trip, burning the last of my vacation before my employer's "use it or lose it" policy kicks in. The last leg of the trip starts tomorrow, when I arrive in Las Vegas to meet up with some of my Scaper friends for a few days of eating, drinking and maybe a wee bit of gambling. Although I've already had my flutter at the casino, thank you very much. Dropped a whole five dollars into a slot machine in Laughlin, Nevada, played twenty cents at a time and somehow managed to win a nice little bonus game. Not life changing money, but more than enough to pay for the trip.

After Laughlin I headed east to Flagstaff and then north to the little town of Page, Arizona. Page is a young city; in fact, I out-age it by a couple of years. It's home to Glen Canyon Dam, which turned a chunk of the Colorado into Lake Powell. I imagine it's a mob scene in season, but in cold weather (like now) it's nice and low key. And to show you how my good luck isn't confined to the slots, I showed up at the dam's visitor center at 8:27 in the ayem and discovered to my surprise that they had one of their four-a-day tours starting just three minutes later. Just me and the guide. Doesn't get much better than that.

This morning I drove from Page to St. George, Utah, my last stop before Vegas. It's a nice drive that goes through Zion National Park. A beautiful place in winter; not at all crowded and, as long as you watch out for ice, pretty easy driving. And tonight I finally caught up with Casino Royale, the best Bond since early Connery. Heck, maybe even better than that. Although I'd have enjoyed it more with a crowd; on a Tuesday night in a quiet place like St. George, I practically had the place to myself!

Anyway, lots of pictures. Including some wildlife: longhorn cattle, buffalo, wild deer. I even saw an honest-to-Washington bald eagle, although sadly he was long gone before I could stop the car and get out my camera. Still, quite a thrill.

Sad thing about vacations: they end. But that's still days away...

I have another road trip coming up, built around a Scaper gathering in Vegas. It's my last chance to burn my remaining vacation time, before my employer's "use it or lose it" policy kicks in. So when I was asked to schedule a meeting in Los Angeles the day before I was to be off, I took advantage of the timing and planned to drive down, have the meeting and then start the vacation trip.

So off I set to Orbitz to find hotels for an extra couple of nights. And there things might have stood, had the customer not cancelled the meeting. With nothing else calling me to L.A., I went back to cancel the hotel rooms. Pretty straightforward, or so I would have thought.

It wasn't until the next day that I looked at the two emails Orbitz sent regarding the cancellations and discovered that one of them was for the wrong hotel. I went immediately to the site, verified that they still had the reservation I wanted gone and had cancelled one I still wanted and went back in to try again. Only to discover that they had yet again cancelled the wrong hotel!

Now I was starting to get upset, especially out of concern that one more attempt would lose me my Vegas reservation. And that one was at a rate I wasn't likely to find again. So I got on the phone with Orbitz's customer service, who cancelled the right reservation. And then I went back to re-reserve the two hotels they'd unreserved on me.

Of course, now I have to wonder if they'll see the multiple reservations and the cancellations and come up with the wrong conclusion. Who says vacations are relaxing?

Next time, Travelocity. Definitely.

According to QuoteDB, I have Ben Franklin to thank for that remark, which is about how the most trivial things can magnify to dramatic outcomes. Not so dramatic, at least not for you, gentle reader, but relevant, I think. Here's the story:

I've been having intermittent problems with my DSL, especially what seemed to be DNS lookups taking forever. And then a couple of days ago my modem lost its connection, took forever to get it back and, even when it did, lost it repeatedly a while later. I finally talked to Earthlink, who agreed to put in a call to Covad, the DSL provider. Except that things suddenly worked again right around the time I got through. Frustrating.

But what was really frustrating was the debugging. I'd disconnect and reconnect the phone line, reset the modem, then have to reset or sometimes even power cycle my router. And eventually I'd hit the magic combination that got my service working again. No rhyme or reason, or so I thought. Until I suddenly noticed that the teeny modular connector on my splitter (the thing that let me plug my DSL modem and my phone cable into the same socket) had a broken clip. Which would explain my intermittent service, especially with the current cold weather and the way my apartment's heat keeps changing the room's temperature from too cold to too hot.

Aha! So I raced off to Fry's at 8pm, not remembering when they closed (9 as it turns out), to get a replacement. Got two, just in case. Raced home, only to find out that I'd gotten the wrong kind of splitter! These were for two-line phone setups, not to split a single line. Fortunately, I had another splitter I was using to connect my fax/copier/printer to the phone line. So I sacrificed my faxing ability to get my computer and phone back. Reset the modem and router one last time. And so far, so good.

And now I wonder how long that little clip's been broken. And how much unjustified anger I've felt toward Covad's unreliable service. Which wasn't unreliable at all, I now suspect. So, even though I never said anything, I'm really sorry for doubting you. I promise I'll do better, at least until the next time I draw completely erroneous conclusions from incomplete data.