Nothing of Consequence

Mass Transit is kinda a joke here in Indianapolis.  While we used to have a surface rail system among the best in the country (thanks Big 3 for changing that), we’re now home to a bus system that sucks beyond belief.  There is a point to point monorail between hospitals downtown, but it’s more window dressing than anything else.

There’s roumors of a commuter rail line going between Noblesville and Indianapolis, but I won’t believe it until it gets built.

In the meantime, this wonderful city continues to get too big for its britches with things like the 2012 Super Bowl and other major events.  Sure we can handle the Super Bowl and NCAA Final 4, but the fact is we’re never going to get any more important on the national and international level that until we have a viable public transit system.

Then I read that Indianapolis is the 4th least walkable city in the country.  This is according to “Walk Score” (TreeHugger via WalkScore).

Am I surprised? No. Are there any signs of change? No.

Neither our mayor or governor seem to give attention to the notion of proper planning or mass transit despite the fact that it’s a common denominator of all the major cities domestically, or even minor ones internationally speaking.

We’re behind the times.

It’s a weird time of late.

Work has been increasingly strange in many aspects. There have been two departures changing how things usually got done. This along with getting slammed the past two weeks. DVD… Kiosk… Web video…11 posters… and some odds and ends thrown in for good measure. Sometimes frustrating, sometimes gratifying, but more stressful than I’m used to.  Oh well… I’ve been told that’s just the way most careers are no matter where you are.

It’s also right smack in the midst of the mid-summer birthday and barbecue season, which is fun - but weekends have a tendency to fly by…

I’m looking forward to the little jaunt out to Maine in August. It’s our first time back since the wedding.

I’ve been keeping up on news, but nothing has really grabbed me to go beyond a twitter post.

Then there was Batman this past weekend.  Boy, it is a good one.  I’m not sure it lived up to my total expectations (which were too high probably), but it sure was by far the best comic-based movie I’ve seen. I think it’s because the story was more mature in its themes and development, but still very much true to what we want out of a comic movie.

So it’s another post from the BlackBerry. Only because the power is out in the house.

The power company told me that it’d be restored by 9:32, but that clearly didn’t happen.

It’s weird being this unplugged. Not having internet or mobile phone is desired from time to time, but this is a little much for me. It mostly reminds me that I need a new book to read. Or pull out one of the old biggies to finish (aka Shadow by Bob Woodward).

So I guess we’ll see if sleep is in the cards or not.

after waking up and not being able to get back to sleep, I turned to the the tele… first it was some episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent with Bronson Pinchot (Balki) in it…

Then I turned to Underdog the movie. and boy was it absolutely horrible. Not just any kind of horrible, either. Let’s just say it’s easily the worst dog-based James Belushi movie.  Shame on you Jason Lee and anyone associated with that movie.

This is kind of a test, kind of a post… I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to post from the included browser on the BlackBerry… If this posting works, then it works…

Otherwise, I’ve been doing some twittering and posting directly to flickr from here… Here’ to hoping this also works.

Just plugging away at work on a number of projects on this day that I have a case of the Monday’s.  I’ve got a lot of work done in the first few hours until I hit the wall of not being able to do anything without the input of the higher-ups. I’ve already listened to, but not really paid attention to, DiggNation, Webb Alert, last week’s This Week in Media, and I’ve now gotten to the current This Week in Tech.

Boy.   There’s an hour and 15 minutes left, and I’m not sure I can make it through.  Why, because listening to one of the guests is really hard.  Sure he may be a decent guest on this specific show, but like Diane Rehm on NPR, listening to Jerry Pournelle’s voice makes me want to gauge my eyes and ears out to experience their respective shows in a better and more peaceful way.

I know it’s mean and insensitive to say such things about Rehm and Pournelle, both radio and audio podcasts require a voice that doesn’t frustrate people into not wanting to listen.

So as a friend brought to my attention over the weekend, and as I read later that day on Gizmodo, there’s a Knight Rider themed GPS unit coming out from the manufacturer Mio.   The original post is HERE, and the most recent post with video is HERE.

A site that I’ve been hugely addicted for a few months is www.fffound.com - which is an image aggregation site catering to more “artistic” images, and it also makes suggestions on other images.  It’s still in beta, but I came across this image…

It’s from the film production seeking to further the ruining of my childhood - GI Joe.  It’s slated for release in August 2009, but already in post production. Wasn’t the cartoon with Don Johnson and Sgt. Slaughter enough? The cast on this new interpretation seems quite intriguing… Here’s the cast that gives me reason to raise an eyebrow for one reason or another: Brendon Fraser, Sienna Miller, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dennis Quaid, and Marlon Wayans.  I was very happy to see Ray Park cast as Snake Eyes (the character in the picture). Then there’s Jonathan Pryce, who is famous for his British accent here in the states (aka when he was the Infinity spokesperson, will be portraying the President of the USA. Maybe it’ll be payback for the Kevin Costner accent in Prince of Theives - or maybe payback for Kevin Costner in general.

In case you didn’t know, FireFox3 is out. As a Mac user, it’s much more stable for me so far. Download it HERE. They established a record last week by getting 8-million people to download it in a single 24-hour day.

Had some fun with ring tones on the CrackBerry (very easy process if you’re so inclined).  It’s so nice when a phone company doesn’t intentionally lock everything down (yeah, I’m talking to you Verizon). Now if I could just find someone worthy of the Airplane quote “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines” as a ring tone.

I needed this today…

Embedding video from this site is not WordPress friendly… So check the link fool…

So monday June 9th, I was celebrating the birthday’s of my sister and half-brother by spending a few hours in the local Apple store.  Why would I do such a thing?  Because the Apple World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) was going through it’s keynote speech where they outline new products to come to market - most of which are usually available for purchase immediately after the speech is done.

I’m sure you can guess it, I was waiting for the second generation iPhone.  However, I didn’t get one then because it wasn’t released…  and I won’t get one in July because Apple pissed me off.

Before I get to why I’m pissed, there the whole reason why I was there.  iPhone shortages began popping up worldwide sometime in May.  The tech reporting world was very much buzzing about what was going to be included in the new iPhone which would probably be announced on the 9th of June at the WWDC.  The shortages increased to the point where you couldn’t buy an iPhone from Apple’s site.  So it’s logical to assume that not only would the new one would be announced, but that it would be immediately available.  WRONG!  Those of us who like Apple enough to go to the store to buy the new phone were rewarded with the announcement that it would become available on the 11th of July.  So in many markets there will be between 1 and 2 months of zero iPhone sales for Apple - which is about one of the stupidest things I’ve head in awhile.  Maybe they’re taking a hint from the automakers in hybrid production.

Anyway, so the big news about the iPhone that I didn’t get was the drop in price as long as there’s a 2-year initial contract to go along with it.  The caveat being that there would be changes in the plan.  So for myself, it would cost me more over the term of a 2-year contract to buy the new iPhone at the lower initial cost than if I would have bought the outrageously expensive one last year which has a more reasonable plan price.

I was annoyed.  In a way I’m glad they are retarded in terms of their inventory control, or else I would have ended up with one on the 9th of June and paid more over time.

So what did I do with my annoyance?  Went and joined the CrackBerry army on T-Mobile (Blackberry Curve, or 8320).  The picture above is one of the first images I took to make into my current screen background.  Sure, I may not be able to browse as good as the iPhone or have that social status that seems to exude from iPhone owners - but I can do everything I set out to do and type a much easier.

Soon I’ll figure out how to blog from this thing…  I have started a new set in Flickr for the images I take from the phone and can send directly to my Flickr account (it’s a handy feature that I’m liking)… It’s also a phone that makes it easy to make your own ring tones unlike anything from Verizon or the iPhone. In short, I’m liking the CrackBerry…

Sorry Apple, I was rooting for you.  But it’s your own fault.  Don’t worry though, there’s gonna be enough suckers on the 11th blinded by the lower price.