This isn’t happening
As fate would have it, my returned PowerBook’s screen, while relieved of its white spots, has a yellow pixel line spanning from top to bottom on the right-hand side, and another “clear” line spanning from left to right near the top. You heard right, they sent me a broken replacement screen! It’s just my luck. This means that I have to go through the entire repair process again: call Apple, complain, wait for the box to get here, send the PowerBook away, wait 7-10 business days to get it back. To summarize, I will be without my PowerBook for the entire break and probably won’t have it back before school starts! Fuck!
Now, I understand that this could have happened anywhere along the shipping path, and surely they didn’t send it off with the very apparent lines running through the screen, but none of that helps to quiet my anger. Bleh.
Expanded archives
I’ve received a few requests from people wanting me to create a way for them to be able to read the archived entries more easily. I decided to keep the single list of entries, but added the option of reading through the entries by month (something that MT makes rather simple). If you check the archives section, you will now see the individual and monthly links — and yes, everything is future-proofed.
She’s a flight risk
As usual, when I’m back at my Dad’s house, I spend a lot of time reading through the magazines he has saved for me since the last time I was home. Yesterday I was reading the October Esquire (one of the best issues ever actually) and came upon an article that I absolutely could not put down. The author opens with:
The story you are about to read is true. It involves a fugitive heiress, guns, money, and layers of Internet intimacy and deception. It is a mystery that takes place at the edge of technology. And it is unlike anything you’ve ever read before.
It is pointless for me to try to describe the story here; you should read it. What really bugged me out about the whole thing is that I hadn’t heard of it before — it seems rather odd that I wouldn’t have come across it through my incessant internet-news-reading habits. Perhaps I did and blew it off. Either way, the story has its tentacles around me now and I plan to read this girl’s entire weblog from start to present. If your interest has been piqued, you should first read the article to get a feel for what’s going on, and then dive into the actual weblog (I just realized that her last entry was in October, the same month that the Esquire article broke). As the author of the Esquire story points out, this could all be an elaborate hoax, and probably is, but the more I read, the more I believe — I’m hooked regardless. [I found a May article from Wired which discusses the Isabella v. phenomenon, but keep in mind that that this article is about eight months old and came out well before the Esquire guy got the interview with Isabella]
Rolling Stone for life
In what I hope will become the trend throughout the magazine industry, Rolling Stone is offering a lifetime subscription for $99! I’m assuming that this also includes a lifetime membership to their online site, though this isn’t discussed anywhere on the sign-up sheet. Either way, it’s an absolute steal — a one-year subscription alone is over $100. Given my affinity for all things music, Rolling Stone is one of my favorite magazines and one that I have been reading for as long as I can remember. If you are considering taking them up on this offer, you might be interested to know that the magazine is published every two weeks, not once a month.
Note to American Airlines
When you announce that the flight time from Dallas to Orlando will be 2 hours and 5 minutes, don’t then tell us that the in-flight movie will be Seabiscuit, which I swore to the kid sitting next to me was more than 2 hours and 5 minutes. I was right, and the movie got cut off with at least 20 minutes remaining. While I had already seen it, most of the people around me hadn’t and were obviously perturbed.
And one more thing, you would do well not to call a granola bar, a cup of blueberry yogurt, and a package of raisins, a “gourmet” breakfast (unless of course you laugh slightly or say it with undeniable sarcasm).
An eventful day
Yesterday was quite eventful. A friend of mine from California, who knows the area well, invited me to checkout some of the sights in Monterey, Carmel, and Big Sur — rumored to be the greatest stretch of coastline in the world. I can’t disagree. It was b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l. I got tons of pictures and plan to put some up as soon as I get my PowerBook back. Before hitting up the coastline, we headed to the Monterey Bay Aquarium — one of the top aquariums in the world. It was obviously my first time and I absolutely loved it. I managed to get some decent pics from the aquarium (most of it was way too dark to take pictures) and I’ll put them up along with the coastline shots.
We had a great lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., but I’m afraid that I got some sort of food poisoning from the place as I ended up getting extremely sick on the way home last night. I was violently ill; I threw up a few times and my stomach felt like it was being ripped open. This lasted well into the night. Thankfully, after approximately 13 hours of sleep, which I’ve never done on my own (read: without alcohol), I feel much better.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to replying to the large e-mail queue. “Your e-mail will be answered in the order it was received.” :)
A difficult parting
My new PowerBook was sent off earlier today to have its screen, which has fallen victim to the notorious white spots, replaced. Though I’d like to talk about how it feels to have to part with my ‘baby,’ I know I could not compare to Tom Coate’s heartfelt description, and so I’ll let his pain speak for mine:
And so with a deep sigh I have consigned my beautiful Powerbook (which has been with me such a very little time) back to the welcoming arms of Mother Apple. My child needs to be fixed. The strange mottling blotchiness of his screen had become worse and worse as the days passed by until they resembled nothing so much as a pair of staring blank eyes - evil eyes - that hovered in front of every piece of work I did, every movie I watched, every e-mail I sent. It’s so difficult with beautiful computers - you love them (like a child), training and working with them until you operate as one (like a family) until eventually they betray you (like a child all over again). But when they turn sour that good feeling stays with you for longer - it’s so difficult to do what must be done but do it you must. They must be sent off to faraway scientists who’ll open them up with strange devices, rooting around in everything that makes them what they are and forcing their silicon biology back to standards that their parents can live with. They must be brought back to civilised behaviour whatever the cost.
Data may be lost - I accept that. The Powerbook that I gave to the rather nice-looking man from UPS may not feel or be quite the same when it returns. It will have been changed, fixed, broken and reformed. But when it returns it will work - and work it must - for I have typing to do.
Comes and goes
I’m comin’ ’round to open the blinds
You can’t hide here any longer
My God you need to rinse those puffy eyes
You can’t last here any longer
And yes they’ll ask you where you’ve been
And you’ll have to tell them again and again
And you probably don’t want to hear tomorrow’s another day
Well I promise you you’ll see the sun again
And you’re asking me why pain’s the only way to happiness
And I promise you you’ll see the sun again
Come on take my hand
We’re going for a walk, I know you can
You can wear anything as long as it’s not black
Please don’t mourn forever
She’s not coming back
From Dido’s See the Sun
Corporate survivor
I’m suddenly reminded of the feeling I had three days into my internship at Nortel where they let go of 80% of the division I had just begun working for.
