Category Archives: Radio

Now this, THIS is scrobbling: Clementine and Last.fm and Streaming radio just plain work.

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On a whim, I looked once again to see if there’s a way to set WinAmp up to “scrobble” streaming radio, and it appears not… but one word at the Last.fm support site said simply “clementine” and that seems to do the job nicely. Built in support for Last.fm, Grooveshark, Spotify, and a few other services. There’s a ton of Internet radio stations to explore, and it’s relatively simple to set up playlists with my favorite Radio Riel streams, plus stations I’ve encountered on trips and local stations too.

The Last.fm feed is put into my sidebar using a plugin called WPLast.fm – it’ll pick up oddities like on-air ads and station IDs, and some songs miss the feed but are visible at my Last.fm page

I’ll try to move the political stuff and noise elsewhere. I can’t blog during the workday – that goes without saying. But I can certainly have music playing. I’ve moved some of the “stats” stuff to the About page, which could use some work but it clears up some white space on the main page and post pages.

Clementine runs well on the old laptop, it’ll get installed on the main desktop machine too, so that when I’m online in the evenings, I can listen to whatever I want and scrobble tracks.

Still need to carve some time out to upload a few batches of photos to Flickr from the last 2 trips. More later.

Fran Lebowitz On Q With Jian Ghomeshi: Not David Sedaris

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I spend a lot of time listening to radio via WinAmp over headphones while goofing around on my computer at home. I happened to tune in to WBEZ and caught the last few minutes of an interview between CBC Q’s Jian Ghomeshi and somebody that sounded a lot like a very peevish David Sedaris. However, the conversation was all about the lack of manners shown by Americans in everyday life, and the voice and accent didn’t quite have the languid edginess of Sedaris’.

How surprising to find that it was actually Fran Lebowitz speaking. She approves of cigarette smoking, but it’s done a number on her voice (and skin – she reminds me a bit of Geoffrey Rush). I enjoyed her discourse with Ghomeshi on the irritating things Americans do in public, like eating, or speaking too loudly, or letting their children run wild and uncorrected. I call this behavior “The World Is My Living Room.” It’s something I really hate in places where relative quiet is called for, like a movie theater, art gallery, or fine restaurant.

My family-by-marriage is loud… really loud when we gather together. We’re quieter in restaurants – not louder than anyone around us (though when it’s the whole clan, with the moieties together, it’s really best to put us in a private room).

On trips to England, I was struck by how very, very quiet dining rooms were in the better sort of restaurants (ie., not pubs, and with tablecloths and carpeting). After I pointed out the relative difference in sound levels to David, we tried speaking in very low tones, or at least matching the level the waiter or waitress used. And we were quietly amused and a little horrified when we realized we could pick out all the Americans in the room, just by the, well, braying sounds above the background noise.

If I ever encountered Ms. Lebowitz somewhere (unlikely, as we’re probably not headed to New York anytime soon) I’d hope we wouldn’t offend her by being noisy, or eating in public, or talking on cell phones. Texting, apparently, is fine, because it’s silent. She really doesn’t care what anyone does, as long as it doesn’t bother her. However, many things other people do bother her, such as coming to New York and making it too crowded. You could hear Ghomeshi trying and mostly failing to stifle laughter; she really has a way with a good rant.

If I did encounter her, I wouldn’t be able to get close enough to risk offending her. I just wouldn’t be able to breathe; she’s reportedly still a very heavy smoker.

Still, her commentary was enjoyable in a “really blows your hair back” kind of way, and I found myself agreeing with her stance more than not. She may be tetchy, she may be crotchety, but she’s got a point: most Americans have no manners, and no sense of proper behavior in public. And it’s all the fault of… McDonald’s and other fast food places, apparently.

It appears that the interview may be heard on the CBC website.

Thank you for reading this post.

/me waits patiently for a simple “You’re welcome.”

The latest in our quest to redesign America — author, humourist and public speaker Fran Lebowitz on American manners.

Never afraid to share her firm and unswerving opinions, The Paris Review once noted that she disapproves of "virtually everything except sleep, cigarette smoking, and good furniture." From eating and chewing gum in public to being in "a world of one’s own" while walking down the street, Fran had a lot to say about what she sees as bad manners.

via Fran Lebowitz takes on American manners | Q with Jian Ghomeshi | CBC Radio

Listening to The Zombies On World Cafe : NPR

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I had no idea that some of the original members of classic 60′s group The Zombies were playing together again, but I happened upon a repeat of the World Cafe show where they sang some songs from their new album, accompanied by piano. And then they sang their classic, it’s a rough version but live, live, live.

Actually, there’s something about their voices that reminds me a lot of much more contemporary groups, they’ve still got a compelling sound.

In today’s World Cafe session, Argent tells the story of his attempt to meet his idol, Elvis Presley, in 1965 by visiting Presley’s Memphis home — and the surprise he received when he got there. Later, Blunstone describes recording the famous Odessey and Oracle at Abbey Road immediately after the Beatles finished Sgt. Pepper’s; the Zombies even used some of the same instruments, like the Mellotron. Finally, Argent and Blunstone perform two new songs off Breathe Out, Breathe In before treating us to a rendition of the classic “She’s Not There.”

via The Zombies On World Cafe : NPR

Dick Van Dyke Rules Vans and Dikes

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Just listened to @WaitWait with Dick Van Dyke, who totally rocked “Not My Job” with his comprehensive knowledge of vans and dikes. What a delight when he SANG the “Dick Van Dyke Show” jingle!

Still testing WooTumblr – David DOES need to edit the tags in the theme so that it picks up photos, links, and so on. I’m adding a link via the RTF buttons in the normal Article function this time.

Also, the time stamp is not updating.

UPDATE: And the link did not work either. No point in testing further until David gets a chance to update the templates with the WooTumbler tags.

Daniel Schorr -30-

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Of all the many tributes and stories remembering the life and career of Dan Schorr, Scott Simon’s was the one that that moved me most. Schorr wasn’t a teddy bear; he pissed presidents and premiers off, as well as colleagues, columnists, and Congressmen.

NPR’s Scott Simon Remembers Daniel Schorr : NPR

No other journalist in memory saw as much history as Daniel Schorr.

He was born the year before the Russian Revolution and lived to see the Digital Revolution. He was there before the Berlin Wall went up and there a generation later when it came down. He was born before people had radio in their homes but pioneered the use of radio, television, satellites and then the Web to report the news.

How many people were personal acquaintances of Edward R. Murrow, Nikita Khrushchev, Frank Zappa and Richard Nixon?

For all the history that he reported, Dan Schorr will always be remembered for the moment he stood before live television cameras in 1974 with a breaking bulletin about a list of enemies compiled by the White House.

Schorr began to read the names. One of them was his own. “The note here is, ‘A real media enemy,’” he read, before continuing through the list.

“What went through my mind was, ‘Don’t lose your cool. Be professional,’” he said years later.

Schorr’s career is detailed, including the infamous story of how he allowed his old bosses at CBS think for a time that Lesley Stahl had actually leaked some Congressional documents to the “left-leaning” Village Voice. He gives his side of it, most notably in a quoted interview with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes. Other stories note the incident, showing that there were some people at CBS’ Washington bureau who maybe never forgave him for it.

There’s more about the Nixon enemies’ list by another LA Times/AP writer that added a few nice quotes by surviving elder statesmen of journalism Bill Moyers and Bob Schieffer (the latter of “Face the Nation”).

Daniel Schorr’s path through the news business began in print, then led to almost three decades in television with CBS News and the fledgling cable network CNN.

By the time of his death, he was best known as a longtime senior news analyst and liberal commentator on National Public Radio. He also wrote several books, including his memoir, “Staying Tuned: A Life in Journalism.”

Bill Moyers, who like Schorr had stints at CBS News and in public broadcasting, said Schorr was a model of integrity.

“At NPR, he exemplified the very best of public broadcasting by refusing to be intimidated by either official funders or partisan thugs who besieged the brass in protest of his honest reporting,” Moyers wrote Friday in an e-mail. “With razor-sharp wit, personal courage, and love of our craft, he distinguished himself and journalism.”

CBS “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer said if not for Schorr, he doesn’t know what reporters would have done to get stories about Watergate. “When Watergate came along, he kept us in the game,” Schieffer said.

“He was a model for us all,” Schieffer said. “I’ve never seen anybody who just enjoyed reporting a story as much as he did. He just loved it.”

Schorr reported from Moscow, Havana, Bonn, Germany and many other cities as a foreign correspondent. While at CBS, he brought Americans the first-ever exclusive television interview with a Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, in 1957.

During the Nixon years, Schorr not only covered the news as CBS’ chief Watergate correspondent, but he also became part of the story. Hoping to beat the competition, he rushed to the air with Nixon’s famous “enemies list” and began reading the list of 20 to viewers before previewing it. As he got to No. 17, he discovered his name.

“I remember that my first thought was that I must go on reading without any pause, or gasp or look of wild surmise,” he wrote in his book “Clearing the Air.”

Schorr’s stories pointing out weaknesses of the administration’s programs so angered Nixon that he ordered an FBI investigation of the reporter, on the pretext that he was being considered for a top federal job. That investigation was later mentioned in one of the three articles of impeachment — “abuse of a federal agency” — against Nixon.

In White House recordings from 1971, Nixon and Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman discuss a tax investigation of Schorr in the Oval Office.

“You take a fellow like this Dan Schorr, he’s — I notice — he is always creating something, isn’t he?” Nixon said.

“Oh … He incidentally is on — you don’t, shouldn’t get involved in this, but he’s on our tax list, too,” Haldeman said.

“Good,” Nixon replied.

“They’re going after a couple of media people,” Haldeman said. “They’re going after Dan Schorr and (Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Star columnist) Mary McGrory.”

“Good,” Nixon said again.

The recording was made available by the University of Virginia, which is transcribing and annotating the secret Nixon tapes.

He didn’t lose his cool when he read the enemies’ list with his name on it, and he was always a professional. In his final “Week in Review” with Scott Simon from July 7, you can hear that his voice is a little weak and Simon feeds him some some pretty obvious “tell us about that one time, Grandpa” questions about spies, but the answers are clear and detailed. We could only wish that our current crop of Junior Journos could have as firm a grasp of the facts as Schorr had, even in his final days.

I can’t imagine what he would have made of this week’s agonizingly stupid story of the fall of Shirley Sherrod, or how she was failed by a national press that’s become incapable of checking the most minor of facts (and in fact leaving it to bloggers to both make shit up, and debunk it). It seems like at a time in our history when we most need journalists to BE JOURNALISTS, they’ve completely forgotten how to get the story, and to get it right.

It’s a frightening time when blustering, blubbering bullies diagram insane conspiracy theories on tear-stained chalkboards and nobody bothers to fact-check them. Meanwhile, batshit-insane ex-con fanboys drink the full-strength Kool-Aid and literally swallow every damn stupid crazy fearmongering thing they’re told. They then feel free to load up on guns, ammo, and body armor before heading out to shoot up the ACLU and a community organization funded by (DUNH DUNH DUHHHHHNNNNNN!) neocon bogeyman George Soros.

George Who? Dan Schorr could have analyzed it for you, but here’s what Crooks and Liars detailed earlier today, complete with timelines showing what’s been bugging Beck recently, that can be connected to the “I-580 Shooter.”

Armed to the teeth, and as a third-striker, not particularly concerned with his fate, too:

When the officers tried to contact Williams, a 12-minute-long gun battle ensued. Williams, armed with three guns, including a .308-caliber rifle that can penetrate ballistic body armor and vehicles, eventually surrendered and exited the vehicle.

Williams was arraigned in Alameda County Superior Court Tuesday on four counts of attempted murder of a peace officer and being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. He received enhancements for wearing body armor. [Read more]

The Tides Foundation is George Soros’ philanthropic charity, and the ACLU is, well, the ACLU. I wonder, what would cause an unstable, bitter angry man to target the ACLU and the Tides Foundation? I wonder…

Here are some recent headlines from top right wing sites. I won’t link them or quote them, but let’s see what they say.

* July 19, 2010: FoxNation: Soros-Funded Group Wants Feds to Probe Talk Radio
* July 21, 2010: Big Journalism: There You Go Again: Soros Comes to America
* June 23, 2010: Soros Says Germany Could Cause Euro Collapse – FOXBusiness.com
* June 22, 2010: ‘Glenn Beck:’ Soros Poised to Profit? – Glenn Beck – FOXNews.com
* July 6, 2010: Oliver Stone Lunches With George Soros | The FOX

Why does the right wing, and particularly Fox, hate Soros so much? As far as I can tell, there’s no rational explanation. I did, however, find an irrational explanation on a weird, off-the-beaten path right wing blog.

Here’s a summary: George Soros is a foreigner who came from a “socialist country”, allegedly supports organizations promoting child molestation (he doesn’t), supported the Solidarity movement in Poland (he did), and donated money toward George Bush’s 2004 defeat (he did, but so did a lot of people).

Mostly, it’s irrational ginned up stupid fear of absolutely nothing. His name isn’t Koch, therefore he is evil. That’s as rational as anything.

More baffling, actually, is the ACLU. For all of those liberty lovers, the ACLU should be their very, very best friend, because the ACLU loves the constitution just as much as any true teabagger. So why do they hate the ACLU?

Here are some headlines:

* July 20, 2010: ACLU Wants Prayer Banner Expelled « FOX News Radio
* July 19, 2010: Black Hills Fox – ACLU warns of travel to Arizona
* September 10, 2009: Raw Story » Fox guest: ACLU defense teams should be jailed
* July 20, 2010: Judge OKs Lying About Military Service – Fox News, blaming the ACLU for bringing the lawsuit
* July 19, 2010: Beck: Does Presidential Assassination Program Exist? (Beck alleges the President could even assassinate the ACLU)

Not a week goes by without at least three stories about the ACLU threatening the frightened viewer’s freedom and liberty. Penis pumps for illegals? Fox News blames the ACLU. American Taliban lawyer going after Arizona’s immigration law? Blame the ACLU. Tourism down in Arizona? Blame the ACLU.

This is how these wingers operate. They make bogeymen out of anyone and any organization that doesn’t fall into lockstep with their thinking. And they just don’t care when some deranged fool takes their bloviation seriously, loads up the truck, puts on the body armor, and sets out on a mission to ‘start a revolution’.

And if he couldn’t start a revolution, well hey, he can shoot at some cops instead.

It ought to be criminal. There was a time where it was. Now it seems anyone can say anything and get away with it.

Glad that Crooks and Liars is there to call it out. Sad that Dan Schorr has filed his final story and won’t be analyzing this crazy week for us tomorrow with Scott Simon. I can only hope that Dan’s legacy for rigorous fact-checking and source-protecting will live on, perhaps in a new kind of news media.

As he started out in print, it seems best to end with the traditional journalist’s sign that the Dan Schorr story can be put to bed (go to print).

-30-

Cinnamon French Toast

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I’m off for the next couple of weeks, and today I’m out of the house, spending time at Panera while “the ladies” do their twice-monthly thing. It seems the clientele here this time of day is older than I’m used to seeing in the evenings, but there are plenty of people using laptops and taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi. One guy has a small monitor and full-size keyboard set up with a dock; pretty serious gear.

No doubt more than a few are unemployed or between jobs. Several are chatting with each other as if they’re regulars. Me, I’m just hoping to avoid the one chatterbox that seemed to be going from table to table asking people about mining disasters, as she seems to be both obsessed with the story from West Virginia, and a little loopy.

I’m set up with headphones so I can listen to NPR; currently connected to the KUNC.org website catching up on this morning’s news, as I slept through WBEZ’s broadcast for the most part.

Panera Bread › Recipes › Cinnamon Raisin French Toast

Cinnamon Raisin French Toast

Our Cinnamon Raisin bread makes fabulous French toast.
8 slices 1/2″ thick Panera® Cinnamon Raisin Bread
4 T. melted butter
3/4 c milk
1/2 c heavy cream
3 large eggs
1 T. honey
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt

1. For the French Toast custard, combine using a hand whisk the milk, heavy cream, eggs, honey, vanilla extract and the salt. This custard can be made well in advance. Give a brisk stir before making the toast.
2. Transfer the custard to a casserole or open shallow dish for dipping.
3. Dip one slice into the custard and turn over after about 15 seconds. Transfer the slice to a plate while dipping another slice into the custard.
4. Place a large skillet on a medium fire. Allow the pan to heat thoroughly before pouring 1 Tablespoon of the melted butter into the pan.
5. Place both slices carefully into the skillet and cook on each side until golden brown or about 2 minutes.
6. Repeat steps 3�5 until all the French toast is cooked.
7. An optional step is to place each finished French toast onto a baking sheet in a preheated oven until all are ready to serve.

Serve warm with real maple syrup. Serves 4.

So Glad We Had This Time Together

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…woke up to the sound of Carol Burnett’s voice on NPR this morning, which caused an instant and very pleasant flashback to our 70′s-era family/dining/TV room. Her variety show was always a favorite in our family, and even now I can remember many loud belly laughs caused by their particular brand of tongue-in-cheek sketch humor. We got hysterical most weeks watching that show; laughing helplessly at the famous “Went With The Wind” dress, but also at Tim Conway trying to close a door by sitting on its unusually large doorknb. Most of all, there was poor Harvey Korman, trying not to laugh and failing, every week.

It took forever to find a clip with most of the “doorknob” sketch on it; a nearly complete version of it was on a “Bust Ups and Bloopers” compilation DVD. The best part: Harvey pushes the door open with Tim still straddling the doorknob; his reaction is almost out of shot but you can see he wasn’t expecting the jolt he got.

Carol Burnett – Bust Ups, Bloopers & Blunders Finale HQ

Carol Burnett, Still Glad For ‘This Time Together’ : NPR

Carol Burnett was one of the original queens of TV comedy. Her long-running variety show, with its outrageous costumes and its uproariously unpredictable sketches, offered a warm brand of wackiness that parents would let their kids stay up late to watch. Now, in a new memoir, Burnett tells stories about what went on behind the scenes of The Carol Burnett Show — plus a few tales about what went down when she ventured out among the show’s fans.

The lingerie saleslady at Bergdorf Goodman, for instance, who cheerfully accepted a personal check without proper ID — but only after Burnett demonstrated her trademark Tarzan yell. Lacking options, needing stockings and seeing that the department wasn’t especially crowded, Burnett obliged.

“Right behind the saleslady, there was an exit door that burst open,” Burnett tells NPR’s Renee Montagne. “And in came a security guard with a gun pulled. I mean, we could have had our heads blown off.”

OMG, You’re Still Using AOL? Marketplace’s most popular story today

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… and I’ll be passing this along to my sister, who’s still using AOL and probably always will.

OMG, you’re still using AOL for e-mail? | Marketplace From American Public Media

Dalaise Michaelis: As soon as somebody says they are, you know, so-and-so at Earthlink.net or Hotmail.com, really it’s an “Oh My God” moment. Do you know what the Internet is? Yahoo is like, OK. And then if you’re G-mail, you’re like, I can take you seriously.

Vanek-Smith: What about AOL?

Michaelis: You said AOL? Oh wow, is it still around? I mean, Ican’t believe it’s still around.

Burt Flickinger: Had my AOL e-mail account for a little over 15 years.

Burt Flickinger is the managing director of the Strategic Resource Group. He tells retailers how to market things to young shoppers. What do clients say when he gives them his e-mail?

Burt Flickinger: When I give them an AOL email address, they say, I can’t believe you’re still on AOL. I say well, it’s simple, I have one of the original addresses with no numbers so it’s easier for you to type.

Endlessly Seeking The New New

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We are a globeful of dopamine addicts. We endlessly seek and never find the newest new thing.

Slate: Seeking

Seeking. You can’t stop doing it. Sometimes it feels as if the basic drives for food, sex, and sleep have been overridden by a new need for endless nuggets of electronic information. We are so insatiably curious that we gather data even if it gets us in trouble. Google searches are becoming a cause of mistrials as jurors, after hearing testimony, ignore judges’ instructions and go look up facts for themselves. We search for information we don’t even care about. Nina Shen Rastogi confessed in Double X, “My boyfriend has threatened to break up with me if I keep whipping out my iPhone to look up random facts about celebrities when we’re out to dinner.” We reach the point that we wonder about our sanity. Virginia Heffernan in the New York Times said she became so obsessed with Twitter posts about the Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest that she spent days “refreshing my search like a drugged monkey.”

We actually resemble nothing so much as those legendary lab rats that endlessly pressed a lever to give themselves a little electrical jolt to the brain. While we tap, tap away at our search engines, it appears we are stimulating the same system in our brains that scientists accidentally discovered more than 50 years ago when probing rat skulls.

After mulling that over from yesterday, as I trudged upstairs scrolling through my Google Reader feed and Twitter feeds (real, virtual, and feline) on the iPhone 3GS that’s become grafted to my body, I thought about how I’d spent the evening. I was in Second Life, watching a live webcast from the Netroots Nation convention in Pittsburgh in a separate screen as I sat “inworld” chatting with fellow travelers in both open and private channels. At the same time, I was going through some recent images I took on SL, deleting the culls and uploading the keepers to my avatar’s Flickr stream (which I keep separate from “real” photos on my “real” Flickr stream). Also simultaneously with this, while waiting for former Pres. Clinton to make the keynote address, I was listening to a music channel in the background, while listening to other speakers make their points for progressive change from the “netroots.” This music was either Internet radio playing in WinAmp, or a live musician singing blues standards “inworld” before somebody else was supposed to appear in a streamed audio chat (this was supposed to be the founder of Daily Kos, but there were technical issues).

As I noted all the things I was multitasking in public chat, I quipped “…too much?”

Came back the reply, “Not until you crash.”

So I thought about that after Second Life inevitably crashed on me, probably due to so many people then in attendance at both Netroots in Second Life, and SL’s own annual conference in San Francisco logging in to tell all their friends what well-known “avatarbrities” (I just totally made that up) look like in real life after the panel discussions were over.

Then, after work was over, I walked to the elevator reading my feed, read it on the way down, read it in a downstairs loo, read it walking out to the car, and read it in the car waiting for the air conditioning to cool off the interior. And shared, and shared, and shared. Because I had stuff, you see, stuff that I had read and approved of that other people might like to see, because it was new stuff to them. And then I ran across something that made me stop and actually slow down and think about what I was reading, rather than merely consuming in “speed-read” mode (I am a fast reader, and also I have always had a tendency towards hyperfocus).

As a recovering former Utahn, I keep an eye on anything counter-cultural coming out of Zion, which is why I happen to have Salt Lake’s entertaining City Weekly blog in my feed:

Exurbia Recast

A design competition tries to reinvent the suburban wasteland with flying ships and big box gardens. What they really need is as simple as a gin and tonic.

Big house. Vinyl siding. Manicured lawn. Two-car garage, maybe three. Backyards to hide from neighbors. Faux brick front.

Pavement for miles. Parking lots. Stores with acreage of stuff. Stuff to eat, stuff to build, stuff to consume, stuff to waste.

Work in the city. Drive on the interstate. Eat in the chain. Home. Rinse. Repeat.

Suburbia spreads like bindweed, one interconnected, land-swallowing swath of humanity. Beige blooms in the brown desert while its denizens stare at high-definition television shows about life in paradise. They bought their homes to live the American Dream, and spend the rest of their lives dreaming of escape.

Escape they will, fleeing to the latest and newest refuge. Maybe it’s the “green” subdivision with colorful houses, maybe it’s the high-rise condominiums with restaurants on the ground floor and a freeway entrance within walking distance. Maybe it’s a boat, a cabin, an RV. Or maybe it’s similar more of the same, super-sized.

America is a very young country, as anybody who has ever visited Europe can attest. Many Europeans have houses that are older than America, yet we as Americans search for everything new. We created a democratic civilization built with the most adaptable legal document ever created, yet we cannot adapt as a people to minor nuisances. Need four outlets in every room instead of the one in that 50-year old house? Buy a new house. Ipod adapter in the car because you cannot listen to the radio? Buy a new car? Bored with the long-standing cafe run by your neighbor? Hey, there’s an In N’ Out burger opening!

This ceaseless need to fulfill every want and desire has a number of negative impacts, most of them on a person’s soul. But there are also smaller ones, such as the eventual desertion of the existing new for the New New. That leaves behind empty homes, deserted lots, and discarded shopping malls. Eventually, something will have to be done with them.

Jesus.

Well, that was exactly what I didn’t want when we were buying this house, and that is exactly what we ended up with given our budget and our geographic location, jobs, and so on. I live that life, schlepping through grey suburbia all year and consuming images of more attractive, scenic or inspiring locales via television, movies, photographs, or total online immersion.  We don’t regret our decision buying our home, but I do regret that we’re not in a tree-lined, charmingly old-fashioned small-town looking suburb with rail service and bike paths within walking distance — that ws completely out of the question in our price range. We made a good decision after really looking hard for a long time.

A week ago, my husband David and I went looking for a new desktop computer for me. I had expressed a vague desire to have a better Second Life experience, and we thought we had grabbed a system off the shelf that had the right hardware for such things… but in a fit of consumerist confusion, I said (stupidly) that I thought a computer with an Intel logo would do fine, because it’s a brand name.

::facepalm:: Jesus.

So we grabbed this one box, after almost grabbing some other box. Which would have had a more powerful video graphics card tailor made for the online 3D experience, actually (not a hardcore gaming system, still pretty low-end). We took this one box home and loaded it up with a few programs that I like or use and got bookmarks set up and cleaned my desk and vacuumed and all that, and then I logged in to Second Life and realized my error. David had noticed as we opened the box that it wasn’t quite the right computer we’d started to buy, but oh, I just had to get it started up, so… yeah. And what with one thing and another, it’s now pretty much impossible (and embarassing) to return because I took a few days to realize that I’d have to leave my SL settings on “minimum quality” for pretty much ever if I didn’t want my experience to slow to the speed of an old-fashioned travelogue with slides, or a film strip, and in the meantime I’d gotten it all set up nice and pretty and bonded with it over the pretty, pretty Aero (glassy, flashy graphics). All because I didn’t print out the system requirements page and take it with me…

And yet on the other hand, for everything else I do with it other than Second Life, it’s fast, and powerful, and makes 2D images and videos look gorgeous. Games are gorgeous as long as the action is flat. It looks and feels great, and it happened to get a great review at C/NET, a site we’ve both come to trust because of their little “Hello, TiVo people” tech gadgetry review show. I’ll be able to take a lot of photos, and slide the compact flash card or one of several different kinds of storage media or cables into a handy little port right on the front, hidden under a little door when not in use. It’ll really be great, for everything other than Second Life. For that, it’ll be adequate, but not visually stunning.  A previous post about the new computer got automatically reposted on Facebook, and a friend immediately commented “Upgrade to Windows 7 NOW!!!”

So then I started looking into fixing my error by perhaps upgrading the video on the new machine, which turned into a big mess because this thing on my desk is a sleek, slim little beast, and there are very, very few options for what’s called a “small form factor (SFF)” system, especially one that has a very low power profile. I’d have to crack open a brand new computer just to add an itty bitty viddy card (only $59.99 after rebate!), and upgrade the power supply (only $29.99) literally “to boot.”

Unless… hey, wait, this guy has the same computer, and he got an nVdia 9500 GT PCIe low profile card to run… after a ridiculous amount of swapping to save on power demands.

Good God, brand new machine and I’m still endlessly seeking the new new gadget to make it into what I should have bought in the first place.

But enough about that, time to play Mahjong Titans, it looks and sounds so purdy… after making sure the title and first few lines of this post are under Twitter’s 140-character limit, that is.

Hmm…

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does WXRT know who funds the Foundation for a Better Life? Just heard a PSA about Abraham Lincoln, sounds like a burnish job for the Grumpy Old Party. Just so you know, Philip Anschutz‘s family values are not my family values.

I just happened to hear it on WXRT’s webstream featuring the perseverance and admirable qualities of Abraham Lincoln, and was curious, because it reminded me of Crooks and Liars’ post about the Oregon GOP being linked to some very classy proposed public service announcements.