Originally, I had planned to write this post when I got back from Oregon. Then, I was going to write it on Labor Day, and then I was going to write it after my first day of classes. Oh well. At this point, I’m proud of myself for writing it at all. (And really, if you wanted to go back even further, I was going to write a post with this same title last fall.) I suppose what I will do is go back and recount the past couple weeks.

Oregon

As they tend to be, my trip to Oregon was great. The weather was much warmer than I would have liked, and the eighteen days I was out there for seemed like three, but I still had a great time with Michelle. I long for the day when there are no more goodbye scenes in airports.

Back to Long Island

After I got back, I had about a week and a half of freedom before classes started. I spent my first week back shrink-wrapping newspapers and earning ten dollars an hour for doing so. I also tried to relax as much as possible, knowing full well that in another week free time would be at a premium.

Classes started this past Wednesday. I have never liked fall semesters, but so far this one hasn’t been so bad. Hopefully that isn’t just the fact that I’ve only had two days of classes. I’m going to be optimistic, though, and maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised come December.

Miscellany

As I alluded to in my last post, I upgraded from XP to Vista back in June. Most of the things I’ve heard about Vista have been negative, but I just don’t see it. Is it still Windows? Sure. Is it OS X? Definitely not. Regardless, I’ve been running it for the past couple months and I haven’t had any problems, which is something I’ve never been able to say about a Microsoft operating system. I still plan to make the switch at some point (and those new iMacs are so nice), but Vista has made me feel better about the fact that I can’t do so any time soon. Office 2007 is pretty nice, too; I’m actually writing this post in Word.

In my last post, I asked the Mets to bury the rest of their division as though they read my blog. They were promptly swept in four games by the Phillies the first week I was back, but they’ve regained all the games they’d lost since then. I’ll take it. Speaking of sports, I had forgotten how much I missed football. Today is a good day.

I had envisioned this post being longer than it is. Oh well.

Posted on 9 September 2007 | Comment

My father and I went to the Apple Store after dinner tonight to purchase a 20” iMac to replace the aging Dell that had been the “family computer” for far too long.

I got to play with it quite a bit, and I am very jealous that I am not writing this post from an iMac of my very own. I’m going to start saving for one starting with my next paycheck.

Posted on 5 August 2006 | Comment [1]

With an iMac.

I want one so bad.

Posted on 28 July 2006 | Comment

Post previous to this one: September 16, 2005
This post: October 14, 2005

Man, you people are going to start thinking this is my Xanga if I let this happen again. I’ll try to be better about posting from now on. Wow.

Of course, the issue now is that all the ideas I had for updates in the past month are all outdated now. I’ll see if I can remember anything I wanted to say.

Classes are going well enough, I suppose. For some reason, the workload seems a lot harder than last semester’s did. I don’t know if the classes are harder, or it’s because I’m actually at school for more hours with no breaks, or what. At any rate, I’m already looking forward to December when the semester is over.

And of course, a big part of that is that in December I finally get to go see my Michelle. I bought my plane ticket last night; I’m leaving December 29th, and coming back on January 4th. I’m excited. Only 76 more days to go. It can’t come soon enough.

I had planned on doing a Serenity update (hence the post title) after I saw it opening weekend, but I guess it’s a little late for that. Oh well, this is my blog, so I’m going to do it anyway.

If you’re planning on seeing Serenity, chances are you’ve already seen it. I honestly haven’t been paying attention to how much money it’s taken in, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume it’s far less than it deserves to have made. Serenity is quite probably the best movie I’ve seen all year. I was pretty late to the Firefly party; I bought the DVDs over the summer, and only watched them all the week before the movie came out, but I got hooked instantly. Unlike some other science fiction sagas which I won’t name (but if I did, I’d probably say Star Wars), the characters in Firefly were nothing short of outstanding. After the first episode I almost felt like I was right there on the ship with them.

Somehow, Joss Whedon was able to translate the entire Firefly experience onto the big screen without losing a great deal. I thought the beginning of the movie was a bit slow, but it picked up very quickly. I gasped out loud when I realized the big plot twist in the middle, and I was on my seat for almost the entire movie. In the end, was Serenity worth it? God, was it ever. I’m really hoping the movie takes in enough that we can have more tales in the Serenity universe; ideally, the return of Firefly on TV, but I’ll take another movie any day of the week.

I’m going to go back to the first (real) post on this blog and talk about Apple now. Yesterday, the “One more thing…” announcement was made. The video iPod. People had been talking about it for what seems like forever, so while it wasn’t a shock that they announced it, I was surprised by how much I like it. Not just the unit itself, but the whole package.

iTunes 6. Five weeks ago we got iTunes 5, and now they’ve gone and jumped an entire version. I understand the marketing behind it—releasing the next generation of what is really Apple’s flagship product looks a lot better if it seems like you’re getting a whole new version of its companion software. (Would iTunes 5.1 have gone alongside the new iPods as well as iTunes 6? I doubt it.) iTunes has been able to play videos for some time now, but with iTunes 6, they’re much more prominently displayed; the “Videos” item in the Source list, and the video section of the iTMS. Where am I going with this? I’m going here.

What the original iPod did for portable music, the 5G iPod is going to do for portable video.

How do I know? Two words: content delivery.

Let’s look at the facts, shall we?

Portable media players with video capability are nothing new. There are a ton of them on the market. They all play a myriad of formats. Even the PSP, which Sony is touting as an iPod killer, plays videos and music. However, none of these devices have a standardized way of getting media onto the player. And no, UMD movies don’t count. I don’t care how many Sony claims have been sold; the format is worthless.

On the other hand, Apple has that means to an end. They’ve always had it; it’s just been updated. $1.99 for an episode of Lost seems a bit expensive on the surface. However, the first season of the show was 25 episodes. 25 episodes at $1.99 each works out to $49.75, and they offer the entire first season as a package for $34.99, which is cheaper than the first season DVD box set on Amazon ($38.99). And because they offer the new episodes as well, if you miss an episode, or you just don’t have time for TV, you can download the newest one and watch it on your lunch break or something.

The technology is there. We’ll see where it goes.

I’m ending this update here because it’s getting longer than I’d like. With any luck, I’ll remember to update more often, and then you’ll get a lot of shorter updates instead of one long one. So yeah, tune in soon. I hope.

Posted on 14 October 2005 | Comment [5]

I was totally going to add this yesterday, but forgot to. However, I remembered just now, so I figure I’ll mention it.

It seems that lost in all the Apple commotion from yesterday, Quicktime 7 was released for Windows yesterday. And not only was it released; installing iTunes 5 installs Quicktime 7. Without telling me.

Quicktime is one of Apple’s bigger products; I was sort of surprised that the release of a new version didn’t come with more fanfare. On the other hand, this IS Apple we’re talking about, and they make a lot more money than I do, so who knows.

Posted on 9 September 2005 | Comment

One thing that I promised myself would be different about this blog is that I was going to update the thing. Well, an update was due, and an update you shall have.

First on the agenda: college. Yes, it’s back to school time across America, and unfortunately, I am not immune to it. As of today, I’ve been to all my classes (with one exception…read on), so I can talk about them now. Here they are, in no particular order:

• English: English is my favorite subject, and grammar is what I’m good at. So it would seem that an English class where the focus is grammar would be right up my alley. We’ll see. The professor has a European accent that I can’t place just yet, and from what I hear, most people who have him don’t like him very much. I haven’t made up my mind just yet, but I plan on doing what I always do in my English classes: let my writing do the talking. It’s worked for me so far; the lowest grade I’ve ever earned in a college English class was a 96.

• Psychology: I think this is going to be my favorite class when I look back on this semester. The material seems really interesting, and the professor is awesome. You know a class is good when you find yourself actually wanting to do the reading.

• Chemistry: On the other hand, this may turn out to be my least favorite subject at semester’s end. I hatehatehate science, and I have a feeling this is going to be HARD. However, the professor is really good, and makes things seem interesting enough. I am not, however, looking forward to almost three hours of lab. Shoot me.

• Non-verbal Communication: I took this class because the name sounded interesting. After the first class (today), I have a feeling that I was right. I learned quite a bit already; I’m looking forward to this one.

• Karate: Yes, that’s right. Nassau requires its students to take PE classes, and this is the first one I’ve signed up for. I was supposed to have it from 1100-1215 today, but for whatever reason, I had it in my head that the class started at 1200. So today when I checked my schedule at 1115 right before I left, and realized that I was already fifteen minutes late, I was not very happy. I was even less happy when I got to school at 1135, and then spent the next twenty-five minutes looking for a parking spot. And I found one…not just any parking spot, but a parking spot on the other side of campus. At this point I saw no point in going to class—if it hadn’t ended yet, I didn’t want to disturb what was going on—so I instead found the professor, explained the situation, found out he didn’t take attendance today, got a syllabus, and went on my way. I guess I’ll see how this one goes come Monday.

Overall I’m pretty happy with my schedule for the fall; I don’t love school, but it’s something that needs to be done, so I’ll deal. Blah.

Speaking of school…as of yesterday I’ve decided that I want to major in English, and then teach it in some high school once I graduate. Hooray for knowing what you want to do with yourself.
Moving on! Apple today announced a whole slew of new…stuff, for lack of a better term. There’s no shortage of coverage on the web, but I’m adding my own thoughts here, because, well, you won’t find them anywhere else.

• iPod nano: I knew that this one was coming, but what it turned out to be pleasantly surprised me. I was never a fan of the iPod Mini; I thought it was ugly and not much value for the money. The nano fixes at least the cosmetic part of that problem. In a word, this thing is sleek. It’s everything an iPod on a diet should be. The Mini sold stupidly well in spite of my problems with it; the nano kicks the Mini’s ass in several aspects, and I see no reason why it won’t do the same in terms of sales. And hey, they killed the Mini. Everybody wins.

• The ROKR: I can’t say as many nice things about this, on the other hand. I always pictured the mythical iPhone as being a thing of beauty, and this simply isn’t. I know function is more important than form, but come on. Motorola makes the RAZR; this should have looked at least as nice. The concept is sound, however, and I’m sure that in the future there will be a product worthy of the Apple tag.

• iTunes 5: I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, some of the new features are useful enough. (NOTE: I hate Apple for letting you put lyrics in the song’s tag, because now I’m going to want lyrics for all of my songs, which is going to be no small feat. I have a LOT of songs, although not as many as some people.) On the other hand, Apple’s interface guidelines must be crying right now. I’m sure it looks nice enough on the Mac, but the Windows version? Ugly. I suppose I need to give it some more time, but there was nothing wrong with the iTunes 4.x UI. “Streamlined interface” is a fancy buzzword for UGLY these days. In spite of my feelings about the new look, I’m sure that in a week’s time I’ll be making use of all the new features and wonder how I lived without them. But still—it’s ugly. There’s no getting around that.

I am now going to end this post because it’s longer than anything I’ve written for one of my blogs in the past two years or so. I should think about saving something for the next update, which will hopefully be reasonably soon. To my four or so readers: tune in next time for more. And to my one reader who means the world to me: I love you.

Posted on 7 September 2005 | Comment [2]