words and photography by anthony nuval
Watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on Indecision 2008 coverage: “At 11 o’clock at night, Eastern Standard Time… the President of the United States is Barack Obama.”
This must be what it will feel like when the Cubs win the Series.
On another note… I haven’t had any time to just go out and take pictures. sigh.
1. Jersey has ridiculously cheap gas.
2. 2 Gold St. apparently has all the hotties.
3. The price of steak frites at Les Halles has gone up $3.
4. I prefer not to spend in the double digits for breakfast.
5. A good time to line up for standby Colbert tickets is 2-3 PM.
6. The NBC studio tour, even with my GE employee discount, isn’t really worth the admission.
7. The price of the recession special at Gray’s Papaya is up to $3.50.
8. The price of a round at McSorley’s is $4.50. (And Tommy retired–but my old Russian barber is still cutting hair.)
9. Paul’s still makes a tasty burger.
10. College students seem to have gotten younger.
11. All of one’s problems can be solved by converting to Judaism.
Me: p.s. the Palin kids have some awesome names.
A: oh god yes
A: but she shoudl’ve picked a theme and stuck with it
A: like: trig, alg, calc, geom, arith
Your result for How good of a Calvinball player are you?…
77% Game_Knowledge and 89% Game_Skill!
Amazing. You are part of the 4.3% of the population that landed in this category.* You know the game and its history well, and you did amazingly well when it came to playing Calvinball strategically.
This suggests that you probably have a natural talent in Calvinball. You have learned that the trick to doing well in Calvinball is not brute strength, but quick wit. With your natural ability you could go far.
You are definitely already talented enough to beat Calvin. A match versus the quick-witted tiger would be close. I’m going to give you the edge, but his superior knowledge of the game might propel him to victory.
* This is a made up number.
Take How good of a Calvinball player are you? at HelloQuizzy
This month’s Cream City Flickr Photowalk took us a little off the beaten path for a short exploration of a bit of Milwaukee that most people don’t ordinarily see. The rain ended in time to keep our equipment dry and the clouds stayed thick enough to provide nice, even lighting in the open (with some nice directed light in certain areas).
I know I’m well and truly late to the iPhone game (I stopped caring about being an early adopter a long time ago), but I couldn’t help but be a little amused at the iPhone user subgroup within our cadre of Cream City Flickreenos. Truth be told, the iPhone is far and away the best pocketable device for showing off photos, so it’s only natural that a lot of us have them.
[Oh yeah... I decided to screw Direct Fulfillment and try my luck at the Apple Store. So, last Thursday, I removed my employee discount (to allow activation at the Apple Store) and then went to Mayfair. Incredibly enough, after a half-hour of waiting in line (and another half-hour of activation pains), I walked out with a 16 GB black iPhone 3G. I then put back my employee discount on the line. There were still complications--namely that my iPhone data plan was not actually added and I had to fix that with customer service--but it's been a blast so far.]
Speaking of the iPhone, I’ve been spending too much time browsing the App Store. Thankfully I think I’ve walked through all the store has to offer to date and snagged everything that I think is vaguely useful (and free–I’ll wait a bit on the purchases). One app has caught my attention–Twinkle. It’s a Twitter app that leverages the location services of the iPhone to create a virtual community of local users whose updates you can browse through. The level of connectivity it provides through this simple feature is pretty impressive, I must admit–it was enough to make me actually get a Twitter account. The level of activity in Milwaukee is decent, but I can only imagine what it is like in a larger area like Chicago or New York.
There are some principles I will not violate. For instance, under no circumstances is something as inconsequential as a phone worth waiting overnight in line for, even if it is the Jesus phone. (However, I will succumb to peer pressure if I have friends doing it.)
So I should be proud of myself for sticking to my guns and only going to fall in line for the iPhone 3G at 6:30 am, 1.5 hours before the AT&T store opened. And yet, though I was quite prepared for the almost definite possibility that I would not get the iPhone I wanted (the last 16 GB model ended up being sold a few spots ahead of me), I’m still annoyed (internally) by the “7-10 business days” I must wait for AT&T’s Direct Fulfillment to ship my order, not to mention being annoyed at Apple for what seems to be a deliberate move to under-supply AT&T stores.
(I’m under the vague impression that because I have a rate plan discount as an employee of a participating company, I can’t buy the iPhone at an Apple store. If I’m wrong, well… I suppose the issue is moot, anyway. See the next paragraph.)
The little bit of good news is that it may end up being shipped earlier–the guy at the AT&T store said that Direct Fulfillment orders placed before noon on Friday are being shipped on Monday, so I should have one in my hands on Tuesday or Wednesday. And really, what is a few days in the grand scheme of things? I did, after all, manage to resist the temptation to buy the first incarnation of the iPhone.
*twiddle*
Somehow I thought that, because everyone abandons the neighborhood for Christmas and street parking is plentiful, that this would also be the case for New Year’s.
Suffice it to say that this was not the case. After a very enjoyable New Year’s party I was faced with having to find a parking spot and after about 30 minutes it was obvious that there were no nearby spots to be found and no one was leaving (everyone most likely being passed out at that hour).
I passed up this spot too many times to count, not really sure if I would fit and not sure if my coordination was up to the task, recovering from the party and being generally tired. All I know is that if I had tried earlier I would have been much less grumpy. ‘Cause actually, I got it parked in one shot.
