I finally finally upgraded my cell phone. My old v70 has been sputtering and dropping calls like crazy over the last several months, not to mention my battery life was down to one 10-minute call each day, requiring a full charge overnight. Unacceptable. So I upgraded.
I ended up going with the Razr V3 honestly because it was the least expensive phone upgrade T-Mobile offered that still featured Bluetooth. I kind of wanted to get one of the more expensive Nokias that supported Salling Clicker, but I guess my limited means got the better of me. I’m holding out hope that either Salling or Motorola will update something that will allow the two to work together.
The Bluetooth is awesome, though. I can leave the phone across the room, nay, in another room and still make a clear and fast connection. I can download crappy cell phone camera shots and upload custom ringtones that I can make in iTunes. I’m still trying to figure out the whole Java game thing, but honestly, I’m not going to play games on my cell phone. I’m really just glad it A) Has crystal clear sound and good reception; B) Doesn’t drop calls; C) Battery lasts for days; and D) syncs wirelessly and easily with my PowerBook’s Address Book.
I have heard that the newer Razr, the v3i, or whatever, is going to support iTunes. Honestly, I could care less. Taping a Nano to the back of a Razr is a better solution for combining cell phone and mp3 player at the moment, so I’m not heartbroken.
I’ve been using the phone for about a week now, and I’m thrilled so far. That could have a lot to do with the fact that using my last phone was like trying to talk through a blender. I’ll let you know if anything goes awry.
“Casino Royale” is the second 007 novel by Ian Fleming that I’ve read. (The first being “From Russia With Love.”) FRWL was the test to see if I would like the ink and paper Bond as much as the film Bond. I did, if not more. So the next logical place for me was to start over with the first book Fleming wrote. I was not disappointed.
Fleming lends to Bond (or, more appropriately, originally envisioned Bond as having) an air of sophistication and gritty class that his film counterpart lost about halfway through “Goldfinger”. The film Bond is still pretty cool, but he has picked up an air of buffoonery over the years, almost as if he’s always a parody of himself. Fleming’s Bond doesn’t have that at all. In “Royale,” Bond tells another character that the Double O status is awarded to agents who have been required to kill in cold blood in the line of duty. Not because they are the best trained, best educated, best equipped, best prepared agents. No no. It’s because they will kill without a moment’s hesitation. And Bond’s cold personality appropriately reflects it. That’s not to say that Bond doesn’t have passions or never lets his guard down. He enjoys his meals and especially takes pleasure in being somewhat of an expert in the finer points in life such as cigarettes, champagne and brandy. And Fleming’s Bond has a weakness for women. They always get him into trouble.
Continue reading ‘Casino Royale by Ian Fleming’
Name the real proximity to disaster here:
CHICAGO (AP) — Three members of the rock band Live were aboard a United Airlines Express plane that made an emergency landing at O’Hare International Airport after reports of smoke in the plane’s cabin. …
The band, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard album chart with the 1994 release, “Throwing Copper,†had finished a nine-date tour of Canada, opening for Nickelback.
I didn’t know they were that desperate. If this isn’t a warning from the rock gods, I don’t know what is. Shape up, Live!
The title of Greg Bear’s “Moving Mars” is both metaphorical and literal. The greater part of the novel is about Mars moving from a loose-knit frontier society into to a real nation united under one government. The last hundred pages or so are about literally moving the planet from its current position to an orbit around a star 10,000 light years away.
The story unfolds from the perspective of Cassiea Mujamdar, whose humble political beginnings in a student protest lead to her eventual rise to President of the Federal Republic of Mars. As a young woman, she meets and has a romantic relationship with Charles Franklin, a possibly brilliant young scientist who of course emerges in an important role later in the novel. The characters can come across as somewhat flat and unrealistic. They display their emotions about as effectively as middle schoolers and express their personal feelings equally as eloquently. But when they shut up about their personal lives, when they begin talking about new theories of physics and government and political subterfuge, that’s when the book really shines.
The book’s original publication in 1994 precludes it from having any real metaphorical relationship with our nation’s current situation with the Middle East. It did, however, strike me as having a certain level of applicability. Observe: The well-established and self-important ruling bodies of Mother Earth find out that a young and unpredictable (read: uncontrollable) nation could be developing weapons of mass destruction, which could be deployed instantaneously across the hundreds of millions of miles that separate Earth from Mars. In reaction, Earth pre-emptively attacks Mars, hoping to disrupt their fledgling government and bring all Martians back under its wing. Sound familiar? Perhaps its a stretch, but it was interesting because the book is from a total Mars perspective, from someone who grew up on Mars and only visited Earth once. Earth is a quiet but deadly aggressor, concerned only with its own dominance, and it won’t let anyone, even another sovereign planet, undermine that.
Continue reading ‘Moving Mars by Greg Bear’
What the hell is Mad Money? I mean, I understand that it’s a stock-picking show. But what is it? It’s a sweaty bald man walking around a leftover gameshow stage guzzling from a bottle of water and screaming into his lapel mike to Buy!Buy!Buy!
It’s really annoying. I cringe every time I click past it. Didn’t stock-picking shows go out when that bubble market in the late ’90s popped? Or were they ever really “in”? Honestly, the show is ludicrous to most viewers and to people who really care about trading stocks, they probably find it unsophisticated. And unsophisticated is not who you want telling you how to trade stock.
Blech.
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