Why I Didn't Vote for Any of the Incumbents on the City Council

Not even for the council member who was running unopposed.

Sunnyvale councilman-elect pushes for his say on study issues

Can't believe I live in this town.

There is of course the slim possibility that the reporter is a really bad writer. Don't think that's the issue here though.

Good by Association

Proud just to know the people who helped make this happen.

Getting Ready

"Somebody didn't wash my brown pants. Now I have nothing to wear."

"Well, you better go wash it."

"..."

"You didn't say you needed your brown pants."

"I'm pretty sure I dreamt it. You were in my dream, too. Someone's slacking."

This is Not Why I Read Hawk Wings

Hawk Wings is a nice blog that offers tips for using Apple Mail, various plug-ins, and stuff like that. But today, like a special treat, Tim reminisced about an article from 1994 comparing PCs and Macs to Protestants and Catholics. Even the reader comments are entertaining.

In Case You're Wondering...

...whether Britney still has fans. No, you won't find the answer on Wikipedia. eBay is the place to look.

Stuff on the Web

Dooce, one of my favorite bloggers and I think the only one who isn't an Apple-focused blogger, did a play-by-play commentary on today's Layer Tennis. Yeah, looks like another geeky pass time. But oh man, did you know you can do things like this in 15 minutes? I didn't even know it was possible.

Meanwhile, someone forwarded Mark Morford's column from last week -
American kids, dumber than dirt.

Two great "reads" in one day. I'm not sure I can handle this.

Listen Up

I Have Nothing on Idol

IdolStalker.com collected performances of Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing on Seasons 3, 4, 5, and 6 of American Idol onto the same page. It's quite a treat to watch these 4 brilliant singers take on such a powerful song.

My favorite, which also appears to be the favorite for most of the site's visitors, is Katharine McPhee's rendition of the song. Her delivery was much more entertaining than the others.

Of Course Not

"Were you watching infomercials?"

"Yeah...can I buy the complete home gym?"

"No."

"Christy Turlington recommended it."

"She probably has a personal trainer."

"But she's Christy Turlington. Why would she lie?"

Burning Man

Am I enthralled because it's so Star Wars-esque?

Britney's Back!

She is Simply Amazing

Cold

My boss is out of town so I get to work from home all week. After spending 6 hours going back and forth between my work PC and my beloved MacBook Pro, I thought it must be 5 o'clock already. I mean, how can it not be? I've already spent 100 hours on the phone with tech support because nothing works on the PC.

Apparently, mother nature doesn't care how tech support counts their billable hours, and it's only mid-afternoon outside. Since I've given up on doing work on the PC, I decide to take my MBP out into the afternoon sun, uh, shade and do some work away from my dungeon. It is a beautiful day by any standard. Wisps of cloud float in the light blue sky while a nice breeze sways the leaves of our loquat tree.

Now do I put a coat on over my sweatshirt so I stay warm out here? Or do I go back inside and turn on our new central heat?

Twice in One Month

This must be the summer of new experiences. I'm selling stuff on Amazon.com, I painted my apartment (ok, touched up,) I bought (and used) a jigsaw, and I've now stood in line on release day twice in one month to buy a hotly anticipated product (for two different products of course.)

Ah, the power of marketing. Here's the line in front of our local Borders store at 9:30 am. If you don't know what we lined up for, it's not even worth telling you now.

Did You Not Read My Last e-mail?

I recently started selling things through Amazon.com's marketplace and have been totally happy with the results. No one's been interested in my eraser refills (big surprise,) but I've successfully sold a memory stick and two books.

Yesterday, I got a nice e-mail message about the camera I have listed for sale. The lady wanted me to send the camera to a friend in Africa. Now that made me a little suspicious, but it's not like I don't know anyone from Africa and have friends and family in Africa. So I considered the sale and even looked into customs forms for making such a shipment. Another flag started waving in the back of my head when I noticed that she wanted me to respond directly to her e-mail address. That wasn't how the other sales went, but this was only an inquiry. So I thought maybe it was different. I went ahead and responded directly to her, saying that I would prefer not to ship outside of the US.

This morning, I awoke to a message from this Sandra De Jeken telling me she can't receive then re-send the package because she's in the hospital and thanking me for shipping to Africa. Another e-mail told me not only "Sold Ship Now," but also that the buyer has thousands of dollars deposited with Amazon, all of which is frozen until the sale is completed. Hmmm, none of the other buyers had that. Is this special for a "high" value item?

The problem is that I don't care if she's in the hospital or if she has $10 billion deposited with Amazon. I'm not shipping to Africa. I frantically went through a couple of Amazon help pages to find out if I could nullify the sale before noticing the sale is not even acknowledged in the Amazon system. *whew* It's a scam. I reported it to Amazon, and now? Back to my daily procrastination.

p.s.
If there are any spammers out there who want to spam her account, her address is sandra.dejeken@yahoo.com. Cheers!

Self Improvement

"Hey, what's up?"

"My IQ! I just bought a Mac."

Certified Geek

After 11 hours on the sidewalk in Palo Alto, I was giddily walking to the car with my new iPhone in hand. blogger14 was feeling bad that instead of shaking my hand, Steve Jobs put his hand on my arm and said, "I'm not doing that today." A bit disappointing, but I cared much more about the $600 gadget in my bag than I did about shaking a man's hand, regardless of who he is. Plus, he was nice and smiley about denying me a handshake. So that's that.

Tony had said he decided against standing in line for the iPhone because he decided that he would be ashamed of having committed such an act 10 years from now. I, on the other hand, would've been sitting around at home thinking about the iPhone anyway, so sitting in line felt like taking action towards achieving my goal. Plus, I met some cool people, learned about the cute little "slow food" wine bar called Vino Locale, and got to play with a functioning Newton, courtesy of the Stanford Newton User Group. Good times.

In the end, Tony was there anyway. Standing with bystanders watching us get our iPhones and trying not to look left out.

All that aside, the iPhone is sooooooooo cool. I love the perfect synchronization of address books! The other perks are cool, too. Now I can tote around just one gadget to show off pictures of my niece, listen to music, get traffic updates and directions, check my e-mail, surf the web, and of course, make phone calls. All with the ease that Apple products are known to deliver. And now that I've stood in line for an Apple product launch, I feel like a true, certified geek. Go me!

No, Really. She Was Dancing.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm dancing!"

"They don't dance like that."

"Yeah, they do."

"Well, be careful. I don't want to have to explain to your mother that you hurt yourself dancing to traditional Chinese music."

Detail-Oriented or Over-the-Top?

There is absolutely no doubt that I will be fighting the crowds for an iPhone next week. I have waited more than five months, and nothing is going to stop me from showing up on June 29. But I am worried. What time should I show up? I'm pretty sure I don't want to camp out overnight, but is that really the right decision? I do, after all, live in an area with a super high concentration of nerds, geeks, and Apple fans. Is showing up at 10 am really early enough? I would just die (ok, not really) if I end up right behind the person who buys the last available iPhone at the store.

Timing aside, I have never even attempted to stand in line like this for anything since I was not a fan of such hype-generating machines as Star Wars or Back Street Boys. What do I need to bring with me? Will my spot in line be safe if I need to go to the restroom? What survival tricks do I need to learn?

My mind has been blinded by desire, and I can no longer decide if blogs like this are over-the-top or just detail-oriented?

I Love Me, Too