September 2004 Archives

Today I washed my Audi TT for the last time. The inspector showed up in the early afternoon and after taking a few pictures and punching things into this cool handheld computer-thing, he came up with a total of $432 in damage. Not bad considering the car has been scraped at least three times and was keyed. I'm still considering whether to actually fix it, since the dealer is probably going to buy it off me anyway so it wouldn't really matter in the end.

Boy are they getting desperate or what? Now they're insulting you until you buy something from them. Check out the subject of this message that I just received:

"U are Stupid Dumbass If U Pay Retail Price For Softwares"

While shooting some photos downtown yesterday I decided to try a few "fun" shots. Inspired by this reflection shot from August, I wanted to see if I could capture anything interesting in the windows in the city. Along the way I shot some just plain cool angles of buildings in downtown SF. Click the link to see the photos, all taken with the Canon EOS-20D.

As I write this I'm sitting by a window in a crowded cafe along College Ave. in Berkeley. It's about a 35 minute drive from my house to come here, but there's really nothing like it closer. I used to hang out in the coffee shops in San Francisco, but now that's too far away and only on special occasions. But Berkeley is still fairly easy. While I usually drop by during the workday, the best time to be here is at night when it's really hopping. Right now the place is packed, both inside and out. I love people-watching and will occasionally listen in on some other conversions. Being a college town, this is a great place to hang out... always lively. For some reason I get more work done in noisy places like this than I do at my desk at home.

Well the stand and all the new components are here. Now I just need the TV! No word on when that'll arrive.

The TV stand isn't that great. It's wide, sure, but the shelves are tight and not very deep on the edges.

The things on the shelf are: PS2, Sony DirecTV receiver w/TiVo, Sony DVD player (new!), X-box, Gamecube, and Sony ES receiver (new and awesome!). My old VCR couldn't make it. That's okay since I never use it.

(click for larger image)

Taken from Treasure Island with a Fuji FinePix E550 which doesn't seem to have noise reduction.

Today it rained for the first time since May (I think). Boy was it nice to hear (and smell) that again.

I'm quite tired of the heat and dust and more importantly the allergies. Moving out here was really tough on my allergies -- I'd never really had a problem with them until this year. Combine grass pollen (from all those grassy hills), all the pollen from the farms, junk from the power plants along the Delta, and the horrid Central Valley smog and you've got a recipe for disaster. With that in mind, bring on winter!

A cold front has arrived and it may even rain on Sunday. In any event, clouds plus the setting sun mean nice pictures out in these parts, so follow the link to see some photos taken with the PowerShot A85 tonight.

This is the must-have gift of the year.

(Link courtesy of Engadget)

Aww yeah! My car has been built, inspected, and is being loaded onto the ship in Hamburg for the long ride to San Diego! The A6 will be in my hands on or around October 25nd! I'm very excited.

I do have to work a little magic on my current lease, though, as it expires on the 12th. Shouldn't be a problem.

Though leasing is frustrating at times I sure love getting a new car every 3 years!

Update: Yeah, I wrote 25nd. I originally had 22nd but then changed the date to the correct one and forgot my "st".

I mailed three packages back to different places on Monday. Unfortunately I swapped the FedEx labels and sent the Samsung to Canon and the Canon to Samsung. No word on where the Kodak camera went.

So now I have an expensive mess to fix due to my screw-up. Sigh.

I've had a lot of trouble with my car lately. Apparently Audis start falling apart in their third year. Finally today everything was fixed, and my check engine light is off. I have also had some intermittent trouble with my fuel gauge not working. The service manager said if it happens again to "pound on the dash a few times until it starts working again". Isn't it sad that on an expensive German car that I have to smack the dashboard to get things working?

Since April 15th I've been happily (well, okay, not happily) paying my quarterly taxes based on last year's income. Problem is that this year I'm making a whole lot more money (yay!), which means that I'm underpaying big time. So for the quarterly payment due on Wednesday I basically doubled my normal payment... which sucks, but I don't want any surprises come April 15, 2005.

I need to look into Swiss Bank Accounts.

What an exhausting day! I went to SF to watch part of the SF Grand Prix bike race and I used nearly every form of transportation possible!

It started off with an exciting ride aboard a high speed catamaran from Vallejo to SF. It was fun but very windy, cold, and wet.

I arrived just in time for the start of the race. After watching them do a few small laps, I made my way toward Pacific Heights to see the hill climb!

I waited for the 1-California bus but it never showed up, so I took the California St. cable car instead. I got off at the end of the line and walked from Van Ness to Fillmore & Broadway.

I attempted to watch the bikes coming up the hill, but it was difficult with all the people in front of me. So then I walked down Broadway to Polk, grabbed a coffee at Starbucks and took a few more pictures.

I called my friend Mark and took the 49-Van Ness/Mission bus to meet him at his brand new (and exciting) loft South of Market.

After visiting and lunch, it was time for my ride home. Thankfully Mark saved my tired legs by driving me back to the Ferry Building! The boat ride back was thrilling. The seas were a little rough, the weather was warm and we were really hauling! These boats are more thrill ride than public transportation!

Click the link below to see photos from my day! I used the Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3 for all of these.

I just saw a commercial for a coin made entirely of silver found in a vault in the World Trade Center wreckage. Talk about trampling on the dead to make a quick buck.

Burnout 3 is probably the most fun I've had playing video games in a long time. Basically you get rewarded for taking risks with your car. Like driving into opposing traffic, having near misses, or knocking other cars into wrecks. There's something about driving recklessly while listening to "I Wanna Be Sedated" that's helps one blow off steam... especially after spending so much time in traffic around here!

I got all kinds of stuff today. First, the new DVD player came for the home theater upgrade. No sign of the TV or stand yet, though. I bought some cables in preparation for that day, plus Burnout 3 for the X-box.

Finally I got the memory I ordered for my computer last week. Now I'm up to 2.5GB! Hopefully everyone will be buying cameras this Christmas so I can afford to pay for it all!

Tuesday night I took designer extraordinaire and Mac-Geek-in-training friend Willo to A16 in San Francisco to (finally) celebrate the launch of the DCRP redesign. The place was great and definitely lived up to the hype. We split a burrata appetizer which was tasty and probably pretty unhealthy. For the main course, I had a funghe pizze with mushrooms, smoked provola, pecorino, olive oil, and pepperoni with a side of green beans. It was great and totally Italian-style. Willo had some kind of salmon with potatoes on the side and she devoured both. There were so many great things on the menu that I'd love to go back and explore it some more.

This fly has been bothering me all day. Repeated attempts to kill it have failed. He can sense my attack before I've even begun to strike. Maybe that's how they've survived for this long.

It looks like the new home theater system that I ordered will be coming in parts. I ordered a television, receiver, DVD player, and stand. The receiver showed up yesterday and I have no idea when everything else will arrive. I'm going to wait until everything is here before I set it all up... and boy will setting it up be "fun".

By the way, if anyone wants my old DVD player and receiver, they'll be for sale shortly!

It's been hovering around the 100 degree mark for well over a week. When does it start to cool down out here? Whenever the weather people promise "normal temperatures" that means 90 degrees. I can't wait for winter!

This bad boy will be arriving in a few weeks (I assume) and will make watching DVDs and playing games a lot more fun (no HDTV for now). It's the brand new 4th-gen 50" Sony Grand WEGA. No it's not plasma or LCD -- it's LCD rear projection. Costs a heck of a lot less than either of those and it rivals DLP (except without the burn-in or rainbows).

Good thing business is going well right now. And big thanks to a certain person for hooking me up with a sizable discount on this and the other toys I ordered!!

Last year, after having his prostate removed (due to cancer) my dad developed DVT or deep vein thrombosis. That is, simpler terms, a blood clot in his leg. Thankfully it was caught early and he took blood thinners for a few months and that was that.

A few weeks ago, my Great Uncle (who is a great person as well) got DVT and apparently didn't notice. This time, though, the clots made it to his lungs and he had pulmonary embolism. If you know what that is then you know that's it bad news. It can kill quite easily -- thankfully that didn't happen. He got put on blood thinners as well but he's had a bad reaction to them so they stopped given him them. Now they're going to put a filter of sorts into his vena cava (major vein to the heart) and hope that keeps clots from reaching his heart (which is what kills you). The surgery is tomorrow and hopefully everything will turn out fine.

He had just done a lot of flying... New York to LA for my sister's wedding... then to Hawaii... and back again in reverse. This shows just how important it is to get up and walk around on those long flights!!

First it was e-mail, then instant messaging, then blog comments... now today I got my first-ever text message spam on my cell phone. Sigh.