Sad for Frank

My cousin Frank is ill… very ill. He’s been dealing with health issues for several years, but his incredibly optimistic spirit and his indefatigable energy made it easy to forget that he had a number of serious issues confronting him.

Tonight Frank is struggling in a battle that I don’t think he can win, and I’m very sad. But Frank wouldn’t want people to be sad; he spent his life making people happy, both with his charisma and his musical ability. So I’d like to give Frank a chance to make people happy once again with a nice bluesy rendition of “Jambalaya” (Frank’s the singer and lead guitarist; while blues was his passion, he loved to take songs that weren’t particularly bluesy and rework ‘em into his style, as he does here). This is one of several clips he has on YouTube; look for “Frankie Moates” if you’d like to see more.



And Iran So Very Far Away…

Just saw a news feature about protestors who are, for the fourth straight weekend, staging protests on a streetcorner in Atlanta against the Iranian elections.

Yeah, that does a lot of good. Watching a half-dozen to a dozen misfits trying to yell their organized cheers against Iran is amusing, but if these guys really want to make their point of view known in any significatn way, why are they wasting their time yelling here? Wouldn’t some place like, y’know, Iran be a better site for their silly displays? Or maybe even some country that has diplomatic relations with Iran?

Of course, that might be costly and more than a little risky. So instead, they stage the most insignificant protest possible by getting together with their friends in a city that Iranians probably can’t even find on a map so that they can yell to people who almost unanimously agree that Iran is a very sucky place.

(Maybe, if they feel like they have to stage their little protest in the US, they could go to Washington and protest in front of the White House, since its occupants seem to be about the only people in the US who think that Iran’s government is comprised of reasonable people…)

Virtually Boring

Sat through the first episode of Virtuality… and for me, it’ll be the last. What a yawner! Not sure what audience they were going for, but I can’t imagine this plodding mix of science fiction, interpersonal drama, and mystery is going to click with anyone. Of course, the fact that they’re airing it in the summer is indication enough that the network has no confidence in it… and with good reason!

Thieves in the Night

It looks like the Obama Administration is once again going to try to force a 1000+ page bill through in a blitzkrieg vote without representatives and senators having read it. In this case, it’s the move to socialized health care, an execrable idea that will force some of the best out of medicine entirely. As one good friend and great doctor told me, “I’d rather walk away from medicine entirely than to render inadequate care based on a government bureaucracy.”

As to how good the plan is–well, bear in mind that the man responsible for trying to force this on us said that he would not use this system for his own family. When asked if he would want this plan for his family, Obama pointedly refused to say yes; instead, he said, “I always want them to get the very best care.” What that should tell you, of course, is that we will have a two-tier system–the substandard care for everyone else and the first-class care for the President, congressmen, senators, celebrities, and cronies.

And if ain’t good enough for them, it shouldn’t be good enough for any of us…

Have It Your Way

You know, as sexist and suggestive as this ad is, it could be worse…

They could have had a picture of that creepy grinning King instead of the woman…

Robbed by Richard Branson

Have I mentioned that Richard Branson stole $10,500 from me?

Well, not me in person, but me in the form of Comic Shop News, the publication that Ward and I have been doing for 22 years now.

Richard Branson–you know, the guy behind Virgin Airlines, Virgin Records, Virgin Megastores, etc.–started a comics company. Guess what he called it? You’re right: Virgin Comics.

His Virgin Comics company ran advertising in Comic Shop News–$10,500.00 worth of advertising in a short enough period that, as the last ad was appearing, they were just barely outside the time when they should have paid for the first ad. Then Richard Branson and his advisors decided to discontinue Virgin Comics. They sold the properties off to another company and laid off the staff.

And guess what he refused to pay?

We contacted Virgin on five different occasions about the ads, and were even told at one time that payment was forthcoming. Then Richard Branson decided to spend that $10,500.00 on a meal or a computer or a bottle of wine or a paving stone for his private island or something–at any rate, he and his company never did pay a penny of what they owed, and now the addresses where we were told to send the bills are no longer valid.

I see a lot of people refer to him as Sir Richard Branson. Y’know, Sir isn’t the word that pops into my mind whenever I see a picture of him…

What a Dial!

Just juggled some numbers and realized that the old 5781 number (the one that I always think of as the family number, since my parents had it from the time I was old enough to really know what my phone number was) is about to turn 50. My parents got the phone number in the summer of 1959, shortly before I started the first grade (I finished kindergarten in Cedartown prior to making the move). I changed my answering machine message to acknowledge the half-century anniversary.

(Back then, we only thought of our phone number as a seven-digit number. Come to think of it, I don’t even think I knew what my area code was until I was about ten years old, when I went out of town to visit David Lynch for a week and had to dial all ten digits to call my parents.)

I also went ahead and finalized the switchover of my old iPhone over to the 5781 number; ATT was very helpful, finding a way to restructure my package so that I got the second iPhone activated and added the 2G data plan without spending any more than I was spending for just a standard phone. I still have an affection for my first iPhone, even with its old 2G limitations, and even though it was a year and a half old, it was still about two decades ahead of the basic Samsung phone that ATT gave me when they set up the account.

Having the same phone number in the family for a half-century… well, it strikes me as a significant anniversary, anyway!…

Dear Dad…

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost two years since you left us; I can honestly say that there hasn’t been a single day that I haven’t thought about you; while I don’t hear your voice, I can hear your words in my heart.

So much has changed since you left. Cole and Christy have added another son to their family, so the Marchmont house now resonates with the sounds of a happy family of four, just as it did through the 1960s when you and Mom first brought us to the brand new house. I know you’d love what they’ve done to the place; while they’ve brightened it up and renovated, you’d instantly recognize it as your home, and you’d be proud of them. Cole has a new job that he loves, Christy is back in school and hoping to be a nurse, and life gets better for them with every passing day.

Jess and Adam are married now, and they have a son of their own on the way. Adam has a major job promotion on the horizon, and Jess is staying at home, waiting on the baby’s arrival. She’s just thrilled with the new and unexpected addition to their family, and she’s writing almost daily on her own blog to preserve all her thoughts and memories of this time. It’s wonderful, really; while Kim and I were enthralled by the many stories that you and Mom would tell us about the days before we were born and the days of our early childhood, Jess’s son will be able to actually read his mother’s words and know what she was feeling at the time. (I so wish I could have talked you and Mom into writing those stories down for us; while we still remember them, I would love the chance to relive those days in your own words one more time.)

Kimberly and Phil have been married for over a year now, and she’s so very happy–I know that was what you always wanted for her, and you’d be thrilled to see how everything has come together in her life. I still worry for her–she works too much, too hard, and I wish that she could slow down a little bit. But she’s doing great at her job with UTS, and there’s so much less pressure on her than there was during her days at Randstad.

Susan and I are doing well; as I always tell Kim, my life is remarkably routine… and there’s something good about that. I’ve come to enjoy routine, to appreciate the thousand little joys that accompany that familiarity.

I don’t get to Rome very much any more; I tried to go back a few times after you left, but I always feel so sad once I leave there. I miss the things we always took for granted–visiting with you, talking politics, grabbing lunch or dinner, swapping stories, laughing at wonderful memories and reminiscing. We still go up to Kim’s house for Christmas, but I haven’t been back to Rome since the last holiday season. I still talk to Kim once or twice a week, and I try to stay in touch with Cole and Jess just to know what’s going on, but everyone’s so busy that we’re not able to stay close the way we once did. I miss that closeness, and I miss them a lot sometimes, but I’m also happy that the lives they’re building for themselves seem to be filled with joy and hope and promise for the future.

I’d give so much for a chance to talk with you one more time, Dad. Oh, I know that I talk to you every day, but I just wish I could hear your voice, hear your laugh again. I will always envy the fact that Kim, Cole, Christy, Jessica, and Adam got to share one joy-filled lunch with you before that stroke took you from us; I wish I could have been there. We never realize how important those little joys can be until they’re taken from us.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. No one could have asked for a more loving, guiding, caring, generous, supportive father than you–

cliff

iPhone 3gYes!

At last, Apple has solved almost every one of my concerns I expressed two years ago when the initial iPhone rolled out.

I preordered an iPhone 3GS so that I could avoid that whole standing in line thing. Worked out great; FedEx delivered the iPhone Friday afternoon, I activated it through Apple before I went back to the store Friday evening, and I called ATT to get the phone itself activated on Saturday morning. (Yes, it was supposed to happen automatically, but somehow my equipment ID info and my SIM card number never got entered into the system before ATT shipped me the phone, so I had to call them with that into to finalize things.)

Is it fast? Amazingly so in comparison with a first generation iPhone that used the EDGE network; I never had a 2nd generation model on 3G so my comparison is 1st generation to the new 3rd generation phone, and I detect amazing differences. I can stream music through the 3G network while I’m walking, which always glitched on the EDGE network. Software is zippier, the camera is better, it records video…

And best of all, it recognizes voice commands. Hold the command button on the headset for two seconds and it chirps at you; at that point, tell it what to do and it generally does it. I’ve had no speech recognition problems so far, which is quite impressive, since I’ve tested it with all sorts of commands.

More as I continue to put it through its paces…

Why I No Longer Woot

I used to hit the woot.com website every day–and much more if they happened to be in the middle of a wootoff. But now, not so much.

In case you aren’t familiar with them, Woot is a site that offers one product at a discounted price every day. At 1 am Eastern time, the new item goes up for sale. You can have it for the listed price plus $5 for shipping. Sometimes it’s a great deal, sometimes it’s junk, sometimes it’s a great deal for some people and it’s junk for others. Sometimes it sells out right away, sometimes it doesn’t sell out at all. And every now and then they have a wootoff, where they list one item after another to get rid of the things that didn’t sell out.

I used to buy a lot from them; I’d get things at pretty good prices, with an occasional mega-bargain in the mix, and they stood behind their products. If it didn’t work, they’d give a replacement or a refund.

Then I got a Slacker G1 portable internet radio player from them… and right out of the box, it didn’t work right. Problems galore, failure to function, needed to be restored every few days. I contacted Slacker, and they were little help; send it us at your expense, they said, and we’ll try to fix it but we don’t really support that unit any more, so if it’s not fixable, you can apply the price you paid towards a Slacker G2 and pay us the $149 difference. The thing was, I would never have bought a Slacker G2 at $79 plus $149; I bought the G1 because $79 was about right for an 8gb 40-station internet radio player that I could carry with me to listen to in the car, etc.

So I contacted Woot and said “this doesn’t work and the manufacturer won’t replace it without a hefty upgrade fee. What can you do?” And their response? “Talk to the manufacturer; there’s nothing we can do.”

I still have the G1; it still doesn’t work right, and it still fails about once every three or four uses and has to be reflashed with firmware to make it stumble along for a few more days. I won’t renew my Slacker subscription when it expires–no reason to, really, since the hardware is only semi-functional. I didn’t make a big stink of the issue with Woot, but I decided then that they were no longer a Trusted Vendor on my list. Now I hit their site once a week or so to see what sort of stuff they’re listing, but you know what? I think I’d rather pay a little more to get it from somewhere else where the seller ships me functional merchandise or stands behind the product…