Author: grid

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Athens

Florence and I are in Athens, we’ve had a really wonderful time until… about fifteen minutes ago. We just had pretty much the only negative part of the trip happen… a cab driver just ripped us off to the tune of about 40 euros. :(

Athens is a pretty grungy city, but aside from the asshole cab driver, we haven’t really had any other problems. (Although walking at night in the neighborhood of our hotel is also totally sketchy.) I don’t have all that much internet time left, but Santorini was really really gorgeous, and well worth the trip.

Today we saw the Akropolis, and various other historical tourist traps. I’m sure anyone who is curious will hear all about it later. Hopefully I can sneak a few photos onto flickr before my time is up.

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google reader… kicking more and more ass…

I was going to write this post about how I tried out iPhonify, and got google reader working on my iphone… but after cracking open Safari 3 for the first time, syncing my iPhone and verifying that yes, I did have iphonify in my bookmarks now, I opened up google.com/reader, and low and behold, I didn’t need iPhonify. Google reader has a sweet and simple iPhone skin already! God damn it was sweet. It was a bit on the simple side for my tastes thus far, but it was super fast, and super nice. I think the only “real” feature I missed was that I noticed it didn’t show my “read” posts at all… they just didn’t show up at all. On the real google reader they just get grayed out after you read em, which works for me, because I often want to go back to them after I’ve read them. Anyway, I was amazed. Google has read my mind again. Now I sound like a google fanatic. Google forever!

Ok, I probably shouldn’t really quit without saying that the wedding is LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AWAY NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS. Yes, I know that last probably made some of you uncomfortable, but tough nuts. I just woke up.

Yeah, so I also finished Thirteen weeks ago, and have since read Crooked Little Vein, (just finished it last night) all five of the Spiderwick Chronicles, Bridge to Terabithia (it made me cry, but didn’t have a damn bit of magic in it, lying movie trailers!!!), and No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July. That last was abso-fucking-lutely brilliant. She spins a damn twisted yarn, I tell ya.

Jason and I are going to attend this weekend’s podcamp, and try to get a comic book podcast started (probably after Florence and I get back from the honeymoon). That’s about it in terms of news. Ooooh, and Pete is blogging again over at Hanashimasen, in preparation for his impending sojourn to Japan. He’s my favorite writer-I-know. Yay!

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Disasters large and small

By now, you’ve probably all heard about the 35W bridge that collapsed over the river. I had left early that day with Florence for a doctor’s appointment, and was already home by the time I heard about it. I had noticed a lot of sirens coming through the screen door, but didn’t really think twice about them until Mike called me to let me know what was happening. Florence and I immediately started watching CNN (on mute *shudder*) for pictures and live footage.

In spite of the location of the bridge (smack-dab in between home and work if you take the freeway), I didn’t know anyone who was involved in the collapse in any way. There were a flurry of work emails that night, asking everyone to check in.

At almost the same time, my friend Sarah is living in Japan, and she was dealing with Typhoon Usagi. She said she spent the time indoors, reading Transmetropolitan, which is now medium-high on my reading list. I really like what I’ve read of Warren Ellis’ work, and hadn’t heard of this 11-volume sci-fi epic until she brought it to my attention. (Thanks Sarah!)

Yesterday, the mn fringe festival started. I’ve got a short (but growing) list of shows I wouldn’t mind seeing, but so far my enthusiasm for the festival is less urgent than it has been in past years.

I can think of several reasons, the wedding is really starting to seem eminent, for one thing, and another is that I’ve got a looming work deadline (on monday) that is unlikely to be met if I don’t work a bunch this weekend. I actually worked a 16 hour day yesterday trying to finish one aspect of the project that I’d been putting off (there were plenty of other aspects to work on) until last Monday when I began to work on it in earnest. I’m fairly certain it should have been a two-week portion of the project. Anyway, t’s an internal deadline, but not really any less important for that because other people are waiting for my code. After I left work last night (2:30am), I waited for the bus for about 25 minutes, and then just ended up walking the two miles home.

I’m writing this post waiting for the cats to finish eating, (we give them 15 minutes, but it’s been 10 and they haven’t touched their bowls in 5) after which I’ll take a shower and head in to the office.

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first iPhone post

I’m writing this from my new iPhone. Florence got me a way-super-early birthday gift, presumably because she wanted me to have some time to play with it before the wedding… And then the almost two weeks we’ll be out of the country… Wouldn’t get to use it then either. Antway, it’s exciting. I literally have the internet at my fingertips.

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word press tee-shirts, other spending

I would totally buy one of the new WP tee-shirts if they came in… you guessed it, black. The tee-shirts are simple and appealing, but only come in red. Yes, that’s right, one style, one color. Totally lame.

I’ve also been meaning to buy one of those cool greyscale firefox shirts.

On the other hand, Florence and I have been trying to save money for the wedding. It’s going to cost quite a bit more than we’d expected it to, but in spite of that, I splurged $25 this morning at amazon, buying the new Jasper Fforde novel, (and Phillip K. Dick’s Ubik because I’ve been meaning to read it, and it got me to free shipping).

I absolutely adore all of Fflorde’s novels, and hadn’t known this new one was out.

Last Friday at Midnight, Florence, Nate and I went down to Barnes & Noble for the big Harry Potter release night. Standing in line (or sitting in line) for over an hour wasn’t all that fun, but it gave me a chance to read the first of the Spiderwick Chronicles. (Nate read it too, we’d just watched the preview earlier that day.) I have to remember to request the rest of them from the library before the movie comes out. (Which reminds me I should really read the bridge to tarabithia someday… and then watch the movie.)

Anyway, I finished the final Harry Potter yesterday at lunch. It was the best of the bunch, as far as I remember. I teared up at the end. I was sitting on the stoop outside work, balancing a quesadilla on one knee, and the massive 759 page novel on the other. I can’t say enough about how good it was. J. K. Rowling (or her editors) did such a great job of making it fast paced and readable. It felt like she brought back nearly every character for at least a brief cameo (especially at the end), and tied up seemingly every loose end. It was a brilliant roller coaster of pure joy to read.

For someone who claims to like science fiction way better than fantasy, I’ve sure been on a fantasy kick lately. But it feels kind of wrong to go from Harry Potter straight into what I was going to read next… that Thirteen novel by Richard Morgan. I haven’t decided whether that’s ok.