Archive for July, 2007

my fragile mind, split wholly assunder.

Friday, July 20th, 2007

Today, after most of a 10 hour journey from New York to Boston, I was faced with a monumental strain on my attention. It was an epic battle of instinct over intellect. I was faced, sitting across with me by a beautiful young lady reading Jane Austen’s Emma with whom I’d taken a class. I was trying to work up the nerve to speak to her across the width of the train about books and mention without speaking that she was perhaps on of the most wholly appealing females I have encountered in recent months. Then, a kid gets on the train, a young skinny Japanese man with glasses who held in his hands a shiny device with an apple logo. A device he operated by tapping his index finger on its surface. You know there’s only one thing that could possibly be. Here, ensues the epic battle for my attention. It was astounding how evenly split my mind settled on my interests since both the iPhone and the young woman were both beyond my capacity for confident interaction. In the end I settled on the young lady because the Japanese man was clearly a philistine. He operated the device with, get this, a single index finger. If you’ve seen demos you know that this is like operating a fine stereo by twisting the volume nob with a 12 pound monkey wrench. You can do it and it works but it lacks finesse and grace with which the designers intended your interaction to be mediated.

I’ve returned to Boston after an enjoyable trip to NY for my Dad’s 50th Birthday. Work 9-5. Another thing to work out shortly: Neuros OSD v Apple TV. The latter’s High-Def capacity is a large selling point. Stranger Than Fiction: one of the most enjoyable films on several levels I’ve seen in some time.

He who fucks nuns will later join the church. Death or Glory, becomes just another story…

Twitter Updates for 2007-07-17

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007
  • travelling Boston to NY much easier during the day. from apt to croton = 6.5hrs #

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A typical evening in Allston Rock City

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

So I walked out of my apartment tonight to get some money from an ATM to buy dinner at a neighborhood pizza place. I turned the corner at the liquor store and was greeted by a cover of The Beatles “Come Together” performed by a couple of Japanese people running instruments off a battery.

It was amusing so i gave them a dollar. They had a CD of “Japanese music,” which they wanted $5 for.  This seemed kind of steep to me considering there wasn’t even a plastic case and the cover was clearly from their ink jet printer. They followed up with “Let it Be,” Clapton’s “Lola” or whatever that song’s called and “Hotel California” with some improvised soloing at the end of each song for a little while. It was fun and the calzone I ate later was good too.

I brought my pogo stick just to show her a trick.

Twitter Updates for 2007-07-16

Monday, July 16th, 2007
  • 1st episode of Doctor Who was pretty good. why am I just getting aroound to watching it now? The show seems to have a lot of potential. gues #
  • No idea what to get for my dad for his birthday. the man has everything he wants, I can’t get him more contentment for his birthday. #

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Stocks and Online Finances

Monday, July 16th, 2007

I’ve invested some money in the stock market over the last few months, since early April. I’d decided I’d fiddle with finding the cheapest way to invest like 50 bucks and pick a stock and try to beat my savings account’s growth of 4.5% with ING. (seems to be the best thing going in savings accounts: no fees, all online, no minimum balances etc. great all around.) By late May I’d decided to put a total of 250 dollars into Nintendo (NTDOY) makers of the Wii console. (Disclosure: Clearly this makes any statements about Nintendo suspect and subject to bias on my part.) Anyway, Its been doing well and I’ve made, after the fees I’ll have to pay when I divest (16 dollars through ShareBuilder, whose service was been 85% reliable and more importantly cheap to the point that it’s almost reasonable to invest with them even if you’ve only got 500 bucks to mess with (I’ve only got like 300 total, anything not in Nintendo is in SPDR S&P 500, which grows slowly but still quicker than my savings I think.) All around it’s a good experience. I think though I’m tempted to hang on to the Nintendo stock just so I don’t have to file a normal 10-40 and pay Capital Gains Tax. Maybe when/if I divest I’ll go out and buy a Wii. I’m glad I haven’t pulled a Silas Lapham and “I began to lose, and then I began to throw good money after bad,just as I always did with everything that Rogers ever came within a mile of.”

Even though it makes me nervous, doing all my banking and financial stuff on the ol’ internets is really easy. I’ve got all my accounts hooked together which probably makes it easier to steal all of my money and it’s probably a liability to even talk about too much. Time to change all of my passwords to something other than “password” and “mom.”

It’s easy to save what the cannery pays cause there ain’t no way to spend it.

Twitter Updates for 2007-07-15

Sunday, July 15th, 2007
  • watching Throne of Blood. Just watched The Roaring Twenties with Cagney and Bogart. #

Funk Master Boot Record.

Sunday, July 15th, 2007

I’ve got to finally get around to redoing the master boot record on this machine so I can get my dual boot to where it should be. I’m headed home for a few days which is nice once I’m there but getting there is at best exhausting, tedious and frustratingly slow. Last time I went home I almost shelled out for a train ticket instead of the shitty buses but I decided it was not really any better in the long run. Anyway, at this point the whole process of getting home just so I can see my Dad, Mom, and sister and the rest of my friends and family for like 2 days just to come back and work for another four days. It would be so much easier if I could just drive there and back 7 hours total instead of 7 each way. Anyway, enough complaints. I was going to work on an essay on The Road, but I loaned out my copy and I’m clearly heading back to New York.

This is the part of me that, needs medication.