Marriage License by Norman Rockwell
Click the picture for an unonbstructed view
Source: Art.com
Featured:
Navigation
CC's Random Thoughts
Franklin, TN, USA
Manila, Philippines
Temperature:
As of :
Temperature:
As of :
Background pictures illustrate current weather conditions
CC's Tweets
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Steve to the Rescue
Current Mood: CC is listening to: MadTVLast night at 9:00pm:
"Honey I need your help!" "What's wrong?" "I'm in the middle of downtown Chicago and I can't get a signal on my GPS!" "Well where are you exactly?" "{sobs} I don't KNOW...!"
I flew into Chicago for the weekend for a friend's wedding. Steve couldn't come with me since he's already taken time off for next week's Manila trip, so I took our GPS unit with me and hoped for the best. I was actually fine going from the rental car place to the hotel, the hotel to the church (the church and ceremony were beautiful), and the church to the reception, which is at a downtown hotel (gorgeous hotel).
I parked in a public parking facility right next to the hotel ($14 for parking!). Little did I know $14 was for the first 2 hours. By the time I left, parking was $30. And the scary part about it is that I heard that was normal in Chicago. In Memphis we complain when public parking's $5 :-).
Anyway, I lost satellite reception when I parked, which is normal when you take the GPS unit indoors. I figured I'd pick the reception back up easily when I got out of the building later.
At 8:50pm I pull out of the parking building. I figure, drive down the street a while, let the GPS unit pick up a signal. Nothing.
Don't panic, it takes time. Stop light, good.
Nothing.
Turn the GPS off, turn it back on. Maybe it needs to reset. Drive down a few more blocks.
Nothing.
I'm running out of road and will have to make a turn soon, and I don't want to get any more lost than I already am. I park on the side of the street and call Steve. That's when the conversation above takes place.
I was freaking out because not only was I in a strange city, I was downtown (where every street is a one way street), it's night, and I'm the kind of person that has absolutely no sense of direction. If you told me straight ahead was North, then turned me to my right and told me that was North too, I'd believe you.
I looked at the building next to where I was parked. It was an apartment building, with the address on the canopy. "I'm at 445 E. Ohio Street."
"Okay, hold on, I'm pulling up Google Maps. Where are you headed?"
"855 79th Street, Willowbrook, Illinois."
A few minutes pass.
"Okay I see where you are. No wonder you're having trouble getting a signal with all those tall buildings around you. Okay, at the end of the road, you're turning left on N Lake Shore Drive. Then you're taking the first left after that on E Ontario Street."
"Stop stop one at a time...!"
"Calm down, honey. I'll be your GPS until you get a signal. It's a piece of cake. Go ahead, start driving. Just tell me which streets you pass so I can keep track of where you are."
After the first two turns it was a straight shot for 12 blocks (thank goodness) and right at the point where I had to get on the highway, I heard the familiar pinging of the GPS which meant it acquired a satellite signal and it was plotting a way to get me home. When the GPS said, "In point 3 miles, turn left on ramp," I was never more relieved to hear a robotic voice in my life :-).
Steve stayed with me on the phone until I got to the hotel, which was about 20 minutes later. When I finally parked the car at the hotel it was like a huge weight was taken off my shoulders. I never would have found my way back without his help :-).
Oh, and just to prove my point about having a terrible sense of direction--even with the GPS working I ended up taking a wrong turn at one point and it had to turn me around to get me back on the highway :-).
Current Mood: CC is listening to: E! News I miss...
Green mangoes and shrimp paste
Fishballs... not just any kind, the kind you get at UP Diliman (I wonder how much they cost now). I used to be able to fit 20 of them on a stick :-). I miss the sweet sauce that comes with them too :-)
Banana-Q and Turon
Taho
(sighs) Ah well. We've got some spuds in the fridge. Maybe I can make potato-Qs :-).
Hey don't laugh...half an hour ago I had shrimp paste and pickles :-). They weren't bad, actually :-).
Posted by Unknown |
6:15 PM |
0 Comments |
Write or read comments about this entry
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Watch the Watchmen? Don't Know Yet.
Current Mood: CC is listening to:Smile Again--Manhattan Transfer (The Manhattan Transfer) The trailer for the Watchmen movie came out Friday.
Now I know the graphic novel has won awards and a lot of people LOVE the Watchmen, but I read it recently and my impression was, well, it was okay...at best. You know how there are 4 parts to a story: exposition, conflict rising, climax, and resolution? It felt like the first 2 parts took up 7/8 of the story and the last two took up only 1/8. I finished the comic (after 4 hours of reading) and went, "That's it? He could've told the story in MUCH less time than that."
I actually had an inkling of it being a dragging story even as I was reading the first few pages. Then I looked at the cover again. "Oh. It's DC."
I've never been a DC comics fan. I've always leaned towards Marvel, because Marvel comics tend to be gripping even early on in the storytelling.
Plus there's that whole "Marvel does flawed superheroes better" thing, but that's another debate :-).
When I told Steve that I felt the story was so SLOW, he said, "Well yeah, that's how he writes. V for Vendetta was exactly the same way. It takes Alan Moore forever to get the story going."
That's not to say Steve and I didn't like the V for Vendetta movie. We loved it--we even have a movie poster hanging in our hallway. But if a 2-hour movie is able to paint the same picture that a graphic novel took 300 pages to say, then the graphic novel is too long.
Maybe the Watchmen movie will be like that--better than the graphic novel. But right now, after seeing the trailer, I'm not getting the "Oh my GOD I have to see this movie!" reaction the same way I did when I saw the Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, and Fantastic Four trailers (notice how THOSE movies are all Marvel?).
Current Mood: CC is listening to: Too Close for Comfort--Michael Buble (We All Love Ella: Celebrating The First Lady Of Song) I should have known I wouldn't stop at just the phone :-). I ended up getting an accessory for it: it's the Motorola T505.
What does it do? It's pretty cool. The easiest way to describe it is through this diagram:
Essentially the T505 takes calls and music from any Bluetooth-enabled cellphone or mp3 player (my phone acts as both), then it finds the next available FM station to broadcast to and then it tells you to tune in to that. Then you'll have your calls and your music playing through the car stereo :-). It'll freeze the music when you have an incoming call, then it'll pick it up again when the call is over.
The best part about this is that it's portable. I could use this in Steve's truck (or in any other car), because it doesn't matter whether or not the car stereo is Bluetooth--the T505 MAKES it Bluetooth :-). Heck last night I was testing it with an ordinary non-Bluetooth CD player that had an AM/FM radio--it works beautifully, and the music comes out in full stereo :-).
Oh and we also bought a 1GB micro memory card to replace the 512MB I had, so I have even more music to play now :-).
I think this "upgrade phone" thing is contagious--when we were at Best Buy yesterday Steve started looking at new phones that HE could upgrade to :-).
Oh and that "Unstable Equilibrium" artwork in the last blog entry? I made it my cellphone wallpaper :-).
Current Mood: CC is listening to: Round and Round--Spandau Ballet (The Best of Spandau Ballet) Have you ever come across a piece of artwork that you felt captured your personality perfectly :-)?
I was looking for new Paul Klee artwork to feature on my main blog site (ccslish.blogspot.com), and I saw this:
Unstable Equilibrium by Paul Klee
I laughed when I saw this because it is SO me. If you've worked with me for any length of time, you know my predisposition to flowcharts. Then I looked at the title: "Unstable Equilibrium."
Yeah that's me all right :-).
Plus I'm sure when Steve sees this he'll say the artwork also perfectly describes my attention span: frighteningly fleeting :-). If that artwork was an overhead map of, let's say Disneyland, Steve would be the steady orange square in the middle and the black arrows would be me running from store to store: "Let's go here! Oh, look at this! Oh, look at that one, how neat! Oh my God, over there--it's Pluto!"
Current Mood: CC is listening to: I Do Remember--Hiroshima (Another Place) I upgraded my phone this week :-). Many wireless companies in the US offer you a free phone upgrade after a certain amount of time if you're willing to extend your post-paid contract with them for an additional two years. That makes it REALLY easy to get a new phone if I feel like changing it, and I would get the phone at a discount (or even free depending on the model).
The one I got cost me an extra $70, but I'm happy with it :-). It's a Nokia 6301.
I'm not a cellphone geek by any stretch of the imagination :-). I don't have to have the latest and greatest out there, and this phone more than addresses what I need :-):
Size: 1.7 x 4.2 x 0.5 inches Weight: 1.4 ounces Included battery: 860 mAh Lion Talk time: up to 3.5 hours Standby time: up to 14.5 days Band (frequency): 850 MHz;1800 MHz;1900 MHz
Included Accessories:
Battery
Charging Stand
Stereo Hands-Free Headset
512 mb MicroSD card (inserted in phone)
Top Phone Features Messaging
Instant messaging
Text messaging
Fun
2.0 megapixel camera
Music player
Video capture/playback
MegaTones®, Wallpaper, HiFi Ringers®, & Games
Communication
Stereo Bluetooth® wireless technology
Wi-Fi and Mobile Calling
E-mail
Picture messaging
Information
Micro SD memory slot
Photo caller ID
Voice dialing
Assistants
Alarm clock
Calculator
Calendar
T-Mobile Address Book
I love the fact that it comes with a 512MB memory card :-). That makes it really easy to save LOTS of things on it :-). I've already used up half of it by transferring music from my computer :-).
Now here's the biggest factor that made me get the Nokia 6301 over other models: it's a Wi-Fi enabled phone. What does that mean? It's the coolest thing. I have to subscribe to the additional service (an additional $10 a month), but let me tell you what happens: my phone can use open Wi-Fi signals (or Wi-Fi signals I know the network key to) to make phone calls, and any phone calls I make using that Wi-Fi signal will NOT be counted towards my cellphone minutes :-).
So let's say I've got a 500-minute-a-month plan and I've currenly used up 400 minutes, which means I only have 100 minutes left to use for the rest of the month.
I set up my phone to recognize my home Wi-Fi broadband internet connection and make it use THAT connection instead of the T-Mobile connection. Once I do THAT, I can place a phone call to a relative, or join a business conference call that can last 3 hours--heck, let's make it 5 :-). 5 hours, that's 300 minutes. But because I made the call using the home broadband Wi-Fi network, I would STILL have my 100 minutes left to use on to the T-Mobile network :-).
Is that not friggin' sweet :-)? Plus there's more. It automatically connects to the Wi-Fi network at T-Mobile hotspot locations such as Starbucks shops, airports, and bookstores. I walk into a Starbucks, make a call, and don't have to worry about using up my minutes :-).
Of course, that's only applicable to using the Wi-Fi network for making cellphone calls (and not things like accessing the internet on your laptop--that's a different service altogether), but that sure does come in handy :-).
Oh and here's another thing, and I was surprised to learn this: if you want your tri- or quad-phone unlocked so you can use it with a different SIM card overseas, all you have to do is call T-Mobile and they'll have it unlocked for you within 24 hours, free of charge. THAT'S cool :-).
So what I'll do is wait until I get to the point where I'm about to use up my 500 minutes on my T-Mobile plan for the month, then I'll activate the T-Mobile HotSpot@Home service :-). That way I won't end up starting to pay an extra 9.99 a month until I absolutely have to :-).
Current Mood: CC is listening to: Nothing right now When Steve and I saw this T-Shirt we both laughed so much I just HAD to order it :-).
This t-shirt probably wouldn't make sense if you haven't seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, so I put the source of the joke below. The joke starts about a minute after you press play and ends 35 seconds later :-).
Current Mood: CC is listening to:Nothing right now When I was in Manila, my brother Noel and I had to go to the grocery store because he needed ingredients for a dish that he wanted to try that night. He needed to buy coriander, so we were in the spices section. We couldn't find the coriander but Noel at one point took a packet from the shelf and showed it to me.
"Zappron?" I asked, puzzled. "I've never heard of Zappron. What kind of spice is zappron?"
Noel shook his head. "Ate, it's saffron."
I near doubled over laughing. The picture's out of focus because I was laughing so hard I couldn't keep my hand steady.
"Zappron--sounds like the name of some outer space bad guy."
"Or a really bad movie."
"Or a video game. ZAP-pron!"
When I got back to the US I told Steve about it and showed him the picture, and HE started laughing. We'll never look at saffron the same way again :-).
Or Via E-Mail:
