I’m writing bow from a cruising altitude of 39,000 feet, thanks to wi-fi service now on AirTran.
This, I hardly need clarify, makes me almost giddy.
Now I can finally use ubiquitous Internet access like the security blanket it is, and on those rare occasions I might still find myself offline, just break down crying as if suddenly and unexpectedly deprived of the free use of, say, an arm.
Years ago, when Hayley Westenra’s My Gift to You album came out, I was unable to acquire a copy, on account of it having been released only in New Zealand, and further on account of me not living at the time in New Zealand.
Now, I’ve paid a return visit to eBay where I see I can not only buy a copy, but can get it on sale! For more money! Wait…
A New Type of Sale?
I have no objection at all to paying that price, of course. It’s just not particularly good marketing in the eBay listing. Earlier this year, one of the 70 copies of her very first CD sold on eBay for over $3,000 (says Wikipedia — and for once I believe it, since if I had $3,000 to spend on a CD, that’s the one I’d choose), so an extra $7.36 is, in fact, quite a bargain.
I just learned about the Optimus Aux, and I already don’t know how I live without one. It’s an auxiliary keyboard, where every button has an Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) screen that can display an image customized to its programmed function.
Optimus Aux
The price I’ve seen rumored is $650, or about $43 per button. It’s also not out yet.
While researching flights through United Airlines, I clicked an advertisement about a discount when purchasing an “Economy Plus” annual membership together with a Red Carpet Club membership. The description reads:
Save $100 off the regular price when you buy Economy Plus with United Red Carpet Club! When purchased separately, you pay $849. Purchase both now for just $774.
Err… $849 regularly… with $100 off… is $774? I hope these calculations are done in a different department than the ones about how much fuel the aircraft needs to carry for a given flight.
(If it makes anybody feel any better, I wouldn’t have paid $749 either; I was just curious about their Red Carpet Club pricing. The “Economy Plus” membership is borderline, at $349, or about six flights worth of individual upgrades.)
I love Coolidge Corner in Brookline. Let’s consider just a few things I experienced there this evening:
How Windows Work
Dear Guy in T-Mobile Store,
The enormous plate glass window separating the store from a very busy intersection is, as most windows are, transparent. When you walk directly up to it and start picking your nose, many people will see you, very few of whom will have wanted to.
I believe the device you thought you were using is a door, which, when closed, is typically opaque.
Sincerely,
Passer-by who was just minding his own business
I’ll See You in Court
Overheard from someone passing with a cell phone, in the tone one uses with a hostile witness in a courtroom:
Did she or didn’t she sleep with Jacob on Wednesday?
The Outcast
A boy and his father were shopping for another child’s birthday present. The boy recommended a particular Bionicle figure, which prompted this conversation:
Father: Do you like Bionicles?
Kid: No.Father: Oh. Well, how do you know he’ll like them?
Kid: Most kids my age like Bionicles. Like, most kids like sweet things like ice cream, but I don’t.
Pop singers really need to stop remixing Broadway music into pop songs. I woke up yesterday to hear someone — Gwen Stefani, it turned out — singing these lyrics to the tune of If I Were a Rich Man from Fiddler on the Roof:
If I was a rich girl — na na na na na na na na na na na na na na
See, I’d have all the money in the world
If I was a wealthy girl
This overly excited departure from Zero Mostel’s impoverished and weary Tevye was already disorienting to hear first thing in the morning. It reminded me immediately of 1998, when rapper Jay Z remixed Hard Knock Life into a hip hop tune, thus taking me entirely by surprise when my rap-loving coworkers of the day loved the song without having any idea of its origin.
Irked by this latest Broadway reuse, I took the time to read the rest of Stefani’s lyrics online. I wish I hadn’t.
In Fiddler on the Roof, the song is Tevye’s lament that, while it’s no shame being poor, he wouldn’t mind too terribly having some money. Though he dreams first of an impractically ostentatious house with “one long staircase just going up, and one even longer coming down,” he reveals by the end what he would really do with his hypothetical fortune:
If I were rich I’d have the time that I lack
To sit in the synagogue and pray
And maybe have a seat by the eastern wall.
And I’d discuss the holy books with the learned men,
Several hours every day.
That would be the sweetest thing of all.
All he really wants is the luxury to sit quietly, studying and praying. What, by contrast, does Ms. Stefani (who, incidentally, has sold 40 million records) want?
No man could test me
Impress me
My cash flow would never ever end
Cause I’d have all the money in the world
If I was a wealthy girl
Moving.
During a discussion this morning about Natalie Dylan’s virginity auction (there’s a phrase I never thought I’d use), we visited the BunnyRanch website to confirm some facts. Naturally, there’s a Frequently Asked Questions section.
Some of these are routine. The first two: “Where is the BunnyRanch located?” and “Which airport do I fly into?” Frequently asked indeed.
Let’s keep reading:
3. Where can I fly my private plane or jet into?
4. Where do I land my helicopter?
When the fourth most frequently asked question is, “Where do I land my helicopter?” (and the answer is, “The Moonlite BunnyRanch has a special landing pad in front just for helicopter uses”), you know you’re looking at an expensive destination.
I also love this question, if only for its fascinating reflection on our society and values:
9. How old do you have to be to visit the BunnyRanch?
You must be at least 18 years old to have sex or 21 years old to have a cocktail at the bar.
The real question now is how much longer we can keep talking about Natalie Dylan and the BunnyRanch before my girlfriend will veto the trip to Vegas we’ve been planning.
Google’s “auto complete” recommendations are getting increasingly absurd, even if they do conform perfectly to real people’s searches.
Today, when I wanted to find a good place to sell my 12-channel audio mixer, I started my search with the word “sell” and Google jumped in with a few ideas for what I might need.
Things People Sell Online
Naturally, “sell textbooks online” and “selling on eBay” are popular search choices. “Sell gold” has also gained popularity recently, to the point that airports and train stations in Germany have vending machines selling gold wafers.
“Sell WoW account” is a bit surprising (perhaps World of Warcraft is losing popularity as people can no longer afford the monthly fee), but it’s “selling virginity” that’s most striking.
Some careful, “strictly business” research suggests much of this searching is related to Natalie Dylan (a pseudonym), a Sacramento State graduate student who last year auctioned her virginity, having allegedly gotten bids up to $3.8 million. Fox News is, of course, outraged.
Local CBS affiliate KOVR-TV quoted Dennis Hof, owner of the Bunny Ranch where the auction will be held, as saying:
Natalie is a very smart girl. All she wants to do is get her master’s degree in family and marriage counseling and be a psychologist. She’s selling her virginity to accomplish that.
Adding a punchline at this point would only spoil the pure beauty of that statement.
Clients occasionally need to send me screen captures of their browser windows. Sometimes this is for debugging (e.g., so they can show me something that’s broken). Other times, like today, it’s to show me an administrative application that I can’t access myself.
I spent some time today looking through details in some captured pages before the Google Toolbar atop the page caught my eye:
What's really on your mind?
Anyone else find that recent Google query particularly interesting?
I recently asked our resident database administrator if our database server was experiencing any problems, since my applications were getting particularly slow responses.
He opened some system monitoring tools — complete with various graphs of system activity — looked pensive for a moment, and then responded:
I don’t see any spiky bits.
I always thought server administration was more complicated than that.