happenings

Poor Bill...

man this must really tee off Bill Gates. It must suck to work in a draconian type of place like MSFT where you feel that if you don't do everything the WIN way you will be looked at. I would freak. I go out of my way to use as little as MSFT as possible. Treo for my smart phone. iPod for MP3. All macs at home.

Too funny Bill. You can try all you want. iPod, iTunes and the iPod ecosystem are way beyond your reach now. I love it.

Note to MSFT employees. Just buy a better set of headphones. No biggie.

Bill - I bet you have an iPod - don't you big guy?

he he

article on wired...

Too busy to rip cd's?

Have someone else do it!

I could see a lot of rich/busy people using this service.

The trickle down industry spawned by the iPod must be huge!

cya...

New Tunes!

here we go. iTunes is killing my visa card!

Pressure Chief

Love Cake. Lover all their tunes. They rule. This is not their best album but it is good. Solid licks, good sounds and as usual the frankest most down to earth lyrics on the planet. Get it.

Get Born

Jet rocks. Kind of retro rock with great jams, soothing voice and some pointed lyrics. Rollover DJ is a great tune. My iPod is loving this one.

Encore (Deluxe Edition)

Eminem is not my favorite but I just dig some of his tunes and his words are amazing. So I picked this up but have not listened to it much since I can't stop rokcing to Cake!

cya

The iPod too popular?

Starting to feel tha same way as this article.

Have to change the headphones for sure but more importantly the reason I like apple is it is better and I want to be different. Now there are a ton of iPods and even HP sells them. Tough to be different.

Interesting.

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/

cya

Airport Express

Pickep up an Airport Express last night in Hong Kong. Pretty damn cool. Setup was not a breeze but I got it working. Went through the Airpport Express Wizard and it kept failing. So I used the admin utility and got it up and running. Streaming some fine dance Tunes to my stereo within minutes. So cool how it integrates into iTunes. The sound quality is good and for some reason it just sounds better than hooking up my iPod to my stereo and they are both using the same connection. This is a really nice solution to the issue of all my music on my iBook but not hooked up to my stereo. Good gig.

The thing that is not working is using it to extend my Airport through WDS. I just cannot get it to work and I am not sure why. It could be that my Airport base station is too old but I cannot seem to figure out how to tell and what the real issue might be but I got tired of working on it. So I streamed some chill out tunes and started on a new book.

The Da Vinci Code

Portal Player and the iPod

This is interesting.

news.com story on PortalPlayer going public.

Clealy the iPod is super popular. I noticed on my run today in SF and walking around town that it was easier to look for people who did not have an iPod versus those who did. The reality is that when I see other headphones than the standard white iPod headphones - it could still be an iPod because like many I changed my headphones a long time ago. iPods are everywhere.

Does that make PortalPlayer a good buy though? Somehow I doubt it. Apple is not married to it and is not even using all of the feature sets. Very few other companies are using it and the competition is growing.

This will get interesting but this stock will not go over well.

cya

The Net

I love the internet and iTunes rules.

Was reading this Wired article about how iTunes store is bringing old tunes back and making not so famous musicians famous. The article talked about this tune.

I heard it once during a movie and was always looking for it.

cool song.

DUFF

Yes. My hero is still cranking away at the American Dream but back on plaent earth Duff is making it happen!

I am going to get a gaggle of beanies sent over to HK and spread them around a bit.

Don't worry duff - I will get you some evidence!

lakers suck...

cya

Going Home...

Hard to put a finger on the definition of going hom anymore. Is it the place I go back to where I spend most of my time or is it going back to see my family and friends in California? Tough to say really since for me going home is probably the return trip to somewhere back in Asia. That is actually where I feel more at home or at the very least more in touch with myself. However nothing beats the feeling of going back to my parent's house, sitting around, eating home cooked food, remembering the past and embracing a new future. I did not spend enough time on this trip but the time I had was special and certainly recharges my batteries. I may not miss the good old USA all that much but I miss my family and friends for sure. I find it harder and harder to stay connected with my friends the longer I am in Asia but the beauty of family is that you can walk right into your house where you grew up and feel like you never left. I miss my family for sure and hope the miles between us never tarnish our bonds.

My Mom showed me some old pictures of my grandfather and all the family interconnecting that part of my roots. Old photos of different places in California that really opened my eyes to how much California has changed and how little I know about my roots. Mom is working on piecing it all together and it looks like at one point we will need to go to France and find the missing links but just looking at all the photos from my Grandfather's life once he had arrived in the states was incredibly eye opening and touching. I only wish I knew more about the past since it shapes who I am and what my family is made of - which to me is pretty interesting stuff.

SFO to Narita. A little sleeping, lots of reading, lots of email and a movie. Girl with a Pearl Earring - well it just plain sucked. I wanted to like it and thought for a bit that it was going to get good but it never did. I wasted my time. This bugs me more on a plane than if I had paid to see the movie since while I was wasting my time watching this movie all I had to do was flip to another channel and watch something else. Stupid on my part.

Monday. Back to the grind. Much to do about work and getting my life in gear after being on the road for a solid month. As of today I should be 1k on united for this year. Yes - 100k miles on Star Alliance in 6 month flat. I need the gym.

Straight up. Dinner on Friday night with my friend Jody and I was dying for a good steak place. Salad, flesh and a bottle of wine. Good conversation heavily sprinkled throughout. Had a great time and really enjoyed the food. Harris' - check it out.

Picked up a new iPod mini. What a racket Apple has going on these. You go to the Apple store when they open and stand in line. Everyone sees you standing in line and wonders why. So you tell them. Then you wait for them to bring out the daily batch of minis hoping there is enough for you to get one. I am sure the minis had been in the back ready to go for a while but that would not be as fun since Apple loves to have all these people wait for them and the line itself helps to generate even more buzz. Brilliant marketing for sure. Got to hand it to them but waiting in line to buy something just bugs me. Oh well. I have one now.

My blog racked up another .05 in ad revenue. I am on fire. I need to get going on the Amazon.com associates program since I link to many tangible items. I am sure my "niche" content will prove lucrative. The next thought is just stopping work all together and focusing on traveling while detailing the blog with every place I go, eat, sleep, things to see and so on and hope the ad revenue just soars. ;) wet dream ahead...

I think that does it.

Team dinner was at Timo's. Tough to judge a restaurant when you are having a group dinner, but the food was tasty and the waitstaff did a good job. Allin all I would most likely return for a smaller group and a better chance of exploring the menu.

l8r

Busy or Lazy...

Stuff - been busy.

Check out the new Kill Bill - number 2. This is awesome. I loved every second of it. Masterpiece. Need to see it again for sure.

New music - Dave Seaman and Phil K album - Renaissance Therapy Sessions. Pick it up.

HK is getting hot and sticky. It was good while it lasted.

Thai Airways - get nice or get taken out. Thai airways used to have a lock on things but with more discounters coming to Asia and with more deregulation in the Thai skies these people need to show some customer service. My issue is not with the flight staff - I always have a good time on the plane but they could use some modernization when it comes to inflight entertainment. My beef is with the ground staff. They are rude, never listen and show no preference to people with GOLD status on Star Alliance. I may be bitching but what good is an Alliance without status? Yeah - not much. These people need to wake up and smell the chai. Anyway...

I am sure I had more to say.

Yeah - my Treoo 600. It broke. Freaking handspring - cool products but poor quality. This is the second handspring product that has broke on me. What sucks even more is their support model. Send it somewhere to a country you don't live in- wait until they get it and then we will send you one back on our own sweet time table. Bottom line - I sent it in yesterday. I will let you know how long it takes. Fun fun.

go explore.