Back from the store.

Got my very first “Is that a real tattoo” question. Neat.

Just got home from from the east coast trip. I’m f’n beat so I am taking a break on the couch long enough to write this entry, cause then I have to go to the grocery store and do some errands.

Monday, we flew to New York on Jet Blue. Comfy flight, I totally recommend this airline. We didn’t even have any problems with our landing gear. We got to our hotel, the New Yorker, to find it has rooms the size of matchboxes. Also, we found it to be centrally located and yet not actually close to anything in particular. Next time, it’s the St. Marks Hotel.

It rained most of Tuesday, but we went to the Met so it made no difference. We saw loads of paintings that, up until now, I had only seen in prints, Art class books or on PBS. :) There was a special exhibit of Van Gogh’s work which was excellent, of course. The Japanese art section was amazing, as was the modern art.

Also, I saw a painting that I’d always wanted to see in person: George Washington Crossing the Delaware. I always knew it was a large painting, but to call it simply “large” betrays it’s mammoth proportions. The painting is gigantic and amazing. It is, in a word, Epic.

Another highly was the Arms, Armor and Guns exhibit. The most gorgeous flintlocks… it was all I could do to not shout “YAR!” kick in the glass and make off with the booty. Of course, I didn’t see any powder or shot around so it would have been a rough escape. That’s ok, there were plenty of melee weapons to help. Maybe next time.

Wednesday we went shoe-shopping, or boot-hunting perhaps, for Annette. She found an excellent pair of Grinders boots, in case anyone’s keeping score. Thankfully it had stopped raining in time for the boot-hunt.

On Thursday, we spent almost the entire day paying someone to jab our skin with needles attached to a loud buzzing machine. Ok, not just someone. Tim Kern of Paul Booth’s Last Rites tattoo shop. This is the second time we’ve met Tim, and the second time he’s inked Annette, but it was the first time he’s worked on me. (It’s only my second tattoo.)

I got the power symbol I’ve been wanting for so long. It looks like it’s shiny metal and embedded brutally in my left forearm. Click the thumbnail for a better view. (Pic taken the next day.)Annette got a gypsy head with a dagger through it and crossed flintlock pistols below. Tim’s an amazing artist and a perfectionist… so he’s not the fastest around (we were in the shop for almost 12 hours, about eight of that in the chair) but he’s one of the best there is. The time and money was well worth it. He’s also a helluva guy, so it was fun spending most of the day with him. We capped the night with a pint at The Library Bar. (That link is oddly dead as I post this, so if it’s still dead and you wanna click… click this instead.)

Friday, we spent a good deal of time bitching about our arms for some reason. We swang by Last Rites and Tim took a final photo of each of our tattoos for the Last Rites site. Then we drove the rental car down to Philly, with a detour to pay respects at the final resting place of Joey Ramone in New Jersey.

That night, we met up with a couple of Annette’s Philly friends and had great sushi and sake at some little shop, of which I can not remember the name, then headed over to the hotel bar where Pumpcon would be held the next day and had a few beers.

On Saturday, it took us over an hour to get across Philly due to freeways that flowed like stone. And not molten stone, either. Eventually we made it to the con, which was running even later than we were. (Which is good, since the first speaker was pretty interesting.) After the con we visited the Sailor Jerry Store and ran around and hit a few other shops before eventually retiring to our hotel to pack, eat and kick back.

This morning, Sunday, we somehow managed to make it to our 8:15am flight and here we are…

Ok, that was really longer than intended, but it’s the longest vacation that I’ve had in a while. I’m tired and my arm hurts… but I need to go to the grocery store.

Awright, we’re wheels up in a couple of hours and I am finishing packing. The Boo is staying at a spa for the first time.
Podcasts and other feeds are downloaded. My new 5G, 60Gb iPod is charged and synced. Bags are packed. Garbage is taken out. Seeya!

Finally got to see Serenity on Saturday.

It was a pretty cool day overall. Annette and I met up with her coworker, the coworker’s husband and a couple of their friends to grab lunch and pints in downtown San Jose and spend some time at the Art Car show. Well, lunch and pints lasted a while (since it was a pretty fun, chatty group) so we didn’t spend too long with the Art Cars before it was time to go see Serenity.

The movie is AWESOME. I won’t say much more than that because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who’s lagging more than I in seeing it… but I don’t know any Firefly fans that were disappointed. Chock full of action and witty dialog… Joss does not fail to deliver. There were also some surprises…

I’m a leaf in the wind. Watch me soar.

“Be the zombie” is the tagline for a game coming out this fall called Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without A Pulse. After watching the trailers, I can sum up my opinion in four words:

Must. Have. This. Game.

It looks to be one of the funniest games of all time. You play Stubbs, a traveling salesman who was murdered in 1933. You come back to life in 1959 in the middle of a town that has sprung up on your resting place. All you know is that this strange city wasn’t here before… and that eating somebody’s brains would make you feel better.

Warning for the squeamish… the game is violent. It’s over the top gore just as it should be… and I hope it makes Jack Thompson’s head explode.

Yay. iTunes 6 is out the door! Man, it only seems like a few short weeks ago we rolled out 5.0. Hrm. No, actually the weeks have seemed particularly long.

Still, it’s gratifying. We announced some cool shit this week to mostly positive responses.

The video feature in iPod is cool and lots of folks wanted us to do it, and so I am glad it’s out there finally. However, it would be interesting to see how much of the market really wants portable video. (I’ll be upgrading, but that’s just because I was putting off upgrading to a 60gb photo because I knew this was coming. I don’t necessarily care about portable video as much as I do about the nicer screen, slimmer size and bigger capacity when comparing it to my 40gb.)

More important, however, is what the direction we’re going with iTunes, iTMS and the Mac. You can see great possibilities in the future for content delivery and management. Soon, a Mac solution might be able replace my TiVo, Cablebox, DVD player and home stereo. Hell, it’s already covering all music duties and fills in getting shows that I wanted to see that TiVo didn’t get.

(Don’t get me wrong, TiVo… I still love you guys, but you are worrying me with how much control you might be willing to take from the customer and give to the networks. I’m also more than a little peeved about your lack of giving-a-shit about the Mac when it comes to TiVo To Go.)

RIAA sued by victim. From the article:

A WOMAN who was sued by the Recording Industry of America for file-sharing has countersued the outfit for hacking.

…and…

When Andersen contacted Settlement Support Center, she was advised that her personal home computer had been secretly entered by the record companies’ agents, MediaSentry.

The RIAA’s methods here are despicable. They hire a company to, essentially, act as digital thugs extracting protection money from people with the threat of a major lawsuit. From what I can discern, it’s a cross between Vigilantism and Racketeering.

Apparently she had been up at 4:24am downloading “gangster rap” music under the login name “gotenkito@kazaa.com.” Andersen does not like “gangster rap”, does not recognise the name “gotenkito”, is not awake at 4:24 a.m. and has never downloaded music.

Of course, the woman is a single mother… so there’s a kid in the house. There’s no mention of whether or not the kid could have been doing the downloading. I heard through other channels, however, that when questioned about it the kid responded “it’s gangsta rap, beeyotch!”