The Shallow End

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Weekend Randomness

I now own a camera phone. I never intended to, but when replacing our daughter's lost phone, I agreed to give her my old phone and I would take advantage of the free upgrade to whatever phone that might be (the one who loses her phone gets the old crappy phone...that's how the family plan works, right?). I was surprised to learn that the free upgrade was a RAZR camera phone (which our daughter thought was quite cool and tried unsuccessfully begging for it...she even had to show me how to use it). So, armed with a new camera phone and a new set of nails, I took my first snapshot (ahem...blame Eric).

Without a flash, the camera phone is mostly useless, but I'm sure it will come in handy for capturing special blogging fodder. Also, while the phone was completely free, the only way to transfer the photos to my PC was to pay $30 for a special USB cable and driver software. But that seemed more palatable than paying monthly internet access fees for the cell phone. I still haven't bought into all the functionalities offered by the new generation of combination cell phones/MP3s/PDAs.

And in other technology news, I just returned from a trip to the Geek Squad at Best Buy to inquire about the lack of sound (again) on my year-old computer. Last time I lost sound, it turned out to be a faulty mother board. I fully expected to learn that the mother board needed replacing again and that I would be without my computer for a couple weeks. I prepared myself by backing up the entire hard drive and toted my computer off to the Geeks. After a good thorough search of the computer's settings, the Geek felt around the outside of the computer and laid his hands on, what was that? A volume control dial? You mean, like in the old days?!? *cough* *mutter-mumble* Oh, that. Yes, I see. So if I just roll it under my finger like this, the sound goes up and down? Okay, thank you very much. I'm sure glad I paid for the 3 year "service" plan. What a dork. 8-}

And in entertainment news, we once again went to Knuckleheads last night, this time to see the great double-necked-guitarist Junior Brown. The top part of the guitar is a normal 6-string guitar; the lower half is a steel slide guitar, normally played on one's lap. You might recognize his voice as the narrator in the Dukes of Hazzard film, or the soundtrack of Me, Myself & Irene or Spongebob Squarepants. I hadn't heard much about him but the show was sold out and we enjoyed the show. He has a great voice and I can't say I've ever seen anything quite like the "guit-steel." I tried to use my new phone's video capabilities to capture a moment to share, but this is all I got. The sound bites on iTunes or Amazon are much better.

And last but not least, I still don't own any of the Harry Potter books. But I'll be eager to learn whether Harry dies or not. Just because...

Labels: Books, Music, Project 52 (Weekly Random Photos of Life)

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Speaking of Dogs

Today's top story...

When frogs become dogs (or dogues, as Foo might call them)

(story via Hillbilly, Please, via Darko, who has apparently locked himself in a dark room and refuses to come out and play until the tushery and agraphia wear off)

Aside from the especially humorous possibilities that Jane points out, of being the Official Frogwatch Coordinator for your local homeowner's association, or your office for that matter, I liked the fact that this poor thing was captured during a raid on a pond! This sounds like a job for Brian, who is currently the top candidate for Molewatch Coordinator.

Oh, and by the way, that book Jane mentions, In A Sunburned Country, another one of my favorites, by Bill Bryson, is well worth the read. Absolutely, side splittingly funny.

Labels: Books, Flora and fauna, The Absurd