how now brownpau
Just one last note from Dubai Airport: one reason I was in such a rush to get to my plane was because I got lost in the Gate 36-42 area whilst searching for the men’s room. I did not regret the detour, however, when I caught sight of the massive construction grounds for the new airport extension, and the hazy sunrise behind it:
This has not been a good week for me in electronics and technology. In addition to the loss of a webcam, my Palm Zire 31 has suddenly and inexplicably died (a month past end of warranty, of course), my user-unfriendly S/E T300 cellphone has developed a wonky charge socket, my home internet connection has gone from sluggish to near-nonexistent, and my referrer logs are being hammered by referrer spam from multiple open proxies and zombie PCs.
For the handheld/cellphone issue, I’m now angling for combo alternatives to simplify my life, but neither the Nokia 6600 nor the Treo comes cheap around these parts. I may have to settle for a nice, cheap Hipster PDA for now.
For the referrer spam issue, joke’s on them: my referrer log, though public, has a robots exclusion directive to keep it off the search engines. Reffy and Thomas Reece are simply wasting resources on spamming this site.
My webcam, a Unibrain Fire-I, caused a bit of a stir at Dubai Airport security. I’m thinking that with the transparent casing, spinning focus wheel, exposed electronics, and rubber-padded clip, it must have looked like some kind of quick-attach timed detonator. But after plugging the cam into my iBook’s Firewire port and showing the security guy his own image on Evocam, he grinned, gave me a thumbs-up, and waved me along toward my plane.
Now, after unpacking, I find that the webcam is missing. I remember hurriedly stuffing my computer paraphernalia into my carry-on bag before rushing to the gate to catch the final boarding announcement, and it’s entirely possible that I left the webcam lying on the security desk before a bemused Emirates security representative.
I suppose I’ll have to do without a webcam for a while.
What’s up with this weather? I come home expecting ice and snow, and instead it’s almost warm enough for shorts. (It was like this last year, too, though not for as long.) I want some snow.
I’m home, after a journey that, with transfers and trips to and from airports, took about 35 hours, the longest part of which was the fourteen hour stretch from Dubai to New York. This was once again spent in an economy class seat on an Emirates A340-500, only this time beside a friendly but restless Indian student with a very different idea of personal space from mine, bumping not only elbows into me, but also back, feet, and seat belt straps. The tedium was not helped by an entertainment interface which hung every few hours and an SMS credit card swipe which refused to read any of my cards.
(Also, I’m not normally one to wish gross and uncharitable things on people, but to the prissy, pushy Filipina woman who considers a queue to the lavatory important only when she is at the head of it: I hope that the next time you’re in the middle of using an airline lav, the plane hits turbulence so hard that the chemical flush splashes your buttcheeks.)
It was a singular joy, however, to land at JFK and emerge from International Arrivals to see Amy waiting for me, to keep me company for the duration of my transfer to the plane home to DC. Thanks, Amy. That made my trip.
Here’s a family portrait on the last day of 2004, diving at Escarceo Point near Puerto Galera, Mindoro Island. There’s Mom, Dad, and four brothers: can you guess which one I am?
Photo taken with Dad’s Canon Powershot A70.
I’m on Verde Island for four days of scuba diving. See you in 2005!
International cable news here in Manila is pretty much 24/7 Tsunami News, though I see that one of my primary DC news haunts, NBC4, at the time of this writing, ranks one of the world’s deadliest natural catastrophes ever recorded as less important than flu shots and a church fire. What have you noticed about tsunami coverage on local TV in your area? Are there big red “ASIA TSUNAMI WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE” titles, or has the event been relegated to an international news footnote on how many Americans died?
Update: Well, whatever governs news priority seems to change the headlines every hour or so; I must have caught it at a bad time, because now it’s all tsunami and aid news, whereas my other DC news haunt, WJLA, currently has nothing at all on it. Plus, as Keith points out in comments, these are local news channels.
More coverage of this disaster, including firsthand material:
I’ve installed MT 3.14 to address the potential issue of comment spam and server load. It’s never been a problem for me, most likely thanks to MTCloseComments, which expires comment posting to keep the spammers — as well as Kaanibs and Rubenians — out of my archives. I hope other MT users on this shared server have the good sense to take similar measures.
