iCal Icon

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Cute. I just dragged iCal into my Dock, and the icon changes to show the current month and date. Useful for OS X users unwilling to hack the menu bar clock.

Later: Oh, now it only updates the calendar when I open iCal. Whatever.

The Walters

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I went to The Walters with a couple of friends today to look at Medieval Art. Lots of Virgin Maries about. I was especially intrigued by an ivory carving showing the Annunciation and conception of Christ, with God the Father in the upper corner, His long, flowing beard zooming towards the Blessed Virgin in the shape of a dove — God the Holy Spirit about to conceive God the Son. His beard. Yup. Also lots of beautiful illuminated psalters, missals, and scriptures.

I also went to the garage sale at MICA and got me a rocking TV chair: the kind that sits on the floor and rocks. Ten dollars, but I had to carry it on the train all the way home to Little Italy, and it still smells of cigarette smoke. But it’s nice and comfy and I like it. So there.

CSpotRun and PorDible

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CSpotRun is a nice, fast, freeware PalmOS DOC reader. PorDiBle is a simple, straightforward, freeware drag-and-drop TXT-to-DOC converter for OS X. Perfect combination for when you need those Gutenberg texts on the go.

Animal Eater Frank Buckland

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Frank “Bring ‘Em Back Alive and Ready to Eat” Buckland made a hobby out of tasting animals: Horses, ostriches, kangaroos, mice, earwigs, even boiled and fried slices of flesh from the head of an old porpoise.

This article on the origin of the phrase “eating crow” includes roast giraffe, elephant trunk soup, and a disinterred leopard from the London Zoo in his menu. (It is unknown, however, if he ever did eat actual crow.)

PETA would love this guy.

(Myself, the wildest food I’ve eaten is itlog ng bayawak — monitor lizard eggs. They’re squishy and salty.)

Got a Zire!

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Looking back at my handheld concerns, I started wondering what I really needed, especially on my limited budget. Combo cellphone? Not really; my N3390 is more than enough for now, and my prepaid scheme is far more cost-effective for my current lifestyle. Getting the postpaid subscription which would come with a new PDA-phone would mean the added hassle of a monthly bill and a new phone number. I can do without something like that for another year or so.

SD expansion slot with color screen? Why bother, when I already have my iBook with its SD Card reader on hand? It’s not that crucial that I be able to see my Pencam photos ASAP. They can wait a couple of hours.

All things considered, all I truly need is basic PDA functions (calendar, addresses, to do list, memo pad) with easy OS X compatibility. Minor games and a PalmOS Bible aside, I don’t even need more than a couple of megabytes of storage.

So I bought a Zire. Small, simple, easy transitional handheld device. And the white casing matches with the iBook perfectly. This should last me a year or two, till better and cheaper PDA’s come out to suit my needs. (Oh, with a penlight stylus to compensate for the lack of a backlight.)