So, the metal woman & child were taken away a while back, and then a few weeks later the space was filled by a giant, metal spider. What more can I say about that? Personally, I don’t think I like the spider as much as the mother & child… it just seems more ominous.
One of two new restaurants in the city, next to each other and both owned by the same person. The other one, which is a little further along the waterfront towards the bridge, is called Waterbar. Haven’t eaten at either yet, but thought I’d grab a quick pic the other day since the morning was so beautiful.
The only downside I can see to these two buildings is that they have ruined the view from one of my favourite SF restaurants, Palomino.
A week ago it was raining and generally wet around the bay area. This weekend though has been magnificent; the sun has been out both days, and yesterday was even warm in the evening. Perhaps Spring is here 🙂
I also heard on this week’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher that Mitt Romney had dropped out of the circus, so I guess I wasn’t the only one offended by his use of daily recorded messages!
Well, no reply to the email I sent through their website (perhaps I should send them a thousand or so copies of it so I make sure they see it). I get home tonight though and sure enough there’s another message on my home answering machine from the idiot’s campaign. This time he’s just bad mouthing his opponent, McCain. Another sure sign of desperation if you ask me; when you are unable to win on actual issues, the only thing left is to spread rumours and lies about your opponents. And that seems to be what he’s doing today.
And they say this is a model democracy? I’d say it is the most dysfunctional democracy I’ve ever seen. Sure, it is one, which puts it ahead of places that aren’t, but only just. And if this year has as many issues of possible fraud, and all the dirty tricks to prevent people’s votes from counting, perhaps even that status might start to be questionable.
Update: Make that two calls today as the jerk just made another call, again recorded. Only this time he suggested that I call his California campaign office (which is apparently in Massachusetts, which might come as a surprise to anybody making the call who actually pays for long distance calling themselves). The number is (857) 288 6400.
Normally, I don’t write about politicians, especially not US ones, but I have been so annoyed by Mitt Romney’s campaign that I am forced to write something. Over the last week I have been bombarded by phone calls paid for by his campaign, all of which are recorded messages with no option to get off the calling list, or to say that I have no interest (other than hanging up of course). I haven’t received a single phone call from any of the others in this year’s circus. So, this tells me two things:
If you can’t even be bothered to ask the people you’re interrupting whether they’re interested before you play them the message, and you don’t provide them any means to be removed from the list of numbers they call, then you don’t deserve to even run for public office, letalone actually win.
And here’s a really simple bit of campaign reform that they could implement: no recorded calls, ever. And all callers must first ask whether the callee is interested in hearing the message, and whether they’d like to be removed from the calling list.
I’ve sent his campaign a question, through their web form, asking how to get off the list. We’ll see if I get any response; I’d be surprised, though the website did say “we will make every effort to respond to your message as thoroughly and quickly as possible” on the page after the submission.
It’s not every year that you get to extend your birthday into a 27 hour day. Sounds good? Well, I’m not so sure. The day started at an airport hotel in Canada, where it is definitely winter! And since I’d only just arrived, I wasn’t ready to sleep.
All too soon it was 6am, and time to get up and head off for a meeting (the whole reason I was in Canada). By 4pm I was back at the airport, but unable to move my flight to the earlier departure. Four and a half hours, and two gate changes later I’m still waiting for a plane to show up. We should be leaving here in about 15 minutes, but that would require a miracle at this point.
Theoretically at least, I should get back into San Francisco just before midnight. And that means my birthday this year will have been a 27 hour day. Much of it spent either at an airport, or on a plane 🙁
Not actually as bad as I had expected given the forecasts on my iPhone before I left for Toronto. Instead of snowing as forecast, today was in fact beautifully bright and sunny. It was cold though. Very, very cold. The highest temperature I saw reported on the car’s external thermometer was -5°C. There was snow on the ground, but the roads were clear for the most part.
Right now I am sitting at Toronto airport, hooked onto the airport’s Bell hotspot Wi-Fi thanks to Boingo. I also have my Nokia N95 hooked onto the Wi-Fi through my Boingo Mobile account, allowing me to make Truphone calls to folks back in California for free. And, of course, Devicescape manages the login here from the N95 (and also earlier on my iPhone when I checked my email).
Our 52″ Sharp Aquos LCD does look a little small at times, so I guess this would have been a better choice, at least if there was no limit on the budget (as it was, the 52″ was only possible because it was last year’s model on deep discount).
If 108 inches is not enough for you, then take a look at Panasonic’s 150″ plasma – the world’s largest TV so they claim.
Personally, I think the 52″ screen is fine; the 65″ would have been nice too, but wasn’t worth the difference. More interesting to me was the number of screens on show that were only an inch or so thick (or perhaps that should be thin). At that size, I can see them becoming art installations, connected to a server in the house, or even out on the net, to provide a near infinite source of art choices.
Two companies, Sony and Samsung, were showing off ultra-HD sets too (basically four 1080p screens in one). Not sure what value this has today for video, but if it can be made inch-thin then it will certainly be better for showing that art work off. Talking of Samsung, not sure what they missed about the concept of a trade show, but they had ‘no photography’ signs all over their booth!
First it was cold and frosty, then it was wet but milder and finally yesterday it actually snowed (though it didn’t last long and was pretty much gone from down here in the south east of England by the evening).
Today is overcast, but a lot warmer. Not good photo weather, but since I’m almost leaving it does give me a chance to get packed and ready.
Seems that the folks at British Airways don’t know where Stansted is. What makes it perhaps worse is that Stansted is an airport town – you would have thought they’d know where the London airport towns were located. Let’s hope they don’t use these maps for navigation!