screw convergence.

my senior year of college i bought a PDA cuz i thought it'd help for organization and taking notes or just messing around in class. well, it did. i bought a $100 SD wi-fi card for it, and it worked well throughout campus. if i was bored in class i could surf CNN or check/compose my email.

i put all my contacts on it. their cell numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, etc. for the better part of 2004 i used it a lot at work to look up contacts, surf offline (cached) webpages in boring meetings, keep track of personal/work tasks, schedule appointments.

fast forward a year and half later. i've run out of reasons to use my PDA. it's not even really outdated or anything, i just don't have much use for it. all my contacts are kept in my mac address book and synced out to my cell phone, so i don't need it for that. the wi-fi access at work is secure and needs extra software to work properly, software i don't have for the PDA. for a while at work i was using my PDA exclusively as my mp3 player. i got a 20gb HD mp3 player instead, and later a 30gb iPod to replace that. i was using it to play videos on flights for a while, but it was a giant pain in the ass to downsize videos to it. now my iPod could hold its own fine for a portable video player.

i'm not saying i'm tossing the thing in the trash or anything. i'm just saying that while a PDA is supposed to be capable of achieving a little bit of everything, i have separate devices that do the trick just fine. if i had to run out the house and entertain myself for 2 hours, i'd grab my SLVR, my nintendo DS and my iPod.

just a thought. back to a sunkist, GT4 and sampling music.

--j

we really didn't do all that much for spring break, but hey, that's just how we like it sometimes. we've knocked out some more necessary wedding tasks, alayna's bridal portraits, honeymoon planning and tuxedo rentals.

we watched a ton of archived tv, so we seized the opportunity. alayna decided she did like entourage as much as i did, and luckily the 2nd season (ahem) became available so we've been grinding through that pretty quickly. my complete series of significant others (pictured at left) dvd came in as well, so we watched that first 6-ep season as well. luckily we're caught up (well we were) with grey's anatomy and 24. we're also starting to really like the new abc comedy sons & daughters, but we'll see how long it sticks around.

between all that, we/i saw kevin nealon with alayna's parents at the improv, got soaked every time we went outside, played paper mario and gran turismo 4, watched anchorman, etc.

it's this kind of thrilling lifestyle that creates a self-imposed 4-post limit a month. ;)

--j

well, i write this sitting in a hotel room in hesperia, california, listening to veruca salt on my newly-purchased-as-of-last-weekend iPod while snacking on starburst.

i've spent the entire week out here in the high desert about 80 miles northeast of los angeles. saying that i'm travelling to california for a business trip sounds good, but this isn't exactly glamorous at all. we travel daily to the testing facility in the middle of the nowhere, 45 minutes away from our hotel. the area around the hotel is all civilized, but out where we're working all day (been clocking 12-14 hour days) it's nothing but blowing sand and cacti.

it's got its pros & cons, for sure. it's good to get travel experience, makes you a little more marketable and somewhat wizened. you get a little sick of the people you're with for about 16 hours a day, but that's to be expected. you rack up hours like nothing else, which in my case, is kind of a break from the norm. the whole thing is kind of a break from my usual workdays, so i can't really complain about that.

it's a little tough trying not to miss home & alayna at times, but time flies pretty quickly. it's my theory that some of the single folk that travel a lot for us don't seem to mind being gone nearly as much cuz they don't miss anybody back at home specifically. everybody misses their creature comforts at home, but it's a little harder missing somebody that you spend every single day with. that's the part i'd have to get used to a bit more if i'm gonna travel at all frequently. luckily i'm heading home tomorrow.

so yeah, last weekend i bought a 30gb black iPod with a nice 17% work discount at the grand opening of the northpark apple store. i was trying to hold out for the next round of iPods coming out, but i kinda figured with the trip upcoming and the work that i've put into getting everything iTunes happy (for both my shuffle at the gym and mac at home) it was time to buy one, even if there was technically nothing wrong with the iAUDIO player i'd been using for over a year. it ended up being the terrible organization (all manual based on whatever directories i created) that forced me to have to abandon the perfectly-good player for something more suited to my needs. i add a lot of music to iTunes fairly often, and 75% of the time i wanna listen to that at work or on the road, so i need good, quick access to the newest stuff added. simply playing the iTunes' playlist "Recently Added" on the iPod is by far the easiest way to achieve that. so far i'm pretty happy with the purchase, as long as the battery life doesn't suck. i love the album art display on the screen though, i'm in the process (well, when i'm back home) of updating iTunes with as much album art as i can track down.

and before i go, the 10 most common albums/songs i play at home and on the road lately... (hey, i'm bored in a dark hotel room at 11pm PST)

zebrahead - waste of mfzb
last.fm zebrahead fans = 11,258
5-6 fantastic tracks from an '04 japan-only ZH album.

hellogoodbye - shimmy shimmy quarter turn
last.fm hellogoodbye fans = 23,432
their EP is absolutely terrible, but this one track hasn't gotten old yet.

the new pornographers - twin cinema
last.fm new pornographers fans = 37,469
great indie stuff, on a lot of top album lists of 2005

radiohead albums OK computer & hail to the thief
last.fm radiohead fans = 245,754
for a long time i've had a lot of trouble classifying radiohead into any specific genre, so i've sorta slacked on playing them at all. but sometimes their stuff (while at times quite weird) is perfect for the setting, such as passing in & out of consciousness on a 3-hour flight. ;)

black eyed peas - the boogie that B
last.fm black eyed peas fans = 124,897
i never really heard this track before an entourage episode i watched a couple weeks ago, but it's one of their top 5 best i'd say.

sons and daughters - the repulsion box
last.fm sons and daughters fans = 9,602
more great indie music nobody's ever heard of, heard them first on showtime's weeds.

the decemberists - her majesty
last.fm decemberists fans = 84,749
i grew to like their 2005 album, now i like their 2003 album just as much.

third eye blind - out of the vein
last.fm 3EB fans = 41,738
somehow i really overlooked their 2003 album and it got almost no airplay, but it's actually pretty good, in that mainstream radio-friendly way.

the magic numbers - (self-titled album)
last.fm magic numbers fans = 26,238
more indie shit, but catchy.

queens of the stone age - (self-titled album)
last.fm QotSA fans = 124,256
waaaay overlooked greatness from waaaay back in '98.

long post, but it made up for a lengthy absence...

--j