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Tech fetish weekend:

Finally saw the Video iPod at the Apple Store in Costa Mesa yesterday. I want one. I don't NEED it, but I want it. The picture's surprisingly sharp and totally watchable, and it's thinner and lighter than the 40GB iPod Photo I have. It doesn't do live TV, and it's still a pain to convert existing video to a compatible format, but I want it. Can't justify it, but I want it.

Another thing I wanted was a Slingbox. That's the thing that you hook a cable or satellite box into, and then connect it to the Net, allowing you to watch whatever's on the box anywhere in the world you have broadband, and anywhere on your hime network. I wanted it because I want to be able to watch the NBA League Pass games while I work; I don't have satellite in my home office. Slingbox seems at first to be the solution to a problem nobody knew they had, but for me it's perfect. So we went to buy a new vacuum at Best Buy, the sales manager saw me checking out the Slingbox, we chatted, he asked what he could do to get me to buy it, I told him he could give me a discount on the plug-in network extenders... and he did, so I bought it, along with the vacuum.

Verdict on the Slingbox: terrific. Installation was easy, just a matter of connecting the cords from the satellite box to the Slingbox and the Slingbox to the TV, plugging the Slingbox into the network extender, and running the software setup, a matter of maybe 15 minutes of work. I have the video in a window on my monitor desktop, and it's more than watchable. Streaming is smooth and clear, remote operation- channel changing, guide operation- is fine. And now I can watch those Sixers games that start at 4 pm Pacific time while I crank out the afternoon copy. If I'm gonna pay all that money to get all the NBA games, at least now I can actually watch them.

But I still want that iPod. And a 42 inch plasma HDTV. Donations accepted.

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Yesterday: washing dishes, Pyrex bowl slips out of my hands, shatters, gouges several deep cuts in my left hand and a couple of smaller ones in my right. We made it into the car before the gushing slowed to the point where we decided not to go to the emergency room. I had to prop my hand up all night to keep the clotting happening.

Today: Cutting a loaf of bread, knife slices through the bread and my left index finger. More blood, more bandages.

I'm distracted right now. I really need to be kept away from sharp objects. I need to be kept away from anything that could potentially become a sharp object.

I need to just do nothing for a while.

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Got no time tonight- spent way too long in waiting rooms today.

This came out today. Buy it:

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We passed a Metro bus tonight and noticed that they now have TV monitors on board. There appear to be two- we saw them glowing through the side windows as we passed, and they seem to have some sort of ADHD news product on them, with lots of scrolls and text boxes and stuff. We don't ride the bus, not because of the it's-for-the-poor-people attitude but because it just doesn't go anywhere we need to go, so we didn't know that the buses are now sort-of-TV-capable. JetBlue, it ain't, but at least there's something to look at besides the growing puddle beneath the bedraggled guy across the aisle.

Some supermarkets- not ours, but I've seen it elsewhere- have "Checkout Channel" video screens at the registers. A few airlines have satellite TV at every seat. There's TV everywhere you look.

And this is a good thing.

In fact, that's been bothering me this week- doctors' waiting rooms don't have TVs. You sit there in gloom, old magazines are the only distraction... what kind of atmosphere is that? Cheer us up. Show cartoons on plasma monitors. Show old "Three Stooges" shorts- "Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard!" I don't want to sit there on an uncomfortable chair with nothing but the January 2005 edition of Inland Empire magazine. I want to be distracted, amused, comforted. I want to let my mind wander. I want TV.

This should be mandatory. Call the FDA. Call the AMA. Make it happen.

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OK, so now there's Open Source Media, which is taking a bunch of big bloggers and consolidating them into a, well, kinda like a newspaper site, but more like an exclusive club to which you and I aren't invited, except to read the wisdom of the chosen and to occasionally be allowed to participate in the "carnivals" nobody will read. (Think of it as the Huffington Post without the inane postings of celebrities who have nothing to say) Granted, the blogs involved in OSM are many of the very best, but I thought blogging was supposed to be wide open and democratic (small "d") and without the artificial construct that the print media had- in the papers, you're nothing if you're not in the big dailies or major magazines, but on the web, everyone's equal. Turns out some are more equal than others, and some of the folks that embraced the non-elitist model really just yearned to be the elite, when it comes down to it. (Check out the pictures of the Huffington Post-Yahoo!-Gawker Media party to grasp how desperately the blogosphere wants to become the media elite they've been parodying- it's not unlike Howard Stern's co-opting by the Hollywood stars he used to lampoon after he made a movie and began taking dinner at Nobu with David Spade and Chris Rock)

Good for them. Hope it works. It's nice to have an alternative to the Times-Post-Tribune-Globe-Inquirer-Herald et al., no question. But I liked it better when these guys were creating something entirely new, something utterly unlike the mainstream media. Now, they're just trying to create their own mainstream, complete with gates and guards and editors and little letters-to-the-editor/carnival sections where the rabble can play. Guess I'll continue to float out here by myself- most of the time, independence is better.

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Yeah, it's stupid, and it's the kind of thing he did to other people 20 years ago, but wnen I saw this, I laughed.

December 16 should be interesting.

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What I did today:

Nothing.

Sweet.

(Thanks to Johnny Wendell at KTLK/Los Angeles for the on-air shout. And congrats to Larry Wachs on getting www.regularguys.com back in action)

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