An imaginary place in a reactionary time
UPDORKUMED: now with screen grabs and chewy trivia goodness.
Hey, remember Flipper? The legendary SF punk band? They’re back, they even have a MySpace page. You might recognize the bass player, it’s former Pilsen resident and Lamprey stalwart Rachel Thoele. She’s replacing Krist Novoselic, who you might remember from Nirvana…
Here’s a YouTube video of her second appearance with the band-Flipper @Amoeba
Just picked up a used replacement for my phone. Needs charging. Hope it works. This is the third replacement in 4 weeks-if you count the sold out “free” replacement from my telco. I really want this to work-if it doesn’t I’m going to cry. And then I’m going to lay down and die. My life is tied to phones and computers, without them I have no life or work.
I just received an email from my cellphone company that the “free” phone i ordered and paid for to replace my malfunctioning one is sold out. They will credit my account. But since I already re-upped my contract to get the discount on this phone, I’m no longer eligible for the discounted/free phones. I am going to have to waste time dealing with this tomorrow. Can anyone loan me a phone so I can call my cellphone company?
It’s true, Mr. Fripp says so here.
This is a shameless plug for a friend. John “Blood” Unger makes the best damn firebowls in America, possibly the world. He makes them by hand, from recycled materials, in a small town in northern MIchigan. And you can now get them from the FFEJWORLD Amazon store. Prices start at $99 bucks (without shipping). Please help John put catfood on the table, he and Mojo will thank you.
The Pot-de-Feu grill 
For those of you with political aversion to Amazon, we’re providing a link to John’s lovely and inexpensive Pot-de-Feu grill at E-junkie it’s $129 (shipping included to the lower 48!): Click here to view more details
FFEJ’s Laws: the size of shoulder bags and backpacks is inversely related to the overall economic condition. Ie, as the economy tanks, the bags get bigger.
I formulated this law 20 years ago, in the recession after the market crashed. Back when it was the economy, stupid. I noticed all my friends, even the hardcore hipsters were suddenly carrying backpacks or shoulder bags. I figured it was because you wanted as much stuff with you as possible, so you didn’t have to waste time or money running home. Most of the people I knew were also carrying bag lunches to cut costs. Almost everyone was carrying spare clothes or light jackets. This was also when America started carrying water bottles. The average backpack size was around 2000 cubic inches (manufacturers numbers, someday I’ll write up a post on how manufacturers lie about size).
Back then I moved from a rummage sale Leica safari bag (with the strap that my grandmother had sewed back on after it came off) to a Domke camera bag and a medium sized shoulder bag alternating with a 2500 ci. Jansport backpack. I was toting film cameras and and one of my two portable computers each weighing over 10 pounds. But then I always travelled heavier then my friends.
As the 90s progressed, the economy boomed, and the packs and shoulder bags got smaller and lighter. Gone were the 1600-1000 denier cordura, replaced by polyester and nylon ripstop. sizes dropped to about 1400 ci. I migrated to various smaller trade show swag shoulder bags.
The next explosion in bag size was the messenger bag explosion that coincided with the bubble bursting in 2000. Backpacks followed in size, if not materials. The messenger bags of this period were 100 denier ballistic nylon or Cordura. I moved first to an 2500 ci. Eddie Bauer backpack that disintegrated, then to a 2000 ci. Timbuktu messenger bag I still love, but my back hates.
Finally, almost exactly coincident with the onset of the recession 2 years ago, bags and packs went back to the supposed 2500 ci. size, and I began see more and more people carrying a backpack and a shoulder bag. I migrated to 3000+ ci. military backpacks with satellite shoulder bags.
I’ve mentioned this law to various friends over the years, and been snickered at. But one of the people I’ve laid the law on is now a true believer. They went and bought a 2500 ci. pack on my recommendation, and have been raving about it for a month now. On top of which, they went and bought me the 3100 ci. version of the pack as a thank you. I’m having coffee with them right now, and while they insist on anonymity, I think a public announcement is in order. So, Illinois Backpack Bandit, you join the ranks of this site’s supporters. I and my back thank you!
Now stop kicking me under the table, ok?
First off, thanks and double thanks to Brian Urbanik for the device. Brian gave up on this thing a long time ago, and even told me “I wouldn’t give it away, it’s that frustrating.”
Second off, Brian was right. The Nokia N770 sucks. It really blows. Every square inch of it’s almost perfect for me form factor screams wasted potential. Without going into details, because I do want to take the time to properly eviscerate it later, it’s slow, buggy and has an awful user interface. It made me, a confirmed Linux lover hate Linux.
If your looking for a PDA/PIM, forget it. It doesn’t sync to anything. If your looking for a Internet device, forget it. It can take minutes for it to fire up a browser, and more time to pull down a page.
In it’s defense, it’s a older device, dating back to 2005. They no longer develop for it, or update it’s software. It’s been replaced by the n800, which was replaced by the N810 which has a built in keyboard. But skimming reviews last night indicated they’re pretty much the same. I did upgrade the software to a hacked version of the 2007 software, which is slightly more responsive. But frankly, the only thing this device does well is emulate my dead Palm Tungsten.
More later…
“They tried to get me to hate white people, but some one would always come along & spoil it”-Thelonius Monk
Maybe now the iPhone and iPod Touch will get copy and paste.
