n e w d i s a s t e r.

from a weekend in New York City:

"It's empty, like my heart."
-Katie, on her locket

"WALL-E was so good! It reminded me of... a good movie."
-Schubin

"Lou and I have ingested a truly formidible amount of food at two different restaurants in the last four hours."
"I'm very proud of you"
"Hopefully you will agree to be my pallbearer as well."
"Not if you keep eating like this I'm not."
-Fernando and me, via text message

"The building is heated and cooled on a complex system run by both self-satisfaction and poverty."
-Mountain Tall, on the gentrification of Harlem

...who's five minutes away from the release of Firefox 3.0.

Don't forget to download the new release TODAY; they deserve to get the World Record so much!

For any Albany resident that has ever been irritated by a commercial for Huck Finn's Warehouse (all of us), good news: so is Conan O'Brien.

Seriously, I already live in Albany. Why do I want to enter this contest?

For those of you who cared (apparently, a fair few of you did -- thank you to everyone for their advice), I wanted to let you know that, while I was on the road to making the same decision myself, Steve Jobs went ahead and pulled the trigger for me this afternoon. I had played with Beep's iPhone a ton and had grown to love it, and Wendy and I went to visit the AT&T store yesterday and were completely charmed by the friendliness and (so novel!) helpfulness of the staff. I watched the announcement of all the new features in real time (thanks MacRumors, I thought I had hit the geek glass ceiling), and then the last nail in the coffin landed: $199 for the 8GB iPhone. I have between now and July 11 to get out of my contract with Sprint. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am.

"We should see Indiana Jones! Indiana Jones! Doot doo doot doo, doot doo doo, doot doo doot doo, doot doo doo doo doo, doot doo doot doo, doot doo doo, dananana da na da da na da da na da na na! That's the theme song."
-Schubin, on the phone with his sister, on what movie they should see

"So do you have, like, jazz insurance?"
-Schubin, clearly concerned about Brian's health and well-being

"You have two apartments. We have zero."
"Sure, but I also have an imaginary drug problem. These are the consequences of my excessive lifestyle."
-Me and Andria

"K-E? What is that?"
"I'm gonna say some kind of sea creature."
-Andria and Mountain Tall, on a dubious play in Scrabble

"Fetal position, here I come."
-Cindy B

Jesus fucking christ you are the goddamn PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES GET A GRIP ON YOURSELF. Or hire better handlers! CHRIST!

I hate myself so much for thinking this sounds awesome.

I do not think this sounds awesome. I think it sounds like death.

And, to end on the exact opposite of a light note: the number of Americans who filed for bankruptcy last year increased 38 percent from 2006. And hey, by the way, home prices dropped 14% in the first three months of this year, oil prices continue breaking records, and the building you're in right now is literally on fire.

I swear to god, I was going to write that I had a "new development," until it struck me that that was a pun.

Anyway, I set up a new blog for my photography. I'm not sure what it is yet, what I'm going to do with it, or why I set it up. Suffice it to say it's another item that you can put in your Google Reader and you've never really needed much more convincing than that. As ever, but slightly more in this case, comments will be greatly appreciated.

Blackberry Pearl

Lately, a singular obsession has gripped my psyche: I'm shopping for a smartphone.

I fought it for a long time, but the facts added up to this: I own a small business, and need to get my email a lot. On top of that, when we migrate to the City this summer, it would be nice to be able to read blogs and things on the subway. With my guilt ostensibly assuaged, I began doing the research. I decided to write this post in the hopes that someone will care enough to steer me a bit (other than Brian; more on this later).

I was able to narrow it down to four immediately. Because my needs are relatively simple, I restricted myself to the four phones Sprint has listed on their website. I don't feel any compelling need to change carriers as, despite the fairly wretched service I've had from Sprint historically, I don't think any of the others are that much better. In my experience, no one is unconditionally happy with their phone service. One possibility would make me consider changing my carrier; more on this later.

I dismissed the Blackberry 8830 out of hand, as it is not only the biggest one but also the highest in price. Portability is a big deal with me, I don't want to have to deal with this big clunky thing. I have to narrow it down somehow, so I'm letting these relatively minor points break the deal in this case.

Next up, the Palm Centro. It was an ad for this phone that got me started in earnest a few days ago, and at first glance it's not a bad choice. First, it costs only $100, which is indisputably a plus. It's essentially a smaller Treo, which is nice, as a Treo is bigger than I'm interested in, and it supports Gmail syncing, which is a necessity for me. There are a few problems. Reviews indicate that the main concern in the design stages was to make a smaller, more accessible smartphone, and that things like sound quality suffered. Also the keyboard seems a bit crowded, and when the phone rings, there's a touchscreen option for answering, a prospect that terrifies me endlessly, lest my pocket should answer a call for me. I've had this happen countless times with the Treo at work, and it's an annoyance that I could do without.

The Blackberry Pearl seems a good option, as it's basically a Blackberry but smaller, and Google offers a package to sync your Google calendar to your Blackberry. The major downside here is that, in order to get the phone so small, they crammed two letters onto each key. This feels like it could get really confusing and frustrating, really fast. Other than that, I have to say this thing is goddamn pretty. I'm leaning this way.

The one I've spent the least time looking at is the Moto Q 9c. From what I've seen, it has no discernible benefits over the Pearl outside of the full keyboard, which makes it wider. I haven't done as much reading on this one, though, so I might change my mind.

Unfortunately, any one of these phones would be settling, because, god help me, I really want an iPhone.

iPhone

Beep has been trying to get me on the iPhone train since even before its release, and shortly thereafter it became clear why. I mean, the thing is almost perfect for me. It does everything I need, has great sound quality for calls, unprecedented wireless access, and is a perfect size. Any website you try looks great on it, and we've all seen how seamless the iPhone-specific Facebook interface is, but I have to say that when I saw the Unified Interface that Google offers, my heart just about melted.

The problem? Certainly not changing my carrier, which, as I've already described, I don't feel one way or the other about. I would have to get Wendy to load up and change with me, since we're on a family plan, but since she has her eye on the Centro, also available for AT&T, this could be easy. The problem unfortunately is that the iPhone is 100% touchscreen, and this bugs the hell out of me.

Aside from the unintentional phone answering thing, which I guess I could just add to the neuroses pile, I do an awful lot of texting, and I am actually getting this thing for the sake of remote email access. The few times I've tried the iPhone, I have gotten quickly frustrated by the typing mechanism - owing to the proximity of the letters, pressing down with enough force to elicit a response hurts your accuracy. I mean, I guess thousands of people have learned to deal with this, but I'm not convinced it's the right choice for someone whose main need for the phone is typing. But hell, I love this thing so much otherwise.

Recent news that you could get the iPhone for as little as $199 when you sign a new contract with AT&T is further complicating matters.

Please, someone make this decision for me.

The best episode of This American Life ever? I mean, maybe not, but it was pretty great.

Well, this pretty much tears it: Project Runway has just jumped the shark. After four seasons of somehow getting inexplicably better, Harvey Weinstein took the steps necessary to insure that Runway would forfeit its artistic and cultural currency by performing a series of shady closed-door deals leading to the show landing on the Lifetime network. Fears that the show would become lame, strengthened by the announcement of two spinoffs and existing knowledge of the Lifetime network, were today confirmed by news that while Weinstein will be taking the show to Lifetime, he will not be taking its producers with him. One can only assume then that the show will retain its branding but will be influenced by its new production team to tackle issues more engaging to its demographic ("Your next challenge: create a look based on the inspiring tale of Judy Thompsonsteiner, who overcame adversity and learned to read at the age of 47"). Our only hope is that Tim Gunn is still Tim Gunn and so whatever happens it can't be a complete wash.

In other news, Lindsey Lohan displays a comforting consistency by jacking some woman's coat.