My last saturday shift is over! Almost surreal, actually. Monday will be like starting over at a new job, tho it’s only half new. Weird. Cool

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Just got an sms from Abby reminding me it’s my birthday already in Australia - thanx Abby! Don't tell me what my presents are, okay?

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I was going to wax poetic about some art today. I found you all some nice photography of crushed junk and industrial-type stuff (very cool), some interesting Soviet architecture sketches that were never built (but were no doubt effective tools of propaganda - if they had ever built these i would have been impressed) and even some edible art in the form of coffee sculpting (just look at the pictures, it’s totally not in english, or you can try reading the automated translation but it’s so bad i could only laugh/cry).

But then i started thinking about how today’s wednesday, and i only have 3 more days after today at this job, and then monday i start as a software tester downstairs (side note: woo hoo!). Now although i haven't even cracked any of the books i'm supposed to be reading (i've been busy, ok? plus it’s been sunny out, and i have t-tops that need to come off regularly!) and i pretty much have zero idea what i'm getting myself into, i have obtained a nifty mug for my future desk and i'm plotting my commute strategy for monday and beyond. So i'm feeling pretty prepared.

So let’s talk traffic. We all know Seattle has issues; i'm not even going to go there. I don't really mind it - it’s just part of living in an urban area - but then, i'm an off-hours commuter and have always been either a weird-time or weird-route driver, so i've never really experienced the joy that will be a 9-5 northend-to-downtown I-5 shuffle. Maybe 6 months from now you'll mention “traffic" and i'll shiver uncontrollably and my left eye will twitch.

Anyway, let’s not gripe about it; let’s look at some solutions. Now if you've been following along since, oh, the inception of this little digital diatribe, you can expect that my solutions are not going to involve (1) crummy tv news people or (2) listening to AM radio until 'X' minutes on the hour but rather will focus on things with batteries, or buttons, or monthly subscriptions to some sort of telco operator.

I'd seen the TrafficGauge a couple years ago, and for $50 upfront and $5 a month i could carry around a little PDA-sized gadget with live (4-minute delay) traffic status. Clear spots are good, blinky spots are bad. It also makes you aware of home games in the baseball, basketball, and football areas, although it makes no distinction between Husky and Hawks games, which i thought odd, as they affect traffic in completely different parts of the city. Overall, though, it seems like a nice, self-contained way to peep the slowdowns and pick a bridge. My personal verdict is “no", however; the last thing i really need is another digital whatzit to fill my pockets and another monthly subscription, and because my real decision will be between I-5 and Hwy 99 and - although they do tout future plans - there is no 99 coverage yet.

TrafficGauge gets its data from the WSDOT, who generously provide it themselves in a snappy webpage that will probably become my new breakfast buddy. This map is super, with little links to the various road cameras and color-coded blockage indications. They've got all the major roads on there, plus what little bits of the secondary routes are monitored, and even specialty maps for things like the Canadian border crossing and (something i really like) the estimated travel times between key points on the spiderweb. I've noticed lately the WSDOT is putting this travel-time-calculation info to even greater use, erecting new timeframe signs on the freeway in seemingly random (but probably highly discussed in cloistered committee) places. They feel all european and stuff, and appropriate for a high-tech city with a progressive approach to transportion issues (you can feel free to cough “monorail", “light rail", “seatac", or your choice of buzzwords here and snicker disapprovingly. it’s ok, we all do it).

I don't use this one super often, but i like how condensed and informative it is: the I-90 traveler page hosted by UW. Not only is that elevation-adjusted road graph just neato, but compiling all the pass cams in there, too, makes me just feel all warm and fuzzy, even when the passes are snowy and blowy (blowy ?).

I know what you're thinking: “I haven't installed my StompBox in my car yet to check traffic with my new 17″ powerbook whilst in mid-commute! And i'm not cool with a $5/month debenture for a one-function PDA that lumps the approbatable Dawgs and the forgettable Seahawks into the same traffic-affecting category!" I totally agree. That’s why there’s Wiresoft’s free WAP traffic reports. It’s the nifty WSDOT color map in a pint-sized (or, depending on your device, teaspoon-sized) WAP version! Punch this in with your thumb - “http://www.wiresoft.net/traffic/seattle/" - and enjoy! Yay! Something else to do with my phone while driving! :)

Technorati Tags: seattle, traffic

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Enjoying sunny baseball today. M’s are actually playing pretty well. Cleveland center fielder is named Coco Crisp. No joke.

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Spent my overtime on air tools. Whee! Shopping at sears always puts me in a good mood. Thanx for the moral support, Christie ;)

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The weather has been sun-tastic this week, and i thoroughly love it. Sometimes i think i may need to try living in southern Cali for a time, if only to experience the free, instant mood-altering effects of a sunny day on a more regular basis. Plus the skiing was better there this year than anywhere i could get to in a day’s drive from Seattle. Everybody whines about the housing market down there, but i'm not a home-buyer - i'm a throw-money-down-a-hole renter - so whoop-dee-do to that. Anyway, don't anyone get all panicky that i'm jumping ship on Seattle; the proliferation of Starbucks in any other urban area still isn't up to my standards.

Just a quick shout-out to my peeps at ipodresq.com, what an excellent crew they are! My ever-stylish music machine arrived via overnight formatted and working perfectly. They even cleaned it up a bit! For $29 bucks they covered two-way DHL and the fix, and i opted for an extra $30 upgrade to a new, 15-hr battery; with it’s newly-breathed life i thought a little extra juice was worth the investment. I very much appreciate their extra effort to do a backup/restore of all my music and whatnot; when asking for a drive format i assumed a blank slate would return to me, but was pleasantly surprised to see all my playlists and song ratings smiling back at me on first power-up. All-around a sweet deal, and they were excellent to both me and my little white plastic friend. I recommend them wholly.

In other gadgets-that-fit-in-my-pockets news, i swung by one of the numerous T-Mobile kiosks in northgate mall yesterday for some GPRS fiddling. My wireless data service has been all crabby lately, preventing me from googling things or checking my paypal balance from completely inappropriate places, and - as i predicted - a simple SMS from the mothership put all the settings right again in short order. It took me some wandering to find the “official corporate" T-Mobile kiosk that could perform this service, though, as i casually counted 4 T-Mobile branded phone kiosks and at least 8 total wireless gadget-islands in the relatively short stretch of the mall’s main hall. That is in addition to the numerous stores incorporating often-unrelated cellphone vendors (i'm looking at you, Kitt Camera). A bit of an overdose, i say. It is no wonder there are 3rd graders running around with cameraphones, nor that it’s the fastest growing industry in america right now. And does anyone else find it amusing that people will pay $2.49 for a 30-second ringtone but won't pay more than 99 cents for a downloaded track (ala iTunes)? It’s obviously all due to marketing, as the carrier technology and handsets offered here in the states are a paltry embarassement by both european and pacific rim standards. It’s certainly not because the carriers really want you to have a good experience. With all the choices and the endless, proliferating blitz from the big names, it’s not an easy call to make (ha ha, i am a clever punster). It’s a lesser-of-four-evils decision between the Big Pink, Orange dancing guy, call-dropping-R-us, and Can You Hear Me Now?. I won't hate you for making a wrong decision… but CDMA is not the future.

As long as we're talking about crap marketing that belies an even crappier product, let’s talk about the arches that are not really so much golden as they are weather-stained and painted with cheap yellow lacquer. Yes, i'm referring to the home of Grimace and the Secret Sauce (which, incidentally, sounds like a good band name. Or an inane children’s book). Although you won't find a free finger in your chili (which would at least guarantee there’s some actual meat in the food) you might still find yourself “Lovin' It", or so the marketing machine says. Even the menthol-cool stylings of J. Timberlake can't make that slogan sound like anything other than the same industrial-strength brainwashing agent used to make people believe there’s a slice of something cow-related under that rubber pickle. Personally, i find Steve’s interpretations of the aforementioned abomination to slogan-writing much less stomach-turning than the original. Now if only there was a way to make the food less stomach-turning… but alas, in america, we are gluttons for punishment… in every sense of the word.

Technorati Tags: ipod, ipodresq, fast food, wireless phones

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I got my ipod back! 29 bucks and they formatted the drive without wiping my music! Ipodresq.com rocks.

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It’s the Z’s favorite kind of day - sunny & dry, not too warm - & with 969 miles on the new motor we're having a lot of fun running errands.

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Dinner tonite is an un-earthly lemoned chicken substance concocted by a disturbed chemist at lean cuisine. I will not miss this schedule…

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Watching comedy central standup remix today, and counting down the days left that i have to get up at 5.15am for work (there are 10 alarm-clock-hating pre-sunrise mornings left, btw). I'm also counting down until i have an entire weekend off (three of those left), although i'm hoping i can shave that down even more once the in-training guys start working full shifts and i can convince everyone involved that they're sufficiently qualified to let me slip out at noon. And if you think i'm too responsible to fudge that a bit, well, you haven't worked a 12-hr shift on a saturday lately. ;)

John emailed me this week when Caltech’s prank visit to MIT during pre-frosh week made slashdot. I've actually been reading a lot of the previous hacks and pranks from both schools, and it’s all pretty entertaining. One of my favorites is an MIT dorm lobby turned discoteque with a USB-controlled dance floor and LED-lighted tiles. Must be really fun to go to a school like this, where anything you can dream up becomes a group challenge. I don't know where the resources come from for projects like this; kids that make it to these schools must be smart and rich.

MIT isn't the only place where crazy stuff happens after hours, though. Elsewhere in “the bay state" the turnpike system is hosting some scientific experimentation while dissing Mariah Carey (which is always fun, although not so challenging these days). New York has its fair share of creatively ambitious people as well, orchestrating giant vintage toys in public parks. Locally, Seattle hosts a traditional recurring prank in the monolith that - in a way only a west-coast city could muster - is so organized that it even has rules, although considering the lapse since last mention it may have died off as the people that remember that movie grew up and moved to the burbs. Thankfully these things are documented so people - like me - that didn't live here then can enjoy authentic Seattle kitsch vicariously.

I've been struggling for the last few minutes to come up with a nice transition to this next link, but there’s just no doing it. It totally breaks my vintage-kitschy-smarties-hacks theme-o-the-day and shares nothing in subject or scope with what we're discussing; i just happened to feel like talking about it today; it’s a purely chronological relationship. So enough pretending to link them; just click and have fun watching videos of industrial shredders trashing everything from aluminum cans and old tires to entire computers, boats and washing machines. It’s too much fun. Think about something you hate (that crummy printer at work, the ugly tarp-covered car that’s always parked at QFC, the EMP) and envision it getting stuffed in there and torn to bits. Fun! Putting one of those on my when-i-win-the-lotto shopping spree list, so i can buy a whole lot full of PT Cruisers and stuff them in there one after another.

Technorati Tags: pranks, shredders

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