I Want....

The Microsoft "Courier" Tablet Concept

I'm a fairly OCD person when it comes to organizing, and make lists for everything to help me remember what I'm supposed to be doing most days. Because of this, I've taken to having a little Moleskine notebook with me everywhere I go. I use it as a day-planner/calendar and also jot down notes to myself so I don't forget ideas I have.

I'm also (not surprisingly) a very visual-based person. I like making sketches, drawing out ideas, and I've often wanted a more intuitive system for digitally combining my notes, sketches and ideas into a cohesive, yet easily manipulated whole.

So when I saw the pictures and video showing the concept for the new Courier from Microsoft I was seriously geeking out. I even had an idea for something similar to this a few months ago - I then heard about Apple's rumoured tablet which sounded close to what I wanted, but wasn't quite.... and then I saw this on Gizmodo the other day.

It's obviously just in the concept stage right now, and I have no idea if/when it's released whether it will live up to my expectations. Ideally I'd like to be able to use it for sketching, finished artwork and writing, but there's no word yet on hardware specs or what software it will use, so for now I just have to wait and see. But it's definitely got my hopes up, and I'm still geeking out about it, so I'd thought I'd share... :)

March 12, 2009

Now that it's been 2 weeks to the day, I guess I can mention something that's been bothering me.

On the 12th, a man jumped off the 6th level of the parking garage across the street from the building one of my jobs is in. Downtown, right before 5pm, when most jobs close for the day. There's a sky bridge network that connects most of the buildings. Apparently, they have very sturdy roofs. No one else was hurt when he landed. But, whether by accident or intention, he landed and stayed directly across the street from one of the big picture windows in the skywalk in the building I work in.

Had I been in the back copy room (my "office"), I would have been almost eye level with the guy before he jumped. Luckily I missed that. And luckily the police and firemen had already mostly covered his body by the time everyone in the office found out about it and were looking out of the windows down to the scene below.

Even taking several shocked looks out the window didn't prepare me for the look out that picture window as we headed to the parking garage to go home.

Just go here and see what I mean. Poor guy...
 
Well... Time to go to work. I hope nothing exciting happens today.

New President

Whooo! Obama! :D

Poll Positions & the View from the Future

I'm not really one who likes to discuss politics in real life, much less on the internet. I know who I'm going to vote for, and now I'll just be happy when the 4th rolls around and I can cast my vote - we can be done with the campaigning and get on with it, whatever the outcome ends up being.

But I will say that this has been possibly the craziest and most "interesting" election we've had in quite a while, atleast in a spectator sport sort of way. But as crazy as it is for those of us in the U.S., it's got to seem like a circus to the rest of the world....

We mainly listen to Triple J Radio online, which is the Australian Broadcasting Company's more youth-skewed national station, and it's fun hearing the DJs discuss their bemused fascination with American politics.

Triple J even has their own daily comedy show covering the U.S. campaign, called The Race Race. It's not even remotely serious, and takes jabs at all of the candidates, but I do find it amusing that they're devoting a daily segment to an election in a different country which they have no say in....

The show just started yesterday (well, Monday in Australia, so it started Sunday here in the States), and if anyone is interested, the pod-cast is available from the Triple J website: The Race Race Pod-Cast

And Life Goes On

First off, my thoughts go out to Londoners and their loved ones. I can only guess the feeling in the UK today, but I'm betting it's similar to the sense of shock and numbness that we felt on 9/11. God bless.

So far, the drunk guy hasn't come back, but the night is still young...

Today was my "Monday", and I really wasn't quite moving up to speed today. I woke up this morning, staggered out of bed, and the first thing I see on the news is about the subway being bombed. Kinda caught me a little off guard.

I spend quite a bit of time online on a forum that's based out of the UK, so it was odd this morning, reading the thread about the bombing as information was trickling in. I already knew the outcome (reading it 6 hours after), but the inital reports were that it was an "electrical malfunction" on one of the lines. And then as more reports came in, the questioning began: "is this a terrorist attack?"

I remember waking up on Sepember 11th and hearing the morning DJ talking about the Pentagon being hit. But until that day, the morning show was on a one-day delay from a station in Anchorage, and so when they said the date, I was confused. And then when I realized what they were talking about, I was more confused. Then I turned on the TV to see a replay of the first tower being struck. Confusion. Chaos. Shock.

More pleasant thoughts....

Even with crazy drunk guy seranading us, it looks like we'll be sticking around in this apartment for a while. We could move, but we're figuring that it would exhaust what little money we've saved (1st/last/deposit), so we're going to try to make the best of what we've got here.

We were going to majorly move the apartment around, but the couch won't fit through the door into the larger bedroom. That cut short our plan to make the old office into our tv room/den. We did go ahead and move the "office stuff" into the living room so it's not so crowded. The plan now is to finally get a table (we've only been here a year) and put it in the big bedroom -- making it the game room. Whenever we get everything cleaned up and put away, I'll have to take some pictures and put 'em up on here.

That's about it for now, I guess. I'm tired and Jenny just got home from work. Time to try to get to sleep before anybody starts singing....