Category: Toys & Tech

During spring break I proved to myself that continuous netfeed is in fact NOT necessary for survival. My entire Internet useover 10 whole days consisted of a single e-mail written in 5 minutes at a net cafe in Phuket. Additional “unconnected” computer time was comprised entirely of loading images from the Nikon 4500 to Baby (Vaio U3) via Compact Flash cards and a PC card adapter, plus a single one-hour Counter-Strike sesh (with my bro, Adam) in a gaming lab on the 4th floor of MBK center in Bangkok. It was an unfulfilling sesh (session) because the comps were slow compared to my own so I had to adjust for graphic bottlenecks, plus the tops of the movement keys (W, S, A, D) had been worn out from use. There were holes on the top of the keys, and my fingers touched down on the plastic ribs that crisscross the inside of the keys directly over the pluger thingy that actually initiates output of a character (if you can describe this any better, or even just understand what the hell I just wrote, please contact me). The tactile effect was equivalent to tapping your fingers on the tip of a blunt-tipped ballpoint pen (Bic, maybe?).

Missed the haircut because i spent a while trying to figure out a way to send Nam an e-mail her brother sent in Thai script. A challenge since Nam only had her phone (au) on her. I took a screen shot in WinXP after formatting the text to cellphone screen size in the OE compose window. Then I optimized in Fireworks and tested the 1.65K gif (and then png) by sending to my phone, also an au (albeit newer and way cooler – it’s got image conversion and editing capabilities and video – more on this later) but the attached files were not viewable. The error message displayed claimed size limitation errors, but I think it had to do with image subformat. Well, that was all a colossal waste of time.
I got a sudden inspiration and just took a pic with my phone after setting typeface of the Thai script to bold for screen legibility. This unbelievably crude hack worked better than I could have imagined. I swore I would never use a camera-equipped phone for taking snapshots (got me a pinhole camera, yes sirree!), but I found an honest to god practical use today. It was like finding out that those tits on the hog actually produce milk. Yippee!
In related news, the other day on our way back to this island (Awajishima), we made a pit stop at a highway rest area. I came out of the john and saw that Nam was waiting for me in front of the impressively lit vending area. She motioned for me to come over and was gesturing toward something on the ground in front of the Asahi vending machine. I jogged over and saw one of the coolest moths I have ever seen! It was shaped and colored just like a gingko leaf! It was so strange looking, I would not have been surprised to find it on the fifth moon of Endor, let alone at a highway rest stop. But there it was. Links are forthcoming, but impossible while my ISP is screwing around with my account. Actually, these smug bastards are in line for a class action suit from the state of Florida, so I better clear my crap off their servers, um, like, soon.