Bush keeps Democrats in his sights

Bush keeps Democrats in his sights

This commentary is right on, but I think that it is missing one obvious reason why after proclaiming his desire to work with the democrats and claiming that he hears the will of the people after the Blue Wave election of 2006, he is pushing scarily conservative nominations and agenda items gaurenteed to piss off Democrats: payback. Payback, not just for himself, but for the ousted Republican congressmen as well. Many of these far-right goals were aborted by the previous Republican congress, who would have to run against their decisions. Maybe, Bush thinks that these lame ducks can vote their conscience and will do any wacko thing he asks them too. Hopefully, this isn’t the case or at least the Democrats will be able to delay these until January. Otherwise, he is just creating a deeper pit that we’ll be climbing out of for the next two years.

Wow, the Zune is sinking like a stone…

Now, I’m not so much of a Microsoft-hater as I used to be. The Zune announcement left me a bit cold, there are some cute ideas, but the kow-towing to the music companies at the expense of the users kinda bugged me.

I guess I’m not alone. The Zune seconds ago is at #46 on the Amazon top sellers list, putting it behind 10 different kinds of ipods, 3 iPod accessories, and 3 different SanDisk MP3 players.

Yow! That has got to hurt!

Cafe Amore (Belltown)

Friendly staff, ok atmosphere, out of the way location, but avoid it, avoid it, avoid it
Amore is trying hard, it really is. They are new and they want to succeed in a location that several other places have failed in (the former location of Spice). However, they are cutting corners on the most important thing, the food. This would be ok, if they were charging you appropriate prices. However, a meager Antipasto with all (obviously) canned ingredients should not cost $9. The Entrees range from $16 to over $30, and they are plated like they are sculptures of culinary artwork. However, it comes back to the ingredients which are obviously cheap. The wine selection is weak, but priced like it is very exclusive.

I want to like this place, really. The staff were great and they are trying. However, I feel like the owners are just trying to pull the wool over the eyes of people who don’t know any better. It’s a place with all flash and no substance. It is the most cynical of all restaurants, the kind that thinks if they give you expensive looking food, you won’t know any better; even if the chicken is frozen, not fresh, the ingredients come out of cans and the wine is from a box.

Cafe Amore on Urbanspoon

Interesting article on the evolving Microsoft media ecosystem

Microsoft’s media convergence strategy has been eluding me even as it has evolved. With the Zune imminent, the 360, and Windows Media Center PCs already here, I’ve found myself monumentally unimpressed with it all. Microsoft has the technologies, but not the integration. The individual technologies themselves are completely unappealing to me. However, this article from tech crunch puts it all together in a way I hadn’t considered.

iTunes 7.0.1 is the buggiest piece of software I have ever used

and I worked at a Unix company in the days before testers, so that is saying something.

Usually, I take my time installing a major update. I waited until the 7.0.1 patch came out to iTunes which supposedly fixed most of the issues and for me, at first, it worked fine. What I’m finding, after a few weeks, is that it is becoming increasingly unstable. Like can’t run more than 10 minutes without crashing, as in, completely useless. As in, how fucking long do I have to wait for Apple to fix this P.O.S. now that they’ve captured my music collection? At least I wasn’t stupid enough to encode in a proprietary format so the biggest problem would be figuring out how to move my meta-data to some other music application (I love my metadata, hear that Steve Gillmor?)

City planning, eastside style

There are some things I just don’t understand about the way people choose to live.

So, we decided to get out of the city and check out some fall colors this weekend. Maybe go for a walk in the woods. This is metronatural Seattle after all. So we drive east and east past what was once forest and now is housing developments with names like “cascade view,” and I was left wondering something. I can understand the desire for people to buy a house in the suburbs. You want some space, and you want an affordable house, maybe you want someplace safe to raise your kids. Sure, I get it. What I don’t understand is how people can move to these ridiculous subdivisions around Seattle (or San Francisco or Denver or any other place I’ve seen) where you may have a large house, but you stick your hand out of your window and touch your neighbors house. Also, you aren’t saving any money, the starting prices on these things are in the $600K+. Also, you are literally MILES FROM ANYTHING, INCLUDING NATURE. People spend way too much money for so very little in these places and then they have to spend hours in their car getting to work, or the store, or even a frickin’ movie. Meanwhile they are polluting the pristine places which must be at least part of the reason they moved there in the first place. What kind of life is that?

The Motorola RAZR is a poorly made product

But what I really wanted to say was P.O.S…

In under 18 months I’ve seen two batteries die (one catastrophically), and I’ve had to replace one phone completely when the off key stopped working.Also, by the way, screw you Cingular for your incredibly crappy repair and replacement policies.

For a relatively expensive phone, this is ridiculous. I had each of my previous Nokias for years. I only had to replace my first one because my dog chewed off it’s antenna. Shame on you, Motorola.