Alsop's Small Thoughts

Caffeinated thoughts

Starting out on my drive from San Francisco to Santa Fe, I had occasion to get both Peets (medium non-fat latte with an extra shot) and Starbucks (triple non-fat latte) in the same morning. The big difference: The tops for the to-gocups. (yeah, they taste different but...) Peet's has one-size fits all, which is brilliant since you haven't had your coffee yet to be able to think through which size top belongs on which size cup. Starbucks has a whizzy looking top that looks like it's designed to prevent spills, but -- under certain circumstances -- actually is able to shoot coffee at your good friend in the passenger seat of your car.

Motel 6 Bargain

$41.57. For two people (my son and myself in Needles, CA on our way to Santa Fe) for one night. Two beds. A shower. No cockroachs or other insects. Not too noisy (other than a few train whistles). And 20% off at the 24-hour Denny's next door. What more could you want for the price?

Why Windows Isn't Easy

My computer goes off on its own from time to time. I think it might be Outlook. But it could be Zinio Reader. Or it could be Plaxo. I've suspected virtually every add-on or program I use regularly. But I can't tell and don't know how to tell and don't even really know why the heck I should have to tell what's causing problems, much less having to fix the problems myself. I launched into an attempt to figure out after restarting my computer once again to get things going. And here's a discussion I found that just makes me tired. I actually ran this program called MSCONFIG and it has much information about what's running on my computer, but doesn't tell me anything. So what do I turn off without hurting the computer in order to make it work better. If anybody can help, please do!

Insurgent objectives

I know this is one of those really dumb thoughts that occur to me from time to time, but if you were an "Iraqi insurgent" (in quotes because I don't see too many actual Iraqis insurging) and you really wanted the "evil" Americans to leave the country, wouldn't you stop killing so many civilians in senseless suicide bombings? Here's my thinking: The U.S. is under tremendous political pressure to withdraw from Iraq. The only thing that's keeping the U.S. (meaning 160,000 American soldiers) in the country is the fact that it is so unstable, ie that suicide bombings by the so-called insurgents happen on a daily basis. If it was just a matter of the Sunnis and Shiites being pissed off at each other and tearing down each others political posters, you can bet the Americans would get out of the country as fast as possible. But now it's a test of manhood for the U.S. and its military and civilian leadership, so they can't get out. In other words, the only thing standing in the way of the Americans withdrawing from Iraq is the stupid and senseless bombings by the so-called insurgents. Whoever these people are motivating the suicide bombers must be the dumbest politicians in the history of mankind.

Saved by iTunes!

My television is useless. DirecTV cut me off because I was 30 days late paying my bill. But nearly at the same time, my Samsung DirecTiVo failed. And I tried replacing it with my Highes DirecTiVo and that produced the dreaded Green Screen I referred to in an earlier post. Meanwhile, I am not able to watch television, a really interesting test of my mental stability and general emotional health. I was getting pretty worried that I would begin to miss whole episodes of Lost. (I think I can manage if I miss CSI, Desperate Housewives and even Survivor, which isn't quite as interesting this season as it has been in the past. And I watched a few episodes of Rome and would like to watch the others, but never got time to watch THAT much television.) I would be a lesser man if I missed even one episode of Lost!

I've been reading, of course, how Apple strong-armed Disney ABC into selling episodes of Lost and Desperate Housewives on Apple's iTunes Music Store the day after they air, for playing on the latest iPod, which can handle video. I don't have that iPod. (I bought the 60GB Photo iPod not too long ago, but before the video iPod was announced or even rumored.) But it finally clicked that you don't need an iPod to buy the episodes and watch them, you just need iTunes and an account at the store. So, in desperation, I turned last night to iTunes and downloaded the one episode of Lost ("What Kate Did") that I did miss this past week. I had to give up the comfy chair and living room environment to watch it on my Macintosh. For $2, here's what I got. Very high resolution. Portable (on my Macintosh notebook). Commercial free without having to skip through the ads. And it's stored on my computer to watch again in the future if I want.

Congratulations to NBC for joining ABC in this experiment; if only they were selling shows I wanted to watch!

Technically Peckish

It's been a really bad week for me, technology-wise. So I'm feeling peckish about computers and stuff. (Peckish is one of my favorite words; my girlfriend and I tend to use it to describe how we act when we haven't eaten for too long.) Anyway, here's the laundry list:

My Samsung DirecTiVo died. At the same time, DirecTV cut me off because I was 30 days later paying my bill. (Isn't that a nice way to treat one of your best customers, who has been paying the bill regularly for years and recently averaging between $95 and $120 a month, depending on how many pay-per-view movies my son ordered?) So I paid the bill and replaced the Samsung receiver with the Hughes receiver that I wasn't using. And now I have the dreaded Green Screen, which says:

"A severe error has occurred.

Please leave the Receiver plugged in and connected to the phone line for the next three hours while the Receiver attempts to repair itself.

DO NOT UNPLUG OR RESTART THE RECEIVER."

That's the worst of my bad week. I also upgraded my Treo 650 from software version 1.03 to version 1.12. I thought it might take 30 minutes. I followed the instructions precisely, but I still screwed it up and got a white screen. (Do the vendors choose the color of the death screen intentionally? Blue for Microsoft; Green for TiVo; White for Treo?) It took three hours instead, during which time I couldn't use the device as a phone and also during which time I had to call Sprint to get advice about how to unwind my screw-up. The technician who helped was actually helpful and spent some time waxing eloquent about his friend in the electronics business thought that things worked better as separate components and that the industry was making everything harder and more complex by trying to cram everything into little devices (like the very Treo I was trying to upgrade).

And then there's the fact that CDW can't get my brand-new IBM (Lenovo) Thinkpad Z60t from the factory so they can deliver it to me. IBM is behind on making the things. I know I'm supposed to be skeptical, but this computer has EV-DO built in which will mean that I have pretty darn close to wireless broadband connectivity available pretty much anywhere I'm likely to go (except maybe Santa Fe, NM). I really want this computer and I've been waiting for two weeks to get it.

As I say, I'm getting pretty peckish about the goddamned technology industry!

Defending the family name

Under the headline "All the News That's Fit to Buy", Alexander Cockburn listed my father as a journalist "willing to promote the views of the CIA" in The Nation magazine (along with a series of other well regarded journalists from that time).  He also referred to my uncle Joe as the "powerful and malevolent columnist". Cockburn is using the recent news that the US Government has been placing articles in the Iraqi newspapers as the platform for a diatribe about journalistic ethics. The column itself is an example of the muddy-headed thinking that he decries. 1)  For Cockburn to apply today's standards to activities by journalists more than 50 years ago is bad enough. 2)  I actually subscribe to the point of view that American journalists are also Americans and that being a journalist doesn't exempt you from any feeling of patriotism or nationalism. But 3), you wonder whether Cockburn actually ever read any of the stuff he refers to as "promoting the CIA's point of view".

Just a proud son wanting to stand up in defense of my father's reputation as a journalist and political columnist, 30+ years after he died.