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June 27, 2008
What a week...
... it's been here in Jamaica.
I've been extremely busy so I'm sorry for not posting anything sooner. It has definitely been a business trip, not that I didn't expect that but still.
So a few things...
Tonight I had real Jamaican jerk chicken in Jamaica from a roadside jerk stand cooked up in an oil drum oven. It KICKED ASS. I know it's against all the health and safety guidelines to eat food from roadside vendors but you should have had this stuff. I never realized that Jerk is a form of BBQ because you can't get it that way in the states or even in most of the touristy restaraunts here.
I also ate at Cuddy's which is a restaraunt named after a famous cricket player from Jamaica. It was a totally happening barstaraunt that was jamming a mix of Rap from the US and rap from Jamaica at deafening levels, but I absolutely loved the atmosphere, the food, and well... the Jamaican Rum... yeah... WOW.
I've been back and forth between New Kingston and Portmore. I'm living in possible the most posh apartments in the Capital city of Kingston, but I haven't seen a beach. I'm hoping that I get to see one before I leave.
I didn't just try Jerk chicken I ate oxtail and some other local fare like gnaps which are like an indescribably amazing mix between a lime and a grape. It was all very good.
Aside from that I've also tried lesser options like the local BK, Dominos, and KFC (god bless the carribean for attempting southern cooking)They leave much to be desired leading me to draw the final conclusion that American's know best when it comes to greasy fast food and foreign nations know best when it comes to food worth eating. The Carribean certainly has a flavor all it's own.
For those who are reading this who are coming to join me, be sure to remember a few "tings":
Sunscreen is not readily available at the grocery stores so bring some.
We are having trouble setting up wi-fi at the apartments so bring an ethernet cable.
Be prepared to be blown away by the culture but be very respectful because you really have to earn the islander's trust if you expect them to respect you.
Let all your stress go and just roll with the punches during your travel, and consider all departure times approximate especially through American Airlines. If you get canceled in Miami ask them to rebook you on Air Jamaica and don't settle for the $10 meal vouchers go for the $25's
Eat in Seattle because MIA has horrible food options and the airport stinks so horribly you won't want to breath let alone open your mouth long enough to consume food.
When you get to the Jamaican airport if your VIP transport doesn't page you, follow the customs/immigrations signs and when you get to immigration (the windy lines) there will be an information booth at right. Go there and talk to the people.
Be prepared to tell the immigration folks the address to the apartments and that they are an apartment. They'll grill you on why you are here and it can be a bit overwhelming when you first finish the epic international journey so think it through on your way to the desk.
In Miami International you'll probably have to exit the secured area and re-enter because there layout sucks so be prepared to go through security again.
When you walk out of KIN go straight ahead don't turn right.
You have to turn the hot water on at your apartment with a special switch make sure to ask where it is or you'll be taking a cold shower in the morning.
Read the welcome packet right away.
That's all.
Posted by Decemberice at 11:02 PM | Comments (1)
June 22, 2008
Good morning from Miami...
... A horribly smelly city with unfortunate tastes in art/ design.
I really had hoped for more out of Miami. I ventured out the gates of Miami international airport this morning only to turn immediately around because of an insanely foul smell of mold that permeatted my clothes.
I decided then to kill some of my time in layover exploring the airport which is decorated in cottage cheese white walls ( yes just like your ceiling) and kind of a tealish blue. It gets better they have stainless steel oragami art of what is either a bird pooping or a squirel holding a nut in my terminal. Ah Miami how you have dissapointed me this day.
On the plus side they have a starbucks in my terminal which beats out Seattle where I had to voyage 20 minutes into American Airlines' area to get my fix because sbucks has apparently decided that people who fly Alaskan Air don't get Sbucks. I'm sorry! I will more wisely choose my airlines next time and make sure to tell our corporate travel agent that a less expensive flight is an unacceptable trade for walking 20 minutes to find a Starbucks in Seattle of all places.
From here it's straight on to Jamaica!
Posted by Decemberice at 04:03 AM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2008
Off to Jamaica...
... in less than 24 hours.
I have this odd feeling like something horrible is going to happen, but I think that is just the paranoid dramatist in me. I feel well prepared for this trip. More so than I was for India. I guess traveling to India taught me some things about international travel. I'm still trying to fit EVERYTHING in one suitcase though. I hate having to tote multiple bags around the world. This time it's for a little over 6 weeks so it ought to be an adventure. I hope I get to see some cool stuff while I'm there. There is a lot of work to be done just like in India but we still managed go to the Taj Mahal and various other cool places.
Did you know that in only takes 1.5 hours to fly from Miami to Kingston Jamaica? That's a crazy thought for me.
I packed extra shoes, I'm such a queer like that. I had to compromise some essentials to do it too, let's just hope there's a grocery store near to my Condo in Jamaica!
I've heard tell that there is a Burger King walking distance from my work location in Jamaica. Hell YES! That's something I certainly didn't have in India. I LOVE BK! I LOVE IT! That's probably why I weigh so much. I love their commercials too. With the guy in the giant king suit. I love Chicken Fries the best. There is just something magical in that grease they fry them in. I think it's heroin because they are pretty addictive. In fact... I think I'm going to go get some right now!
Oh... I'll be blogging my adventures in Jamaica on this blog so be sure to read them. Cause I'll know if you don't. I'm all knowing like that. Don't Laugh... See! I knew you were laughing.
Later!
Posted by Decemberice at 07:06 PM | Comments (2)
June 13, 2008
Hey, how about that iPhone 3G...
... my thoughts.
Apple held their WWDC (World Wide Developer's Conference) on Monday. I was in Seattle for a different conference but I cut out sometime shortly after 10am to check out the big announcements.
I think the launch of 3G in the iPhone really overshadowed the fact that the iPhone 2.0 software, unveiled earlier this year, is still the highlight of the iPhone space.
I'm really digging what Apple did with Exchange Server support because that was one of the huge drawbacks to choosing the iPhone over a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile phone for me. It seems more and more everyday that I find myself living out of my Outlook inbox and calendar. I can't wait to stop lugging this work laptop around and just get what I need on my iPhone.
I really feel with the 2.0 software that Apple has made the iPhone a viable competitor in the business world. That is for those who can stand to give up a solid state keyboard. I had a conversation with one of my boss' bosses today and he was adamantly against the soft-keyboard, and I can certainly say that it took me some getting used to. I'm still not sure I'm a fan of it, but I can't say I'm a fan of the tiny little keyboard from RIM's BlackBerry mobiles either. I think haptic technology will make soft-keyboards a bit more acceptable an alternative, I guess that will have to wait for the next iPhone successor or software build though.
At any rate, with such strong Exchange support and the addition of Power Point viewing to the pre-existing Word and Excel visibility, it will make my work life quite a bit easier.
The App Store really impressed me. I wasn't expecting the caliber of applications that were demoed at WWDC. I guess I just wasn't expecting them to have the finesse of the native Apple applications on iPhone. That being said only the best of the best were probably demoed and the SDK pretty much enforces the design and interface themes. I'm not sure that's such a bad thing though.
The games are really what impressed me most! I guess I just didn't realize the iPhone had such promising graphics capabilities. It looks way better than the DS, and I don't quite think it's PSP quality with what was demoed at WWDC it's not far off. All things considered I doubt this build of the iPhone will lend itself well as a replacement for the available mobile gaming devices. The gyro sensors seem to do well with racing games and a couple other implementations but without some onscreen directional and input controls (which would cut into the screen space) I don't think I'd be playing any RPGs on it.
Apple has begun to position the iPhone as the third major format (Windows, Mac OS, iPhone). If the third party support is there, and Apple continues to respond to customer demand for feature sets like they did this go-round, I really think they might pull it off. They are Apple after-all, they've somehow managed to resurrect themselves from nearly bankrupt legacy brand for elementary schoolers to a chic competitor in the computer industry, not to mention the fact that they basically own the music industry at this point. The demand they've mustered for the iPhone at this point is basically unheard of for a mobile phone. It's pretty much a household name at this point.
I think I recognized the power of Apple's UI design when my mom was actually able to pick up the iPhone and figure out how to get around in it. She did things in seconds (on her own) on my iPhone that I've had to teach her 2 or 3 times how to do on her own cell phone.
Again though, Apple needs to play nice with 3rd parties and this is, historically, not one of the company's strengths.
Aside from the new tidbits about the 2.0 software, there are only 2 significant changes to the Device in the 3G model in my opinion, and that would be 3G (obviously) and GPS capabilities.
The design is pretty and the flush headphone jack should have been there to begin with so I don't think you can really call that a feature. I guess I really don't have a strong reason to upgrade my from iPhone to iPhone 3G considering I'll be getting the 2.0 software for free anyway, but you know I'm going to upgrade anyway just because I'm an Apple fanboy like that. Hey, at least I didn't upgrade to the 16GB first generation model when it first became available a few months back like I wanted to LOL.
This time I'm going to hop up to the 16GB model. Normally I opt for White iPods, but I really don't like the way they did the white iPhone 3G model since the face is still black (which makes sense for viewing video and photo but still doesn't really look like it belongs). So black it will be for me. I have to say the solid coloring on the back looks much nicer.
They also talked about the future of .Mac by releasing MobileMe which seems neat, but they kind of oversold it a bit. It's got a pretty interface but most of the functionality is already available elsewhere or already available in .Mac. Even so, it's good that they put something relevant into .Mac because it was getting very stale in the stable. I'm not sure I really need push personal mail, but hey why not! It's actually less expensive for more space than I'm currently paying for/getting from .Mac so I'm all for it. That is unless they change my email address to me.com Then I'm going to have to jump ship LOL.
Well, that's about it I guess. The biggest features are yet to be seen, and that will really be the software from third party developers. Guess we'll know soon if the iPhone will be the next major format.
Also, hope Steve is doing OK, he didn't look so well this year.
Posted by Decemberice at 09:50 PM | Comments (1)
June 07, 2008
Sad sad day...
... no new iMac for me.
So I had to cancel my iMac order due to some unforseen travel exspenses involving my upcoming trips to Seattle and Jamaica. I didn't cancel quickly enough however to stop the shipment of my Time Capsule. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with a 1TB Time Capsule when the only computer I have that can run Leopard now is only 80GB. LOL Oh well. It's not a horrible problem to have.
The first thing I'm going to do when I get back to the states is start saving like mad to once again order my beastly iMac. I added to the save for later portion of my cart again. I'm not quite ready to let the dream fade just yet.
It may all work out for the best though. Apple's WWDC (World Wide Developer's Conferencce) is being held Monday. I think it's pretty safe to assume at this point that Apple will announce new iPhones there but they tend to introduce new OS toys there too. Since Leopard is so new I doubt there's much to be pushed out, but the most glaring opportunity for Apple is full on Blu-Ray Disc support.
None of their machines currently ship with Blu-Ray disc players. All the other major players (Dell, HP, Sony) all have a Blu-Ray upgrade option. Well Sony's agiven since Blu-Ray is pretty much their format though the financial backing came from all over the board including... APPLE!
So, I really do believe that there's a glimmer of hope that the Jobsfather will announce iMove/iDVD Blu-Ray support and hopefully we'll see at least iMacs, PowerMacs, and Macbook Pros start shipping with Blu-Ray burners.
Again though, I think the big highlights at WWDC will be the 3G iPhone and some highlighting of software that's likely to hit Apple's iPhone Apps store right off the bat. I'm thinking they'll be some really cool stuff from the developers. I didn't think much about playing games on my iPhone until I saw the Super Monkey Ball demo from Apple's event way back in November. After seeing that I started thinking about future encarnations of the iPhone and how it might start to blur into the Nintendo DS/PSP market.
Wouldn't that be a surprising twist for Apple? Looking back ten years when I relly first got into Apple and left the horrible world of WinTel, The G4 was their new baby being promoted as government-rated supercomputer available to consumers. The focus was very much on their Mac Hardware and the OS itself. It was desperately trying to distance itself from the failures of the Apple Newton (an ill-fated PDA).
Who would have thought that less than a decade later Apple would have become America's top music retailer, theri best-selling peice of hardware wouldn't be a computer at all but a portable electronic device, that they would be a serious player in the movie and movie rental industry, all of their machines would run on Intel processors, and they would have some of the fastest Windows laptops on the market. Let alone, on top of all of this, that they would be a profitible company or still in business! Steve Jobs may have a reputation for being an assbag but I guess you can chose to when you turn an antiquated brand thtat's slowly sliding into financial dissaray into a chic and profitible pop icon synonymous with design, innovation, and quality. And the guy does it all in a pair of jeans and white sneakers. You gotta love it.
Posted by Decemberice at 12:10 AM | Comments (0)
June 02, 2008
Tennessee county tries to ban and prosecute gay people...
... through legislature:
This happened in 2004 but I've finally decided I have something to say about it because 4 years later we still aren't out of the woods quite yet.
The county comissioners passed this into legislation with an 8-0 vote in favor of banning gays from their county. Apparently this was spawned in an effort to protect Tennessee's children.
Huh? I'm lost... because you know what? I knew I was gay when I was 7 years old. I knew I was gay before I even knew there was a word for it. Think of all the gay kids this hurts. What kind of self respect is a queer kid supposed to have when their county is trying to persecute and prosecute them. What kind of a life can a gay kid look forward to when their feelings and their existence is referred to as a "crime against nature?"
You know, it seems like everybody's looking to protect the sanctity of things like marriage but nobody stops to think that what they are defending is their own definition, not necessarily what's natural. There was never a day I CHOSE to be gay. It was certainly not fashionable, and it's made the majority of my life a living hell, but I stand up for who I am in case somebody in my situation can feel better about themselves because they know they aren't alone and that somebody cares but it's really hard to combat shit like this.
Of course the initiative didn't get very far and absolutely did not pass, but that doesn't erase the reality that all those gay kids have to think of themselves as an abhorment that people have tried to get rid of.
If this was any other group the county commissioner would have been brought up on charges of hate crimes.
You know what? Any kind of love is fine, it's hate you've got to watch. Who's damaging our children by showing them that love know's no boundaries? Who's damaging our kids by wanting to get married? Who's damaging our kids by diversifying America's culture? Think about it for a minute? All I see here is somebody damaging our kids by teaching them to hate people who are different and exile them.
I wish more parents could tell their kids that any kind of love is still love. When I grew up, I had to listen to my parents make offhanded remarks about gay people they saw on TV or in movies and talk about how that's what's wrong with society and how sick and wrong gay people were.
That hurt me. It took me a long time to build my self respect because when you attack my sexuality you attack me. That's a part of me I can't change and it hurts when even your parents think you are disgusting on top of all the playground talk you hear about queers and fags and all that. They say that close to 8% of people in the world identify as gay or bi-sexual. Gay men used to be gay boys so everytime you make an offhanded comment about how disgusting gay people are, you could be hurting your child without even knowing it. Did you know that 33% of gay youth attempt suicide at least once? That's more than 1 in 3 gay kids who try to kill themselves. Is it any wonder why with shit like Tennessee trying to ban their existence?
Gay kids are also up to 3 times more likely to use and abuse drugs in an attempt to escape their inner pain.
Are you willing to risk that your child isn't one of these kids?
The struggles of gay youth are often burried by admittedly more important matters like cancer, poverty... so on. But sometimes I think the world chooses to avoid it because it's uncomfortable. Mr. Fugate read up on his facts he may have realized that his choice to promote this initiative is a directly contributing factor to more cause for gay youth suicide and drug abuse. The sad thing is that he'll never be charged with hate crimes, he'll never be charged with anything. He's simply left a lasting impression in the hearts of the gay kids who heard about this and as a result may have felt that much less deserving of happiness and existence.
Hope it made him happy to hurt my people, hope it made him feel big to give another gay boy 1 more reason to kill himself. Dead gays can't talk, they don't get a memorial wall, most Americans don't even know that homosexuals were persecuted, or that as many as 15,000 served in Nazi concentration camps for being homosexual. or that of those imprisoned as many as 60% died through misstreatment in concentration camps. The history books in our schools don't seem to mind that.
Nobody seems to want to teach gay kids about their heritige, nobody talks about stonewall to them, nobody tells them about Nazi germany burning any literature on the topic of homosexuality, nobody talks about it with our youth. And when you are a kid, and you realize that nobody cares about your culture or cares enough to talk about your history... it hurts. Perhaps if people knew what homosexuals have been through, they'd be a little more pissed off when the preisdent tries to ban them from getting married. Or maybe that would hurt the light that America has spun on gays as being promiscuous. I can guarantee there would be more promiscuity amongst heterosexuals as well if the government refused to allow them to legally marry.
But people don't seem to see how this hurts gay youth. Or how much it hurst gay adults to watch our youth kill themselves 1 by 1 because of the horrible atmosphere the US government breeds around homosexuality. And all we can do hold support group meetings that get picketed.
Posted by Decemberice at 07:03 PM | Comments (0)