Fnord.

Yeah.

A travel planner called GoSkip and a free promo game called RV pileup from the new Robin Williams movie.

There’s also this new push weather service but I can’t get it to accept San Diego as an address, so I dunno how useful it is.

I like his idea better:

Hi there! Welcome to adulthood. You’ve had it relatively easy so far, all things considered: what with the parents, and the no job, and the not paying taxes, and the ability to eat an entire Italian sausage and black olive pizza without feeling like crap the following morning. Sure the whole puberty thing sucked, no argument there. But by and large life has been pretty sweet.
Unfortunately things get a little trickier from here on out. You might have to work a job you don’t particularly like, or find yourself with all kinds of obligations you’d just as soon avoid. Maybe you’ll feel your idealism leech away, and your patience for the status quo dwindle. Perhaps the people who signed your yearbook “2good + 2b = 4gotten!” will move away and 4get you, and your opportunities to meet new, fun people will become increasingly limited. And — trust me on this one — no TV show will ever seem as cool as the ones you enjoyed when you were 13.

Yeah, adulthood is a drag sometimes. And that’s where the Buddy System comes in. At some point, you may find it useful to Buddy up with another person, someone you will watch over and who will, in turn, watch over you. Like the earlier version of this system you may have used at school or at camp, your Buddy’s job will be to make sure you don’t get lost. But less a literal “don’t get lost in the forest during a dayhike” and more a figurative “don’t get so lost working at a crummy job that you forget how much you like gardening.” Or, you know, whatever.

So, at some point, feel free to take a Buddy. Or don’t: whatever works for you. But iIt’s a scary world out there, and sometimes a Buddy is just the thing you need to make it seem a bit more manageable.

The game is Texas Hold’em King 2 from magmic, and it’s free. Go to mobile.blackberry.com from your handheld browser, and download it over the air.

Like V1, it plays well and is a fun way to kill time on busses, standing in line, etc.

There seems to be no web-based download, so over-the-air install is the only way its free right now.

$400, $300 with rebates. You can get them cheaper elsewhere if you’re a new signup.

Sigh.

This is the hot new unit, faster Xscale CPU, higher-res screen, EDGE data, verra spiff. I want one bad.

From Nature, the totally unsurprising news that a picture of a model was enough to derail the hard bargaining of high-testosterone males.

Explains a lot, doesn’t it?

Purty, eh?

On it’s way from Singapore to me. I hope it gets here before I have to head out again. Just right for this trip.

Yeah, I need a life.

Watcharama also has them for sale., but I got mine from the trusty Seiko-Citizen trading forum.

Updated: Corrected URL, added img link.

The classic beginner’s mistake in Argentina is to neglect the first steak of the day. You will be tempted to just peck at it or even skip it altogether, rationalizing that you need to save yourself for the much larger steak later that night. But this is a false economy, like refusing to drink water in the early parts of a marathon. That first steak has to get you through the afternoon and half the night, until the restaurants begin to open at ten; the first steak is what primes your system to digest large quantities of animal protein, and it’s the first steak that buffers the sudden sugar rush of your afternoon ice cream cone. The midnight second steak might be more the glamorous one, standing as it does a good three inches off the plate, but all it has to do is get you up and out of the restaurant and into bed (for the love of God, don’t forget to drink water).

Go read it. The entire essay is that good. Real food porn, with a liberal dose of humor and E.A. Poe.

I can’t stop salivating, and called Diego to thank him for sending this link, and ask when the next trip to BA is.

I have polarized sunglasses, which I love. One thing that’s always puzzled me while wearing them is that some car windows show a very strong checkerboarn pattern that’s only visible with a polarizer.

Stress? Pressure points from however they bend the glass during casting or molding? I’ve debated this several times with physicist friends to no avail.

Today I have an answer.

One more thing to understand!

A very cool visit for a simulated blast test, where they use fast servohydraulics to simulate explosives. This is to test a coating on a cinderblock wall, to see if it acts like the polymer in safety glass.

Pictures and a video of the test itself, taken with my Canon. Enjoy!