Author Archives: dunster

A Very Few Words About Barry Bonds

I have deliberately avoided talking about Barry Bonds because I haven’t thought that he deserved noticing. Where there is hype, arguing that it is overhyped just contributes to the hype. Silence is your best weapon. Now, I’m ready to talk about Barry Bonds.

I don’t think he broke the record. He took steroids. They were against the rules. He cheated. You don’t get to cheat at a game and then claim that you won. It’s like the little kid who puts his pieces back on the checkerboard and claims they’ve been there the whole time. He can claim he’s better than you at checkers, but you know the real story.

Bond’s pretenders have a quick reply: “He’s innocent until proven guilty. He’s never tested positive.” Weak. I’ve never seen a videotape of Jeffrey Dahmer killing anyone, but I know that he killed them just the same. Bonds doesn’t get to pick which test proves him guilty. Read the grand jury testimony, look at the evidence, hell, look at his forehead. I don’t need a piss test to be convinced that he’s a cheater.

The Onion, of course, gets it right.

Is Ron Paul Running for President?

I’m not going to vote for Ron Paul. He’s wrong on too many issues. Still, I’m glad he’s running. He talks about issues that make most candidates uncomfortable. They’re issues that deserve to be debated. The problem is, he also makes the press uncomfortable. He scares the press, and then they try to pretend he doesn’t exist.

Read this New York Times story about the Iowa straw poll. It tells you who placed first, second, third, sixth, seventh, eighth, and tenth.

Did you know that Ron Paul came in fifth? Only if you read it somewhere else.

iPhone as iBrick

I never actually posted about it, but I got an iPhone. I didn’t wait in line or anything crazy like that, but the Saturday after the launch I picked one up at the Cambridgeside Galleria.

I’ve really liked it. The UI is very slick. The screen is gorgeous. Feature-wise, it’s been very nice to have phone, email, browsing, mapping, and my music with me at all times. Of course, it hasn’t been perfect. Sometimes data is a bit slow, I can’t type quite as fast as I’d like, stuff like that. But the good things far outweigh the bad. It’s been great.

Saturday night, the phone suddenly stopped working. All it would do was tell me to connect to iTunes. I was traveling and didn’t have internet at the hotel. When I got back on Sunday, iTunes didn’t help. I’d start a restore on my phone and the restore would fail. I found a discussion on the Apple boards that says activation was down, so I decided to wait. Monday I still couldn’t restore. I was getting near 2 days with an expensive paperweight, and I went to the Apple store. They tried the same things I did, and then gave me a new phone. I took it home, activated it, restored it, and I was back in action.

I didn’t expect my iPhone experience to be painless. It is too new of a product. Apple did the right thing, and I’m still a happy customer. I like my gadget.

Visiting the Dentist

I was overdue for my visit to my dentist (Dr. Loren Wilson, who I highly recommend). No new cavities, but one drilling to replace a bad filling. Quick and painless, thankfully.

On to the story. When I walked in, the receptionist asked “New insurance again?” and I said yes, and handed her the United Healthcare card, and asked if it was any good. “We’ll see,” she said as she copied the card.

I got my cleaning and came out to reception. “It’s MetLife,” she says. “This is the fifth time you’ve had them since you’ve been visiting us.”

Five times, she says. This speaks volumes about my work history.

Accents

Many of my better memories of my father involve performing, discussing, and recounting accents.  The root is in the family’s love of Bert and I (holy cow that link is good – listen, and then buy ALL of the CDs).  We listened to more than Bert and I, and explored all sorts of New England accents.  I still use New England Brahmin, Maine, and Vermonter lines as half-decent party tricks.  People say to me “But Dan, you don’t have an accent” and I quickly show them that I can have one when I want to.

Getting to my point: check out this site.  They’re collecting a kind of history of accents, time, and place.  It’s fun to listen to.  The navigation isn’t great, but there are highly entertaining rewards.

It brings up all sorts of questions about the effects of the web and globalization on speech and language, but I’m not going to try to tackle them.  At least not today.

The Police at Fenway

This started as a regular “hey, this is what’s up in my life” tabblo and has turned into a bit of “look at this neat technology” tabblo. I downloaded this free software Autostitch and it put my pictures together in that neat picture you see above. That isn’t one big picture; it’s 6 pictures stitched together.Anyway, on Saturday Nate and I went and saw the Police at Fenway. Most of these pictures are from the opening band and intermission. I didn’t take many pictures during the show because I was having too much fun to be distracted by photos.

The show was pretty good. It’s clear why Sting went on to fame and fortune and the other two. . . not so much.

I’ve seen bands that just play their albums faithfully, and seen it be a good show. I’ve seen “jam bands” that just start with a record and go from there, and seen it be good. The Police wanted to be somewhere in between. Most of the time it work. For some songs (“Don’t Stand So Close To Me”) it was electric. The live performance was so powerful, so challenging, so engrossing that you were left wanting more. A couple songs (“Roxanne”) suffered. The subtle crispness of the original was washed out by a boring, blathering tangent.

I’m not a big fan of “arena rock.” But this is a show that I couldn’t miss. I liked it; I’m glad I went (and yes, it was worth the $100 for the ticket).

See more photos

Humid Out? No, Just Lots of Lawyers Drooling

So, a storm drain cover goes through someone’s windshield with spectacular effect, and spectacular photos.  The result is a day-long traffic jam with 4-hour delays on Route 128.  The good news is that the guy lived through it.

Then you read this:

Other motorists have complained in recent days to MassHighway about loose storm grates in that section of Route 128, which is under construction.

“It’s not the first one that’s popped off,” said Lieutenant Eric Anderson, a State Police spokesman.

And suddenly Boston gets damp with lawyer drool.  Who wouldn’t want that case?  Invite a camera crew into the hospital, let the issue fester a while, have a few press conferences, and collect yourself a 7-digit cut of the settlement.