waiting...

Two things:
1) I'm surprised about the instructions at the beginning of the voicemail. You know, the ones that explain that to leave a message, just talk and then hang up. I'm not sure we needed this when voicemail was invented either.

2) The debit machines at stores annoy me. They annoy me because I have to keep pressing buttons when I shouldn't have to. For example, I think it goes like this:
a) swipe card
b) enter PIN
c) press ok
d) wait for cashier to finish scanning...
e) press 'no' for no cash back
f) press 'yes' for 'this total is correct'

I'd like it to work like this:
a) on-screen option: [press 'cash back' to request cash (then swipe card, enter pin)] OR [swipe card and enter pin]
b) swipe card & enter PIN - after entering 4 characters, it automatically it assumes the correct PIN - if it's wrong, it says 'wrong password - enter again'
c) after processing, optional: "press here if this total is incorrect, otherwise have a great day"

death cab

There's a reissue of Something About Airplanes that was released yesterday. It contains the first show that Death Cab played at the Crocodile -- I'm pretty sure David dragged me to the show. It got me thinking about the early days of the band.

Here's a clip from a show that wasn't their first at the Croc... The Death Cab of the 20th century had a little more spark for me. Nate's drumming is great; he seems to hit harder than the other guys and the drumming is more musical. It's more an instrument than a metronome (not that the latter members were...I'm just trying to note the distinction between a variety of drummers.)

monkeys

When Peter, Keiko, Tomoko, and I went to Jigokudani in April of last year, there were hardly any monkeys in the hot springs. It wasn't really that cool, not too warm. But apparently the monkeys come out when it gets cold.

Here's what we saw in the monkey hot tub:

Here's the link to the live-cam at the monkey park:

jigokudani-yaenkoen.co.jp

awesomer interface

I haven't had much to talk about lately since I've been working a lot and getting overtime. But here's something that I like (and am working on):

Windows 7 Touch Control Makes Media Center More Awesome

monkeys and bunnies

I can't find the commercial where two American travelers go to Japan and taunt the monkey while Japanese people are trying to warn them not to touch the monkey. I forget what it was for, too. It cracked me up when I was at the monkey park in Japan.
(You can see Peter and monkeys over at his site: pdmz.com

Here's another funny commercial though: