Fickle and loving my freedom

I’m fickle.  Too fond of my freedom to get tied down.  Phobic about commitment.

Yeah, and about cell phones too.

Three years ago I realized that I was no longer spending much time talking on my cell phone.  My use was down so far that even my modest Verizon monthly account worked out, some months, to a rate of seven bucks a minute.  I was “out of contract,” meaning I could quit with no penalties.

So I examined my options.  No cell phone?  Nope, that’s out.  I love the convenience and extra sense of security those little gadgets provide.  Lower cost account with Verizon?  Nope.  What I had was about as good as it got – including a discount. 

The result of the analysis:  I entered the world of prepaid no-contract cell service, and haven’t looked back.

First, two years with Tracfone.  Loved their network, was able to port my years-old same cell number to my Tracfone account.  My phone worked great but after two years it was getting beat up.  I bought a new (Tracfone) phone, but when I tried to get it activated with my existing phone number, I landed in Customer Service Hell  – and gave up entirely.

Which led me last April to Page Plus Cellular, a prepaid company that uses the Verizon network.  Page Plus is a great deal for service; you can keep connected for a tiny amount of money every 90 or 120 days, I forget which.  For few bucks I was set up on Page Plus with a reconditioned LG phone.  Which I never liked.  Poor call quality – and I think it’s the phone, not the network.  My attempt to stay with Page Plus while buying a replacement phone from them fizzled in the hands of a clueless customer service rep.  Click.

Back to research.  After which, I went yesterday to the Virgin Megastore and bought Cyclops, my first camera phone (pictured).  Virgin Mobile is no-contract service with a bunch of different service plans, which uses the Sprint network.  That’s going to be fine for me almost all the time.  Sprint isn’t so hot in many rural areas, but when I go to such places I’ll pull out the absolute cheapest cell phone 

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Way better than “gerbil,” I suppose

You Would Be a Pet Cat

Independent and aloof, you don’t like to be dependent on anyone.  And as for other people, you can take them or leave them.  You often don’t care.You live your life by your own rules. And you have deep motivations that no one truly understands. Why you would make a great pet:  You’re not needy or greedy… unlike other four legged friends. Why you would make a bad pet: You’re not exactly running down to greet people at the door What you would love about being a cat: Agility and freedom What you would hate about being a cat: Being treated like a dog by clueless humans

What Kind of Pet Would You Be?

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Desktop cinema 2: Stolen

I was up early this morning and soon tired of listening to the news.  So I enjoyed my coffee and cereal while watching my second ever Netflix “watch instantly” movie.

I prefer the term “desktop cinema” for this activity, a delightful use of broadband internet.  I suppose it’s possible to get that video streamed onto a big TV, but for now I’m happy to watch on my widescreen PC monitor.

Today’s choice:  Stolen, a 2005 documentary about the biggest art theft in modern history – still unsolved.  In the wee hours of March 18, 1990, as much of Boston was sleeping off – or winding down – St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, men disguised as cops entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and made off with 13 priceless masterworks.  Including Vermeer’s “The Concert” and Rembrandt’s “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.”  

Stolen deftly educates in two hours.  The common thread is obsession – or at least preoccupation.   Scholars are moved to tears recalling the Vermeer, or thinking of the dire selfishness of those who would deprive the world of such art.   Novelist Tracy Chevalier saw Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” at 19, has had a poster of it on her wall at home ever since, and wrote the best-selling novel inspired by the painting. 

Investigator Harold Smith follows leads down blind alleys in search of the stolen masterpieces. He gets conned, may have gotten close, and although never finding any of the pictures is not discouraged after all of it.   Smith had battled skin cancer for fifty years by then and went about wearing a natty suit, a fedora, an eye patch and a prosthetic nose.  He was not the easily discouraged type.  (He died shortly before the film’s release.)

We learn of the Irish Republican Army connection, and as Smith follows that trail we meet a hyperactive Brit art “locator” and a Scotland Yard fine art squad investigator who works with him from time to time.  We get a hint that even the IRA may have some preoccupation 

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Because it just works, stupid.

I have always used PCs, at work and at home.  I have always owned PCs.  Now I have a Compaq Presario desktop and a sweet little Toshiba notebook.  I haven’t used any Apple computers.  I always found Mac zealots really irritating.  My attitude is, look, it’s computer technology, not religion.  And the un-critical media hype preceding the iPhone release last year was beyond silly.  (A cartoon about that had the press bowing before a huge iPhone that loomed up like a monument, and was captioned “iFawn”.)

I use my computer a lot, and enjoy all the things I can do with it.  I am a fairly expert user for a non-techie, and I don’t mind spending time with my computer learning how to get the most from it.  With all that history and investment in hardware, software and the learning curves,  I’m not eager to change the basic technology I’m using. 

But my next computer purchase is likely to be one of these.  

Not because it’s morally superior, or ethically pure, or 100% organic, or blessed by God – which it isn’t -  or even because it *is* pretty. 

Nope.  Because the damn thing just works.

I have had it to the eyeteeth with Windows Vista.  With mysterious churning “processes” and “services” that spike my CPU usage up to 90 percent when I haven’t even opened any programs yet.  With antivirus programs that can constitute some of those background resource-eating computer-slowing churning actions, and that want to take over my PC use from me.  With formerly inexpensive, simple and fast-running applications that have grown bloated and sluggish (see my farewell to one of them here).   With constant nagging from Microsoft 

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Girl 27

Just now I watched my first Netflix “instant” movie here on my PC.  This could be addictive.  Just choose the flick, and there it is, playing along while I sit here working on other things.  My monitor’s just big enough to allow me to have the movie playing on one side and a Word document open on the other side.  Admittedly they are both a little squinched but it worked just fine today.

I selected Girl 27, a documentary released last year about a 1937 Hollywood rape case which was not merely hushed up, but nearly obliterated from history.   A link from the official film website to a “Girl 27″ myspace page (kind of icky in my opinion) leads to this promotional blurb:

HOLLYWOOD 1937 — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the world’s most prestigious and powerful movie studio, tricks 120 underage chorus girls into attending a stag party for its visiting salesmen. When dancer Patricia Douglas tries to flee, she is brutally raped; defying the studio’s order for silence, Douglas files a landmark lawsuit while M-G-M launches the biggest cover-up in Hollywood history – until six decades later, when author-screenwriter David Stenn stumbles upon the story. Stenn’s decade-long search for the truth leads to Patricia Douglas herself, nearly ninety and still in hiding. Will she go public once again, or will Hollywood’s best suppressed scandal die with her?

This would have been a much better film with less of David Stenn in it front and center, but even his name-dropping ego trip couldn’t completely sidetrack the main story here.  Clips from films of the era are interwoven with the narrative to add literal punch to a story that is powerfully sad and disturbing.   Even the children of a key witness who changed his story in court discuss that onscreen here. 

We also hear briefly from Judy Lewis.  She is Loretta Young’s daughter, the subject of another big Hollywood cover-up.  She was allegedly adopted by the single movie star, but in fact was Young’s illegitimate child, fathered by Clark Gable.  Apparently it was one of the best-known open secrets in town at the time, but the press all played along with the official story.  The kid inherited her dad’s trademark large ears, so her mom kept her in bonnets and scarves until she was 6 when she had surgery to pin them back. 

Netflix has just lifted its limits on how many movies a month I can watch instantly. 

Oh, dear.  If they offer exercise videos on this plan, I’m out of excuses for not working out, do you think?

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Of sleeping and waking and broken toys

The other day I enjoyed a good giggle reading about Suzanne’s computer crisis (soon resolved) over at bizzyville.  Then, yesterday morning, I had a technology breakdown of my own. 

My overpriced alarm clock went pfft.  Yep, my Cambridge Soundworks Radio CD 740, purchased in late March 2006, no longer keeps time at all.  No alarms, no time display except “12:00 AM” that never advances, never retreats, and can’t be reset.  I assume a chip inside has died.   The radio and CD functions seem to be unaffected. 

But I’ve been relying on this dual-alarm-equipped darling to wake me up in the mornings.  And now that I’m working again, that’s important.  Very important. 

I need six to seven hours sleep at night, and often need a couple of alarms to get up and out of my nice cozy bed.  Especially on a winter morning when the weather outside is very low on degrees.  Like today.  There are only three friggin’ degrees out there.   Yeesh. 

Speaking of needing sleep, Suzanne at bizzyville got her PC fixed and tells us about her new sleepytime ‘fly buddy, and the complications, here.

Back to my busted toy.  I liked this thing so much I even blogged about it when I bought it.  But a $350 piece of electronic equipment -

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Train wreck

Damn.  Damn.  Damn. 

What a bloody stupid waste. 

No, he wasn’t a relative, or a friend.   He was an employee of a client agency.  I’d worked with him on some things over the years. 

A troubled soul who left this life the other day by choice.

And who has left those who did care, who did try to help, hurting over it.

A soul in darkness.  For whom I will, in a minute after I’m through being really really pissed here, send prayers to go into the light.

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The RIAA’s lawsuit reconsidered

I need to hunt down and read some more pleadings in the case of Atlantic Recording Corporation et al v. Howell, about which I blogged in disgust yesterday.  But after reading this brief and this online discussion thread, my anger may have been misplaced.  And – is it possible? – the Washington Post may have published a story that was less than a full, frank and accurate depiction of the lawsuit.

It may well be, that the RIAA’s focus in the case is Mr. Howell’s use of the file-sharing service Kazaa to share the music he ripped into his ‘puter from his purchased CDs.  Which is a whole other issue entirely. 

I burrowed through a very long page on the RIAA’s website about what consumers should know about copyright law, and found this:

Copying CDs

•  It’s okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes.
• It’s also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R’s, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) – but, again, not for commercial purposes.
• Beyond that, there’s no legal “right” to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns so long as:
  • The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own
  • The copy is just for your personal use. It’s not a personal use – in fact, it’s illegal – to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.
• The owners of copyrighted music have the right to use protection technology to allow or prevent copying.
• Remember, it’s never okay to sell or make commercial use of a copy that you make.

So what the RIAA says, is that it I am outside the law when ripping music from my purchased CDs onto my PC for my own listening convenience. But I shouldn’t worry about it unless I give away or sell the copy or even lend it to others for copying.

I may be a criminal in the RIAA’s eyes, but they have bigger fish to fry, so I can rest easy for now.  Besides, the RIAA may be on thin legal ice about the copying to PC (and mp3 players) for personal use being outside the realm of legal rights.  Courts have held that it’s not a violation of copyright law for consumers to tape TV shows on their own VCRs for time-shifting, i.e., so that they can themselves watch the shows at another time, when no distribution is involved. 

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Barely safe for work

It’s OK.  I contained myself.  No F-bombs in this post.  Barely.

I am seriously pissed, after being at first incredulous. 

The Recording Industry Association of America can kiss my grits.  What a bunch of greedy power-crazed paranoid idiots they are.

They are suing a man for copying 2000 songs from CDs that he PURCHASED legally onto his own home computer.  The RIAA’s going after him for copyright infringement and music stealing and maybe also for vagrancy, loitering with intent to creep, sedition, felony bad taste and illegal license plates. 

I am not making this up – OK, except for the probable additional charges part.  I wish I were.  Story is here in the WaPo and all over the innernets by now too.

So the RIAA sez that I can buy CDs (as I did just last night, as it happens), but only listen to them in whatever inconvenient way the RIAA thinks best?  Yep.  I’m a criminal because I used my LEGALLY acquired iTunes software to copy my OWN LEGALLY PURCHASED CD music, for my OWN listening enjoyment (not for distribution) onto my OWN LEGALLY PURCHASED PC?  According to the RIAA, I’m stealing every time I copy a song, even in those circumstances.  

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