• 00:15 I should really put together an herbal med kit. #

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• 14:42 Preparing to do a couple dozen massages this week, I went out and bought a new face cradle and covers. Exciting! #

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As bike parking gigs go, the ball games aren't bad. On the one hand, the money's good thanks to tips. On the other, you have to put up with ball fans. They're not a bad lot, by and large, but it annoys me that they simply assume that by virtue of my being there I'm one of them. The following conversation is all too common:

"Can you see the game in there?"
"No."
"Do you even have a TV or anything?"
"No, but I do have free wifi and a lovely view of the sailboats on the Bay."
"Dude, they should give you a big-screen TV in there."
"Yeah, they totally should! Then I could sit here and watch Dr. Who!"

By biggest pet peeve, though, is perfectly exemplified here:

Better act quick!

This is what I currently subscribe to. I use Mobilecast to download them directly to my iPhone.

In no particular order:
This American Life - Really, if you haven't heard of this one by now, you probably haven't listened to radio in years. This show gets a lot of credit for pulling public radio away from its old image of curmudgeonly men with beards and brown blazers and aging hippies.
Radiolab - one of the many shows that's followed in TAL's footsteps, and arguably the best. Follows a very similar format, but usually with more science and philosophical discussion thrown in on top of the classic storytelling. They also seem to have a bigger budget for sound editing, so you don't just hear the same music over and over and over.
WGBH Classical Performances - needs no explanation, really. A bit more traditional classical than I'd like. I'm still searching for something more contemporary.
Sparkletack - The San Francisco History Podcast - this one's probably my favorite. Even if you're not familiar with San Francisco, it's very well done. Everything's researched, written, recorded, and edited by one guy in his spare time, so updates tend to be sporadic, but it's an excellent example of what a single person can do at very little cost in this day and age.
Bikescape - another one-man show, this time by a good friend of mine. All about bikes and bike culture, with a local slant.
Selected Shorts - how can you not love this one? Short stories and essays read by actors. Each show follows a theme: the last show I listened to, "Brave New World," included an essay by a Bornean herdsman visiting New York followed by a Phillip K. Dick story.
Live Concerts from All Songs Considered - a fairly wide variety of music here. A quick scan of the list reveals shows by Bjork, Yo La Tango, and REM, among others.
Love and Radio - another TAL copycat, this one's often fairly short and usually far more twisted. It comes from "alt.NPR," which appears to be what was left on the cutting room floor for being too risque, too disturbing, or just too weird to make it to the radio.
In Character - brief essays about archetypal characters in fiction. Recent shows have been on Hester Prynne, Indiana Jones, and Eric Cartman.
Poetry off the Shelf - essays on poetry and movements within poetry.
Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac - don't let the host turn you off: this has nothing to do with A Prairie Home Companion. Keillor gives a daily snippet of literary history and reads at least one poem. I find it an excellent way to start the day.
Living on Earth - environmental news that I keep trying to get around to listening.
The Changing World - world news that I keep trying to get around to listening. D'oh!

Mind you, I don't necessarily listen to all of these on a regular basis, but they're great to keep around. The only ones I follow religiously are TAL, Radiolab, and Sparkletack. I'd love to find some new ones, so if anyone has something to recommend, I'm wide open.

No captions yet, but here they are.

Gotta say, the iPhone's camera is great... for a phone camera. For most settings, it works perfectly well. For things like this, not so much. That said, when you're looking at Yosemite Valley, it's pretty much a given that you'll never take a shot that's better than what's already been done.

For a $200 gadget that fits in your pocket, the Korg Kaossilator is a damned cool toy. Really, it's considerably more than a toy, as the many YouTube videos show.

You can probably already see where I'm going with this.

There is no reason all this can't be done with an iPhone, given the proper software. Indeed, the iPhone gives more control than the Kaossilator, what with multitouch and the accelerometer. It might not sound quite as good, but then again it just might.

What I'd really like to see is something like this, combined with a sampler that used the phone mic. Sure, that'd be far from pro level, but it'd be pretty damn cool for jam sessions and the like.

Really, I have little doubt that we'll see something like this in the near future. There's certainly enough enthusiasm going right now (just look up "iBand" on YouTube). It's only a matter of time.

Now I gotta get back to working on my big drum solo.

American Airlines flies 777 from Chicago to London with five passengers aboard.

On the one hand, I'm thinking, "wow, that's incredibly wasteful, but I guess they had to keep to schedule and the plane had to meet hundreds of passengers in London for the return trip."

On the other hand: "wow, how can I get on a flight like that!?"

After an hour of sitting around, they came out and told us all to go home.

This means I actually spent longer downloading, reformatting, and transferring those Dr. Who episodes than I had to watch them.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

Signs in the waiting room promise free wifi and yes, I can see it when I browse networks. Actually connecting is another matter. Fortunately, I put about half a season of Dr. Who on my phone before leaving.

I made sure to get here reasonably early so I could get a decent seat. Right now I'm next to the window with a view of downtown... utterly dominated by a huge iPod billboard.

I've counted three other iPhones here, though I'm sure there are more.

A new study from UC San Diego says that there's a 50% chance Lake Mead will be dry as a bone in 13 years.

Ya know, Lake Mead, the country's largest man-made reservoir, the one that supplies water and power to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and a slew of other cities.

Yup.

I guess the positive side is that we won't have to worry about Hoover Dam collapsing.

Seattle has a newspaper called the Post-Intelligencer.

Uh, does that mean it used to make people intelligent, but not anymore?

Seasonal theme parks in California.

Right now, it's warmer and sunnier than most of the summer. People are walking around in T-shirts. So why do I have to wait a month to ride a roller coaster?

I'm sure it make sense in places where it snows, but I grew up in the land of parks that wouldn't close for anything short of a category-5 hurricane. And you know what? The weather there was worse.

I wanna ride a roller coaster, dammit!

43% of the world's chcolate is from the Ivory Coast, where it is most likely the product of child slaves.