right on bro!

On Friday, I was leaving the house to go run some errands and decided to go check my mail.  I set my iPhone and my shopping list on top of the car, went out to the mailbox, and then got in the car and left.

When I left the bank I got into my car and realized I’d forgotten about the phone.  It wasn’t on the car by that time, of course, so I drove back to the house very slowly, looking at the opposite lane for any sign of the phone.  Got home, didn’t find it, then decided to drive back out.  Found it about a block away from my house, face down, with a big tire mark on top of it.

The phone was burning hot (it was 100 degrees out), but oddly enough, it was still on.   It was inside an Xtreme Mac Tuffwrap case, and once I took it off, the body actually looked normal.  The glass had major scratches in it but it turned out to be the plastic Invisible Shield I put on it - once I peeled it away, the glass was actually perfectly fine.  The LCD was smeared and damaged, but legible.  Texting, checking email, and Wifi worked, but then it wouldn’t let me answer calls and started acting funny.

I took it to the Apple store at Town Center here in Vegas (do you know they have two Apple stores within like 3 miles of each other?) and got a replacement for $200 (not a 3G, they were sold out and I didn’t want to wait for new stock or sign another contract).

Anyway, that’s what happens to the iPhone when it gets run over by a car.  I washed the Tuffwrap case (the grease and tire marks came off fine) and put it on the new phone, and I’m back to normal.  I think this phone has better battery life than the old phone.

Kelly has always asked me what my type of girl is.

Here she is:

Source: 1960s ad for rice [BoingBoing]

I thought I saw Kelly and Caroline today at Lula in Santa Monica, but it turned out it wasn’t them.  We were eating lunch and I saw them walk by on the sidewalk and did a double-take.   They were both wearing sunglasses and I could have sworn it was them, but then they came in the restaurant and took off their sunglasses and I realized they were impostors.

Over the weekend, I built a desktop computer out of regular PC parts that runs OS X.  It’s sort of a $900 equivalent to a $3,300 Mac Pro, except slightly less powerful.  It’s way faster than my MacBook.

For the technically curious, it’s a Q6600 quad-core machine with 4GB of RAM.  There is a pair of 750GB drives in it, one for data and one for Time Machine (they are respectively named Crockett and Tubbs).  Everything seems to work well, except for the Firewire card, which seems to have issues with my external audio interface, and intermittent sync issues with the Apple wireless keyboard.  I think these are pretty easily fixed, so I’m pretty confident this will be my main workstation now.

Some people have been reverse-engineering OS X to run on non-Apple hardware for awhile now, so it wasn’t any more difficult than building a regular desktop computer and installing Windows.   In particular, I used this guide for purchasing parts and setting everything up.

Yup, there is nothing else to do out here in Vegas.

Am having a bad day today:

[18:47] Chris: it could be worse
[18:47] Me: i think im going to go to a video poker bar for dinner
[18:47] Chris: what if today, you were a tomato soup factory

Yup.

…about living in Las Vegas.

• It’s really quiet out here.
• There’s hardly any traffic anywhere.
• Shops and restaurants aren’t nearly as crowded as they are in LA (which makes life just that much more convenient).
• There are 3 Wal-Marts within a 5 mile radius of me.
• Even though the temperatures are the 90s and 100s it’s not so bad.
• Barely had much of a chance to go out (although I kind of do that to myself).
• I love having more space.
• Having more space isn’t the end-all in life.
• This town feels a little Wild West, e.g. sketchy, even in the nice parts.
• Most of the restaurants I’ve eaten here are pretty good.
• There is no indie rock here (bleah) and the radio stations suck.
• I found one bar that reminds me of LA….I think it might be the only bar.
• Gas is over $4/gallon here too.

Yup.

I was feeling pretty restless last night so I went out at about 11:00 PM and spent a couple of hours shooting some photos on the south Strip. Check out my photostream for the full set. I hope to do this once every other week or so.

There’s also a few photos of from Matt’s visit and Michele’s birthday dinner last weekend. as well as of my new place.

Yesterday, my boss and I were headed from West Hollywood back to the westside, and we got lost somewhere around San Vicente and Wilshire.  While waiting at a stoplight, we decided to have a little test - I busted out my iPhone, he busted out his HTC Mogul, and decided to see what was more accurate.

The HTC Mogul won, hands down.  By the time I was able to load Google Maps, hit the triangulation button, and end up with a map showing our general location and a big blue circle that showed roughly where we were but not exactly where we were, the Mogul’s GPS system had already pinpointed our exact location and was tracking us as we took off from the stoplight and drove down the street.

Here’s hoping the upcoming 3G iPhone catches up to the rest of the smartphone industry and integrates GPS.  If they don’t, here’s a note to all smartphone makers - here’s your marketing campaign.  Just differentiate yourself by showing all the features that the iPhone *doesn’t* do compared to your product.

Oh, and Apple, please fix the Bluetooth stack so it syncs data with my Prius and doesn’t emit noise before every call.  Thaaaaaanks!

Everyone who reads this blog already knows about this already, but I’m writing about it anyway: I moved to Las Vegas for the summer.  After ten years of being in Los Angeles, I got a little tired of things, and wanted something different.  I went to Red Rock about a month ago and sort of fell in love with the area, so here I am, renting a house out in the southwest corner of town.  I think I’ll like it here, but if it sucks, I’ll just move back to LA.

So far, it’s been a pretty fun but exhausting week.  I pulled off the move in a day, but the time required to pack/unpack my crap threw my work schedule off, so I pretty much spent the rest of the week working.  I’m going to chill out today - run some errands and maybe play some Halo and eat at a buffet - and then tomorrow it’s back to the grind.  This is going to be a busy summer, it looks like.

It’s nice here so far.  It’s really quiet, and I have lots of space and a garage.  It’s supposed to hit 100 degrees for the first time this year, but I’m outside on the patio right now and it’s fine.

There are supposedly a bunch of trails and abandoned mines near my place - can’t wait to go check them out.