The Zereps

OK, well.. I’m a little behind on the posting.. Just now I’m writing about stuff that I did last weekend.. oh well, I’ll catch up eventually… or let Candice write about what we did this weekend..

Digital Life 2006 — an exhibition of new and upcoming digital technology, sponsored by Ziff Davis and features hundreds of exhibitors from all over displaying their latest offerings in things such as cell phones, video cards,VoIP, movies on demand, HDTV, HD DVD/Blu-Ray movies, video games, home automation, etc.

It was at the same place as Next Fest that Candice and I went to a couple weeks ago, but this time Candice opted to go shopping instead of go to the super-digital-supernova-convention-itbition with me, and I dont’ completely blame her–I am a technology convention show junkie. I stayed at the convention hall for 5 hours straight without eating, drinking, or sitting down. I walked up and down every section, toured every exhibit, looked at every new gadget, and tried out just about every new technology on display; just try to keep up with me. 😉 Some of the highlights of the show were demonstrations of Windows Vista, Playstation 3 (which you could actually play for a couple minutes if you wanted to stand in line for 30-60,) The HD-DVD Experience. There’s not enought time or space to detail everything that was there, but suffice to say it was a great preview of new things that are coming out.

I did end up buying one thing from the show… a ‘Gyration Air Mouse‘. It’s a patented mouse that you can just wave around in the air to move your the cursor on your computer–a God-send for people like me who spend many more hours than I should every day using a computer. It’s so much easier on your wrists than a traditional mouse.
Check out the photo gallery here: Digital Life 2006 (taken with my phone’s dinky camera, but you’ll get the idea of what it was like there.)

i know i’ve read another book in the interrim, but i can’t remember! anyway, i just finished reading pete hamill’s forever yesterday at work.

no amazon review today. i’ll just give a quick sum-up, since i’ve gotta go to work soon. the novel begins in ireland in 1741 with a boy, cormac o’conner, and his family. through a series of unfortunate events (hehe..yeah, i should start that series, too) he ends up in new york prior to the revolution and stays there through nearly 300 years and watches the city change through the centuries. it combines historical events and people with celtic and african magic and religion, a combination that i thought was absolutely wonderful.

it was sooo good! i enjoyed reading this book so much. every time i got to sit down to it at work i didn’t want it to end! i totally recommend it, but with a warning…don’t come to it with any expectations!

read it!

eric bought me kim stanley robinson’s ‘blue mars’ so i should read that, too. and against the recommendation of my friend, darcy, i still want to read dickins’ ‘bleak house.’ 🙂

toodles!

well, i’m currently stuck on the subway, one stop from mine. 🙁 but the good news is that somebody wap gracious enough to let of use their unsecured wireless network, so i can blog to you from my phone. 😉 it’s only a 3 long block extra i’d have to truck it, so maybe i’ll walk.. later.

This last weekend was the first one that Candice didn’t have to work on Sunday, so we decided to go into town on Saturday and Sunday. A lot of times we stay at home on weekends, so it was nice to get out both days. Saturday, we took a stroll around Central Park. Central park is pretty darn big. We hadn’t even seen a quarter of it in the dozen or so times we’ve been there, so this time we went straight to the northern part on the east side. We went to the Harlem Meer, which was very nice because it was beautiful outside and there aren’t too many tourists that far up. We trekked through the very hilly middle of the park, and walked all the way around the reservoir, then made our way back down to the subway station. It was such a great day outside–thank God the day of 90 degrees and 90% humidity are over!

i’m at the busstop with Candice right now. thank goodness for open wireless networks. 😉 we’re going to see ‘the departed’ details later. blogging from my cell phone is fun. 🙂

a couple days ago i finished marion zimmer bradley’s the mists of avalon and it was SOOOO good!

here’s the lengthy amazon review: “Even readers who don’t normally enjoy Arthurian legends will love this version, a retelling from the point of view of the women behind the throne. Morgaine (more commonly known as Morgan Le Fay) and Gwenhwyfar (a Welsh spelling of Guinevere) struggle for power, using Arthur as a way to score points and promote their respective worldviews. The Mists of Avalon’s Camelot politics and intrigue take place at a time when Christianity is taking over the island-nation of Britain; Christianity vs. Faery, and God vs. Goddess are dominant themes.”

i’ve noticed that there are some books that are just absolutely perfect little packages, complete in their own right. this is one! i absolutely loved it! the characters and their stories are almost perfectly worked out.

i can’t recommend this book highly enough…read it! and don’t think that just because the author is a woman and the main characters are women, that it’s an overtly feminine book…it’s just a fantastic book for anybody. 😀

i really really want to read some of her other books in the avalon series, but i’m forcing myself to jump around a bit, so i don’t become mired down in only one genre. right now i’m reading ‘treasure island’, but that’s mostly because i don’t have another book to read at work. i *think* i might move on to kim stanley robinson’s ‘blue mars’ next, having read both ‘red mars’ and ‘green mars’ in the past. ::shrug:: we’ll see.

Yesterday, Candice and I headed to the Javits Center in Manhattan for Wired’s NextFest. It was a huge showcase for new and emerging technologies ranging from energy efficient houses, fuel cell & hybrid cars, medical technologies, and robotics to name a few. Unfortunately, we forgot our digicam again, but luckily my phone has a camera on it, albiet with photos that look like they came from a $40 digicam (but it’s better than nothing!)

One of the coolest things at the show was a thing called a vein viewer (pictures/videos: here) by Luminetx. Basically it shines and captures non-visable light that is reflected by blood (and scattered by other tissue) to capture vein patterns on any part of human skin. It then uses a small projector to overlay the image of the veins back onto the skin–essentially allowing you to see inside of your skin without using any xrays or other radiation. I tried to take a picture with my cell phone, but as you can see the phone camera was not good enough to capture the vein patterns:

More pictures from NextFest in the gallery: here.

In other news, I just got a replacement for my ‘Ducti‘ Duct Tape wallet I got from James as a groomsman present. They have a lifetime warranty on it… if it ever wears out, you just mail it back to them and they send you a new one for $5 to cover shipping. Yay!

hello. this is another test. i’m posting from my cell phone. how cool is that?