I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of this Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 CPU, which I plan to swap into my aging budget Acer Extensa 5620Z with the intention of extending its life for another couple of years.
After much Google work, I decided on a refurbed T8300 off of eBay, which will cost me about $70 total. That's a heck of a deal, especially when considering its $200+ retail price. It's a 2008-vintage chip but should give me a pretty decent performance boost; my current chip would sell on eBay for about $15, it seems.
Reason for anxiety: Even though I've been putting machines together and swapping out bits and pieces since college... this will be my first serious laptop operation!
My work computer at the end of the day. All of these tabs (personal browsing) still need to be looked at. This is why I am always in a rush, never on time, catching up, late late late.
It's a bit long, but read Engadget's live-blogging of Steve Job's iCloud presentation at the WWDC on Monday. Let the page load (it takes a while), and start at the 2:20 PM mark (about one-third of the page down). Scroll upward and read.
Totally rad. I especially like the subtle digs at Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive. iTunes Match is a brilliant concept. If you're really interested, read from the beginning of the presentation; the first third is devoted to the new OS X Lion and the middle section is all about iOS 5 updates/improvements.
But it's not for lack of effort. Nadal is just a maniac. He hits all-out winners on defensive shots that regular Top 10 players would bunt back, or squash-shot in desperation. The only other player I feel like who can play that kind of defense is Federer, but he doesn't have the same kind of sturdy, brute strength that Nadal has to back it up.
Still, I would have loved to see Federer get that final missing piece for his legacy - a victory over Nadal in the French Open. For Nadal, this is huge. He's played the French seven times since he was 19, and he's won in six times. Overall, his record is 45-1.
Here, in 25 well-edited minutes - all the momentum swings, break points and drama of the 2011 Roland Garros Men's Final. The first video is at top, the remaining three are below. Keep your eye on the score for context.
Yet another time lapse video posted on Vimeo, and The New Yorker's take on it. This one is pretty neat. I was just back in NY with Jeannie over the weekend for the first time since January, and, despite the random funky smells and sticky spots on the the subway platforms, I had missed it.
The weather down here in D.C. isn't altogether too different from New York's: hot and muggy in the summer, cold and windy and dry in the winter. Rain and drear often in between.
But when you love snow, as I do (I chalk it up to my December birthday), you're unsatisfied with wimpy snowstorms, which is what we got down here this winter. Thus, on a trip to New York at the end of January, Jeannie and I took the opportunity to traipse around Central Park at dusk. The park had just had some 20 inches of snow dumped on it.
Still, much of the place had been trampled by revelers in the days before, so we soldiered to the inner acreage of the park in search of mint-condition snow. As we meandered, we passed occasional pedestrians and one horse-drawn carriage, and we marveled at the way snowfall changed the atmosphere of the place. Skeletal trees stood in formation; there were no crowds; sound was dampened, swallowed up by the thick blankets of snow.
Finally, we found the baseball diamonds at around 63rd and 64th Streets -- five baseball diamonds full of unperturbed, unadulterated, fluffy white stuff. Jackpot!
We chucked snowballs and hiked in thigh-deep snow until it was just too tiring and too much of it had breached the cuffs of my jeans, then escaped to surer footing on the asphalt paths. We found our way out to Fifth Avenue and jumped on a downtown bus to the village, cold and exhausted and happy, dinner on our minds.
Everyone knows how breathless political journos can be, waiting for scandal or outrage or anything seemingly unseemly to arise, so they can POUNCE!
Well, in case you didn't know, the U.K. general election is coming up next week, and the struggling Labour Party's incumbent Gordon Brown today put aside his distaste for retail politicking to mingle with locals in Rochdale, near Manchester. Brown, unfortunately, took this time to commit the gaffe of all gaffes, calling 66-year-old Gillian Duffy "a bigoted woman" after retreating from their street encounter to his car.
Unbeknownst to him, he was on a live mic. Severely and repeatedly chastened, Brown later returned to Duffy's doorstep to apologize in person. Naturally, this entire series of events had the political press in a frenzy (Google News search showing hundreds upon hundreds of results for "Gillian Duffy"). And Twitter was atwitter with the hilarious hashtag "#bigotedwoman".
Andrew Sullivan, delighted by journalists' delight, said it best.
Having been away from the pro tennis scene for a few years now, it's been easy to forget how utterly dominant Roger Federer was -- and still is.
Now ESPN The Magazine (May 3) is wondering: Is Federer the greatest athlete alive? To illustrate the question, ESPN put his handsome mug on the cover. (It's about time somebody in the U.S. did; in 2006 when Dwyane Wade took SI Sportsman of the Year, Federer went 92-5 and won three major titles, and made the French Open final. By contrast, Fed won the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award four years running from 2005-2008.)
Unfortunately, I am not a subscriber and don't have "insider" access on the Web site, which is what they appear to call it. So I will read it eventually. In any case, this is not about ESPN The Magazine, but about remembering what makes Federer great.
He's preternaturally graceful, more physically gifted than any player you've seen. The game is a brutal grind -- not the country-club sissy sport it's caricatured to be -- and that incredible wear and tear is why most pro players are ready to hang up their sticks by the time they're 28. Their bodies just begin to fall apart. Federer's massive explosiveness and speed should have unbearably violent effects on his body. But he has so far managed to bypass this physical breakdown, largely because of a sort-of inhuman sense of balance and dancer-like agility.
Almost everything in this picture is quiet: his head is still, his feet are dangling loosely in the air. But then look at his shirt rippling and his racquet head, whipping around at a hundred miles an hour as he uncoils. Silent, loose power.
And this:
The first half is nice, but the second half is beautiful. He is so steady and balanced that by the time he finishes that follow-through -- and what a follow-through, like the wings of a bird! -- you can already see his weight has shifted and he's already prepared for his next split-step. Now watch it again. Every player should study this stuff.
Then, there're his racquet skills and hand-eye. This kind of eye vision is simply abnormal.
But every player or fan knows that athleticism and physical talent is just one part of the game. In his late teens and early 20s, Federer was brimming over with talent, and everyone knew it -- but he didn't have a master plan or the mind to execute it. Until one day in 2003, he did. He won Wimbledon. And not unlike Kal-El emerging from years of isolation in the Fortress of Solitude in the movies, he just knew what to do.
Finally, he is humble and gracious, and I think it's genuine -- one of the few decent champions in sports. I think almost everyone who doesn't hate him for his dominance believes that. (That video has a great highlight reel as well.)
Does all this make him the greatest athlete alive? Impossible to say. But he's sure one of my nominees.
Baby Caralyn continues to develop amazing new talents every time I see her -- she's got these big dimply smiles now and has the upper-body and core strength to roll over. She can even do this impressive move on her back in which she uses her awesome leg strength to push off your hand and propel her body nearly a foot, conquering large amounts of friction in the process.
All that was several weeks ago when 奶奶 came out to Maryland to see Caralyn for the first time; I'm sure she's moved on to other feats of strength and intellect already.
It really is true, though, that you see your own kids as cuter than every other one in the world. I mean, that's the case for me and Caralyn -- and I'm just her uncle. (The other possibility is that this conventional wisdom isn't true but Caralyn is in fact the cutest kid in the world.)
Also worthy of awe: Christine and Brian, whom I would pick to parent me any day and who somehow were able to conjure Caralyn out of thin air. Unbelievable!
That 奶奶 could make the trip across the country at all is incredible, given her recent stay in the hospital, but she's always been tough. And, reliable as ever, she brought the See's.
Tangent: The iPhone, too, is remarkable. With the assistance of but my humble thumb, it took this stunning photograph of 小牛 and 奶奶 in Rockville. More pics here and here.
Finally, it's amazing that you're here at all. I hope that with this modest re-"design" I can see this trusty page anew and, at the same time, recommit to posting on a steadier basis. Onward!
It had been coming for a while, but it finally hit me tonight as I watched some TV coverage of the Michael Jackson celebration in L.A. I cried. He was so talented, musical, and joyful. He saw the world through a rose-colored lens, despite his torment. The outpouring of sorrow and remembrance in cities around the world was a testament to his unifying spirit.
So many of us didn't remember him until now, and that is sad. Today, Berry Gordy told Barbara Walters the tragic truth: Jackson had to die so the world could realize how much it actually loved him.
It still features the usual science-news stories it always did, but in recent years has branched out and become so much more reader-focused. Besides the usual servicey Q&As and the contrarian column/blog by John Tierney, the Cases column also manages to add a moving, human touch to the section.
"Comforter and Comforted in an Unfolding Mystery," from two weeks ago, tells of how a young man named Josh, crushed by the loss of his girlfriend, finds a way to honor her memory. It got me all misty on the subway ride home one night. Check it out.
I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of this Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 CPU, which I plan to swap into my aging budget Acer Extensa 5620Z with the intention of extending its life for another couple of years.
Everyone knows how breathless political journos can be, waiting for scandal or outrage or anything seemingly unseemly to arise, so they can 
