GmailStatus - Puts a little unread messge count on your menu bar and can play a new mail sound when new messages show up. Gets rid of an entire Safari window that performed the same function for me. Sweet! SizzlingKeys - Systemwide global hotkeys for iTunes. Opt-Command-Space now pauses and unpauses iTunes regardless of what app has the focus. It also has a little floating window that displays the song title when a new song starts. For the life of me, I don't understand why iTunes does't support a global pause key right out of the box. Indispensable. WeatherDock - Fetches weather conditions from weather.com and displays it in a dock icon. You can click it to see the five day forecast. Also has the coolguy feature where you can set home/work locations. So mine shows Menlo Park from 7 to 4 Mon-Fri and San Jose the rest of the time.

So I saw many of my loyal readers last night, but for the sake of completeness I'll note that the scooter got dropped, and I think permanently. As you'll recall as of Wednesday morning I was quite enamored of the scooter. Well Wednesday evening on the way back to Caltrain I got to the point where I was a little comfortable with it, and my mind wandered from obsessively worrying about cracks in the pavement. I wouldn't describe it as pride, more complacency. But apparently complacency can goeth before a fall as well. I hit a bit of sidewalk where a tree root had forced it up, and discovered that the scooter will quite happily stop, pitch around it's front wheel and throw you into the ground. Indeed it converts all of your forward momentum into downward force. So. I wrenched my left wrist and pinky finger and skinned my knee. So Thursday I just walked the damn thing, which was quite pleasant and actually fits my schedule very nicely. That's today's plan as well and I think it will be the de facto plan. Both the scooter and the rollerblades would be faster (the scooter already WAS faster, and I'm sure the rollerblades would be if I just practiced a little), but they require attention. I'm happier with walking, which I can do on autopilot and without injury. It's a nice walk (albeit quite suburban) and the two walks every day are good exercise. On other notes . . . we're having an open house party to "officially" unveil the new digs tomorrow. I use quotes because we've already had several people over on three different occasions. If you read this blog and you're local you ought to be invited already. We're not completely unpacked, but we are unpacked in all of the common areas and our bedroom. Just the two offices and the guest room aren't completely unpacked and I hope to finish the guest room tomorrow, pre-party. I have a new album that I really like and should have mentioned much sooner. Right before the actual move I purchased Jem's Finally Woken on iTunes and listened to it fairly incessantly during the move itself. (Album website here and iTunes Store) It's a perfect blend of upbeat infectious tunes, and then when you start listening to the words you kind of go "Hey that's a little dark." It's two great tastes that always go great together. I really like her sound - she keeps a very lush track playing behind her vocals. I also picked up the new Scissor Sisters album (iTunes). I mention that mainly for the completely awesome cover of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb It's disco, and it's amazing. Check it out. The rest of the album is . . . decent. It's pleasant, nothing I don't like exactly. But it's definitely the one track that elevates up to being blog-worthy. That one track has climbed to the top of my iTunes "Top 25 Most Played". In fact . . . (wanders off to add it to the Party Shuffle for play next. Mmmmmm Beethoven right to disco Floyd covers. My random eclectic musical tastes sure love shuffling from a vast library of randomness. :-)) OH! Last little link. Today is October 1st and signups for NANOWRIMO start today. That little mouthful stands for NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth, and the basic idea is that you write a 50,000 word novel (well novella maybe) during the month of November. I'm going to do it this year - I'll sign up later today. That's where a large chunk of the train time is going to go, and a big reason why I wanted a Powerbook this fall. I can work on the Mac - Windows machines are always half-broken in some stupid way and I can lose a lot of time to fiddling with them. Anyway, I think it's a pretty cool site and concept, and I think it should be a fun project. Of course check back with me in mid-November and see if I agree! :-)

Last week I realized that there was a Caltrain station called Blossom Hill and I already knew there was one about 20 minutes walk from my office. So the question is - can I replace my commute with Caltrain? I spent about 30-45 minutes in the morning driving to work, and about an hour driving home. That's not intolerable or anything, but it is relatively dead time. I looked a bit at it, and decided I could. The train trip is 55 minutes each way, so it takes me longer, but I spend that time with my laptop, or with a book, or with my GBA. That's a win in my book. Thus begins the comedy. The only real issue is that 20 minute walk twice a day. That's not terrible, but the trains that stop at Blossom Hill are somewhat infrequent, and I can't quite make all of the times work out the way I'd like. So Sunday I go out and buy some rollerblades. Mind you, I've never gone rollerblading, only gone ice skating once in college, and haven't been rollerskating since I was . . . six? So I try them out on Sunday evening, go around the block at home. Hmmm. Well I'll learn as I go right? I mean if I get tired or something I can always take the blades OFF and walk the rest of the way. Monday morning I leave bright and early (that's sarcasm - I leave before sunup) and drive over to the Blossom Hill VTA stop. Only catch - there's no Caltrain here. WTF? I actually called Karin and had her look on the web - the "Blossom Hill" stop is on Monterrey Highway. (frown) So I drive out that way, but I'll end up missing the 6:30 train and the next train is like almost an hour later. No biggie, I'll just hop 101 and drive on Monday. Tuesday - hah now I know the address. I'm unstoppable! And indeed I ride the train to Menlo Park and write on my Mac the whole hour-long ride, blocking out everything else with the handy combo of iTunes and my wonderful canalphones. Sweet! However, the Menlo Park sidewalks aren't very rollerblade-friendly for Mr. "This is the second time I've even put on rollerblades", and balancing my backpack with lunch, laptop, etc. is trickier than I anticipated. I did go almost the entire way before I decided I was tired enough to take them off. And I cut the 20 minute walk down to just half an hour! Yay! So on the plus side I snarf the new Hitchhiker's radio episode at work, slap it onto the iPod and then during the walk and train ride listen to the first two episodes of series 3. Woot! Honestly even if I have to walk, this is still an awesome plan. After HHTG finishes I flip over to the lovely Classics Regrooved album mentioned before and read the latest issue of Analog SF magazine. Digging the train. Plan B. I get a Razor folding scooter Tuesday evening. Right now it's Wednesday morning, slightly before 7 AM and I'm on the train writing this. I'll let you know how the scooter works out when I get to work :-) (Later in the day) - The scooter gets a thumbs up! I only used it about halfway - apparently 32 years of video games doesn't leave you with the best physical conditioning! Who knew? But even so it cut down the walk time, and if I get into good enough shape to use it the ENTIRE way, then I'll be styling!

Muwahahahahahaha! Being the copyright scalawag I am I sorted out the necessary bits to timeshift episode 1 of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Tertiary Phase" all the way to a CD-R and stashed it for my impending drive home. Alas, I didn't have any CD-R's handy in the office. So I had to go to Best Buy - where I had to purchase the Star Wars DVD's. And a copy of Dog's Life for PS2. They didn't have Katamari Damacy sadly. So yeah you got that right, I'm planning on listening to HTTG on the way home, and then probably watching Star Wars. If I could work in some Star Trek and Lord of the Rings it would be the geek hat-trick of all time. On a more serious cultural note - this HTTG thing is interesting. Follow me here - I'm timeshifting a *BBC radio broadcast* by about a day and a half. Oh, and across the Atlantic and all of North America. If we could ever work out the stupid digital rights nonsense this is just how everything *should* work. Neat!