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March 2004 Archives

March 11, 2004: California Condo-r

It looks like our traditional grey skies and rain have officially packed it up for the winter. Off to bother people up north, I suppose. Two weekends ago, the sky was a stunning blue, with warm sun and just a hint of crisp breeze. Last weekend the sky was a stunning blue yet again. No humidity worth speaking of. Temperature according to the local bank's thermometer: 72. Seventy-two freaking degrees. I've lived in this state for nearly three decades, you'd think I'd have gotten over the excitement by now.

A Bay Area Winter: Ridge Winery, March 6, 2004^[1]

So since I can't get over it, I guess I'll have to be staying a little while longer. As of March 31st, I close on a nice little two-bedroom condo in San Jose. Yes, I have finally joined the landed class. Well, not really. If I understand condominium legal concepts properly, I've actually joined the airspace-between-the-walls owning class. Hey, it's a start.

There are two things I particularly like about the place. The first is the interior. The bedrooms and bathrooms are not overly large, but that space went to the living room, dining area, and kitchen. The common area has lots of windows and light and ceiling space. Basically, the place is great for entertaining. Unfortunately, I can't include any pictures of the place right now. The current tenants still live there, and so while they have graciously let me take my fill of interior shots, it wouldn't be right to post them on the internet. Besides, the current tenants have much nicer furniture than I do.

The second good thing about the place is the location: very close to Winchester and 280, which puts it in striking distance of pretty much everything in the South Bay. It's even within walking distance of the vaunted, mostly-inflammable Santana Row. Not that I can actually afford to shop there, mind you. Santana Row's shopping experience tends to fall along the lines of the 100% Copper Cookware store, or the Ugly Revisitings of Classical Art store, or the Holy Crap is THAT What A Suede Jacket Costs store. But a man can aspire.

Before I forget, I'd like to give particular thanks to Jeremy Zawodny. I've been lurking on his site for a while now, following his house-buying experience. All along, I've been just a few steps behind, and listening to his experence has been both entertaining and educational. So thanks for sharing, Jeremy.

Anyway, the good news is that now that the mounds of paperwork are done and the process is on autopilot,^[2] I should finally have a little more time to post. Maybe even return to a semi-weekly frequency. After all, I can't imagine that the process of moving in and learning the ins and outs of being a new homeowner could impact my time at all. How bad could it be?

1. I like to think that the haziness at the south end of the valley represents an economy roaring back to life. Don't you?

2. Of course, I'm the kind of guy who likes to count his chickens before they've hatched.

Posted by Evan Goer on Mar. 11, 2004 at 11:15 PM | Comments (4)

March 17, 2004: Kickin' It

I don't think I'll ever grow up.

• The World's Only Ass-Kicking Machine. From the technical discussion: "At this throughput, it could be possible to kick the ass of everyone in the United States of America in 34 days, 17 hours, 40 minutes." Bear in mind, that's something of a theoretical estimate.

• So what else kicks ass? Well, Military jokes kick ass. At least they kick more ass than technical writer jokes, which are few and far between.

• Which song kicks the most ass? Nick, a GUY WHO LIKES MUSIC, has a complete list of music that kicks ass. Personally, my vote goes to Moxy Früvous's^[1] "Kick in the Ass", but hey, I'm partial to fruity music like that.

• Okay, but on the whole, who really kicks ass? Microsoft says... Kelly Osbourne kicks ass. Ehhh. Teoma says ninjas kick ass. Yahoo says the ass-kicking machine kicks ass. And Google? Google says that Canada kicks ass (!!) That's the last straw, Google. Never darken my door again.

1. Note bene: bands with umlauts in their names kick, on average, 38% more ass than bands without umlauts.

Posted by Evan Goer on Mar. 17, 2004 at 12:09 AM | Comments (3)

March 26, 2004: But I'm Not Sure About Frannie

Bad news: Adobe has killed FrameMaker for MacOS. I can assure you that the MacOS FrameMaker user community is outraged. Well... okay, I can only really assure you that half the MacOS FrameMaker user community is outraged. The other half consists of Francine Kopecki, a 53-year-old contract technical writer in Lansing, Michigan. Not exactly sure what Frannie thinks, but at least I'm plenty annoyed.

Of course, the writing was on the wall, so there's no point in being too upset. Some people speculate that if Adobe had gotten around to porting FrameMaker to OS X, it might have done a little better in the marketplace. I can certainly say that I would have snapped up an OS X version, but again, I can't speak for Frannie. Besides, FrameMaker would have just looked weird in OS X. Can you imagine taking that horrible CDE-inspired interface and spraying on a light coat of Aqua? Perhaps it's best that Adobe never unleashed that monstrosity on the unsuspecting public.

The only upside from all this has been amusing flood of Recommendations For FrameMaker Replacements From People Who Have Never In Their Lives Actually Used FrameMaker. InDesign? OpenOffice? Stop, you're killing me!

Well, at least we can all take comfort in the fact that Adobe's development efforts for FrameMaker are abysmally slow. It will probably be years before they manage to crank out FrameMaker 8.0, and the serious backwards-compatibility issues start in earnest. Huzzah for lack of competition! Still, unlike Adobe, I can't rest on my laurels. Even though the day of FrameMaker 8.0 is probably far off, it's important to start spewing a thick cloud of FUD at work now, well before my company decides to upgrade. "Did you hear? Adobe's using a new kind of shrinkwrap that's highly teratogenic." My luck, they'll just make me open the box.

Posted by Evan Goer on Mar. 26, 2004 at 8:35 AM | Comments (4)