PhoneBoy Says

I only have Gracie today because he is competing in his first trampoline meet today. It's over two hours away and involves a lot of waiting, so Gracie and I are doing our usual Saturday thing without Jaden.

Both pictures are taken with the Nokia N80 Internet Edition. The blurry one was taken in the default mode, the non blurry one in "sports mode" which reduces the picture quality to 1.3 megapixels.

My dad had made a comment recently in response to something I wrote about my parents in a post I made about music:

I can attribute my taste in Pink Floyd to mom and The Eagles to my dad.Considering some of the other things I saw both parents partake in,listening to their music was probably the safest of the choices I could have made.

Specifically, he said:

You weren't supposed to be watching everything we were doing back then.

Well, guess, what: I was. I remember far too many things from my youth. Heck I remember being in my crib back in our apartment in Capitola. I remember living in that apartment, though unlike what my dad implied in his comment, I have almost no memories of my parents actually being together. There is also a certain amount of irony in having my first job out of college two blocks from that very apartment building.

I'm not going to get into the stuff I saw growing up. Okay, maybe I will, but not here and not today. But it does remind me of an ongoing debate about the fact that teachers aren't real fond of camera phones being in schools because, well, their tirades can end up all over YouTube.

My employer, Nokia, has sold more digital cameras embedded in mobile phones than many manufacturers of standalone digital cameras have sold. In fact, the proliferation of digital cameras in mobile phones has caused problems not only for schools, but for business as well, particularly in areas were sensitive information exists. The business are afraid of information leakage, and rightfully so. And it's even difficult to find phones without cameras. They do exist, of course, and even Nokia is making camera and camera-free versions of some of their business-oriented E-series phones.

I've heard the quote from Robert Heinlein "An armed society is a polite society." Guess what: most of our society is now armed with camera phones. And while we've always had nature's perfect camera: the eyes, what we now have with camera phones is the ability to share what we saw with others very easily. Nokia has tools built-into the Nseries devices that make it fairly straightforward to post what you've captured to Vox, not to mention the tool that Vox itself makes available for Nokia handsets.

Unlike guns, it's not going to be easy to legislate these things out ofexistence. The camera phones aren't goingaway anytime soon and are only getting better. I think the best thing we do is assume that anything we do in front of others can easily be captured by someone and shared with others instantly. And maybe, just maybe, we'll all act a little nicer towards each other in the process. Polite society, indeed.

You know, considering how well Dark Side of the Moon has stood the test of time--hell, it's as old as I am and Roger Waters is still playing these songs in concert, even today--I've never really thought about what attracted me to this album. Yes, I mean album in the conventional sense of the word.I remember when I was probably four or five and I was able to climb up on a chair and work my mom's LP player. I know I put on a few Sesame Street albums (probably 45s) and Peter Pan that my mom had picked up on some old 78s, but one of the first adult albums I remember putting on was Dark Side of the Moon. Specifically, I would put on side 2, which is where the song Money begins. And yes, that was my favorite song for a while, even though it had that naughty little bullshit word in it, which I had the good sense not to say in polite company. Time might have been my second favorite. I can't remember.One of my favorite cassette tapes I had when I was 7 or 8 was Dark Side of the Moon on one side, Wish You Were Here on the other. For some reason, though, whomever recorded the tape had put Side 2 of Wish You Were Here first. So instead of hearing Shine On You Crazy Diamond first, you heard Have a Cigar first. Which threw me off when I later realized that mistake. For a while I persisted in listening to Wish You Were Here that way.To this day, I have no idea what was going on in my little mind that made me latch onto Dark Side of the Moon and later Wish You Were Here at such an early age. Maybe it was my way to be just like my parents. I can attribute my taste in Pink Floyd to mom and The Eagles to my dad. Considering some of the other things I saw both parents partake in, listening to their music was probably the safest of the choices I could have made.

Photo: Show us a ticket.

When this meme came around, I was looking for this ticket, but could not find it. Today, when I pulled out my 20th Edition Dark Side of the Moon CD, there it was in the box:

A little worse for the wear, but it's my proof I saw Pink Floyd In The Flesh. Too bad it wasn't Roger Waters Pink Floyd, but I was just a little too young for that.

I was trying to find a copy of a song I know I had on CD, but I had long since forgotten what song it was on. To complicate matters, I have since gotten rid of most of the jewel cases for my CDs and I store them in CD booklets. Of course, I have saved the paper bits from the CDs, but they are not in order and would take me forever to find.

I decided to use Google to figure out what CD it was on. Turns out the song I was looking for, Point Me At the Sky, was on this CD:

You know, there's just something about some of those Pink Floyd songs post-Syd Barrett and pre-Dark Side of the Moon that I really like. It's been far too long since I've enjoyed their sweet sounds.

"Point Me At The Sky"

Hey, Eugene,
This is Henry McClean
And I've finished my beautiful flying machine
And I'm ringing to say
That I'm leaving and maybe
You'd like to fly with me
And hide with me, baby

Isn't it strange
How little we change
Isn't it sad we're insane
Playing the games that we know and in tears
The games we've been playing for thousands and thousands and ….

Pointing to the cosmic glider
"Pull this plastic glider higher
Light the fuse and stand right back"
He cried "This is my last good-bye."

Point me at the sky and tell it fly
Point me at the sky and tell it fly
Point me at the sky and tell it fly

And if you survive till two thousand and five
I hope you're exceedingly thin
For if you are stout you will have to breathe out
While the people around you breathe in

People pressing on my sides
It's something that I hate
And so is sitting down to eat
With only little capsules on my plate

Point me at the sky and tell it fly
Point me at the sky and tell it fly
Point me at the sky and tell it fly

And all we've got to say to you is good-bye
It's time to go, better run and get your bags, it's good-bye
Nobody cry, it's good-bye
Crash, crash, crash, crash, good-bye…

Audio: Share a song that fits the moment you're living right now.
Inspired by cherè.

If by Pink Floyd (off of Atom Heart Mother… hm… maybe I'll rip that disc into iTunes)

If I were a swan, I'd be gone.
If I were a train, I'd be late.
And if I were a good man, I'd talk with you more often than I do.
If I were to sleep, I could dream.
If I were afraid, I could hide.
If I go insane, please don't put your wires in my brain.
If I were the moon, I'd be cool.
If I were a book, I would bend.
If I were a good man, I'd understand the spaces between friends.
If I were alone, I would cry.
And if I were with you, I'd be home and dry.
And if I go insane, will you still let me join in with the game?
If I were a swan, I'd be gone.
If I were a train, I'd be late again.
If I were a good man, I'd talk to you more often than I do.

Finally got this out of the pinball game.

Getting this part out took me a while. Basically this board is underneath the playfield on the bottom of the cabinet. The playfield is propped up much like the hood of a car, which you can do after you remove the top glass.

Nine screws were holding this bad boy onto the rest of the power supply. Four of the screws were being particularly stubborn. Two of those I was able to get once I stuck a flathead screwdriver underneath the head just enough to get it moving. The last two, after a lot of trying, were held in place by a couple of nuts on the underside of the power supply. It was hard enough getting my fingers underneath there, not to mention a small wrench. But I got it, pulled it out, and took a picture.

Several sites suggest replacing both of these Bridge Rectifiers with higher-capacity ones that come stock with the machine. I have no idea whether or not these are stock Bridge Rectifiers or if they have been upgraded. They're still soldered onto the board. I suppose the next step is to unsolder them, though I will save that for another time. I feel pretty happy just getting the damn thing out.

I can't. Just can't. Information overload. Too many good things to see. Too much to try and cram into the mind. I've had to shed various caches of information. RSS Feeds, Video Podcasts, pet projects, you-name-it. I want to blog. I want to participate in the conversation. How can I do it?

I feel like it's an either-or decision, not an "and" decision. It comes with trying to dabble in too many things. There a re a number of competing priorities. Some of them could be wasteful, some of them are learning.

I don't know. It's late and it's not a problem I can solve right now. I've only got a few hours before I have to get up for my 6am meeting.

This could turn into a big project, which I am hoping to avoid because it goes way beyond what I feel comfortable doing--getting down and dirty in the electronics!

Anyway, for the past five years or so I've had this pinball game:

Eight Ball Deluxe is, by far, my favorite pinball game. I ended up getting a EBD Limited Edition, not because I wanted a limited edition, but that's what the guy I bought it from in Spokane had available. Either way, the game is the same. Fairly simple one-ball game (none of this multi-ball crap), no complicated ramps, but the important shots are challenging to make. It's something most people wouldn't appreciate anymore. In fact, there's only one company currently making pinball games--Stern Pinball, Inc. However, there are a ton of enthusiast sites and a few places that sell parts.My EBD machine is currently sitting up in my office. Getting it up the stairs was a production in and of itself given it's length, width, and the corner it had to go around to get up my stairs, and involved beheading the machine--makes me wish I had insisted on getting a regular EBD where the backbox folds down. It did eventually make it. Not sure if I will ever be able to get it down again, but I'll worry about that if we ever move.For the past couple of years, though, my beloved pinball game has been in a state of disrepair. It would turn on, the lights would come on, but the system would not completely start up. Gracie has suddenly noticed the pinball machine and was curious about it. "Look at the lights" she says. Well I tried to turn it on yesterday and it wouldn't even do that anymore. Dead as a doornail.So I did some hunting on the net and found plenty of information on how to repair the pinball machines. That goes a little beyond what I feel comfortable doing, but digging through the various documents I discovered that there were a series of fuses on the "Power Module," which is where the power supply hooks in. Looked under the playfield with a flashlight and yup, the F4 fuse is blown.Today, I lifted up the playfield and pulled out the fuse. When putting the playfield back down, I noticed that one of the slingshot rubbers had dried out and broken. Well, crap. I'll have to order one of those. And I should probably order some cleaner while I'm at it.Meanwhile, I'll head over to the hardware store tomorrow and see if they have the fuse I need. I suspect those are a little easier to come by than the 4 inch rubber ring that's used by the slingshot. At least that way, I'll know whether or not I'll want to call in the expert to have a look at it.

Audio: What song do you listen to when you are sad?
Submitted by Nat.

I went through some of my old mix tapes I made in college and shortly thereafter. I had a lot of different songs that ended up repeating themselves. Most of them were by Pink Floyd or solo work from either David Gilmour or Roger Waters. Under the Bridge by The Red Hot Chili Peppers also appeared more than a couple of times as well as I've Seen That Movie Too and Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding by Elton John.

The current favorite depression music is Pink Floyd's The Final Cut.