skippy dot net

I contacted my U.S. representative, Pat Tiberi, expressing opposition to H.R.3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act. He replied with an unhelpful canned response.

I know these canned responses are generated by staffers, and it's likely that Mr. Tiberi hasn't even read H.R. 3261 yet. But I still felt compelled to respond:

For the last couple years I've had a Mac Mini attached to my television. This has served as our DVD player and content streaming device. To this Mac Mini I had attached an external hard drive. This drive contained several movies I'd ripped as well as my entire iTunes music collection. I set up a wireless keyboard and mouse so that we could use the computer from the couch, but the reality is that using a web browser from 10 feet away is sub-optimal. This meant that we were often standing directly in front of the TV to find and start some show. The Mac Mini has been good enough, though everyone in the house will agree that it's not a stellar solution.

Last night, the external hard drive attached to the Mac took a plunge off the mantel, and stopped working. I'm frustrated that I lost all my media. But in reality, none of it is irreplacable. Moreover, I didn't avail myself to the bulk of that content with any regularity so most of the time it went unused.

The last couple of months have been bad for the hardware in my life. I clobbered my laptop's hard drive and shattered my iPhone. And now the external drive. I'm growing increasingly tired of hardware. Too much can go wrong, too easily. Too much maintenance is required, or too many ancillary purchases.

I don't consume enough media to feel compelled to own much of it. It's been years since I last bought a CD or DVD -- and almost as long since I last watched one -- and I'm not particularly interested in Blu-Ray. We're already Netflix subscribers, and we use Amazon Video On Demand with some regularity. Most of the time something like Last.fm or Pandora is sufficient for listening to music. I'm not enough of an audiophile to be able to justify Spotify's monthly fee. And I don't have a stereo system: all music gets played through my television's speakers.

I've been eyeing a Roku box for awhile, wondering whether it would be sufficiently easy to use without being annoying. It would allow us to continue to enjoy Netflix and Amazon VOD, as well as the various music streaming services. But a Roku would still be another piece of mostly fragile hardware that doesn't demonstrably make my life any better. Yes, it might facilitate distractions, but it's not really doing much to improve my quality of life.

Maybe it's not hardware fatigue I'm suffering, but digital fatigue. All the apps and web sites and servcies and doo-dads we consume every day are all mostly distractions. They don't improve my health. They don't do much to bring my family together. They often distract us from things that are arguably more important.

It's also entirely possible I'm just becoming a curmudgeonly middle aged man.

Angela's friends Kim and Joyce host a Highland Games event in their backyard every October. We've been meaning to attend for the last couple years, and finally we were able to make it! The day consisted of several feats of skill and strength, including archery, a caber toss, and more. The final event was a full scale tug o' war. Men were required to wear a kilt to participate, and the womenfolk busied themselves gossiping, enjoying the plentiful food and drink, or cheering on their man.

Never having done any archery before, I failed this task pretty spectacularly. Despite my poor showing, I really enjoyed the event, and would like to take another stab at archery some time. Next was the caber toss, another thing I'd never done before. The actual tossing of the caber was not particularly hard, in and of itself. To account for this, there were several rounds of qualifying challenges to determine who would be the victor of this particular event. First was to merely toss the caber and ensure it landed in as close to a straight line as possible. Everyone passed this test. Next was to toss the caber and ensure that it straddled a rope placed in the yard: some portion of the caber had to be covering the rope while still trying to keep it in a "12 o'clock" position with respect to the starting position. I think all but one man passed this test. The final stage was to have the caber land on two segments of rope, about four or five feet apart from one another. This was to represent a stream or creek across which an historical caber might be tossed in order to cross that water. Again, the straightness of the caber was an element of the competition. Most men were quickly eliminated during this round, including myself.

A typical caber is almost twenty feet long, and weighs about 175 pounds. The one we used was probably half the size and weight of a "real" caber, but it was still a challenge to heft it and control its direction during the throw. This activity was surprisingly exhilarating, despite (or perhaps because of!) its comparative simplicity. It required the use of multiple muscle groups, and sheer strength wasn't a contributing factor to success. There was a level of finesse involved, especially on the last round, and it was simply a lot of fun to do!

After the caber toss we did a sheaf toss and a modified version of a hammer throw. Instead of a hammer, we used fifteen pounds of concrete with a metal handle protruding. We were pretty lax with the rules, allowing any throwing technique desired provided that the thrower's toes didn't cross the trig. Finally we did a sheaf throw, where we gripped the sheaf with our hands and hurled it over our shoulders. I got third place in both the sheaf toss and sheaf throw, and I won first place in the hammer throw by a pretty substantial margin.

The final event, a tug o' war, promised to be a very fun exercise, and my team was extremely confident. As we drew the rope taut, Kim called out the countdown. At "three!" we heaved as hard as we could, only to hear the rope loudly snap in two, depositing most contestants from both teams unceremoniously on their bottoms. I think only me and one or two other guys managed to stay standing!

With the tug o' war cancelled, the individual player scores were tabulated and much to my surprise I was tied for second place! In order to determine who would earn second and third place, the other fellow and I had a pure test of strength: to see who could hold aloft a large battle axe -- single handed, with arm fully extended -- the longest. The other guy went first, and held the axe up for a grueling minute and twenty nine seconds. I was pretty confident that I could hold it for a minute and half -- the extra second beyond his time being all I needed to secure victory -- but alas, my muscles were burning a hot flame in my arm by one minute and fifteen seconds, and I ruefully conceded defeat. I can't complain too much: I scored third place overall on my very first effort at the Games!

All in all, the Highland Games was a spectacular amount of fun! Everyone was friendly and welcoming. The activities were spirited and satisfying. The food was delicious and the drink was plentiful. We're definitely putting this on our calendar for next year.

A couple years ago I bought a pair of messenger bags, intending to use one or both as a laptop bag. Neither one worked well for the intended purpose, but I hung onto them anyway. Somewhere along the way I disposed of the Odessa Retro Bag because it was basically a big purse, with no real organizational capacity for all the stuff I might choose to carry.

The Classic Messenger Bag, though, has become something I use almost daily. It's big enough to accommodate a large amount of stuff, and has three distinct storage areas: the big main section, and the two front pockets. The front pockets easily fit a paperback book of reasonable size, and even fit my Thermos if I need to bring some coffee with me. My big complaint about the Velcro in my original post was actually a short-sighted one: the Velcro is extremely well positioned and does a fine job holding the flap closed. I originally complained about the vertical orientation of the fasteners on the bag, stating that it didn't provide much surface area on which to make a connection. But the vertical orientation makes it possible for me to secure the flap even when the bag is stuffed full of stuff and therefore bulkier than normal.

My father-in-law declared that my bag is a Claymore bag: the kind of bag used in Vietnam to carry Claymore mines: a charge in each front pocket, and a spool of cable and other assorted bits in the main pouch. Indeed, I think my bag does match that general profile, though mine is a bit more rounded.

As stated above, I use the bag almost daily. I ride the bus to work in the morning, and the bag makes a perfect vehicle to transport whatever book I'm currently reading, along with business cards, tissues, paper notebook, pens, and other miscellany. It rides comfortably either slung over one shoulder or across my chest.

The bag also makes an excellent diaper bag when I want to travel light with Josie. Diapers and wipes fit nicely in the front pockets, and the main compartment stores snacks, a change of clothes, a sippy cup, and maybe a book or toy. It's rugged, not too heavy, and makes for quick assembly and departure.

After several years of solid use (including several international trips), the Classic Messenger Bag is holding up extremely well. There's no visible sign of it wearing out. No threads are loose. The should strap is still secure and functional. I'm extremely pleased with the quality of the construction.

My only current complaint about the bag is that it's just shy of a good gym bag. My gym does not offer towel service, so I need to lug my own towel to and from the gym. The bulk of the towel usually exceeds the storage volume of the bag. Also, unfortunately, my gym shoes do not fit in the front pockets.

I currently use a traditional gym bag on those days I go to the gym, but I'd love to find something with a smaller profile for this purpose. If only my manbag was sufficiently all-purpose...

Unlike Owen, who lost the use of his iPhone by following the explicit directions of a support representative, I lost the use of my iPhone when it slipped from my fingers and landed squarely face down in a parking lot. The glass shattered pretty spectacularly. The phone still works, interestingly, but I'm afraid of the lacerations I might get just trying to unlock it.

I didn't have insurance on this phone, so the full-cost replacement would have been close to $700. No phone is worth that much money. I hemmed and hawed a bit, trying to decide if I should just downgrade to a flip phone and give up smartphones. I finally decided not to go the flip phone route.

Instead, I searched Craigslist for a suitable replacement. I found considerably more than I expected, with prices ranging from $250 to $500. Some of these postings suggested less than reputable provenance for the phones in question, so it was with some anxiety that I called one of the sellers to ask about his reasonably priced white iPhone 4. The story he told me was if not legit at least sufficiently well rehearsed as to sound fairly convincing, so I agreed to meet him in a parking lot to buy his phone.

It was a mildly surreal experience to buy a used iPhone from a college kid in a parking lot in the mideast United States. It felt like something out of a William Gibson novel. A quick inspection of the phone suggested that it was fully functional, so I gave the kid cash. I didn't haggle, as haggling has always proven to be a waste of my time: some people are good at it, indeed enjoy it, but it always just makes me grumpy and sullen.

So late yesterday afternoon my replacement iPhone was activated without incident. Indeed, everything seems to be working just fine.

Now I need to buy a screen replacement kit for my old phone, so that I can try to resurrect it. Assuming I'm successful in that endeavour, I'll then have two iPhone 4s I can sell to fund the purchase of the iPhone 5 that is being released next week.