December 2002

What a week. I flew to Indiana on the 23rd and spent a few days with the family. Thursday morning, Mom and Beth dropped me off with my good friends Amy and Courtney, who then took me up to Bloomington for dinner with Abbie and Dave. The five of us had a great time over curries and other yummy dinner treats.

I flew back to New York on Friday and then headed up to Boston the next morning. JOSH and I went up to visit friends. He has high-school chums there, and we both have Delphi-forum friends there. Anna’s visiting from London, and it was great seeing her again. I also saw many of the same people I met during my first visit, back in March 2001.

JOSH and I decided at the last minute that we’d rent a car for the trip, rather than take bus or train. So I hauled out to a couple nearby rental agencies. The only thing available was a Dodge Caravan. That’s right, a minivan. When Christopher saw it, he mockingly whined, “I wanna go to soccer practice!”
Grrr.

The drive itself was unremarkable. We arrived in Boston in late afternoon. I checked into my hotel (JOSH stayed with his friend Rob Saturday night), and then we went up to Comicopia to terrorize poor James Wu. After dropping loads of cash on comics and other geekery, we met Rob and Stephanie and headed to Jillian’s for a few rounds of pool.

Then it was off to Boston Beer Works to meet back up with James, Anna, and the gang. Loads of fun. I must have consumed a couple gallons of beer, though. JOSH and I had great fun at the expense of the City of Boston, when the Beer Works closed up at 1am and spewed us onto the street. “Hey, JOSH, what time you got? My watch must have stopped! Is it 4am already?”

Rob dropped me back at my hotel. Newbury Guest House is a bed-and-breakfast on Newbury Street, which is really one of my favorite places ever. The Guest House was very nice, though. I got the bay-window room, which was charming and quiet.

I need to remember this place, because it would make a lovely weekend away with just the right someone.

I always spend too much money on Newbury. I’m especially fond of Allston Beat, where the clothes are normally way too hip for me, which never really stops me from buying. I wandered the strip alone Sunday morning. Sarah had suggested brunch or lunch and I was waiting to hear from either her or JOSH and Rob. I enjoyed that much more than I expected to. It was the first time I’d had fully alone in nearly a week and it was a great way to while away the time.

We ended up at Jazz brunch at a place called Ryles, which is in Cambridge. Or Somerville–I’m not really sure. I hopped in the minivan and drove out there. JOSH and Rob came up from Plymouth, and Sarah arrived with her buddy Mike in tow. Sunday was leisurely, which I really needed.

Finally, we drove back to New York, after a strange liquor run to New Hampshire (not drinking and driving, but stocking up for the winter), which might be worth a separate post.

Long week and I’m damn tired, but it sure was worth every second.

[EDIT, 10/25/04: I met the lurvely Jenblossom during that weekend, too. Funny how your life changes without you even noticing sometimes.]

Jenny Levine ran across the GeoURL ICBM Address Server and blogged it. Sounded like a cool idea, so I updated my Web pages and added my site to the database. If this works as advertised, you can click a link on my page and find bloggers and other Web geeks who are located geographically near me.

Leader of ‘The Clash’ Is Dead at 50. Punk legend Joe Strummer of “The Clash” has died, his record company said Monday. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

I’m off this morning for Indiana. I’ll be back in New York on Friday, and then it’s out on Saturday morning to Boston. I love Boston, and I can’t wait to get back there. This trip is a short one. I go up on Saturday and come back Sunday. Several of my Boston friends are gathering Saturday evening for food and spirits, and it’ll be fine fun to see them again.

Anna should be somewhere over the mid-Atlantic right about now. She’ll be blogging about her U.S. trip over here. I think it’s just Boston and New York for her this time around. She’ll crash here during at least part of the New York leg of her trip, before flying out from Newark on Jan. 8.

Now I must shower and pack.

Broadband wars II. If you want to get an idea about how bad the broadband future will be, you need only read this letter from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association describing how good (from their perspective) the broadband future will be…. [Lessig Blog]

[Note: The "letter" that Lessig links to above is a large and slow-loading PDF file.] This longish blog entry by Larry Lessig discusses the future of broadband, in this case cable Internet access. The issue at stake is whether cable providers should have the right to discriminate in content provision.

Think about this for a moment. If you have cable modem service through AOL Time Warner’s Roadrunner division, and you want to download a movie trailer or a short film offered by Viacom’s Paramount division, should Roadrunner have the right to deny you access to that content? Should Roadrunner have the right to slow down that content before it reaches your computer?

Disney and Microsoft are leading a coalition that says, “No.” Think about this for a moment. In this case, on this issue, Disney and Microsoft are the white hats. Their coalition apparently sent the FCC a letter urging regulation to prevent cable providers from discriminating against competitors’ content. The NCTA have sent a letter taking the other side.

This is important, if you’re a broadband user. Whether you read these letters isn’t that important. What’s important is that you know this is going on.

Critics Weigh In on Copyright Act. The U.S. Copyright Office asked for public comment on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and it got it. Critics worry about everything from losing great art to restricting blind people’s access to information. By Joanna Glasner. [Wired News]

Interesting article. I want to look later at the public comments in greater depth.

My SantaCon report is online, now, over at Nerdbait.com. It’s the full story of my Clausian day, complete with pictures! (Not my pictures, though. Not yet anyway. I should have mine up on Friday or Saturday.)

Go check it out, won’t you?

[EDIT, 10/25/04: Hm. Nerdbait is dead. I wonder if this story is archived on my hard drive. I doubt it, somehow.]

SantaCon was amazing. I’ll have a full report, and pictures, up later this week.

I should be writing. I should be writing. I should be writing. I should not be blogging. I should be writing. I should be writing. I should be writing. I should not be blogging. I should be writing. I should be writing. I should be writing. I should be writing.