Master Dilettante

My friend S.K. just sent me the email below. I love this kind of stuff. I’ve pasted the complete email below, reflecting my answers to the questions:

Welcome to the 2007 edition of getting to know your Friends. What you are supposed to do is copy (NOT Forward) this entire e-mail and paste it onto a new e-mail that you’ll send. Change all the answers so they apply to you, and then send this to your friends including the person who sent it to you. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little things about your friends that you might not have known.

1. What time did you get up this morning? 6:20 a.m. (I’m still a bit on Boston time from eBay Live!)
2. Diamonds or pearls? Alas, diamonds, although pearls are so much cheaper to gift
3. What two things do you always have with you? My BlackBerry Pearl and my roguish good looks
4. What is your favorite TV show? These days, I religiously watch “The Office,” “Heroes,” “Lost,” and “24”
5. What do you usually have for breakfast? Varies . . . most often a power bar, fruit or eggs
6. What is your favorite book? I seem to talk about Milos Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being a lot, but I secretly read both David Eddings’ The Queen of Sorcery and Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonsong over and over again
7. What is your middle name? I don’t have a middle name
8. What food do you dislike? Beef or chicken liver
9. What is your favorite CD? For the past month, I’ve been listening to country music phenomenon Taylor Swift’s debut album incessantly
10. What type of car do you drive? 2000 Honda Accord LX
11. Favorite sandwich? All-time favorite: Dan’s Subs #8 (hot roast beef & cheese) in Woodland Hills, California
12. What characteristic do you despise? Arrogance
13. Favorite item of clothing? My Club Monaco hoodie . . . ultimately comfortable
14. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Anywhere tropical . . . Hawaii, Thailand, etc.
15. What color is your bathroom? Off-white
16. Favorite brand of clothing? Armani
17. Where would you retire to? L.A.
18. What was your most recent memorable birthday? Can’t remember. Looming 4-0 overshadows all memories of the past and present
19. Furthest place you are sending this? London
20. Who do you least expect to send this back to you? Heidema
21. Person you expect to send it back first? Em
22. Favorite saying? “Right”
23. When is your birthday? Year of the Goat
24. Are you a morning person or a night person? Both. Problem is I can’t sleep all afternoon
25. What is your shoe size? 7.5
26. What did you want to be when you were little? A lawyer – sad, but true
27. How are you today? From now on, every day, I am always excellent!!!
28. What is your favorite candy? All-time favorite: Snickers bar
29. What is your favorite flower? French tulips
30. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? 31 July – new Harry Potter book released
31. What was the last thing you ate? Garlic chicken pizza
32. Do you wish on stars? Yes, and not infrequently
33. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Red
34. How is the weather right now? Air conditioned
35. Last person you spoke to on the phone? N.
36. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yes
37. Favorite soft drink? Diet Coke
38. Favorite restaurant? Sushi Nozawa, Studio City, California
39. Hair color? Black
40. Favorite day of the year? The first day of Spring
41. Summer or winter? Winter
42. Hugs or kisses? Put those two together!Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate
43. Do you want your friends to email you back? Yes!
44. When was the last time you cried? Don’t remember or won’t say
45. What is under your bed? Alpaca slippers, empty luggage, yoga mats
46. Favorite smell? Fresh baked bread
47. What are you afraid of? Death
48. Plain, butter or salted popcorn? Plain (healthier)
49. How many keys on your key ring? 4
50. How many years at your current job? Just over 3 years
51. Favorite day of the week? Saturday
52. Do you make friends easily? I don’t think so
53. What are you listening to right now? Amjad Hanif discussing trust and safety on eBay

Copy. Paste. Edit. Email. Enjoy.

I must be spoiled. Over the past two years, the only airplane flights I’ve taken over 6 hours have been international flights in which the amenities, meals and service have been adequate to great. Moreover, I’ve been fortunate to travel business or first class.

By amenities, I mean the in-flight kits containing socks, toiletries, etc., given to business class and above passengers and little things like even audio headsets. By meals, I mean the quality and variety of the food and drink provided. And by service, I mean the attentiveness, attitude and efficiency of the flight staff.

If you fly internationally on non-U.S.-based airlines, you will realize immediately that the amenities, meals and service on U.S.-based carriers, particularly on U.S. domestic flights, in contrast, are noticeably and unequivocally worse.

Amenities on U.S. carriers are non-existent or minimal at best. I’m writing this post on a United Airlines flight to Boston, and the audio headset for listening to in-flight entertainment was loose, not packaged in plastic, with the cord coiled around it. At least the plastic packaging that used to be used provided the illusion of hygiene. Now, high-maintenance gadget geek that is am, I bring my own Bose noise reduction headset wherever I fly. Today, however, I can’t use it, because the headset jack in my seat is not just broken, it’s literally missing altogether.

But wait, there’s more! Meals . . . . I must have missed this in the news, but somewhere, somehow, sometime, domestic flights on United discontinued hot, included meals. Now, if you want to eat on a 6-hour flight, you can either bring your own food or you must pay $5 for a lousy assortment of cold crackers and snacks. United Airlines lists the “SnackBoxes” available.

Last, service ranges from outright rude to measurably dour. Southwest Airlines is a noticeable exception, but Southwest doesn’t offer long flights. (I haven’t flown Jet Blue yet).

Compare this experience to the experience you might receive on any Asia-based airline, say Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Asiana, Korean Airlines or Quantas, and you’ll know that American carriers aren’t even trying.

I have neither monitored nor studied the plight of U.S. carriers. I know that United Airlines has been in a world of hurt. Evidently, the failed economics and/or management of these carriers prevents them from providing even the service they provided in the past.

The only thing that keeps me with United is my accumulation of frequent flier miles, but, even were I want to switch, it is but as if American Airlines or any other U.S. carrier offers a superior alternative.

(Photo courtesy of www.worldseriesofpoker.com, which asks for a whopping $69 for an unadulterated download of it).

So far, not so good!

I played two tournaments this weekend: Event #15 of the WSOP ($1,500 No-limit Hold ‘em) and a nice, ~500-person $1,000 buy-in tournament at the Venetian. Alas, no cashes so far. I think I was overexcited to be at the WSOP for the first time in two years, and I didn’t play great. Combine that with not “running” great (poker players’ term for not catching cards at the right time), and I exited both tournaments within the first three hours.

I played too long, too tired in cash games, too, so took hits there.

Lessons learned! I’m getting right back in the saddle and will be in Vegas again in two weeks — well rested and ready.

I want!!!

In advance of the start of shooting next week, a few sources, including The Sun and Crave are reporting on the Wachowski brothers‘ Speed Racer movie, scheduled for release on 8 May 2008.

I can’t imagine a movie with Cristina Ricci as Trixie can be any good, but the gadgetry is sure to dazzle.

“Speed Racer” unequivocally is my all-time favorite childhood cartoon show.

Well, I’ve thrown in the proverbial towel. My Crocs Cayman shoes have arrived, and I’m wearing them now — in the office (no meetings this afternoon).

The sample size of the Are Crocs Hideously Ugly? survey was too small for statistical significance, but the general sentiment of the limited sample was consistent: Crocs are ugly but look to be comfortable.

Unfortunately, the appearance of the Crocs is growing on me, and they are unequivocally light, airy and extremely comfortable. I’m heading to Vegas for the World Series of Poker tomorrow, and I imagine these Crocs will be the perfect shoe for the summer heat and for maximum comfort while grinding away at a table for hours on end.

But, please, if you see me wearing them in the office again or out and about on an evening, please push me in front of a bus or something.

Thanks to Lifehacker and 43 Folders, I’ve just discovered Marc Andreessen’s new blog: http://blog.pmarca.com/. Andreessen’s first post was on 2 June. So far, he’s written on Web 2.0, the Mac and personal productivity — all topics near and dear to me. Lifehacker and 43 Folders are both reporting on his post yesterday, “The Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity,” which includes a number of gems and provocative ideas, such as:

• “Don’t keep a schedule” (”work on whatever is most important or most interesting”)
• Structured procrastination (do lots of other things when you procrastinate)
• “Do email exactly twice a day” (not uncommon advice among productivity experts)
• “Only agree to new commitments when both your head and your heart say yes.”

I hadn’t heard the term “productivity porn” before, but Andreessen uses it and cites a 43 Folders wiki entry defining it. I, too, am an addict.

This looks to be an interesting blog to me and I recommend it.

Testament to the general popularity of poker and the expected attendance at the WSOP this year, the official Web site is down (as of Saturday morning) (click on the thumbnail to see the message).

The other story titillating to me yesterday was about the new Bicycle “PokerPeek” cards the WSOP is using. PokerPages reported on the debacle (their photos below), including Mike Matasow’s immediate blow-up over it! On the front, the layout and orientation of the ranks make them difficult to read, and on the back, the commissioner’s name is misspelled.

You can see how the ranks — featuring non-standard orientation in the corners — would be difficult to read.

Ironically, a lot of thought went into the development of the cards, as the WSOP site reports. Thankfully, the WSOP already has replaced these cards with standard plastic Kem cards.

Unless you’re totally unplugged or otherwise hiding under a rock, you should know by now that Apple has released a new “iTunes Plus” (version 7.2) that allows for the purchase of DRM-free (Digital Rights Management-free) music. Once you download the new iTunes Plus, you can now download DRM-free music, particularly music from EMI, for $1.29 per song (as opposed to the typical $0.99 per song). You can also upgrade existing DRM-protected songs and albums for $0.30 per song.

It completely sucks eggs for three reasons:

• It doesn’t work. When you download the new version, in-product messaging indicates how many songs you have that are DRM-protected and gives you the option to upgrade them. Fewer songs than you would expect are DRM-protected. Of the 391 songs I’ve purchased from Apple, only 35 are available for upgrade. I understand that the servers may be busy given the popularity of this new release, but I have now been trying to upgrade these 35 songs CONTINUOUSLY FOR THREE DAYS and I keep getting this error message for each song: “‘There was a problem downloading “[song]“. An unknown error occurred (504). Please check that the connection to the network is active and try again.’” Now, don’t the Apple TV advertisements promise no cryptic messages? PROMISE BROKEN. I have no idea what this means, and my iTunes is now completely debilitated as it tries futilely to download just 35 songs. It appears to have downloaded 7 songs in three days, but I have no idea even whether the downloads worked, frankly. It is taking FOREVER.
• DRM-free does not mean device freedom. DRM-free effectively means that you can now play your Apple Stores-downloaded music on non-iPod devices that also support play of music saved in Apple’s proprietary AAC format. So what? If you have one of those non-iPod devices, you probably download music from another source. If you have only an iPod, the DRM-free music provides you no incremental benefit.
• iTunes Plus prevents AAC-to-MP3 conversion. Before the recent release, you could download a song through iTunes and then burn a disc in MP3 format. This function allowed you to play the disc on a CD player — such as my car stereo — that supported MP3 but not AAC. Now, as Boing Boing reports, you cannot do this. Lame!

Perhaps I’m missing something, but I’ve been completely disappointed in and frustrated by iTunes Plus so far — the first time I’ve ever had complaint with iTunes.