Master Dilettante

After 6 hours spent at 6 different retail locations over 3 days from Southern to Northern California, I finally have my iPhone 3G!

I switched from my BlackBerry Pearl once Apple removed my primary barrier to adoption — lack of push email and calendar — and I am overlooking the challenging keyboard and lack of notes/to-do list sync.

I’ll miss the dedicated convenience of my Pearl, but “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”* between me and my iPhone.

The good:

• It’s cool and gorgeously, super sexy.
• The usability, both setup and ongoing use, is extremely good.
• The open platform and applications significantly increase the utility.
• 3G is pretty darn quick.
• The GPS is sweet. I could drive around all day just watching my car on the map. (Dork, I know)
• I do love it and am having a ton of fun.

The bad:

• On balance, I still believe Apple botched the launch weekend. Even aside from the long queues and the likely artificially suppressed inventory at AT&T stores, Apple made two critical mistakes: (1) Apple should have been better prepared for the server traffic from the iPhone 2.0 software upgrades and new 3G purchases. Apple now has placed itself in a position where it is offering mission-critical services to individuals and businesses. Effective outages (from bricked phones) and activation slownesses of the lengths experienced Friday are inexcusable and unforgivable. (2) Requiring that users with corporate accounts or discounts activate only at AT&T stores resulted in horrible customer experiences and undermines Apple’s entire strategy of acquiring business users. Business users require convenience, and the need to go to an AT&T store was decidedly inconvenient.
• Battery life on 3G is atrociously bad. I had a full overnight charge, started using the iPhone at 7:00 a.m., and my battery already is 30% drained. Granted, I’m using the thing a ton and haven’t optimized power consumption yet, but still . . . it needs to make it easily on one charge from the time I wake until the time I sleep.
• As with all things Apple, when things go wrong, you have few options and much frustration. Ringtones purchased on iTunes wouldn’t play at first. I’m frequently prompted to re-enter my iTunes password. A song spontaneously started playing this morning. Once I synced with my Outlook calendar through Exchange, I found that I have two calendars, including one that contains events from four years ago. The device has rebooted spontaneously a few times. It’s frozen a couple times inexplicably. In all these cases, your options and explanations and guidance from Apple are few.
• The touchscreen is great, but I have a hard time believing a touchscreen keyboard will ever be as good as a keyboard with tactile buttons.

Tips:

• The solution for freezing in some cases is to soft reset the device by simultaneously pressing and holding the power/sleep and home buttons for 30 seconds.
• I’ve found that the MacRumors Forums contain a wealth of information on troubleshooting. Just about every problem I’ve encountered, someone else encountered first.
• Apple’s site has a helpful page on battery optimization, although many of the suggestions are to disable the core functions that make the 3G worth getting.

On balance, I’m loving my new toy. Just remember: The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.

* Humphrey Bogart’s “Jack” in “Casablanca”

Alas, the three-day weekend is almost at an end. At least I caught two flicks, gorged myself at two BBQs and generally relaxed. Here’s what I saw:

Wall-E

Caution: Spoilers below!

I had no knowledge of Wall-E before walking into the theatre. I vaguely recall seeing a remote-controlled Wall-E robot with a bunch of dancers on TV at an NBA playoffs game. I held the notion in my head that Wall-E must be some sort of E.T.-like film with Wall-E the protagonist among a number of mischievous and/or wide-eyed children, likely engaged in domestic comedy or a little light adventure together.

My presumption was wrong.

Wall-E is the latest animated adventure from Pixar, starring the endearing, whimsical Wall-E (which stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class). Wall-E, essentially, is an autonomous, intelligent, mobile trash compactor, persevering at his job on Earth 700 years after the accumulation of environmental waste has left the planet uninhabitable due to toxicity. He makes a surprising discovery with great promise to the human species, and this discovery, along with a robotic romantic interest, lead Wall-E on an action adventure.

As I’ve come to expect from Pixar, the animation was phenomenally good — many of the panoramas look like photographs. The animation was so good that I was extremely revolted by the animated cockroach that becomes Wall-E’s sidekick.

One surprise was that the first half of the movie, it seemed, involved almost no dialog; for a time, I thought the entire film might be devoid of dialog until Wall-E finally found someone with whom to converse.

I don’t recall whether Pixar has been preachy in the past, but I loved the environmental message. I’m not particularly environmentally conscious, although I recycle and, like everyone else, have been bemoaning gas prices these days. While I’ve been trying to catch a rerun of “The Human Footprint” on the National Geographic channel, I’ve become increasingly sensitive lately to the amount of waste I personally generate. I’m alarmed by the amount of food I waste, garbage I generate and even the amount of recyclables I recycle. With this personal anxiety, the environmental message resonated with me.

I also loved the health message. When Wall-E encounters Earth’s survivors on holiday in space, he finds that they’re atrophied, lazy, obese and sustained by liquid diets. I think this condition just might be to be avoided, and I’m going to do some sit-ups after I write this post.

Overall, another fine work from Pixar. I’m not sure it’s as good as the 96% fresh tomatoes reflected on Rotten Tomatoes, but I was pleasantly surprised and thoroughly entertained. I recommend Wall-E.

Wanted

Angelina Jolie, guns and the promise of action? Sign me up!

I didn’t know much about this flick either but expected from the trailers that it would be suitably entertaining. It continues the trend of movies adapted from comic books and graphic novels. Surprisingly, Angelina’s is not the main character, although she’s clearly the second most important character. Instead, Wanted stars relative unknown James McEvoy as Wesley Gibson, a cube-dwelling, down-trodden drone — surely a familiar archetype to those of us in the Valley. (The only other film in which I’ve seen McEvoy is The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, in which he plays Mr. Tumnus the faun).

The plot is the basic formulaic one that I’ve always been drawn to in both books and movies: The relatively unassuming discovers latent talents transforming his or her life into one of heroism. I don’t think I’ll ever give up on these childhood fancies, and why should I? I think of Harry Potter, Jack Ryan, Belgarion, Lessa. Yes, I lead a rich interior life at times . . . . In Wanted, Wesley Gibson discovers his genetic and familial heritage as a “good” assassin. This discovery leads him through action, intrigue and a few plot twists.

As with most action-adventure films, you’ll have to disregard a relatively thin plot and suspend disbelief at most of the physical feats. If you can do that, you will, like I did, be entertained for a couple of hours. Rotten Tomatoes, by the way, reflects 72% fresh tomatoes.

I’m thinking about it. Thinking about it hard. And I don’t know that I’ll have the strength to resist my consumer impulse.

I’ve loved my BlackBerry Pearl and its predecessors over the past few years. I love the synchronization with my work Outlook; I use email and text messaging constantly, the phone, notes, the to-do list, the camera, Google maps, a stopwatch/timer application, the alarm, the calculator, even the slow browser. The usability is great. I love the SureType input system. I love the size and the weight. It’s wonderfully functional.

Last year, I switched from PC to Mac for the first time in my life. I was already an iPod user and an iTunes Store buyer. With PCs, I was becoming fatigued with degrading performance over time and mysterious program crashes. Apple’s advertising campaigns slowly and surely were winning me over — a case where TV advertising worked. While I’ve always appreciated the apparent relative simplicity Apple offers, truly, it’s the coolness factor that tipped me towards Apple.

After a year with my iMac, I’m still puzzled by its inexplicable slowness in Web browsing at times, frustrated with how iPhoto handles file organization and at a loss whenever a program hangs. But, on balance, I’m happy with the switch.

Should I adopt the iPhone, too? What’s been holding me back and might continue to give me pause:

• The keyboard sucks! I’ve talked to numerous iPhone users who all assure me that I’ll “get used to it,” that “it learns” and that they love it. But I’ve used it half a dozen times now, and I miss letters more than I hit them. For me, a BlackBerry user, the keyboard falls far, far short of my expectations. With Palm’s handwritten entry system, I recall becoming very proficient in it in less than a day. I’m skeptical about my ability to adapt to the iPhone keyboard, and I do enough inputting on my handhelds to need an efficient mechanism.
• Equivalently slow Web access. With the first generation iPhone, I didn’t think the Web access would be appreciably faster than on my BlackBerry over the EDGE network. With 3G, this new iPhone promises much more speed.
• I use Outlook notes and an add-on to-do list extensively and rely on the synchronization between my BlackBerry and my desktop. My understanding is that even with the new iPhone, the real-time synchronization will be lacking. If I switch, I’ll be banking on the development of applications with better synchronization with the new Microsoft Exhange integration.
• That Exchange integration is key. I depend on email getting pushed to my handheld and wouldn’t consider adopting the iPhone if it were still pulling email. I also rely on my calendar being manageable from either handheld or desktop. With the Exchange integration, however, these, my most significant concerns, are eliminated.

The new iPhone is now the shinier, newer object, and I hear it calling to me. We’re counting down to the release date on July 11, and I’m betting I’ll have a new iPhone soon after that!

My sister-in-law recently alerted me to a New York Times blog post on why lawyers leave the profession. The post profiles Taisha Rucker, also a recovering lawyer, who writes JDSnub Blog “[t]o inform and inspire law students and lawyers seeking alternative careers.”

Taisha is fielding a cool survey to gather stories on lawyers who have left or plan to leave the profession. Of course, I completed it. And I’ve been trading emails with Taisha who let me know this morning that my responses are posted on her blog today.

Nice to meet you, and best of luck, Taisha!

Since rejoining the Lakers bandwagon earlier this year, I’ve said that a championship in 2008 would be gravy. Next year, with a full season of Gasol and a returning Bynum, is the one I’m really excited to watch.

The Lakers’ run through the playoffs this year was definitely exciting. I couldn’t have imagined that they would come together so well to get through Denver, Utah & San Antonio relatively efficiently. Yes, the loss to the Celtics was disappointing, in several ways:

• Well, first, the Lakers lost.
• It really seemed that Phil Jackson was out-coached. I expected him to make multiple adjustment within and between games. He did make a number of adjustments, but none soon enough or that worked consistently on either the offensive or defensive end. Surely, he relies on the team to execute, but, also surely, I have to imagine psychological preparedness of the team is a coaching responsibility. It was also interesting the contrasting coaching styles. We saw Doc Rivers much more inspirational and Jackson much more clinical.
• Boston’s defense was awesome. Kobe didn’t really even have an opportunity to force shots. And the triangle offense can appear so fragile when practiced by a team not yet fluent in it and under stress.
• Pau Gasol is soft, relative to the physical inside game of the NBA. In post-season interviews, he defensively asserted that a soft team would not have been able to make it through the Western Conference. As quick as he is for a man his size, he seemed dreadfully slow in rebounding under the basket. His normally good hands didn’t seem to be able to catch the ball. His post-up moves were too slow to evolve. He abandoned his mid-range outside shot. I would have preferred to hear him talk about what he would work on this summer than to claim, essentially, that everything was fine.
• Vladimir Radmanovic is just awful. He can’t dribble, his passes are sloppy, his defense is horrific. Only his three-point shot is good. It sounds like with his contract size the Lakers won’t be able to unload him. Unfortunate.
• I’m not sure what’s going on with Luke Walton. I still love his court awareness and passing ability, especially in the triangle, but he really struggled to contribute this year and in the post-season.
• Odom has great dexterity, size, speed, strength. Yet he struggles to contribute consistently. The story of his career.
• Kobe took solid steps this year to extend his intangible control over games. He’s still got work to do and the hope is that he continues his development.

Next year, it’ll be very interesting to see who the Lakers keep and, if they keep Bynum, Gasol and Odom, how Jackson will integrate them into the offense. It’ll also be interesting to see if the Lakers can step up their defense.

In 1984, I first joined Lakers fandom. As a native Los Angeleno, I claim an inalienable right to root for the team (unlike transplants into L.A. or out-of-staters or San Diegans who adopt the team for their own) — but I admit I have strayed. I followed the Lakers obsessively through the Showtime era and still miss the days of Magic, Worthy, Kareem, Byron, Cooper, Rambis et al. I suffered through the woeful transition days of Van Exel and Vlade. And I rejoiced during the glory three-peat days of Shaq & Kobe.

Then, during the unfortunate incident in Colorado coupled with the despicable, incessant feuding between Kobe & Shaq in the 2003-2004 season, I became disenfranchised, completely abandoning the team, not knowing when I would return. Wanting so badly for Kobe to be the next MJ, I couldn’t get over my disappointment in Kobe. I loved Shaq’s physical dominance but hated what I perceive to be his laziness. He could have been the best center ever had he MJ or Kobe’s work ethic. I stopped watching the Lakers altogether, and only had a vague knowledge of what was transpiring in the NBA.

Of course, I hate to be labeled a fair-weather fan and hope that my 18 years of avid Lakers fandom offsets the recent three-year hiatus, but what I love about the Lakers has returned, and I have returned as a fan with it. The Lakers are back to working hard, they’re back to striving for excellence, they’re back to their winning ways, they’re back to entertaining us fans.

Even if this isn’t their year, and I think it very well could be, I’m even more excited about the future. This team doesn’t have the multiple superstars of years past, but it’s by far the deepest top-to-bottom Lakers team I’ve seen in over 20 years. Even if Ariza and Bynum sit out the playoffs, NEXT year is going to be a season to behold. The sheer potential is staggering.

The playoffs start next weekend, and I can’t wait!

I was late to join the party but now am here for the duration. Battlestar Galactica, the fourth and final season 4, starts Friday. If you’re also late to the party, the SciFi channel has a wry 8-minute video summary of the first three seasons, Salon has a great primer on the plot and characters to date and Adam Nash has a ton of great content on spoilers and theories on his blog.

Season 4 season premier: 9:00 p.m. PT 4 April 2008, SciFi channel.

Temp Hides Fun, Fulfilling Life From Rest Of Office

I read this article eons ago when I was a lawyer and couldn’t stop laughing. As a lawyer, it resonated with me. Now, a decade later, it’s a humorous reminder to work to live and not the other way around.

My two favorite quotes:

• “I don’t want to rub in how much I get to do the things I want to do,” Braxton said. “I feel sorry for them. They go home after a hard day, and they’re so fried they just spend the night sitting in front of the TV. You know how these people spend their weekends? Resting. They rest.”

• “They wanted to go for the brass ring and really live the good life,” Braxton said. “What they don’t seem to get is that the key to living the good life is to avoid that brass ring like the fucking plague.”

It’s been almost two weeks now as I write, but I want to thank Carol D. and the Wednesday Night Dinner Club for throwing me a great 40th birthday party! Thank you to everyone who celebrated with me! I had a great time — at least so far as I can remember. Thank you!

Check out my SmugMug site for photos of the event.

I’ve now taken a two month complete break from blogging precipitated by an extraordinarily busy summer at work that broke my habit.

Here’s a sampling of what you may have missed:

• I started a new job in mid-June — my 8th in 3+ years at eBay! — and had a great albeit unprecedented busy summer because of it.
• I concluded the World Series of Poker with no cashes but was happy with my play.
• My Dad visited in July and met his granddaughter Alex for the first time!
• I read the final Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was awesome and neatly tied up loose ends.
• I finally started tinkering with Facebook and now am bored with it already.
• Somehow, I went to three country music concerts over the summer. The CMAs are tonight, and I’m rooting for Taylor Swift.
• The one year anniversary of my maternal grandmother’s passing was August 10. We all miss her.
• Nathaniel & Joshua entered the world on September 10. Congratulations, Emily & Scott!
• I was in Dreilinden, Germany for the third time for eBay.
• My cousin Heejae married Eugene. Congratulations!
• My beautiful niece Alexandra had her first birthday and we had a lovely feast in L.A.
• I developed a mild addiction to/obsession with the novels of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child and read seven of their books in three weeks.
• I’ve started to work out with a trainer. If you see me eating crap, please give me crap about it.
• My big 4-0 is looming just around the corner!

That’s most of the important or interesting stuff. I’ll try to resume that blogging habit!