walked up to pot belly for lunch today, which is a place i really enjoy.  the portions are kind of small, so i tend to get chips and a cookie to complement it, but the sandwiches are only like $4 and their hot peppers are amazing. had a conversation about the peppers with my workmate about how great they are.  they’re not too hot, but also not too… not hot… i guess.  anyway, what i’m trying to say is i tend to like hot stuff as long as it’s not so hot that all you taste is the burning.  i like to get some heat but i don’t like to have my tongue burned out of my mouth.

so really, the whole point of this post is to talk about a particular awkward situation that i’m sure a lot of you have been in.  the previously mentioned coworker and i decided to sit outside.  if you’ve been by the campus pot belly’s you know that they have a few tables out there and most of them are baking in the sun all day.  we choose one that was next to the building but not in the shade, cause it’s hella nice out today and the sun was very nice.

anyway, after we’d been out there for a few minutes (long enough to eat 1/2 my sandwich) two ladies walk past our table and one of them turns to us (me) and says “will you reserve that table over there?” *pointing to the one table in the shade*  she continues on to say “just tell them two hot, older,  very cranky women want to sit there.”  her friend (found out later, sister) kind of looked at us apologetically and they continued on in to the store.  i would not have described either of these women as “hot” but i know a lot of people have very distorted self images (probably myself included).

now, did i go out of my way to keep an eye on the table (which was behind me and around a corner so i would have to strain around to even see the it, let alone keep someone from sitting at it)? no, of course not.  oh and never mind that there are actually two doors to the joint, and it would have been highly plausible for someone to exit the door we aren’t sitting near and snag their table without us ever knowing.

what baffled me even more was there were two nice looking dudes in blue scrubs sitting at the very next table. why she choose us to single out for her selfish table preservation is beyond me.  no wait, i’m going to attribute it to my amazing good looks and charm.

anyway, after a few minutes the speaker exits and tells me what a good job we’ve done because her sister is “one mean lady” (or something to that effect).  yeah, great job by us.

what i hate is, why put a complete stranger into such an awkward situation in the first place?  it really bothers me that people choose to do this.  it’s one thing if you are already sitting at a table or seat and have to get up for a minute.  it is acceptable in that situation to ask someone to keep your seat.  it is also acceptable to do so in movie theaters or other “first come first serve” style seating venues.  but to ask someone to save a seat for you  before you’ve even sat down is a little ridiculous.

what happens if someone takes that table?  how am i supposed to prevent that from happening other than to polietly ask them to vacate?  how does the original person respond when this happens?  we were lucky this time that it wasn’t very busy and that school isn’t in session.

it just boggles the mind that people will put a complete stranger into such an easily compromised position.

i was asked to write up my thoughts on the current political climate/process/presidential brouhaha by a friend, so that’s what i’m going to do.  now let me say i have a hard time really putting my feelings about politics in to words.  i generally go with my gut, as it were, in politics.  what feels right to me is what i tend to stand for and stick with.

lately i’ve been reading the agitator a lot, which i guess is technically a libertarian blog.  what i tend to like about it is the author (radley balko) covers government waste, police state, and general stupidity on both sides of the spectrum (dem and repub) pretty equally.  granted, it has more of a liberal slant because libertarianism is definitely more left than right on a lot of issues, especially social issues.

i’ve always identified myself as an economic conservative and a social liberal.  i tend to find value in government social programs but at the same time like the idea of lower taxes and less government intervention in business.  i don’t really know where this puts me, but generally i lean more left when voting.  in the recent primaries i voted republican, moreso because i thought the dems had a better handle on their candidates than the repbus.  (i wanted ron paul, for what it’s worth)

i’ll freely admit i’m not an obama freak.  i don’t see too much in his policy to scream out “OH MY GOD THIS MAN IS JESUS” like a lot of other people.  i like some of his ideas (a renewed interest in science and technology, especially related to alternative fuels) but really dislike his complete disregard for new oil drilling (yes, even in the ANWAR) and his stance on no new nuclear power.  as far as him as a person, i think he’s just like any other politician, albeit a much more polished and better orator than we’ve seen for quite some time.  he’s probably better than clinton (billy, not wifey) in the speech giving realm even.

mccain on the other hand…. well, i would’ve voted for him 8 years ago when he seemed like more of a maverick and less of a rank and file republican.  i don’t find his support of the iraq war very comforting, and his selection of sarah palin really screams desperation to me (although it seems to be working, based on the latest polls).  on the subject of sarah palin, i think she’s exactly what mccain says we don’t need in obama; inexperienced, shady, and overall just a weak leader.  granted, she’s pretty hot, so there’s that i guess.  beyond that, i find the republican view of less freedom = more security very scary and something that i think needs to be avoided completely if we are to really keep america great.  i don’t think i need to get into the recent republican love of religious conservatism and their staunch opposition to abortion and gay marriage.

so who am i going to vote for?  right now i’m leaning towards obama.  not because i feel so great about his candidacy, but rather because i feel not so great about mccain’s.  i’d rather give the democrats a few years to fuck it up in new ways than let the republicans continue their current course of fuckary.

but yeah, politics is like religion.  everyone has an opinion, and they always think their opinion is the only one that’s correct or matters.  i guess i’m no different, sadly…

so a few days ago i wrote that little post about a ghetto way to sync my rumor with my outlook calendar via google calendar, which does work pretty well.  i’m a pretty self conscience fuck, so i always check my blog stats like daily (why i bother when i hardly write with any regularity is beyond me really, but i do) and i’ve noticed quite a few searches coming to me via terms like “problems with lg rumor” or “why lg rumor sucks” or something like that, so i figured i’d write out the exact reasons i do not like this phone.

1. the keyboard is slow -  and this is probably my #1 (or possibly #2, depending on the day) reason i hate this phone.  i don’t type all that fast on this thing and it still cannot keep up with me.  i find myself going back and editing text messages all the time.  it’s pretty fucking annoying.  with something like the iphone i can understand why there is some delay between typing and something showing up on the screen, but at least it doesn’t completely miss characters like the rumor does.  i could deal with a delay, but missing letters and shit is just plain bad.  considering the only reason i got this phone was for the qwerty keyboard it’s a pretty big let down.
2. it turns itself off - this and #1 are probably my two biggest complaints.  i don’t know how many goddamn times i’ve looked at my phone and realized it’s mysteriously powered down.  i’ve seen it do it while just sitting on my desk, so i know that it’s not just getting jammed in my pocket and magically shutting down.
3. the internet is slow - i moved from a samsung a900 (ubiquitous phone that it seemed like every other person had) and that thing loaded anything from the web faster than this POS.  had i realized that the rumor does not have cdma or whatever the sprint version of 3g is called i probably would’ve reconsidered purchasing it.
4. the camera fucking sucks -  see my believeland post to see how fucking terrible the camera is (the word BELIEVELAND should be in orange in that pic.  note: it was taken indoors in good light).  a good portion of my marek pics were also taken on this thing.  the colors are always washed out, and the fucking thing takes a good 5 to 8 seconds to actually take the picture after you hit the button.  that is pretty unacceptable.  yeah i know, it’s a phone not a camera, but my aforementioned samsung (which was like 2 or 3 years old) had a better response time and better looking pictures.   the reason i got rid of that one was the camera died.  i’m not expecting dslr quality shots here, but something that looks better than a pic taken on some camera made in 1998 would be nice.
5. the “locking” system blows - you can slide the thing open and it goes straight to the messaging menu, which is admittedly a nice feature, but a slide of 0.0000001cm will cause it to go to this menu.  in your pocket this can happen pretty easily.  i’ve taken it out of my pocket after a quick walk and found it trying to dial any number of crazy different phone numbers.  it would be nice if the thing didn’t open the messaging menu until the phone was completely slid open.  seems like a pretty easy solution to me.
6. signal strength blows - i live in a brick condo building and i cannot get the phone to work inside anywhere… 2nd floor, near the windows, still doesn’t work.  i almost always have to go outside to use the fucking thing.  meanwhile my girlfriend who has some phone she got in like 1963 can walk around the entire place chatting it up.  also, i get a lot of dropped calls even when i do have full (or near full) strength and i’m outside or in my car.  this never happened on my samsung.

so all in all, i hate this thing.  i’d like to get something else, but i feel like i’m wasting money because i just got this phone a few months ago.   the one thing i will say it does well is battery life.  i can go for 4 or 5 days without having to charge (now i’m by no means a power talker or anything, but it’s pretty good on battery life).

so if you were looking for reasons why this phone sucks, there you go.

…but still want to do something neat like update your exchange calendar?  well, i’ve figured out how, using the all powerfull GOOGLE and my POS lg rumor.  don’t take this as a recommendation for the rumor… b/c this phone fucking sucks and i want something else badly.

first off, some caveats about this whole thing.  for one, you have to keep the google calendar sync application running with outlook open on a pc somewhere.  if you work in any kind of enterprise/corporate environment, you most likely already leave your pc on, logged in (and hopefully LOCKED) at all times.  if you do, this will work great.  if not, you won’t get the full advantage of this little system, but it could still be useful for updating your work calendar on weekends, as it would sync anything new when you started up your pc the next time.  secondly, the google sms features of the calendar are only available to US customers (sorry canada! :P)

so with that said, here’s what you need to do.  first, sign up for a google calendar account at http://calendar.google.com (of course your gmail account will work!)  once you have that, download the google calendar sync app (double check that you have a version of outlook and windows that is supported) and install it.  make sure you set it up for two way updates (so anything you add in either google calendar or outlook will show up in each).

now open up your google calendar account and click the settings link in the upper right corner.  go to the mobile setup tab and enter your phone number and mobile provider.  be aware that by doing this you are going to use text messages, so if you don’t have unlimited texting this could end up costing you A LOT!  once you do that google will send you a special code to put into the verification box.

so now you have your google calendar ready to receive new events via text and it should be syncing to your pc and outlook.

now for the really cool part (IMO)!  you can now text your calendar by sending a message to 48368 (GVENT) and have it either reply to you with your current days events (text message of “day”) or the next days events (”nday”) OR, and this is the best, you can have it add a new event to your calendar by texting it in plain english!  what does that mean exactly?  say, for example, you want to add a new appointment for next tuesday at 3pm with someone.  all you have to do is text GVENT and in the message say “meeting with my mom at 3pm tuesday.”  the system will figure out what you mean and add the event (by default for one hour, but you can go ahead and tell it “meeting with my mom at 3pm tuesday for 2 hours” and it’ll make a 2 hour appointment instead).

i’ve played with this system and it is pretty smart, you can give it dates and times basically any way you want and it will figure it out.  i even had it set a full day appointment by telling it “all day.”  one thing that did not work however was giving it a fraction for the time, so saying “2.5 hours” will really have it make a 5 hour appointment with “2.” as part of the subject.

so there you go, no need to get a fancy windows mobile phone to view/update your exchange calendar! (i’ll still be getting rid of this goddamn piece of crap rumor ASAP tho)