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Saw this on macrumors.com: Apple in Mobile Music Negotiations… for WWDC?

Apple reportedly wants to expand its Ringtone library and introduce the sale of “Answer Tones”. Answer Tones are customized sounds played to callers instead of the traditional ringing sound.

I think Answer Tones are a bad idea.  The ringtone is part of the phone user interface indicating the action of calling.  When you call someone, you expect to hear a phone ringing, knowing a call is in progress. 

If I hear a song, or a joke, or a voice, I’d assume that the answering machine just picked up really quickly.  I’d never use them and it annoys me that others may choose to do so.

Sound is an important part of feedback on a user interface.  For example, I use my iPhone as my alarm clock.  I use separate sounds for my ringtone and for my alarm clock.  When my alarm rings, I want to know that it’s the alarm clock and not someone calling me on the iPhone.

Here are two songs from the live performance of the music of Battlestar Galactica by composer Bear McCreary and the BSG Orchestra.  This took place last month at the Roxy in LA.

The first video is Roslin and Adama, one of my favorite melodies from BSG.

The second is Fight Night featuring Taiko drums, a pretty cool Chinese membrane flute and a rocking violin solo.  I’ve played the violin most of my life, but I don’t feel like I truly play the violin after watching the solo.

Around 2:25PM (Today, Saturday May 17, 2008) on Reading Road near McGregor I saw car engulfed in flames.  I heard the sirens and traffic pulled over to let the fire truck through.  I took this picture as I waiting for traffic to move.  The flame was pretty intense, but the firefighters moved pretty deliberately, slowly pulling out the hose to put out the fire.  I kept picturing the car suddenly exploding, but as seen on Mythbusters, cars don’t really explode like they do in the movies.

Saw this new campaign poster of Hillary Clinton.

From the Hillary Clinton website:
I think they were trying for cool like Obama’s Hope Poster, but what they got was something a little Orwellian, a bizarre looking propaganda poster.  Is that rays of light emanating from Hillary?  Is she supposed to be the rising sun that lights up the Earth?

The poster conjures all sorts of imperialistic images, like Hillary “the dictator for life” or Hillary “mutual destruction is assured”.

I decided to take the themes of this and make my own quicky version of how I see Hillary.

From CNN.com: Fears over China lake sparks more panic
Not sure if I’d be carrying the wedding portrait if I were running for my life!

From Cincinnati Enquirer: $196 million ticket sold in Amelia

AMELIA – A single ticket sold in Amelia is the winner of the $196 million grand prize from the latest Mega Millions lotto drawing.

Lottery spokeswoman Marie Kilbane said Friday night that the ticket for was bought at Main Street Wine & Spirits in this Clermont County village.

Wow, someone in my hometown of Cincinnati has hit it big!

To put it in perspective how hard it is to win the jackpot, this was the first winning Mega Millions ticket sold in all of OHIO since December 1, 2006!

The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are: 1 in 175,711,536.

The odds of getting struck by lightning twice in a lifetime are: 1 in 9,000,000.

This is a classic article from the NYTimes.com about how candidate George W. Bush would lower gasoline costs!

Article referenced in DaringFireball: Political Capital

From NYTimes.com: THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE TEXAS GOVERNOR; Bush Would Use Power of Persuasion to Raise Oil Supply

Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was
president, he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of
personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing
nations that they would increase their supply of crude.

”I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the
spigot, to increase the supply,” Mr. Bush, the presumptive Republican
candidate for president, told reporters here today. ”Use the capital
that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and
convince them to open up the spigot.”

Well, the Saudis clarified today, the amount of political capital that George W. Bush has built up.  Zero, Nada, Zippo!

Asked why the Clinton administration had not been able to
use the power of personal persuasion, Mr. Bush said: ”The fundamental
question is, ‘Will I be a successful president when it comes to foreign
policy?’ ”

He went on to suggest, as he did in answer to other questions, that voters should simply trust him.

”I will be,” he said in answer to his own question about whether he
would be a successful president. ”But until I’m the president, it’s
going to be hard for me to verify that I think I’ll be more effective.”

Trust him.  Aaaaaaaaaah!

Mr. Bush dismissed Mr. Lehane’s comments, saying, ”It’s
frankly the type of politics people in America are sick of, this kind
of finger pointing, calling names and trying to divert attention.”

Well, we’ve had 8 years of finger pointing, calling names, and trying to divert attention.  And yes, we’re still sick of it.

From the NYTimes.com: Bush in Saudi Arabia to Make Oil Plea

With the price of oil hitting record highs, President Bush will use a private visit to King Abdullah’s ranch here Friday to make a second attempt to persuade the Saudi government to increase oil production so that American consumers can get some relief at the gasoline pump.

When Mr. Bush was last here in January, a similar request caused him some embarrassment. The president asked the Saudi oil minister to increase production, and was publicly rebuffed. He then took up the matter with the king, but the conversation did not get very far.

From NYTimes.com: Bush Rebuffed on Oil Plea in Saudi Arabia

This is a total embarrassment, that the President of the United States goes into a country, hat in hand and gets totally rebuffed.  This is the legacy of our failed energy and foreign policies.

UPDATE: Jeff Ruby’s Tropicana has announced that it’s closing in June.

I was at Jeff Ruby’s Tropicana at Newport on the Levee last night meeting a friend.  It’s salsa night at Tropicana on Thursdays, so I’ve been there a few times over the last six months.  My friend and I agreed that the decor is really looking dated and the place is starting to get a little rundown looking.  The business seems good, so it seems like they could afford it, but it seems like Jeff Ruby has his eyes somewhere else.  You always hear about Jeff Ruby as a great restaurateur, but great restaurants are built in the details.

The bar chairs in particular are a ratty mess.  It’s a real embarrassment- I wouldn’t even let someone over to my place if I had a chair that looked like that, let alone charge someone $8.00 for a drink. Here’s a picture of one chair, but a lot of them look like this:
Here’s a picture of the decor.  Kind of cheesy looking.  Sorry for the quality of the photos, it was pretty dark for the iPhone.

Today, as I was driving to work, I saw gas at $3.77 a gallon- what a bargain!  So, I was posed with this dilemma, should I tank up even though my tank is only a third empty or should I just fill up on my normal schedule?  I decided to tank up, filling my car with less than 5 gallons of gas, but still costing me over $18 dollars.

Psychologically it felt good to take advantage of “cheap” gas, but in the end I think I saved only around $.60 based on yesterday’s rate of around $3.90.  It’s funny how your behavior changes when faced with rising gas prices.