Perpetual projects and daily obsessions.
On TimMinear.net, Tim (co-creator) had the following to say today about Firefly’s future,
“Also wanted to let everyone here know that Firefly is not dead. Not yet. Joss and us’ns are working on a new angle, the details of which I cannot get into just yet. Also, I’m finishing editing my last episode. I think it’s gonna be good. And ‘Trash’ is lots of fun and we’re finishing ‘Heart Of Gold.’ So some day, at the very least, ya’ll get for certain three more hours of us.”
So I’ve been looking for a tool that sync’s up my Palm Scheduler/Addressbook with Outlook.
It should be obvious to anyone at this point that involvement of Outlook in the above sentence has nothing to do with any decision that I made, because I would never make any decision that involved Outlook, except possibly “I’ve decided that everyone in the world should stop using Outlook. Right now.” But I digress.
Anyway, I found something that will do that. It claims to be the best thing on the market for doing things like that (which is an easy claim to make since it’s apparently the only thing that does it), but it costs fifty bucks, which I am certainly not going to pay (and which no one else is going to buy for me).
So I kept looking. I actually found something a little later that looked like it might work, plus it actually upgrades the scheduler/addressbook in my Palm so that it does something I REALLY would like it to do*.
Problem: I installed the demo (from a major and reputable Palm software site), went to the source site to buy the full version after dinking around with it for awhile, because I decided it was cool even if it couldn’t sync with Outlook, and found out that the version I had (“available now for $24.45!”) wasn’t available anymore. The new version (with a new name) was, after buying all the optional add-ons that actually made it do what I wanted…
fifty bucks.
Right. So I deleted the demo version and moved on.
Skip to the next day, when I try to sync up my Palm and it starts giving me fatal error messages.
Why? Because the cool scheduling software modified a couple of the appointments in my schedule book to the point where my real datebook couldn’t read them anymore. Ver’ Ver’ bad. Took an hour of resets, memory purges, and HotSyncs to get the whole mess straightened out, and I have a meg worth of extra space on my Palm now, so I know I lost something.
And that’s why I’m very nervous about not having my laptop along with me on the trip to England — because it was the multiple HotSyncs that brought my baby back to me. Dave can worry that the U.S. and England will be at war with Iraq while we’re in Britain visiting many famous, high-profile landmarks ripe for terrorism; I’m worried I might lose access to my tech toys while we’re there. The End.
The following message was posted at Firefly: Immediate Assistance this afternoon:
According to a 20th Century Fox source, UPN has decided not to pick up Firefly. While the show appealed to them, they didn’t feel it was a good fit with their current programming needs.
We’ll have a new direction to point you in and several new graphics sometime tomorrow.
“I know many people have been waiting for news, so although the information is not complete, I thought it best to provide the news as soon as possible. We at Firefly: Immediate Assistance understand that there are other viable options besides UPN. Tomorrow we will begin another phase in our battle to save Firefly.”
The First Evil has a blog. On LiveJournal, natch.
Still, pretty funny.
I finished up The Onion Girl, by Charles de Lint today, one of several books he’s set in the fictional locale of Newford. Interesting stuff, and the first thing I’ve ever read by de Lint (I think — certainly the first novel-length thing). Lots of good characters. Onion Girl is one of the later books in the Newford series, so there is a sense of having walked into an ongoing conversation between people who have all known each other for about twenty years, but it was still enjoyable.
De Lint is obviously comfortable writing his characters and has known them all for a good long time — so much so that a book like Onion Girl, which is much less about the story and much more about exploring his characters in painstaking depth, doesn’t bother him or his readers much. In some ways it reminded me of an excerpt from a (or any) long-running Amber campaign that you read one character diary from — obviously fascinating to the involved participants, but less so to those who don’t know what exactly’s going on.
Still, brimming with lots of neat ideas, good prose, and lots of small feisty women with unkempt hair and commitment issues. I’ll be happy to find and read more of his stuff.
In related news, we’re going to test drive a Mini at two this afternoon. :)
Update:
Getting a Mini has become much more likely. Very comfortable (more room for the driver in fact than my truck), very zippy, corners like it’s on rails, excellent handling in general, and optimized for an intelligent driver — I really enjoyed the half hour they let us just take off and drive it (without even a sales guy). The clutch is very forgiving and I really liked the action on the manual… I can’t even see where getting the Cooper S would be necessary — the plain old Cooper I drove had plenty of juice, and that’s something I’m really picky about.
Then you look at numbers and realize that the highway MPG is double my pickup’s and even the city mpg is still 11 better than my truck’s highway mpg. There’s a lot to like.
Jackie even liked it, and she really didn’t want to.
I got a form in the mail to apply to be a Neilsen family.
Started and finished Coraline today, which I really cannot recommend enough and which I’ll more than happily lend to people (or gift them for upcoming birthdays). I enjoy Neil Gaiman more and more with each new thing of his that I read (although Neverwhere is still my favorite, I think).
Justin listened to me moan at the creepifying wiggins and laugh out loud all through the reading of it today (I would have read it out loud but my voice is absolutely GONE right now), and immediately grabbed it and ran off with it when I finished.
My duty here is done.