Just to catch up from yesterday: Watched the World Cup final, pitting a disappointing Netherlands versus an underwhelming Spain. Referee Howard Webb tied his hands early with cards and that hurt the game. Spain were the better team, so the outcome is neither a surprise nor upsetting, but the manner of the resolution was unfortunate. It is a shame, really. A game, no, the game was too easily swayed by one person who wasn’t even playing.
I’d rather have seen the two sides play, but Netherlands didn’t really oblige us of that either. The legendary Oranje temper came to play late after it was clear their game plan wasn’t going to work. Spain just kept moving until the opportunity presented itself, as they had the entire tournament. The resolution was unsatisfying for everyone not already a fan of La Roja. And now we have to wait four more years.
(I watched every game. Had a great time doing it.)
We visited Ann Taylor yesterday, marking my second time in almost as many days. The Yankee visited again today, but I declined. A third time in a week was just too much. I consoled myself at the Apple Store. I did not buy anything, but did play on the iPad. I’m no better at the air traffic controller game on a touch screen than I am with a mouse, making me believe I’ve made a good career choice there.
Played with the new iPhone, which has plenty of promise. The video is incredible. The speed is good, apps look strong and so on. Now they just have to convince everyone that antennae issue isn’t a flaw, but a feature. The first time someone calls that you don’t want to talk to? Finger over the antennae and disconnect. No more “I’m going through a tunnel!” That doesn’t work when the person on the other end knows there are no tunnels in your tri-state area.
And then there’s Facetime. It will, of course, catch on when there are enough phones in circulation. If the technology holds up there won’t even be any other way to look at this. (I’d like to be able to record Facetime, but that will come too.) So acknowledging the value and quality of the HD cameras and the opportunity that comes with Facetime I’d like to point out what is really important, the commercials.
These will be the most evocative commercials since the really good reach out and touch someone ads.
Is it a coincidence that both campaigns are for phones?
Upgraded WordPress tonight. The first step, the helpful tutorial says, is to back up your files and database. I’d assumed that WordPress was doing that for me and that all of these important messages I’ve been sharing with you were being preserved on some off-site, off-the-mainland island guarded by the mist from Lost, powered by the trees from some M. Night Shyamalan movie who were advised by aggressive ninjas amped on Red Bull and dozens of John Woo explosions.
These being important messages, and WordPress having been a free service I’d only assumed they went this extra mile. Turns out a guy named Earl, asleep in a rickety old chair leaned against a dingy wall next to the On/Off button has been serving as my backup. Earl, I read in the forums, doesn’t read none too good. But I don’t hold that against the guy. He’s got a lot of blogs to back up. It is only reasonable to expect reading comprehension to deteriorate over time and volume.
So I read on, now knowing that every moment I waited the threat to my data grew exponentially. There is no threat quite like the one you know you aren’t sure about.
The second step and the subsequent 15 steps became too much to consider this late into the evening. I found a widget that will back up my site automatically, so WordPress can do this, they just don’t offer outright. Safely backed up — I chose Email, offsite FTP, three Scandinavian children memorizing things in a limerick and a bird using a chisel and hammer — I could proceed to the next steps of the upgrade.
Which were, fortunately, incredibly easy steps. Click this, click that and you’re done.
I started playing around with the capability to host multiple blogs through 3.0, which kept me up late. Just to see if I could make it work I started an irregular snapshot photograph blog. (I back-dated a few posts, just to give it something to do.) The first few steps involved in starting that second blog using the new WordPress interface are a little more confusing than necessary, but once you get that figured out it the CMS is once again as you’ve come to know and love.
Elsewhere, there’s Tumblr, Twitter and the rest of the site. Tomorrow there will be … something. Be sure to come back and check it out.
