I have spent all of today playing with my phone. All of today. After receiving my MMS settings first thing this morning I’ve tinkered and twiddled; sending MMSs to Mike (the only other person I know with a picture phone) and setting myself up for mobile internet access.
To be perfectly honest, the mobile internet sucks. Mobile email is cool, MMS is cool, but mobile internet access is like a terrible technology leprosy or something. I’m not talking about the fact that there’s no layout or images or colour, I knew to expect a plain-text adventure, but the browser (or the server, or the technology, whoever) limits your internet experience to about 30 lines of text. Most modern sites (even the universally-accessible ones, like decaffeinated.org, zeldman.com, or webstandards.org) barely have time to get past their blurb or navigation in that many lines! The result? Zero content. How wonderful.
I’m sure that everyone surfing the net on their PocketPCs or Smartphones or whatever are chortling to themselves quite merrily right now, browsing in a semi-decent graphical browser that doesn’t limit you to 30 lines of useless shite. To to those people I say “go fuck yourselves”, even though my Mother falls into that category of hu-mans. Adding insult to injury, my bank doesn’t support mobile devices at all… so surfing the net from my phone is an officially worthless feature. Huzzah. At least I can check my email, right?
Posted by Chris Clark on April 10, 2003 at 7:41 PM
Went to Steve’s Bar last night with Shaye, both of us expecting the place to be overflowing with familiar faces (as it would be, normally). It was not. We met maybe one or two people there that we would qualify as “acquaintances” in a half-empty hotel. It would seem that:
- Winter scares away the regulars. Too cold, or somesuch.
- Everyone we know is getting “too old” for this kind of thing
Both of these possibilities scare me, since it means we’re another step closer to
clubbing. I loathe nightclubs — I hate them with a passion — hence my predisposition to bars and pubs, so any move towards that kind of activity scares me. There is, however, one more possibility that I have not accounted for.
- It’s midterm. Everyone is studying
I pray that this is the answer.
Posted by Chris Clark on April 10, 2003 at 7:58 PM
If the frequency of posts tonight isn’t an indicator already; I’m not writing any essays right now, nor have I started writing them. Both are due tomorrow — MCI101 and NET103 — yet I have barely given a thought to either. I am, have always been, and will always be a last-minute worker. Looming deadlines are the only things that scare me into work, and I’ve learned from experience that I can get it all done and still get a good mark.
Why?
As early as the tenth grade I’ve envied the “study now, party later” work ethic of my friends, I’ve heard teachers and lecturers and public speakers drone on and on about the importance of getting on top of things; not falling behind. Time and time again I’ve said “this year will be different, this year I’ll study hard and do assignments early” but I never do. Has there ever been any consequence to my actions? No. Have I ever lost anything but a night’s sleep in my under-the-clock crusades? Never. So why am I wrong? I guess I’m not, I’m just different. Different in a potentially dangerous way, but different nonetheless.
As weird as it may sound, I hope I get a truly-horrendous mark for an assignment one day and learn that I should really get on top of things earlier. One day.
Posted by Chris Clark on April 10, 2003 at 8:55 PM
Movable Type, in its extensive set of configuratory mechanicry (Wow! Two made-up words used to explain nothing-in-particular!), has the option to set your time zone in relation to UTC (which I’m guessing is the new way to say GMT). This is fine, or course, but things fall apart when you look at “West Australian Time”: which is apparently UTC+7 hours. Actually, West Australian time is UTC+8 hours, but thanks for checking.
Instead, I opt for China Coast Time… UTC+8 and things get funky around this time of year when the rest of the world (or at least the US) starts observing daylight savings time… something we don’t do here in the west. What’s a boy to do? I guess I’ll just set it back to “West Australian Time” and hope that Ben and Mena see fit to adjust things back in Movable Type. What does it really matter to you what time I post?
Posted by Chris Clark on April 10, 2003 at 9:37 PM