The Life and Times of Elliot Pike

Well, my Apple troubles are still going on with new unpleasantness every day.

• My iPhone still wont sync calendar items; and now if I make an appointment on the iPhone not only does that appointment not show up on my Mac’s iCal application, but the appointment vanishes from the iPhone as well next time I sync it.
• My iPhone unexpectedly decided to power itself down last night after I went to sleep. The disturbing thing was that I had set a wakeup alarm right before going to bed. Needless to say the phone didn’t wake me up at the appropriate time. (Fortunately, I have a freakishly-accurate clock in my brain, and I woke up on my own 3 minutes after the alarm was supposed to go off.)
• Last night my Wacom graphics tablet decided it’s driver was going to stop working. I get a crash message upon boot-up. Tried reinstalling the driver but to no avail. The only relevant system change is I installed the recent Quicktime+iTunes update a day or two ago. Anyway, the tablet had a mouse that came with it that I liked, and now I can’t use it so I had to pull out an old leftover mouse until someone comes up with a fix.

I’m not writing to suggest that Apple makes buggy products as much as I’m reaffirming the conventional wisdom: unless you are an early-adopter computer professional, never upgrade your Operating System (Windows or Mac) until at least the first major patch is released. Actually I’d suggest the first major patch or four months, whichever is later. In other words, I wouldn’t recommend people upgrade to Leopard until about Valentine’s Day next year.

Whilst I list great writers, I realize that my last post’s list of “three great writers” was incomplete.

This weekend my man has been away on a trip. We’ve been together for two months, and this trip was only the second time that we we’ve been apart. As much as we’ve struggled with some serious difficulties, I miss him incredibly, and at 11:30pm tonight I’ll be at the airport to welcome him home. In the meantime, to keep me company at home while I get paperwork and cleaning done and while I stave off a small cold (note: Zine Lozenges really do work wonders!) I broke down and bought the entire first season of The West Wing via the iTunes Music store.

It has been so comforting to be in the company of these fictional characters whom I love so much. The fantasy of having the White House filled with intelligent, moral, conscientious people is an indulgence. The cast of this show was incredible, with very few actors being anything but spectacular; but none of it would have been possible without the vision and writing of Aaron Sorkin. I loved his more recent experiment, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and I was saddened that the network didn’t give it more support.

So again, I write to tip my hat to the great storytellers of television. May they weather the personal financial impact of their strike, and may the executives of the Media Industry be reasonable and compassionate so that this strike can be short.

So the Writer’s Strike has begun. I remember the last strike, just because I’d had the theory that it was why the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation was so lame. (Doubtful. As it turns out, TNG’s first season was the year before.) But all the news outlets are suggesting that we are in for a lot of reruns and Reality Television.

So be it. I am in complete support and solidarity of the Writers Guild of America. (And that’s not just because I’m a member of the Screen Actors Guild.) I don’t think enough Americans appreciate the value of a good writer. I can name my favorite three TV writers before I can name a single noteworthy television director. (Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5; and Russell T. Davies, creator of the original (british) Queer as Folk and the man who reinvented and saved Doctor Who.

The world of television has had some really good, innovative writing lately. I used to think it was all drivel not too many years ago, but I’m been impressed. And its the story arc and the character development that creates the foundation on top of which all those stars we love create their characters and their performances.

I hope the WGA is able to negotiate a good contract that will serve television writers for the next couple decades. These people are not spoiled rich fat-cats; they are people who love television and put their souls into it. They write the material that comforts and intrigues and challenges us. So if we have to live with months of reruns and crappy shows, that’s okay by me.

I don’t know if anybody is going to believe this, but I have a confession: Apple software isn’t perfect, and lately it’s been getting worse. (more…)

This isn’t going to be the great “Where’s he been for the last two months?!?” kind of entry. But I’m going to try soon to figure out what I can write about my life. It has been eventful.

First of all, in case you are wondering with baited-breath… yes that “certain someone” is still in my life. We’ve now known each other for over 4 months, and we’ve been “boyfriends” for 2. It hasn’t been easy—in fact some of it has been a sheer living Hell—but in some ways it’s been been incredibly rewarding.

A personal confession: this is my first actual real relationship. I’ve dated and had “boyfriends” before, but only very briefly. In fact, I had this “five week curse” where every relationship would, whether by me or the other guy, get terminated at almost exactly five weeks. I’ll also say very very briefly what the “Hell” I’m referring to is: he is battling a pretty serious addiction. That’s it. I’m not going to say any more. Right now things are looking good, although the last month had been pretty rocky. But I’ve got high hopes.

Now the real reason I’m writing this blog entry: I’m just wanting to try out an Apple application that allows blog entries to be written on my computer (as opposed to using a web interface) and is supposed to interface with WordPress. We’ll see how well it works. (While I’m at it, here’s a goofy self-portrait. I’m really testing the image upload functionality.)

Update: the application sucks. That’s okay, the web interface for WordPress is pretty darned advanced. I don’t feel I’m missing much.