Wanda Sykes on Jay Leno's show

On why most refugees refused to board the cruise ships the government brought in as shelters.

"We made that mistake once before. They didn't want to go to sleep in New Orleans and wake up back in Africa."

Wireless Broadband?

I've been thinking about canceling my Verizon PDA data plan that I use on my Samsung i600 smartphone. The reason is that the 1X data is only useful for emails and not much else. Since I travel with a laptop 100% of the time, it would make more sense to get an EV-DO card and the broadband data service ($59.99 per month.) I've heard the Kyocera KPC-650 card has the best reliability and throughput...this from a Verizon Wireless System Performance Engineer (aka Test Man.)

Believe it or not, I actually still call Verizon Wireless customer service every now and then. I've found on my monthly calls to them several comforting certainties:
1. I'll be put on hold a minimum of 5 minutes after navigating their unclear voice prompts and end up hitting 0 anyway.
2. The rep won't have a clue about wireless data. In fact, I explained the difference between EV-DO and 1XRTT just the other day to someone who thanked me with an "Oh" of dismissal.
3. There will be a new rate plan they'll be happy to sign me up for, in exchange for a 2 year contract extension.

The only thing worse than their phone support is their store support as this guy recently found.

A Poverty of Thought

I thought this column A Poverty of Thought by George Will highlighted some glaringly obvious hypocrisies from both sides regarding Hurricane Katrina's impact in New Orleans.

Dinner on the beach

We had a wonderful dinner on the beach last night at our hotel restaurant. The meal included five courses and was served by our own private waitress (Virginia, from Jamaica.) The food and sunset were so awesome we finished two bottles of wine then went walking along the beach, hoping to see some sea turtles hatch (but no luck.)

Hurricane Emily

This is coming to you from Eagle Beach in Aruba. Hurricane Emily passed this way early this morning. Around 7 am, there were some strong winds and pouring rain but nothing too extreme. It is now 2:50 in the afternoon and I'm sitting under a palm hut on the beach. The sun is out and I can't take any more of it today.

The only effects from the storm is the surf. The waves have been about 5-6 ft high today and they've been slamming right into the shore. They're strong enough to knock me off my feet. In fact, I tried body surfing one and it ground me into the sand chest-first. It scraped a hole about 5 inches across in my sunburned skin, kind of like road-rash. I tried to stay in but the salt water was too irritating. Now I know about 1/100th of the pain a burn victim must feel.

Hi Tech

What's amazing is that I'm sitting on the beach in Aruba, watching the Tour De France live on my PC via a Wi-Fi connection. Lance is still the overall leader although Vinokourov had a massive ride today. He attacked at 28km and won the stage! He was ahead by over 3 minutes going over the Col Du Galibier. I guess he was pretty upset about getting spanked yesterday.

The only problem I'm having is that my laptop battery is about to die. Go figure.

Hello from Aruba! Here is a look at some palm trees outside our hotel room. The ocean is just beyond the trees to the right. It is morning here and my lens had a little dew on it. I'll post more later!
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