After three days I have absolutely no issues with my iPhone 4. The reception is fine (I am using a bumper).
It is remarkably faster than my previous 3G. The camera is much improved. The resolution is superb.
I would buy it again without hesitation.
Indeed, I expect to in 2012 when iPhone 6 comes out.
I wasn’t going to mention this at all, but The Cleveland Plain Dealer gets it right.
Click the image to read the caption.
Thanks to Nora for the link.
UPDATE: Here’s another one.
“That’s their prerogative. But they’re full of it. Their position on marriage is about as coherent as their position on Afghanistan.”
Andrew Sullivan writing about the Obama Administration.
First posted here six years ago today. I wrote the Bonnie Raitt review in 2002. I have made two minor corrections to the post.
Sadly, the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater is scheduled to be torn down in another incredibly stupid and insensitive action by the Santa Fe Indian School, which controls the property, and the All Indian Pueblo Council, which controls the school.
NewMexiKen spent late afternoon and early evening Thursday on the Plaza in Santa Fe, the nation’s oldest capital city (1610). It had been a year or possibly two since I’d been there (though it is one of America’s premier tourist attractions and I live just an hour away). I am always ready to dislike Santa Fe — and it’s always like a new love when I get there. Yes, it has the so-so affected galleries and their so-so affected clientele; and yes it has too many places to buy T-shirts (I got two) and laser art. Still, the setting itself is authentic — like me, people have been drinking tequila or something like it on the plaza for nearly 400 years. And weather! Yesterday evening was stunning. Low 80s, clear, with a few white clouds, slight breeze. Blue sky that North Carolinians can’t even imagine.
Two years ago NewMexiKen saw Bonnie Raitt in Santa Fe at the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater (four days after seeing the Eagles in Albuquerque). Here’s the review I wrote then:
Saturday was entirely different. The Paolo Soleri is an outdoor amphitheater behind the Santa Fe Indian School. It seats maybe 2,500 and most of the seating is unreserved. We had reserved ninth row center seats for just $45 each, close enough to see the welt on the performer’s forehead after she whacked herself with a guitar.
Bonnie Raitt, 52, has also been recording and performing since 1971. She came into her own in 1989 when she won the Grammies for Album of the Year (Nick of Time); Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female; Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female, and Best Traditional Blues Recording (for a duet with John Hooker on I’m in the Mood). She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two years ago.
Unlike the Eagles (excepting Joe Walsh) Bonnie Raitt was an entertainer, not just a musician. She had a lot of banter with the crowd, giving every impression she was having a great time. “You can leave if you have too, I’ll understand, but I’m staying a little longer.” It actually appeared as if her third encore was genuine; that is, a salute to a particularly appreciative audience. She had a guitar player and bassist behind her that have been with her for more than 20 years, plus a great new keyboard player and a fine drummer. She included all the essential hits, except sadly not Runaway, but a fair number of new songs as well from her new album, Silver Lining.
Bonnie Raitt is a great guitarist. I think I wasn’t as aware of that as I should have been before last night. She’s got the blues down when she needs to, and she can rock. It was wonderful to be close enough to see the playing; close enough to count the picks on her fingers (and not on a big screen – there are no screens at Paolo Soleri). Her voice was great, though she complained a little about some smoke from a concession early in the performance – it was like being at someone’s backyard charcoal barbeque for a while. She commented she preferred the “smoke” at Red Rocks (near Denver), which she claimed had been thick enough to make her high by the third song. She may have been particularly chatty Saturday night, as she needed to catch her breath between numbers at Santa Fe’s 7000 feet. Whatever, it was welcome and fun.
The Santa Fe Birkenstock crowd was interesting on its own. Seldom have I seen so many Earth people this side of Fourth Avenue, Tucson. I was expecting the glitterati of Santa Fe I suppose, and they are probably waiting for the Santa Fe Opera to begin its season.
Nevertheless, we did have one celebrity in the audience, two rows down, and five seats over. Jane Fonda, an apparent friend of Ms. Raitt. She looked good, but not unlike any other 64-year-old, exceptionally rich woman might. No Birkenstocks on Jane.
… was renamed on this date in 1952. It had been first designated Coronado International Memorial, but an adjoining Mexican memorial was never created.
“As a result of this expedition, what has been truly characterized by historians as one of the greatest land expeditions the world has known, a new civilization was established in the great American Southwest” reported the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1939. “To commemorate permanently the explorations of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado…would be of great value in advancing the relationship of the United States and Mexico upon a friendly basis of cultural understanding,” stated E. K. Burlew, Acting Secretary of the Interior in 1940. It would “stress the history and problems of the two countries and would encourage cooperation for the advancement of their common interests.”
First posted two years ago today — so I guess Oliver Sacks is 77 today.
“I still do not have a computer, but having resisted an iPod as long as I could, I have now succumbed. On my iPod at the moment I have nothing but Bach, but I have all of Bach …”
Oliver Sacks, who turns 75 today. He has the entire 157-CD Bach set on his iPod.
Sacks has recently resumed piano lessons after a 60-year break.
English and American troops under British Major General Edward Braddock were routed by French and Indian forces near Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) on July 9th in 1755. The leading colonial officer, George Washington, had two horses shot out from under him, his coat torn by bullets and his hat shot off, but — as you may have heard — he survived.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Not really. It’s the Sweetie with the Dragon arm painting. Photo of Sofie’s arm taken last Saturday at the farmer’s market in Louisville, Colorado, with an iPhone 3G.
It sure seems exciting.
1998 Netherlands vs. Argentina, Dutch commentary by Jack van Gelder.
Via kottke.
Tuned in the Rockies game vs. the Cardinals last night. (In Albuquerque you get the Rockies on DirecTV. You get the lamentable Diamondbacks on Comcast.) The Rockies had come from being down 0-5 to tie the game with three runs in the 8th.
It was 7-7 in the bottom of the 9th when the Cardinals brought in Evan MacLane to pitch. It was MacLane’s major league debut (after 8 seasons in the minors).
I was torn. I wanted the Rockies to win, but — ahh! — it’s MacLane’s first appearance in the big leagues. His mom may be watching.
I hope not. Chris Iannetta hit MacLane’s sixth major league pitch 416 feet into the left field seats for a walk-off Rockies victory.
This isn’t Today’s Photo. That may or may not follow later. This is just a Rockies fan’s photo from Purple Row the Colorado Rockies blog.
Take that, Karen. 🙂
“We have been dealing with a lot of imperfect apologies recently, but this one hits a new level of unsatisfactory.”
Gail Collins referring to the B.S. from Levi Johnston.
Ms. Collins has several other LOL lines that I started to put here. Just go read the whole thing.
Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew knows what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.
To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC).
Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning
Via kottke.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average had an intra-day low of 40.56 on July 8th in 1932, its Great Depression bottom. It closed that day at 41.22.
34 months earlier (September 3, 1929) it had been at 381.17; the drop was 89.3%.
The Dow did not reach that September 1929 level again in inflation-adjusted value until 1954.
Today is the birthday
… of Anjelica Huston. The third generation Oscar winner is 59. Anjelica won the best supporting actress Oscar for Prizzi’s Honor; she has two other nominations. Her father John was nominated for 15 writing, directing or acting Oscars, winning director and writing for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Grandfather Walter was nominated four times for acting Oscars, winning the supporting award for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
… of journalist and author Anna Quindlen, 58.
She wanted to be a fiction writer. But straight out of college, she got hired by the New York Post, and a few years later, by The New York Times. She was so successful that a lot of people thought she was in line to be deputy editor of the paper. She really wanted to write fiction, and had been trying all along during her tenure at the Times — she managed to publish two novels while working full time and raising kids. But she didn’t have enough time to do both, so in 1995, she quit to become a full-time writer.
… of Kevin Bacon. He’s 52. And no, Kevin Bacon has never been nominated for an Oscar. He’s only a few degrees of separation however, from many who have.
Steve Lawrence is 75 and Jerry Vale is 78. Or vice versa, I forget.
Jeffrey Tambor is 66. Toby Keith is 49. (I like that bar too, Toby.) Joan Osborne is 48. Billy Crudup is 42. Beck is 40.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, was born in Zurich, Switzerland on this date in 1926. The Writer’s Almanac informed us in 2007:
She was the first medical professional to argue that dying is a natural process, and that patients who are terminally ill should not be forced to fight the dying process every step of the way. …
Her book On Death and Dying (1969) helped start the hospice movement, which has since spread around the world. She also introduced the now-famous concept of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Louis Jordan was born on this date in 1908.
“In the Forties, bandleader Louis Jordan pioneered a wild – and wildly popular – amalgam of jazz and blues with salty, jive-talking humor. The music played by singer/saxophonist Jordan and his Tympany Five got called “jump blues” or “jumpin’ jive,” and it served as a precursor to the rhythm & blues and rock and roll of the Fifties.
John D. Rockefeller was born on this date in 1839. The world’s first billionaire, Rockefeller essentially retired from Standard Oil in 1911. Even so, his taxable income in 1918 was $33,000,000 and his personal worth was estimated at more than $800,000,000. By then, he had already donated about $500 million to charitable causes. Rockefeller died in 1937 at age 97. Ron Chernow has written a recent highly-regarded biography, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
Nelson Rockefeller, grandson of John D., was born on his grandfather’s birthday in 1908. Rockefeller was governor of New York 1959-1973 and vice president 1974-1977. He died in 1979. NewMexiKen once attended a conference hosted by Rockefeller and saw him stirring his coffee with the temple of his eyeglasses. It was kind of endearing.
CNN yesterday ended the 20-year career of Octavia Nasr, its Atlanta-based Senior Middle East News Editor, because of a now-deleted tweet she wrote on Sunday upon learning of the death of one of the Shiite world’s most beloved religious figures: “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah . . . . One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.” That message spawned an intense fit of protest from Far Right outlets, Thought Crime enforcers, and other neocon precincts, and CNN quickly (and characteristically) capitulated to that pressure by firing her.
Go read the whole Greenwald essay. It’ll get your blood circulating.
And try and name one mainstream journalist fired for expressing right-wing views.
“According to a new study on your ballooning bottom, Colorado, America’s fittest state, has more adult obesity now (19.1%) than Mississipi, America’s fattest state (33.8%), did in 1991 (15.7%).”
There are many of us who have no shame about our obsession with Lisbeth Salander, the tattooed, nose-ringed, bisexual computer hacker whom the late Swedish novelist Stieg Larsson placed at the center of his three posthumous bestsellers, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Given that, the prospect of a film version of the second book is a cause for excitement. It’s a shame that the second film, directed by Daniel Alfredson, lacks the stylistic flair and driving energy that Niels Arden Oplev brought to the film rendition of the first book. But Noomi Rapace, who became an international star in the role of Lisbeth, is back in action, and she’s spectacular.
The first film is available on Netflix streaming — in Swedish with English subtitles.
One of the two Sandia Peak Tramway cars beginning its 2.7 mile, 3,819 feet rise to 10,378 feet above sea level. The car holds 50 people (55 without the water tank). Unedited iPhone 4 photo taken at 7:14 this evening. Click image for larger version.
“Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed into law one of the more controversial bills from the recent legislative session, one allowing guns to be carried into houses of worship.”
GULF OF MEXICO . . . – At a time when many thought that news out of the Gulf of Mexico couldn’t get any worse, BP announced today that the oil in the Gulf needs to be changed every six months.
“The oil will need to be changed every six months or every 15,000 lies,” said the BP spokesman. “Whatever comes sooner.”
Let’s go to the tape:
Kissinger: They’re blaming the CIA.
Nixon: Why the hell would we assassinate him?
Kissinger: Well, (a) we couldn’t. We’re—
Nixon: Yeah.
Kissinger: CIA’s too incompetent to do it. You remember—
Nixon: Sure, but that’s the best thing. [Unclear].
Kissinger: —when they did try to assassinate somebody, it took three attempts—
Nixon: Yeah.
Kissinger: —and he lived for three weeks afterwards.
The Case Against Kissinger Deepens, Continued—By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine)
“Other Americans take pride in the performance of their country’s soccer, although — given America’s huge size and terrible record — this is a bit like taking pride in your college debate team fighting the local elementary school squad to a draw.”
Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige was born 104 years ago today. A huge star in the Negro Leagues, Paige began pitching in 1926 and was the oldest major league rookie ever when he joined the Cleveland Indians at age 42. Paige pitched in his last major league game in 1965 (at age 59).
In the barnstorming days, he pitched perhaps 2,500 games, completed 55 no-hitters and performed before crowds estimated at 10 million persons in the United States, the Caribbean and Central America. He once started 29 games in one month in Bismarck, N.D., and he said later that he won 104 of the 105 games he pitched in 1934.
By the time Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 as the first black player in the majors, Mr. Paige was past 40. But Bill Veeck, the impresario of the Cleveland club, signed him to a contract the following summer, and he promptly drew crowds of 72,000 in his first game and 78,000 in his third game. (The New York Times)
Paige first published his Rules for Staying Young in 1953. This version is from his autobiography published in 1962, Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever.
In 1865 at Fort McNair, Mary E. Surratt, Lewis Payne, David E. Herold and George A. Atzerodt were executed for their part in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy.
Alexander Gardner photo from the Library of Congress. Click for larger version.