I Love <3

I simply adore running at night. In Indianapolis it scared the crap out of me (just look at the crime rate and you’ll see why). Last night I ran, talked to friend via bluetooth, and just enjoyed the scenery. Wisconsin can be breathtakingly beautiful at times. Next time I’m going to do some long exposures at night. They can be some of the most awesome pics. Have I mentioned I love Madison?

Part Three: More Blackberry Pearl Applications

As I find good apps to add to my Blackberry, I’m going to post about it in this blog… and this time I’ve found some REALLY good apps!

Soft Reset – allows you to do a reset of your phone instead of having to do a battery pull. If you’re wondering why I wouldn’t just pull the battery out? Try it with a hard case on and get back to me. I like it a lot, but it seems like you have to go through too many steps to make this happen. Soft Reset requires you to go through 3 or 4 steps, and IMO, it should only be two… click the button, “are you sure?”, then reboot. I’m going to try Quick Pull too, just to see if it’s any quicker. You can get SoftReset on your phone here or for a desktop install here.

Palringo – is a multi-platform instant messaging client that enables you to talk to all your contacts, whether they’re using AOL® Instant Messenger®, Google Talk™, Yahoo!® Messenger®, Gadu-Gadu, ICQ®, Jabber® or Windows Live. You can download it on your computer here or on your phone here. You can talk via IM, take pictures and send them in IM, or even record your voice and send it! This is, by far, the best instant messaging app (not to mention being one of the only free multi-platforms) I’ve ever used on my phone.

Iheartradio – I’ve talked about Slacker in a previous post, and I’m reviewing Pandora today as well, but they both lack something. Maybe I’m old school, but in this era of iPods, endless playlists, and podcast time shifting, I miss over the air (OTA) radio. Maybe it’s hearing another human voice, or the fact that it’s live, but I love it. I’m also a big fan of Air America Radio. Now with the IHeartRadio app, I can get my fix! The blackberry application has 150 stations steamed in AAC format and allows bookmarking of stations and tagging songs. You can get here.

MobiPocketReader- is an ebook reader for your phone. You can buy books online at places like e-Books or Amazon, but I found a lot of free books at Project Gutenberg. Just today I downloaded The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Ulysses by James Joyce, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, and The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf. The books at GP are public domain, but there are a lot of older claissics there that I haven’t read.

Tiny Twitter and Twibble – I’ve reviewed/used twitterberry for a while, so I’m itching to find something different/better/more user friendly. Today I downloaded both Tiny Twitter and Twibble. So far, I’d say that Tiny Twitter’s layout sucks, but functionality is good. Twibble bills itself as a twitter client with GPS abilities. I’m not sure if I want to twitter my GPS location, but I’m willing to try it out. So far the GPS function isn’t working on my Pearl. In the next installment of this topic, I’ll give you the results of trying both of them. If you want to try them yourself, you can get Twibble OTA here and Tiny Twitter OTA here.

Blackberry App World – Is Research in Motion’s answer to the iTunes App Store. So far, I’m loving it. I downloaded the new Pandora version for Blackberry. I had been using Slacker, but I already have a setup at Pandora from years of listening. Both Slacker and Pandora use ratings of songs to find new music. My only issue with Slacker is that lately it’s been starting up on its own. You can get the new version of Pandora at their website or you can just download it from Blackberry App World (BAW). My first swing around the BAW block and I’m already impressed. You can look for apps (many of them free), look at screenshots, and even read reviews of the applications.

Adding (and especially running) a lot of the previous applications at one time may kill your battery life. I also use my pearl as a modem for my Macbook so my battery life can really suffer. I found a pretty easy answer to this. I bought a Energizer “Energi To Go” recharging device. Combined with my Rayovac PS 5-B, I have a quick and easy way to keep my phone charged. The cool thing is that I bought a cell phone charger at Pilot has adapters and the one that fits my phone also fits the energizer charger. So I can keep 4 batteries in my purse and run my phone for very long time, even when I’m multi-tasking.

If you have any applications you just can’t live without, please tell me about them in the comments!

Nickelback and The Roadrunner

I’m laughing my ass off at one of my favorite artists, Amanda Palmer. Recently she wrote a song called “Drop Me” and dedicated it to her record label. You can see it here:

I’ve never liked them myself since I joined one of their Street teams and they spammed me with stuff that wasn’t related to the Dresden Dolls.

Reading Amand Palmer’s blog has allowed me to see more into the life of a traveling artist. It isn’t a life that holds as much glitter as it once did. She not only exposes herself in her music, but on her blog. So many people in the music business try to do a blog or a journal, but no one follows them. Usually the die an ugly, abandoned death. But Amanda breathes as much life into her blog as she does into her music.

And I really have to respect someone that doesn’t sacrifice their art on the alter of popular culture. Her actions in relation to her art remind me of the movie, V for Vendetta.

Specifically:

“It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and apologised to no-one. I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch but one. An inch – it is small and it is fragile, and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.”

If you’re wondering what she means, she’s talking about her self respect and her beliefs. In the end, it’s the only thing in your life that cannot be taken from you without your consent. I’m glad to see Amanda Palmer is protecting her inch. That is always a beautiful thing to see.

I’ve Found My Rent

A few years ago, I was watching the movie Rent and a line from the movie hit me hard:

In all the places I’ve ever lived, and of all the places and times, I’ve never felt like I’ve had the kind of family that is portrayed in Rent. It’s not a family of genetics, but a chosen family. A family of friends, that makes your life better, stronger, fuller and ok, in my world…more perverted. :p
Right now they’re talking about the origins of the word asshat (see also asshelmet)  while watching the Rent extra DVD.

I really need to find a job soon. I don’t want to move away from this. It feels like home.

I’m grateful.

My Bike and the Grocery Store Trip

I rode to the grocery store today. I am amazed at the amount of stuff I got in my backpack and on the back of my bike today. This is the list of things I bought:

5 blocks of cheese
1 pound of turkey breast
1 package of smoked sausage
3 pounds of turkey breast
1 box of sweet freedom fudge lites
3 packages of hot dogs (1 pound package)
1 pound of cheddar curds cheese
4 packages of ground turkey (1 pound each)
1 quart of plain dill pickles
1 package of cream cheese 8 oz.
1 package of bacon (1 pound)
1 package of broccoli (12 ounces)
1 package of salad (10 oz)
1 can of whipped cream (7 oz)
1 bag of cooked shrimp (1 pound)
2 containers of Smart Balance margarine (15 ounces)
2 bags of shredded cheese (8 oz bags)
1 can of Pam cooking spray (6 oz)
1 container of salt (1 lb)
1 box of cheer detergent (3 lb box)
12 swiffer refills
2 bags of Russell Stover sugar free chocolate truffles

I had my backpack stuffed and the back of my bike carried all the stuff that wouldn’t fit.

Of course, I keep myself occupied, listening to music. And I can check my email on the road….

Hypocrisy or Christianity?

I have to snicker a tiny bit at a blog post over at Lighting The Way Worldwide. It’s titled “Emerging Christianity with Homosexuality?” and it’s from a post by Linda Harvey (of MissionAmerica.com fame). She writes:

“The ‘Emergent’ church needs to be on everyone’s radar. Their ideas and approach are poison. This is NOT authentic, biblical Christianity, and it’s becoming more evident all the time. They are truly ‘coming out of the closet’ and unashamedly advocating heresy.

What’s amusing is that this photograph is from the Lighting The Way blog:

and this:

The pictures on the Home for Christmas post are like a “Where’s Waldo” for pagan symbolism. As far as the Christmas tree goes, Christianity Today writes of the early church fathers:

“The evergreen tree was an ancient symbol of life in the midst of winter. Romans decorated their houses with evergreen branches during the New Year, and ancient inhabitants of northern Europe cut evergreen trees and planted them in boxes inside their houses in wintertime. Many early Christians were hostile to such practices. The second-century theologian Tertullian condemned those Christians who celebrated the winter festivals, or decorated their houses with laurel boughs in honor of the emperor:

‘Let them over whom the fires of hell are imminent, affix to their posts, laurels doomed presently to burn: to them the testimonies of darkness and the omens of their penalties are suitable. You are a light of the world, and a tree ever green. If you have renounced temples, make not your own gate a temple.’ “

As a former believer, I can respect Christian doctrine that goes against my own life choices. What I cannot respect is someone that speaks out of both sides of their mouth. Christ said:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. ” Matthew 23:27-28

Maybe Linda Harvey should watch out for the gay and the “emergent” pagan evangalists that have infiltrated her support network and her church!

Updated: Another Reason To Love My Blackberry

My best friend having an iPhone has solidified my thoughts in my previous post about owning a Blackberry over the iPhone. Here are two reasons why

1. The iPhone has no expandable memory. I can buy multiple 16GB cards and smoke the iPhone’s memory into the ground. With the iPhone you’re stuck with 16GB for the life of your phone.
2. Probably the biggest problem I have with the iPhone is that without jailbreaking the phone you can’t run multiple apps.

A new application I’ve found that I’m loving on my Pearl is the Pandora like  Slacker Radio. With Slacker’s station caching on my phone there’s no reason for me to fill my phone with music from my library.

Thinking about Slacker is what made write this post. I like the fact that I can listen to music, read and receive email, and update twitter from my phone and never have to stop any of them to run the other.

The biggest hit I’ve heard about comparing the Storm to iPhone is that the Storm doesn’t have Wi-fi. I’m sorry, but isn’t that a tad redundant? If I have 3G, why do I need wi-fi?

For my lifestyle my Blackberry fits me perfectly.

My Top BlackBerry Pearl Applications

I’m kind of defensive of my Blackberry Pearl 8130. Listening to the most recent episode of TWIT, they bashed the Blackberry, saying that they aren’t really “smartphones” and that there aren’t a lot of good apps for Blackberry phones.

Maybe it’s a Ford (APPLE) vs. Chevy (Blackberry) kind of debate, but I love my Blackberry Pearl more than any phone I’ve ever owned. I wouldn’t own an iPhone because of its screen size. I had a T-mobile Wing (HTC 4350) and I ended up breaking the screen. I’m hard on phones (I end up dropping them a lot) and I don’t need that much visual real estate. With a wide screen portable device like the Wing there isn’t really a good way to protect the device and it still be usable. Besides, I have a MacBook that I can use if I want to watch movies or visit sites while I’m out (I have Verizon Broadband Internet through my Blackberry).

Really the only downside of owning a Blackberry is that there isn’t really a viable Blackberry apps store. But the suggestion that there aren’t good Blackberry apps is just bullshit. Here are my favorites:

Blackberry Media Sync – This is one of the most important applications for me. I listen to a lot of podcasts and music on the go. You can use up to an 8 GB microSD card which will hold 117 hours of music (at 128 Kbps)! That’s more than enough space for me.

Media Sync is a part of the newest update to Blackberry’s Desktop Manager. You simply make a playlist in iTunes and then open up the desktop manager and sync the playlist and the music on it to your phone. It’s just that easy!

Remember The Milk- Remember the milk is a task manager that is adaptable in many ways. You can add it to Gmail, Google Calendar or you can put MilkSync right on your Blackberry.

VZ Navigator- I’ve thought about buying a separate device for my car… but WHY? One less device is a good thing. Some might argue that the cost, $10 dollars a month, is a bit extreme. But I’ve not seen a good GPS system under 150 dollars. That’s 15 months worth of service of VZ Navigator. In 15 months the software will be better and I’ll have a newer phone (my two year contract will be up then). I see it like a lease vs. buy option with cars.  The cost of a new device (if I bought a GPS device I’d most likely buy a new one every 2-3 years to keep up with technology) would be close to what I’m paying for having the service and doing it with one device.

Google Suite- Where do I start? Google Suite takes all the good Blackberry products they have and roll them into one. Recently upgraded, Gmail runs fast and light. While I use VZ navigator for trips, I use Google Maps for finding stores or restaurants around me. The voice search function is very useful while on the road. A caveat though, when I tried using it like a GPS, I would get lost. It’s great on showing you the way if you know the area, but otherwise forget it.

Facebook- I LOVE this application! I can keep up with my friends anywhere I go! This is especially good when I’m in line at the store, at the doctor’s office, or any other place where I’m alone and have time to fill. It’s a lot more interesting than reading 20 month old Good Housekeeping articles! I can update my status (although I use twitter and the facebook/Twitter application to post my tweets to facebook as status updates), post pictures to my facebook albums, write on my friends walls, and more. If you like MySpace better, there’s an application for that too.

Twitter(berry)- This is the application I use to post my updates to twitter/facebook. It’s pretty minimilistic, but it does exactly what I need it to do… post tweets.

Opera- If you don’t like Blackberry’s web browser, Opera’s web mobile web browser rocks the house.

My Alarm Blackberry’s default alarm clock is lacking, but this free app does the trick with 6 different alarms, multiple snooze settings, and it supports multiple alarm rings (including midi and mp3s).

Wikipedia this application brings Wikipedia easily to your Blackberry.  Any time you are just dying to know about Peaches and Herb, it’s right at your fingertips (hey don’t laugh, there was a debate at work if it was Peaches and Cream or Peaches and Herb).

StopWatch – this application is good if you’re a runner. I use it to time my 2 mile runs. I set it, put on music, and let the road stretch out before me. You can read a full review of it here. Like the Twitterberry application, it simply does one thing and it does it well without a heavy memory footprint.

Orb – You can use Orb to remotely serve content to your phone. A good use for this is steaming content from Sirius (Usirius)  or XM (Uxm) with the directions for Sirius here and XM here. You can stream just about any kind of media stored on your home PC. For a full review of what Orb can do, read this review.

These are just a few examples of the useful applications that are out there. Granted you can’t play too many games on a Blackberry, but that’s what an Xbox is for.
The last but most important reason that I prefer my Blackberry phone over an iPhone is the cellular service. I’ve NEVER had a cell phone that would keep a call on an elevator, but my Blackberry on the Verizon network does just that. In fact, I’ve probably could count on one hand the number of dropped calls (in the last year) I’ve had with Verizon.

So to Leo Laporte and crew, you go ahead and pay a shitload of cash to AT&T and Apple. I’ll be rocking the road with my inexpensive but efficient and durable Blackberry Pearl (8130).  While you’re upping your nose at Blackberry, I’ll be over here counting my cash.

Great Balls of Turkey!

Late last Wednesday I started my trek across Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin to Madison for Thanksgiving. About 2 AM on Thanksgiving morning  I stopped at a 7/11 in Huntley, Illinois to take a restroom break and to get a java refill. When I brought my coffee and snacks up to the counter the cashier tried to make small talk, and said: “So did you just come from the Turkey Testicle Festival? ”

I said “excuse me? Are you joking?” He said, “No, tonight was the Huntley Turkey Testicle Festival, right down the road.” I started to walk away and turned to him and said, “I’m really sorry I missed that! How unfortunate!” as I walked out the door.

Who the hell else but me would stop in a town with a Turkey Testicle Festival?  What are the odds? Ethan and I talked about it on the Radical Trannies and now he’s saying he wants to broadcast live from the festival. Apparently it’s quite the event. You can read about it here and here. Life can be really amusing sometimes… especially when turkey testicle festivals are involved. The only thing that could of made it more amusing would have been Sarah Palin emceeing the event.

Anyone hungry?

Hormones in Low Gear

I took my last estrogen injection two weeks before the Democratic National Convention. I kind of planned it that way, due to my fear of blood clots (due to my age, estrogen therapy, and the change in elevation). When I got back to Indianapolis I called my pharmacy to get a refill (I buy my estrogen at a deep discount from a company in Nevada) and they told me that they’re having issues with my state and that my order would be delayed. I also was getting more and more close on cash. I actually had to overdraft a couple things to have enough food to last me till payday, so I put buying my medications on hold. So I’ve went for roughly a month without my estrogen injection and a couple weeks without my testosterone blocker (Spironolactone).

The effects have been invisible to most people, but they’re driving me crazy! It’s been amazing how fast my body hair grows, how the mornings become distracting, and how much more my mind is focused on physical things.

I think every transsexual goes through a period of questioning their choices, wondering if they’ve made the right ones. This break from HRT has definitely removed any of those questions/doubts. It’s actually made me think of speeding up having an orchiectomy. I don’t ever want to feel like this again.