Jonas Wepeel

Helio/Virgin sent me an Ocean 2. The Ocean 2 is basically the same as its predecessor with a few minor upgrades. The design is a bit sleeker and not as bloated as original.

The screen is noticably brighter and the keypad layout both in landscape and portrait mode is more tactile and responsive. The Ocean 2’s main key is also touch sensitive but i found it pretty worthless.  Aesthetics  aside, the software answers all the questions that dumbfounded the first generation Ocean user. The text messaging finally keeps up with 2009. Its no longer a one way street, now displaying what I have sent and the reply as a conversation. Pictures and video can be transerred from the 1gig built onboard memory to the external effortlessly. The 3mp camera is pretty basic, but not to shabby though I miss the flash that duals as a flashlight. Previous ocean users will be delighted to know that you can finally mulit-task….sort of. You can now play music in the background while texting or browsing the new tabbed broswer (but i go with opera anyways) without the halting of the media system. The speakers arent loud as I had wished but i can finally youtube in the car without having to strain to hear the audio. The Ocean 2 now has a dedicated media button to directly access your mp3 or videos, and a swtich to toggle to the silent/vibrate mode. All the buttons are backlit more vibrantly and the helio logo light up in red while charging then to blue when fully charged or in use.  These small minor changes in hard and software aren’t groundbreaking or won’t be enough to attract new customers but its nice for exsisting Helio members to have a phone that looks like it could actually belong in 2007. Yes, 2007 that was not a typo. The iphone set the bar pretty high leaving many companies in limbo.I know helio lost close to 100 billion dollars this past year, they were force to “merge” (buyout) with Virgin Mobile and their R&D is suffering, but come on guys you can do better. In the end, the Ocean 2 is what the orginal ocean should have been. But at an agressive monthly plan of $65 that includes 500 min, unlimited weekends,nights starting at 7, 3G internet and texting, this phone can’t be beat.

This past week we hit the road to eat the famed local pizzeria called Zachery’s.  This Zagat rated and now “Tony” approved restaurant is the possibly the closest thing people on the west coast will get to an authentic Chicago style deep dish pizza. We packed our bags, loaded the car and began our journey.

Our first stop? Tejon Ranch, pristine land of snow as far as the eye can see. We had to stop there to…..

Melt snow.

I insisted that we stop by Andersen’s. The home of the famed pea soup. Why?

because i was here years ago and never got to try it.

Our hotel in the heart of Tenderloin. Hotel Bijou. I thought i was gonna get syphilis just from looking at the walls. The room was 40 bucks a night and parking was 36 dollars a day…..what!?

The view of the bay from the cable car. Tim was amazed by the pointy building.

At fisherman’s wharf. Nothing special here…..

…..Except for this.

And this. Garlic clam chowder with garlic fries and fried prawns. excellent.

Crabs.

I think some of them were dead.

I was gonna buy some chocolate for the family, but i realized that a bag of eight pieces costs around 22 bucks. They sell the same at walgreens for 5 bucks.

We finally made it. The sole purpose of the trip. Everything else was a by-product of our desire to eat here. It was so good we had it twice.

The thin crust. O-mazing.

The coveted deep dish. Words cannot describe.

Me and Rich had about 12 slices. Tim only a measley 3 1/2. He is a lightweight.

This sums up the trip.

Amazing voice.

Beautiful.

50mm 1.8 ISO 400

This is a new audio-visual synthesizer that stems from the same brain as the creator of electroplankton on DS console. But this isn’t a game or a toy, albeit it does look like an hi-tech magna brite, it packs a serious punch. Along with the price tag ($800-1200).

Amazing isn’t it. If this is the future of music, I like where its headed.

John Updike

March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009

featured news on cnn. Thought it was funny…

Thrift store MP3 player contains secret military shit files.

• military files on a used MP3 player
• Man bought player for $9 a year ago at an Oklahoma thrift store
• Owner says he’ll happily hand over the player to the U.S. military if he is asked

It sounds like the opening line to a bad joke. And this case was a bad joke — for the Pentagon. Chris Ogle of New Zealand was in Oklahoma about a year ago when he bought a used MP3 player from a thrift store for $9. A few weeks ago, he plugged it into his computer to download a song, and he instead discovered confidential U.S. military files. “The more I look at it, the more I see, and the less I think I should be,” Ogle said with a nervous laugh in an interview with TVNZ. The files included the home addresses, Social Security numbers and cell phone numbers of U.S. soldiers. The player also included what appeared to be mission briefings and lists of equipment deployed to hot spots in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most of the information appears to date to 2005. The New Zealand journalist who first reported the story was able to contact at least one of the soldiers by dialing a phone number found in the files. He hung up once she explained why she was calling. Pentagon officials told CNN that they are aware of the MP3 player, but can’t talk about it until investigators confirm that the information came from the U.S. Department of Defense. “The government isn’t doing a good job of protecting the information that it collects,” said Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. Despite government efforts to protect sensitive information, this is a growing problem, privacy experts say. Two years ago, the Department of Veterans Affairs lost track of a laptop with the personal information of millions of soldiers. And computer hard drives with classified military information have been found for sale at street markets in Afghanistan.

“When you can identify American personnel, when you have their names, their home address, their cell phone numbers, you put people in a dangerous position,” Rotenberg said. In this case, the personal information for several hundred soldiers landed in friendly hands. Ogle told CNN the MP3 player is being kept in a safe place and he will happily turn it over to U.S. military officials if they ask for it. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/01/27/confidential.mp3.player/index.html