Admirers of the iPhone prototype at MacWorld:

Quote of the day:

Wow, it’s, like, the Mona Lisa or something!

The Apple IIc, circa 1984:

Photo courtesy digiTofu

Setting: December 2006, John F. Kennedy International Airport. Janna takes out her trusty PowerBook to see whether she can get a free wireless signal (ha!). An upper middle class man and his teenage son walk by.

Son: Hey, look, she’s got the Apple. Do you like the Apple?
Janna: Sure, it’s great. I love this computer.
Dad: What’s Apple? I’ve never heard of it.
Son: It’s this awesome new company …

Suggestion: when moving out of an apartment, cut off your internet service. This will prevent the following:

• Being billed for service you did not, in fact, use, and which no one else can use because it is password protected.

• The person living in the apartment after you having to appear in person at the ISP’s “local office” with a copy of her “rental agreement” to prove she actually lives in the apartment. It will also prevent her from spending 30 minutes at said office while the “service representative” explains that the online offer she took is in no way related to the services offered at the “local office,” and that there is no record of the order she already placed. This will, in turn, prevent her from repeatedly hitting herself over the head with a tightly rolled copy of said “rental agreement” while the “service representative” confers with another “service representative” on how to replicate the low-cost online offer at the “local office,” which offers only absurdly expensive internet service.

Inconvenience aside, I am happy to report that I wrote this post at home, which is a welcome relief from squatting at wireless-equipped cafés to get my net fix. I also got very cheap internet service – even cheaper than the online offer. The “service representative” at Unnamed ISP called me after I left the “local office” to tell me that she had hooked me up with a price over 1/3 lower. Yay!

This must be my week for getting expensive stuff for cheap, because I got Cellular Barbie for about 35% of the retail price by sleeping with the manager being persistent, knowing that the price was insanely overinflated and that they would eventually break just to get me out of the store. It worked like a charm. I now have one of the most expensive cell phones on the market for a price much lower than the shoddy second-to-cheapest phone they showed me when I walked in.

I have almost ceased hyperventilating after the night I spent with no internet access and no cell phone in a brand-new neighborhood in which I know no one. I have regained my 21st century gear, and thus my sanity.

I have calling cards, and they’re way cool. So cool that mine inspired Brooke to start using her Flickr account so she could get some too. I will leave you mostly in the dark about what they look like, so that you’ll click on the link for moo.com, the company that makes the cards. Moo are so rad that they will not only make you 100 full-color cards for $20, they also quite charmingly refer to themselves in the plural. Their FAQ page features such delightful gems as this:

Can I contact MOO by telephone?
The phone sometimes rings but MOO are always too busy to answer it. Your best bet is to use the online contact form. We’ll reply to your query as soon as we can. Phew!

Your mission: take some (digital) photos, open a Flickr account if you don’t have one, add me as a contact, upload your pics, and order some Moo cards. Drop by my apartment between 2 and 4 on Tuesdays and leave a card with the butler. I’ll return the gesture sometime the following week.

Wasn’t life weird before IM’ing existed?

San Francisco’s public transportation system consists of a variety of options for getting from Point A to Point B. There’s BART, the subway system that attracts birds to its underground platforms; the tourist-happy cable car option; garden-variety buses; and, my favorite, the light rail.

There’s a good reason I prefer the light rail: aside from BART, I’ve never actually used any of the other methods. When your repertoire is limited, your “fave” is going to be something you’ve actually encountered. My experience with the light rail itself is spotty as well: of the five possible routes, I’ve only traveled one. Aside from a brief flirtation with the J Church (which I wisely opted to end before getting carried away), I have maintained a monogamous relationship with the N Judah.

Why the N? Well, first of all, we have a lot in common. The N and I hang out in the same places – the Upper and Lower Haight; Cole Valley; the Sunset; Ocean Beach. We both have Ns in our names (I have 3! JaNNa LaureN). We both … well, maybe that’s where it ends. However, we also understand each other. I tolerate the N’s flakiness. After all, who needs reliability in public transportation? That’s just plain Fascist. The N, for its part, allows me to take art-y photographs of its interior, and never complains when I open its doors with a satisfying kick.

I suppose we’ll have to move on eventually. I’ll find some sort of worthwhile activity in, say, Noe Valley, and I’ll be forced to explore a relationship with the J. After all, J as in Church complements J as in Janna. Until then, however, the N remains my one and only.

The first test of Janna’s Ability to Properly Maintain a Website Sans Handholding is nigh. Wordpress, the blogging software that powers Project Janna, has been tweaked, prodded, and refined to produce version 2.0.5. It’s the second upgrade since I did the initial installation in July, so methinks I’d better play along. Damn Wordpress for being so security-oriented, and so, so … perfectionist. Who needs that?

This means Project Janna will be down, hopefully briefly, in the wee hours of Monday morning. I have to remember all the little hacks that were so seamlessly absorbed into the site I forgot to document them. Ha! If I don’t return, you, loyal readers, and you, new NaBloPoMo readers, know what to do. Lavish praise on Rad Businesses. Stick it to the Evil Businesses. Most of all, Blogicize the Revolution! The internets are counting on you.

My new obsession is not in vain. Flickr chose the photo above as “interesting,” which means that it was one of 500 photos uploaded on October 19 that caught someone’s eye. Yeah, that’s a lot to sift through, and not many people will, but given that about 900,000 photos are uploaded to Flickr daily, I’m thrilled. Now only that, it qualifies for the Fav/View >= 5% group, meaning that at least 5% of the people who viewed it marked it as a favorite. So far, it’s batting 15 faves for 111 views and counting. Yay!