From keyne: Liu Bolin, the Invisible Man.

I love my iPhone.  Oh, I love it so much.  But there is one thing that I never was able to do that drove me nuts, and that was keep the calendar on my phone synched with Google Calendar.  I use Google Calendar to schedule pretty much everything in my life now, and not being able to get it reliably on my phone was maddening.

The last time I looked at this, the only solution seemed to involve Google Sync, a tool which looked at best a little kludgy and at worst threatened to lose all of my data if something went wrong.  I elected not to use it.

But as of the iPhone 3.0 update it is possible to make your phone sync directly with GCal: http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=151674.

After following that, go to https://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect to select the calendars you want to see on your phone.  Make sure you hit "Save".

Voila!  Now I can schedule appointments and -- dare I say it? -- lunch dates! with confidence.  It's like a whole new world, baby.

So I had this birthday.  And a really, really lovely birthday it was, with highlights including:

• Surprise visit and magnificent birthday cake from omegabeth in the morning
• Surprise visit and gifts from chaiya in the morning
• Long lunch and great conversation with ectophylla 
• Surprise birthday dinner and magnificent birthday cake from keyne, Mom, Dad and the kids
• Lots of post-dinner visits from the neighbors to help polish off as much of the cake as possible.
  

The funniest part:

The magnificent birthday cake from omegabeth was a chocolate layer cake with peanut butter frosting.

The magnificent birthday cake from keyne and npierce was.... a chocolate layer cake with peanut butter frosting and chocolate glaze.

I think I may be getting predictable.

But enough of that.  Here's what matters.  All day long, I ran into people at every turn who were conspiring to make sure I had a good day.  And wow, apparently I needed that more than anything.

Thanks and love to you all.  You are my rockstars.

A great big shout out to the magnificent queenmomcat  and folkmew, who share this most excellent of birthdays.  Have one on me, kids!

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Edit: not you, actjack, I'm sure you already have ones that look like that. :-)

LJ's news page posts announcements periodically, including a sample of recent answers to the LJ Writer's Block "Question of the Day".  Today's announcement included some answers to the question "Which character from any film, television show, or book would you most like to take on a date and why?"

You just know that's going to be good.

Anna Marie Darkholme AKA Rogue Because I love her, because she deserves it more than anyone else I know, and you don't get to know the rest.

I have to admit that sex with Rogue could be pretty amazing.  That whole power absorption thing is potentially like the ultimate erotic asphyxiation game.

Polgara the Sorceress from the David Eddings books. She is well aged, infinitely wise, imminently powerful, and gorgeous.

Well aged?

This one is SOOOOO easy. I would date Donatello from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in a second. My obsession with Donatello is probably not healthy but I dun care.

The proviso is my favorite part of this.  Probably not healthy!  But I don't care!  We're in LOVE, dammit!  And if you can't see that all the other problems in this crazy world don't amount to a hill of beans...

I pity you and your "conventional relationships."

I would most like to take Michael Madsen from Reservoir Dogs on a date. Particularly his character, Mr. Blonde. I enjoy his undying cynicism and craziness. In essence, he's sexy.

Oh god.  I can't get the image out of my head now of two teenagers in bed, humping away in adolescent frenzy, whispering, "Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie?  Or are you gonna bite?"

Edward Scissorhands, because I probably love him more most than other fictional character and possibly more than a good amount of real people.

You know, I have a feeling he could say the same thing about you.

Oh, it's NO CONTEST there! I'd choose Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs. He's real smart, perceptive and has a gorgeous pair of eyes. Oh, and he seems to have some interesting recipes.

Shaggy, from Scooby Doo. I've always had a crush on him. How fun would it be to smoke some weed and then investigate haunted houses? BEST DATE EVAR!

OK, you know what?  Now my faith in humanity has been restored a little bit.

.... who can take awesome pictures of my son because he doesn't act like a big old goof when someone other than me is holding up a camera.

A relative has written to me with a question: how do you figure out a fair price for a used DSLR?  She's looking at a Nikon D80 up on Craigslist and not sure whether the $475 being asked for the camera body is reasonable.

The thing is that I'm not actually sure whether there are special issues around pricing used cameras that don't apply to other electronic equipment.  My usual M.O. for figuring this out would be to go search for Nikon D80 bodies on ebay, Craigslist, etc. to get an idea of what the ballpark price should be, but I don't know if that's a good approach here.

How would you solve this problem?  And if you had an opportunity to try the camera out, is there anything specific you'd try to do to make sure it's in good working condition?

Photographs taken in very low light, with one distinct light source in the frame, produce this ghostly shadow of the original light, diagonally opposite the original in the frame. (at the lower left in this image)

Why? It doesn't appear to be a "lens flare" in the technical sense and I don't think it's a diffraction flare either. Anybody willing to hazard a guess?

Dear Tim:

 Congratulations on successfully completing the League Cycling Instructor Seminar in Cambridge MA and becoming an Instructor-in-Training.  I hope you are as proud of your accomplishment as the League is to have you as an LCI. Your LCI# is 2667 and your certification date is 10/18/2009.

Ironically, I never even put this on my Project Forty list, and all this time I assumed I had.  Now I feel like I should go back and add it, since that was always the intent anyway.

So I went to New York to eat at Per Se. omegabeth was in the city on business this week, and had arranged a reservation for five at Per Se to coincide with it, so that jacflash and I could join her and two of her West Coast friends. On Wednesday morning, John and I hopped a train to NYC, met Beth at her hotel a few hours ahead of time, spent some time walking around midtown, changed into nice clothes and headed up to Columbus Circle.

Embarrassing note of the day: I wore a tie but did not bring a jacket, as I no longer own one which fits me well. The staff had to offer me one. I don't think I have ever eaten at a restaurant which required a dinner jacket.

( the full menu )

The oysters and pearls: a sabayon is like a denser, more custardy zabaglione, and in this dish it was a savory, lemony custard in which were suspended the oysters, tapioca and caviar.  Really lovely.

Foie gras: very intense, deep flavor, but gloriously balanced by sweet and salty flavors all over the place.  This was served with an extremely thin, almost translucent disk of something that none of us could identify.  Maybe it was the purple top turnip Parisienne?

Lobster: I do not generally like either lobster or artichokes.  These were spectacular.  The lobster was both firm and tender.  The violet artichokes were tiny and very flavorful.

Duck.  The duck was so firm and rich that it looked, cut and felt exactly like the beef course that followed.  Only when you put it in your mouth did you get the duck flavor out of it.  Amazing.

Pear sorbet: this must be the purest sorbet I have ever had.  It was just like taking a bite from a very cold and tender pear, although no pear in the world is quite that soft.  It did not taste like a sorbet at all and hardly felt like one.

We had the sommelier bring us wine pairings for most courses, but I'm too tired to type in the full wine list.  Maybe another day.  One of the amazing things about dining in a restaurant like this is that when the sommelier overhears you talking about the structure of the glass you're drinking from, she can tell you something useful and interesting about how the glasses themselves are made, like the fact that the bowl, stem and base are made by three different artisans and fit together after the fact.  Fantastic.

Anyway.  It was magnificent and spellbinding and you should go if your budget ever permits you to do so.