Spring Has Sprung...

...and break has broken, and it couldn't have come at a better time. After a nice visit with my parents the past few days, it's time to settle down for some serious relaxation. (I'll get stuff done over the break, of course, but I won't keep getting behind-er with any extra things piled on top of what I already had to do.)

And I start out this break with a call for advice: Anyone ever dealt with a strained/sprained toe before? It's the second toe on my right foot--not the same limb that was so messed up a few years ago, but it's making me gimpy all the same. There's no displacement or discoloration, so I'm not imagining anything is fractured. I experienced a little foot pain for a few hours a few weeks ago when I played a gig in my dress shoes without putting the cushion-y insoles in them, and since then, there's been some occasional soreness at the end of the day, but it's just been in the past day or so that things have gotten pretty painful.

Anyway, I've been experimenting with buddy splinting, and I'll try ice. I won't have to walk as much with the week off from teaching, so that should help. Anything else I'm forgetting? Let me know in the comments.

Hoping to Soon Return to Pod-acity

So it appears that my car's iPod adapter has bitten the dust; one of the two contacts at the bottom has recessed into the opening to the point where I don't think I can get it to come out. The current one is made by Monster, and it's OK, if a bit static-y. If I choose to replace it, can anyone out there recommend a good quality brand that's not break-the-bank expensive?

Needless to say, if you know how to fix the problem I described above, I'd be interested in hearing from you as well. Until then, I guess I'm kicking it old-school and listening to CDs.

Finally Time to Cut the Cord?

This isn't a new subject; I've been mulling this over for years, and I've even posted about it before. Today, I also posted about it on Facebook, and I'll ask it here again: Should I get rid of my land line?

Since cell phones got small enough for everyday use (I recall my first Motorola Brick from 15 years ago; it mostly stayed in the car), the land line has become less and less necessary, and now, it's reached the point where it hardly gets used at all. For one thing, I've gotten used to screening calls on my cell phone, to the point where I don't pick up for unfamiliar numbers at all, and won't return calls to them unless the owner leaves a voicemail. Since I don't have the luxury of Caller ID on my house phone (and paying for something that comes free on the cell would indeed be a "luxury"), I never answer it at all, letting the machine take calls instead. It's pretty much become the province of telemarketers and other people I wouldn't want to talk to in the first place.

So what's keeping me from going over the hump, in terms of ditching the land line? Pretty much one thing--emergencies. Meaning two scenarios: 1) Having a 911 emergency at home and not being able to have the operator locate me. I know that "E911" technology is close to being in place for cell phones, but from what I've read, it's not quite there yet. 2) It hasn't happened in years, but I'm concerned about missing the proverbial emergency call in the middle of the night. If I go cell-only, I'd have to keep the phone near the bed and turn the ringer on at night (it's on vibrate all the time because I'm teaching and rehearsing most of the day).

Still, I'm trying to cut costs, and I have to ask myself: "Self, is this type of peace-of-mind worth $33 a month?" Most of the time, the answer is no, but I still have yet to pull the trigger.

There's another angle to this, of course; I noticed it this afternoon when paying my phone bill online (and wondering how long I'd keep doing so). I could go all in with Verizon and start using FiOS for my TV and internet as well; it would be $20 cheaper than I'm paying for cable/internet now, and I'd basically get to keep the land line for no charge (thus kicking this problem down the road for two more years). I'd also be able to watch all my TV channels in HD without paying the cable company even more money than I already am.

So here's what I'd like to know from anyone with experience in this area:

• Is there anything you can tell me that would nudge me over the top in terms of ditching the land line? Are my concerns unfounded?


• Have you had any experience with FiOS? If so, how does it compare to regular cable TV?


• There's a third option here: I can switch to FiOS and ditch my land line as well. Do I really need to agonize over losing the land line for two more years?

Any responses would be appreciated.

Trying to Get Back on Track(pad), or I Wish There Were a Mouse in My House

Apologies for the lack of posting so far this week; it's not even the usual excuse (lack of time), though that certainly figures in. Rather, this week, it has to do with a computer problem--namely, the trackpad on my MacBook Pro. It just won't, well, track sometimes. I'll move my finger around and around, but to no avail; the arrow just stays in place for a while. It's almost like a very mild version of what it must feel like to be paralyzed in a limb.

The idea has hit me that perhaps the hard drive is getting full, which I realize could affect performance somewhat. To that end, I've been doing the Great Music Purge of '09 whenever I've been on the computer during the past 24 hours. I topped out at 25 days of music, so I've been deleting anything that I already had on a physical CD, saving my iTunes space for things I've gotten through eMusic or Amazon Downloads or the iTunes Store. I'm seeing slightly better performance since I've done that, but the occasional paralysis continues.

So, a quick bleg to my fellow Mac users: Is there anything else that I'm not thinking of which could be causing this problem? A repair is not really in the cards right now, due to budgetary concerns. I also realize that I could just throw down for an actual mouse, bypassing the trackpad altogether, but I'd like some information about that as well: Of the Apple mice, which one have you found to be the best? And how about any other mice that aren't made by Apple but work on Macs--any yays or nays there? Feel free to enlighten me in the comments, as this is driving me nuts; it's taking up to five times as long to do simple tasks, and there are just some things that I can't farm out to the iPhone. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

This Weather Is Cracking Me Up (In a Bad Way)

I've posted in the past about what happens to the skin on my hands when the weather starts to get cold outisde. It's actually morphed over the years; at first, as noted in Fun Facts #42, it pretty much limited itself to the part of my fingers that were involved with snapping (a common requirement for a music instructor, of course), and then, the past few years, it led to my knuckles cracking open seemingly without warning.

This year, it really did come out of the blue (if you think about it, it hasn't been that cold here yet). One middle knuckle cracked open this morning, and by the time I got home, three other places (the "upper knuckles," perhaps--is that what you call the place where your fingers join the main part of your hand?) came open almost one right after another.

I know the usual solution--lotion. I tend to put it on every night before bedtime during the colder months, and I'll certainly start that tonight. But has anyone out there found an additional solution? Again, it seems weird that the whole process started so soon, since a few days of lows in the 40s doesn't really count as "winter" (I haven't had to turn the heat on in the house yet). Any suggestions would be kindly appreciated in the comments.

A Boredom-Bashing Bleg

As i noted the other day, I'm having surgery on Wednesday, and, while the recovery period is not expected to be that long in the grand scheme of things, there's still going to be a period where I won't be able to drive, so I'll be stuck at home for a much longer time than usual.

I have the feeling that, during at least part of this time, I'm going to be extremely bored. So I'm trying to figure out in advance how to alleviate that boredom. I have a few ideas already:

• Practice. A musician can always do that, of course, and once I'm at the point where I can sit comfortably enough to hold a saxophone, there are some personal-enrichment things that I've needed to do on the horn for a long time.


• Compose/arrange. Either for my hopefully soon-to-be-not-dormant sextet, or my evening group at the college, which is exploring new twists on Real Book tunes this summer. (But I may need to get a mouse; as I found out while working on some stuff in the spring, Finale NotePad can drive you crazy using a track pad!)


• Read. A few months ago, when the economy got weird and lots of people were talking about "going John Galt," I decided to buy Atlas Shrugged to see what all the fuss was about. Clocking in at nearly 1100 pages in paperback, that ought to keep me busy for a while. (And yikes--what tiny print! Wish I'd looked at that more carefully, as I might have actually thrown down for the hardcover edition.) And if I need a break from that, I still need to finish what I call "The Brick of Narnia"--the entire set of Chronicles in one volume. And there are some magazines--mostly Down Beat--that I still need to finish.


• Watch Rangers games on TV. Despite a scary past week, the boys of summer are doing really well this year; they've been in first place for 40-something games now. I have my usual tickets, and I'll go once I'm way more healed and can stand the walking, but until then, Josh Lewin and Tom Grieve are good company for a slow night.


• Watch movies. I think I may own a few DVD's that I still haven't seen in their entirety, and now's as good a time as any. Also, this is something that friends can come over and do with me, so we can still get to hang without me having to go anywhere. (It's not that I can't go anywhere, but I'm guessing that even riding in others' cars may be kept to a minimum for a little while until my knee doesn't have to be locked down at all times.)


• Watch the Tour de France. My no-driving period will likely seep into the first week of July, so I'll be able to watch the famous bike race--of which I've been a fan for years--with a lot more regularity. Can Lance recapture the magic?

I realize that, between all those things, plus teaching (which I should be able to resume next Monday) and sleep (not to mention this blog, online games, etc.) ought to take up a lot of my spare time. But still, I'm trying to think outside the proverbial box here and make a different flavor of lemonade out of the lemon that the time immediately post-surgery will likely be. Am I forgetting anything here? Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments; my only parameters are 1) no real physical activity involved (duh): 2) nothing that costs money, if at all possible, and 3) things I can do around my own house.

I'll also be linking to this post on Twitter, as well as at the next free-for-all "cafe" post at Althouse, so if you're arriving here for the first time from either one of those places, welcome!

A boredom-bashing what? If you're unfamiliar with the term "bleg," it's not a typo; the Freakanomics blog defines it as "using a blog to beg for information." It's pretty much a cross between "blog" and "beg," and, while sometimes blegging is an appeal for money, this one is strictly for ideas.

iPhone or BlackBerry?

I've often asked the readers of this blog for advice on certain decisions I'm about to make. A couple of years ago, it was a decision between getting a laptop or contacts (I ended up getting the laptop as a birthday present, and chose to hold out for LASIK when I can afford it). And earlier this year, when said laptop was in the shop and I was mostly Net-less for a few weeks, I wondered if I should increase my surfability by getting either a desktop or a smart phone. For the moment, I've decided on the smart phone, because 1) it's cheaper, and 2) I'm eligible for an upgrade, as it's been over two years since I last did that.

But one question still remains: Which smart phone do I get? The iPhone has always been attractive to me, and the new one has probably been out long enough that a lot of the initial bugs have been fixed. But I'm also aware that my monthly rate would go up if I got one. In the meantime, there are some other smart phones out there, like this BlackBerry, that sound intriguing. (And, scrolling through everything, it appears that my bill would go up no matter which smart phone I got, so that comparison is a wash, I guess.)

So the call goes out to anyone who's had either a BlackBerry or an iPhone: If you had a choice, which one would you get, and why? Or is there something else out there that I haven't discovered yet that's even better? Let me know in the comments.