joe shaw

I went to New York for the weekend with Nat and Robert. We took the train.

It’s just so convenient to take the Acela Express down there, because there’s none of the crap that goes along with flying involved. Once you take into account the taxi to the airport (you can’t take the goddamn T without changing trains twice and then taking a perpetually overcrowded shuttle bus to your terminal), the waiting around for security, getting there half an hour or so before the flight, and then the taxi from JFK or La Guardia, it takes the same amount of time as the 3-hour train, which is connected to the T and New York subway, takes you directly into Penn Station, boards 10 minutes before leaving, has tables so that you can carry on a civilized conversation with two or three friends, and does not suck the will to live. Amtrak has a lot of problems — the last time I took it I got stuck in Providence for 2 or 3 hours — but I can’t see myself ever flying to New York again.

The main reason for the trip was to go see The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, the new Wes Anderson flick which opened in New York and Los Angeles this weekend prior to a Christmas release nationwide. Seeing as The Royal Tenenbaums is quite possibly my favorite movie, it sounded like a lot of fun. And as much as I’d like to take credit for the idea, Jacob came up with it, although he couldn’t make the actual trip.

beautiful old tilework buried beneath plaster at south station

I’ve been trying to move my blog over to Wordpress and some blog client, because I hate having to “write” PHP “code” for my “entries”. The lack of a comprehensive solution really depresses me… do I just have an odd setup and needs, or do people really go through all these manual steps just to post some photos (with context, thumbnails, and captions) and ramble from time to time? It’s absolutely ridiculous.

Robert Scoble has a brief mention of Beagle, on the heels of our 0.0.4 release.