DANSAYS ][+

Seacrest Out

nobody@vox.com(Dan Budiac) — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:50:39 -0400

I'm going to give Tumblr a try for a while. We'll see how long that lasts.

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Apparently not.

nobody@vox.com(Dan Budiac) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:16:55 -0500

Service Temporarily Unavailable

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Justice: DENIED

nobody@vox.com(Dan Budiac) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:38:46 -0500

The verdict:

The respondent appeared at the hearing. Mr. Budiac did not dispute the allegations contained in the notice of violation (NOV). Rather, he testified that the signage prohibiting leashed dogs on the cited lawn was inadequate. He states that the only signage prohibiting leashed dogs on the lawn was an 8 1/2" x 11" laminated sign hung from the wire mesh fence around the perimeter of the central lawn. The mesh fencing rings the lawn next to the pedestrian pathway around the lawn. The sign was posted about 10' from the entrance to the lawn, visible to pedestrians entering from that direction. Mr. Budiac states that because he entered the lawn from the other direction he did not pass by the sign and therefore was not adequately notified that he could not bring his dog onto the lawn. Mr. Budiac adds that the posted sign, referred to above, conflicted with the more visible, more permanent "Park Rules" sign posted at the main entrance to the park itself. That sign, in relevant part, simply restricts, "unleashed dogs, except in designated areas." The NOV is sustained. I find Mr. Budiac's testimony to be credible. However, he does not dispute the allegations contained in the NOV nor does he establish a defense to those allegations. I credit the sworn allegations contained in the NOV and find that on the date cited in the NOV a violation of the cited section of law did occur. Accordingly, the NOV is sustained and I impose the Board-approved penalty.

Okay, let's take a breath here. We're talking about a $50 ticket. The easiest thing for me to do would have been to just write a damned check and be done with it, but this is a matter of principle: I'm right, they're wrong. If you're going to prohibit dogs on the lawn, fine, but let me know. Post a goddamned sign where I can see it.

So what do I do now? I can appeal this if I want to. I can haul the officer who wrote the ticket into court and force her to testify. I can have the court appoint an attorney to represent me. And if it means getting justice, I'll do it. The time I've spent is worth considerably more than $50, but that's not what this is about: I'm right and they're wrong.

That said, I'm stubborn, but I'm not an idiot. If the system is truly stacked against me, so be it. I'll write them a check and be done with it. I have a wedding to plan, a business to run, and a TiVo full of shows that aren't going to watch themselves.

What should I do?

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Those who prosecute the offenders

nobody@vox.com(Dan Budiac) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:31:13 -0500

A few weeks ago, I received a reply to my love letter to the New York Environmental Control Board:

To the Respondent or Authorized Representative:
We have received your letter of 7/28/08 requesting a hearing by mail. Unfortunately, this case does not qualify to be heard in this manner and must be resolved through a personal appearance.
Therefore, you are hereby directed to appear for a hearing at the above location on 11/14/08 at 8:30 am, at which time you should be prepared to answer and defend the allegation set forth in the Notice of Violation described above.

Now, I'll be damned if the City of New York is getting one fucking penny of my money for this. If the Parks Department, Environmental Control Board, and New York City Court System want to play chicken, so be it. I'm right, and I'm not backing down.

I'm obviously not hiring an attorney to fight a $50 citation, so I'm flying solo here. Any advice?

(Part of me really wants to spend the next two days waaay over-preparing for this. Over-the-top visual aides, expert witnesses, etc. Does anyone know how I can get my hands on that hologram machine that CNN used on election night?)

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Dear New York City: Suck it. Love, Dan.

nobody@vox.com(Dan Budiac) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:58:21 -0400

Monday, July 28, 2008

Environmental Control Board

Mail Adjudication Unit

68 John Street, 10th Floor

New York, NY 10038

Re: Citation No. XXXXXXXXXX

To whom it may concern:

On the afternoon of July 19th I, along with my 4-year-old dog Beta, met some out-of-town friends on the Oval Lawn in Madison Square Park to enjoy a lunch from Shake Shack. Shortly after arriving, we were approached by Officer Davis and her partner, and informed that our dogs were not allowed on the park lawn. While Officer Davis grudgingly conceded that, along our path into the park, there was no clear signage that indicated a no-dogs rule, she insisted that she was not permitted to exercise discretion in such situations, and proceeded to spend half an hour writing both me and my friend $50 tickets.

As you can see from the attached diagram and accompanying photographs, adequate signage was not posted at the lawn entrance. The small, 8.5" x 11" laminated paper which served as my only warning that dogs were not permitted on the lawn was not visible from my path. Furthermore, the large sign posted at the park entrance (see enclosed photo) specifies that park rules prohibit "unleashed dogs except in designated areas," implying that, since my dog was on a leash, her presence on the lawn was not against park rules.

I ask that you dismiss citation number E161619417. Furthermore, if the Madison Square Park Conservancy wishes to continue their no-dogs policy on the Oval Lawn, adequate signage should be clearly posted on both sides of all entrances. Lastly, I find it troubling that park officials are not allowed to exercise their own judgment in these situations. I believe my defense in this case is strong. Frankly, a whole lot of time, effort, and taxpayer money could have been saved if we were just politely asked to exit the park lawn.

Sincerely,

Daniel G. Budiac

cc: Madison Square Park Conservancy

Union Square Hospitality Group

Attached: diagram and photograph

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Feet

nobody@vox.com(Dan Budiac) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:33:33 -0400

Feet

When's the last time you looked at your feet? I mean, really looked at them?

On Sunday, I ran my second half marathon. While my first was plagued with knee pain, my second was relatively pain-free. In fact, the day after, I feel almost no soreness whatsoever... except for my right foot.

It's not so much an ache, but rather a pain, like something is broken or fractured. But I'm having a very hard time believing that's the case, since during and immediately following the race, I felt no pain at all. (Well, no pain beyond what is normal after running 13.1 miles.)

Then, this morning, I glanced down at my feet, and noticed the bunion on my right foot seems significantly larger than the one on my left. (I've always had wide feet, they run in the family.) Thing is, I have no idea whether this is related to the pain, or it's just always been this way. Like I said, how often do you look at your feet?

I think I'll see how I feel tomorrow, and call my doctor if the pain hasn't subsided.

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Apparently, the answer was "yes."

nobody@vox.com(Dan Budiac) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:02:30 -0400

About This Mac

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Should I buy a Mac Pro?

nobody@vox.com(Dan Budiac) — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:41:04 -0400

Shiny

My addiction to the latest, greatest, fastest and shiniest is well-documented. Most of the time, the urge to hop the Queens-bound N/R/W to Mecca is driven by pure technolust. However, I rationalize my decisions based on the fact that, working from home, my computer is my connection to the world, both personally and professionally. A faster computer might run Aperture faster, sure, but my virtual machine will run Windows faster, too. Viewed through the lens of professional productivity, it's usually financially irresponsible for me not to buy a new computer.

It was for this reason that I did not follow through with my initial impulse to buy a MacBook Air in January. It's an undeniably sexy laptop, but it's underpowered for my purposes. And so, my credit card stayed neatly tucked away in my wallet... until SXSW.

After attending one of the Core Conversation panels, Kathryn casually mentioned a tip she picked up from someone else who worked out of a home office. When asked how he kept disciplined when transitioning between work mode and play, he replied, "two laptops. No personal stuff on my work laptop, and no work stuff on my personal laptop. Ever."

Brilliant! I'm a world-class procrastinator who's easily distracted. A firewall between my personal and professional computers seemed like a perfect solution. Even better, it was a perfect rationale for buying a certain impossibly thin, 3 pound ultraportable notebook computer!

After living a two-laptop life for a few months, I can now say that I really should have done this sooner. Since cleansing my MacBook Pro of all non-work-related applications, it's so much easier to keep the distractions at bay. However, I've now come to realize that my work laptop isn't a laptop at all, it's a thin, underpowered desktop. Now that I have a MacBook Air, I almost never disconnect my MacBook Pro from its Cinema Display.

I give you all of this backstory so that you don't think I'm crazy when I say that, less than a year after buying a perfectly good MacBook Pro, I'm seriously considering replacing it with a desktop. But, before I go forward, I want to make sure that I'm making the right decision.

I depend heavily on VMware Fusion to run Windows XP. I haven't upgraded to Vista for a number of reasons, chief among them my concern that all the extra bloat will render my guest OS unusably slow. However, using Windows XP for remote administration of Vista computers is a pain in the ass. Backward compatibility in Remote Assistance is broken, and you can't install VNC. There are supposedly workarounds, but I haven't had the time or patience to implement them.

This may be a stupid question, but I'll ask it anyway: Can anyone tell me whether I'll see a substantial performance increase between running the (relatively) leaner Windows XP on a 2.4GHz MacBook Pro, or the more bloated Windows Vista on a (much faster) Mac Pro?

A followup question: should I deviate from the stock configuration, apart from more RAM? Is it worth the extra $800 for the extra .2GHz processor? Should I stick with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT, or shell out another $150 for the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT?

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Fitness Update

nobody@vox.com(Dan Budiac) — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:17:46 -0400

Last November, I took a reading from my personal trainer's body fat monitor. At the time, I weighed 160 lbs, 27.68 (17.3%) of which were fat. After a year of regular exercise and watching my diet, I was now officially "fit."

In the last five months, I've successfully maintained my healthy weight. However, after taking another reading this morning (this time with an HBF-306 of my very own), my body fat is now at 13.6%. In five months–months that include Thanksgiving and Christmas–I've lost 6.33 lbs of fat, and put on roughly the same amount of muscle. I now have, technically speaking, the body of an "athlete."

Ultimately, I'd like to get down to around 10%, which means I have about 5.5 lbs of body fat left to lose. Training for a marathon ought to do it, don't you think?

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The Aftermath Math

nobody@vox.com(Dan Budiac) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 12:14:24 -0500

Statistics

A few stats on my Apple //c unboxing set on Flickr. The story got 4,490 diggs, links from 286 blogs including Boing Boing, Boing Boing Gadgets, Telegraph, Laughing Squid, and Gizmodo, and prompted interviews on MacBreak Weekly, RetroMacCast (recording this weekend), and Inside Mac Radio (recording live this afternoon at 1:40pm Eastern, broadcast on 1220 AM KNTS in San Jose and San Francisco, or available as a podcast).

Most people think it's absurd to spend this much on a twenty-year-old computer, but this has been so much fun. Averaged out, I've spent less than a penny for each of the 348,201 (and counting) people who have viewed the photo set. Reading how a set of 5¼" floppy disks sent chills down someone's spine, or how the rainbow-colored Apple logo brought a tear to someone's eye, or how a simple screenshot triggered flashbacks of six years of term papers... it just floors me.

Now, if the damned blank 5¼" floppies I bought off of Ebay would get here, I could actually start using the computer. :)

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