Zuma Sushi

Friday night we went to a place called Zuma on the far end of North Highland in Inman Park. It’s a very nice space and a very Japanese place unlike many of the places you have sushi at nowadays. We sat at the sushi bar and I must say that it’s nice to see a chef make sushi like it used to be done years ago – with care. You can tell these guys are straight out of Japan because my sashmi sampler came with uni (sea urchin roe) and ama ebi (raw shrimp)! One thing I wasn’t prepared for…it was very expensive. I’d recommend it if you’re feeling wealthy.

Telephones and Politicians

Odds are that you’re getting just as many recorded messages from politicians, friends of politicians, and friends of politicians that say they’re my neighbor calling for a politician. If you have two phone lines like we do, then you’re getting each of these twice. Lately it’s been at least 4 calls a day for each line.

Some marketing company is making a mint on this crap, and in my opinion it should violate the do-not-call regulations. I mean, I signed up for that list for a reason. I’m sure there’s a loop hole of some kind. As of right now I’m going to note who these calls represent and I will refuse to vote for them on election day.

Would you like me to call you to ask you to join me in this very important cause?

Here’s the start of my list:

Alex Wan – State Representative (four times)
Shirley and her water sales tax bit
Roy Barnes (GA Gov) for Michael Julian Bond – City Council President
Michael Johnson – Fulton County Superior Court
Some citizen urging NOT to vote for Pat Gardener because she’s for the gay marriage ban.
An actual person acting like a recording from RDI Marketing urging me to vote for the water sales tax.
Some State Rep for Doug Alexander for City Council Pres.
Some guy named Mike running for Public Service Commissioner.

Switching to Vonage

I can’t believe it, but a banner ad actually caught my eye today. I’ve heard of the company, but it just peaked my interest a bit. Vonage is a company that offers Voice Over IP telephone service. They send you a device that connects to your broadband network for free and in my case, I pay $14.95 for 500 minutes of local or long distance service per month. Beats the heck out of the $40 per month I’m paying BellSouth for a phone with caller ID. The Vonage comes with caller id and a ton of other features including voice mail.

While there is no contract and the device is free (well, actually loaned), you have to pay a $30 activation fee and shipping. The total to get started was less than $60.

Oh, and I get to keep my phone number too.

AllMusic Guide’s New Design

AllMusic has redesigned their site. I’m not that thrilled with the new tabbed interface for artist information. I preferred all my info on one page. The layout also breaks on Safari. Would have been better with the new modern looking skin rather than a layout change.

My First Inheritance!

I’ve been working on a CD project in Flash that requires FLV playback. I’ve got a video playback class that uses the NetConnection and NetStream classes directly out of the Flash MX 2004 help. Something like this.

// Create a NetConnection object:
netConn = new NetConnection();
// Create a local streaming connection:
netConn.connect(null);
// Create a NetStream object and define an onStatus() function:
netStream = new NetStream(netConn);
netStream.onStatus = function(infoObject) {
status = “”;
status += “Status (NetStream)” + newline;
status += “Level: “+infoObject.level + newline;
status += “Code: “+infoObject.code + newline;
trace(status);
if(infoObject.code == “NetStream.Play.Stop”) {
this._parent.dispatchEvent({type:”onVideoDone”, target:this._parent}); //this won’t work! _parent is undefined!
}
};
// Attach the NetStream video feed to the Video object:
vid.attachVideo(netStream);
// Set the buffer time:
netStream.setBufferTime(5);
// Being playing the FLV file:
netStream.play(vidFile);

The problem is, how do I tell the netStream owner’s class to dispatch an event that the video is finished? Usually I’ll use this._parent.dispatchEvent, but won’t work – the netStream doesn’t have a _parent property. It doesn’t know who owns it.

To solve this problem I created a class dmNetStream inheriting from NetStream that has an owner property that I can set when intantiating the class. It’s super simple (shoulda used getter/setter props):

class dmNetStream extends NetStream {
var owner:MovieClip;

function dmNetStream(theConn:NetConnection, theOwner:MovieClip) {
init(theConn, theOwner);
}
function init(theConn:NetConnection, theOwner:MovieClip):Void {
super(theConn);
owner = theOwner;
}

}

Now my netStream instantiation in the video playback class looks like this:

netStream = new dmNetStream(netConn, this);

Now when I get my status message and it indicates the video is done, I can dispatch an event like so:

if(infoObject.code == “NetStream.Play.Stop”) {
this.owner.dispatchEvent({type:”onVideoDone”, target:this.owner});
}

Hopefully this isn’t completely off base, but it was the only way I could tell the netStream object who owns it. Any other or better techniques out there?

Georgia Finally Gets Real Beer!

There was a time when going to Michigan or Florida was fun because I could pick up some Chimay Trappist Ale. Not to be in Georgia because the limit for alcohol in beer was 6%. Many international beers are at or well above that level depending on style. Apparently those that are looking out for and representing our welfare think that some kid is gonna spend $8 for 22 ounces of challenging tasting beer instead of spending $10 for a case of the best swill.

After several years of trying, Georgians for World-Class Beer have finally convinced our legislators to allow beer with up to a 14% alcohol content to be sold in Georgia and today is the day!

July 1, 2004. I had to go out and try to find something. Green’s on Ponce, not much, mostly a selection of French Country Ales. Moved on to Tower on Piedmont. Not much better, but I picked up a barley wine from Flying Dog and the strongest I could find – something from Quebec at 10.5%.

Seems that the stuff couldn’t even be sold to the wholesalers until today which is why it’s slow getting into the stores. After the holiday weekend things will start getting interesting. I’m especially interested in getting some Victoria Bitter, not for quality, but for old times sake – it’s been 8 years since our trip down under. I also want to try some hardcore IPAs. Yee haw!