aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Happy Easter
Gay Easter Egg hunters ‘moved from front of the line’
After waiting outside overnight to be among the first to enter this year’s White House Easter Egg Roll, families in line were surprised to learn that the White House had changed the ticketing policy for the annual event, PageOneQ has learned.
The unannounced change means that the families who waited in line the longest, in one case for twenty-four hours, will not be among the visitors at the event’s opening ceremonies. The first families in line, who were not part of the LGBT family group, received tickets with an 11:00am entrance time, two hours later than the opening time listed in the White House press release.
In an email exchange with Mike Rogers, Deputy White House Press Secretary Dana Perino writes:
This year, the President and Mrs. Bush invited a special group of children who volunteer from organizations like 4-H, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Campfire USA, Citizen Corps, Learn & Serve, Little Hands Big Hearts, YMCA and Youth Service America. These youth volunteer were invited to attend during the morning hours of the event.
The number of public tickets is the same as in years past and has not changed as a result of this group’s participation. Although the public tickets begin with times later in the morning, the event will have the same activities throughout the day for everyone to enjoy.
Mike says, yeah but:
In years past, with the exact same arrangement of invited guests, those that spent all night outside for tickets were given tickets to the event’s opening times.
Jay, are you there? I’ll be eager to hear all about it.
SEE ALSO: Terrance reflects on being among those who will be delayed.
Apple and Windows and DOS
A colleague, excited and exuberant over Apple’s Boot Camp, wants us to switch to Macs. I said not likely.
What do I know anyway? Robert X. Cringely:
One part of last week’s column on Apple’s Boot Camp that slipped past many readers was the idea that Apple would actually start shipping OEM versions of Windows Vista with at least some of its computers. I believe that will be the case and, if so, it is a big deal, and could lead to Apple becoming the biggest vendor of Windows computers to business, which I think is a hoot.
Some say Apple will drop OS X for Windows. Cringely says, no way:
The version of Boot Camp that will ship with OS X 10.5 will likely be very different from the version people are playing with today. The actual shipping version, I predict, will have full OS virtualization so that both operating systems can run side-by-side and a user can cut and paste data from one to the other. Apple may have already developed this capability, or maybe they’ll license or buy it from outside. Parallel Workstation 2.1 sure looks nice from Parallels, Inc. Maybe Apple should buy the whole company.
If Apple’s intent is to do virtualization, then why bother with this dual boot version of Boot Camp? My best guess is to throw off Microsoft until it is too late. Not that I think Microsoft will even care as long as they get their money, but Apple can be sneaky this way.
So Apple will at least offer the option for users to run a virtualized version of Windows Vista atop OS X, which brings with it two HUGE advantages. First, the bad guys and script kiddies will have to get through OS X security before they even have a chance at cracking Vista security. Second, by running a virtual version of Windows Vista loaded from a read-only partition, Microsoft’s recommended method of dealing with malware (periodically wipe the OS and application from your disk and load them anew) can be done in seconds instead of hours and can be done daily instead of monthly or quarterly or yearly.
By running Windows Vista this way, Apple can offer the most secure version of Vista available with the lowest Total Cost of Ownership, which could lead to a leadership change in business computing. Down with Dell and HP and up with Apple.
That would be so brilliant; I so totally hope he’s right. Read on to see why he believes this Apple strategy is the revenge of DOS.
Passover Joy
But what about Vivi?
Evidently, the rescued cat in the wall in the Village struck a chord with New Yorkers. It became a most-emailed article pretty much from the moment it was posted:
The epic search for Molly, the black, 11-month old fraidy-cat stuck in the wall of a Greenwhich village food store for two weeks, ended in jubilation last night after rescue workers spotted her in a small opening and quickly yanked her away to safety.
Molly’s return came at 10:13 p.m., prompting a crowd of dozens of reporters, photographers and neighborhood residents who had gathered outside the shop, Myers of Keswick at 634 Hudson, to erupt in cheers. Rescue workers said they had traced Molly’s plaintive meows to an area near the ceiling of the shop, drilled a small hole, and spotted her crouched in a dark crawl space.
I’m more a dog person than a cat person - and a small dog person at that. We’ve got two Italian Greyhounds, Baci & Jake. We have been watching for news of the Whippet, Vivi, who got loose at JFK. Newsday’s Vivi-watch said last night:
The good news is that Vivi is sighted regularly by different people now, several of whom have gotten a good look at her. She is obviously in good condition — one person who saw her said she looked “well groomed” which is difficult to believe but still encouraging. Although still skittish she seems to be less afraid of people. A man fishing in a pond says she was sniffing around his car, then came up when he fed her a sandnwich and even let herself be petted. A few other dogs then arrived and scared her away. A few people are now putting out food for her, in the hope that she will keep returning to the same spot.
Whippets, a greyhound variation, are sight hounds. Last week the Cleveland Plain Dealer said:
If a dog is loose for three or four days, it does not approach, seek, or allow human help, [licensed private investigator Karin] Goin said.
“Herding breeds - German shepherd dogs and border collies - create a circuit of sorts,” Goin said. Sight hounds, such as the Afghan hound or the greyhound that hunts its prey by sight rather than by scent, often do not follow that pattern. Vivi, a 3-year-old whippet, has not been returning to places where she was seen previously, although she did appear to have settled on one neighborhood in Flushing, N.Y., for a period of time.
Sight hounds are typically found five miles away, where most other dogs are found within a mile, Goin said. [...]
Bo Bengston, Vivi’s breeder, warned that trying to catch a dog that has become feral will only spook it more. He believes if Vivi is sighted, the best approach to gain her confidence is to sit quietly and eat food that can be shared with her if she permits it.
ABC News in a story on Vivi said, “Whippets can run like the wind and turn feral, or wild, very quickly.” We’re hoping there’s a good outcome for Vivi.
RELATED: The Brits have feral robot dogs.
