Tretakoff Musings

I grew up in Boston. As a kid, I watched my father glued to his black and white set, screaming at Havlicek and Bob McAdoo. I never liked the Red Sox (or baseball, for that matter); thought the Bruins were fine until Booby Orr and Brad Park retired, and, like most New Englanders, only cared about the Patriots when they were winning. But the Celtics? Man, my dad had me hooked. As a younger man, I was lucky enough to see a lot of Celtics games with my dad, and, later on, I took him to a few, too. In my 20's, I got real lucky: Jan Volk, the GM of the Celtics, became one of my clients, and steered a few other Celtics folks my way. I met Parish, McHale, Ainge (no, not Bird). I was there the night the Celtics were down in a playoff game and suddenly, for no reason, a pigeon flew down from the Garden's rafters and settled at midcourt...and the other Bird came out and rallied the team back. I saw Dr. J. and Moses play Bird and McHale. I saw DJ's smile, Walton's creaky knees, and...

Lifehacker usually comes up a little lame on good hard core tech posts, but they hit it out of the park on this one: 12 Killer Apps for Palm PDAs gives even a seasoned user like myself some great new appreciation for the venerated Palm platform. I still can't bring myself to pull the cord on a non-Palm device. It just does everything so well, and I find myself eyeing the new Treo from Cingular (even without WiFi) hungrily. I'll hold off...

Trying out a new Palm Blogger interface. Hopefully, this will allow more frequent posts! ------------------------------------------------------------------ Above blog was posted using Bloggie .

Well, so much for a Bears-like comeback. Still, I like the heart. More energy than I have seen from my 'Boys all year!

So, he's inexperienced. But I like what I see! Go Romo!

Sigh. Live blogging my Cowboys. Anything is better than Bledsoe, but 3 int's is not a good way to start. Only a way up from here. :-)

Bledsoe is finally benched. So begins the Tony Romo era!

Nothing said "personal" on the personalcomputer more than After Dark, the screensaver sensation of the 80's and 90's. Now, the Flying Toasters have returned! See for yourself!

No secret I'm a sports fan, especially football. One of the more interesting aspects of sports to me, however, is the uniforms. Think of the design, the attention to detail, then layer on the appeal to the crowd, and finally the creativity of the players. It's remarkable, when you think of it. For instance, look at that picture to the right. Yes, it's LaDanian Tomlinson of the Chargers, one of the better running backs in the game. He's wearing the Chargers' "throwback" uniform, which is, to me, one of the best sports uniforms in football. The color? Powder blue, that just screams Southern California. The player's number is on the helmet, in a sleek retro font, again echoing the Chargers culture as a team that came of age in the late 60's/early '70's. Just perfect, compared to the Chargers' dramatic lighting bolt on a dark blue outfit that scream late 1980's with no pizzaz. In baseball, think of how drab the uniforms were until the 1...

Courtesy of Smith & Hawken , and the Mill Valley Film Festival , we were lucky enough to see Ridley Scott's new film, A Good Year , starring Russell Crowe. Now, the last time these two got together on the silver screen, we were treated to Gladiator . And, of course, Ridley Scott is simply legendary for screen gems like Blade Runner , Black Rain , Alien , Thelma & Louise , Black Hawk Down , and so many others. But if you were thinking this was Gladiator II , think again. This is what happens when Ridley Scott wants to make a romantic comedy. Yes, that's right, the premier action with a brain director has taken a turn to the lighter side, and, like his last attempt in this territory ( Matchstick Men ), it's a ride worth taking. A bit of admission here: I am not usually a big film festival person, but Smith & Hawken was the sponsor, and the tickets were free, so we braved the late night of a Thursday in Corte Madera and lined up like star-struck fools. No, no star...

Now this is cool. Check out these ceiling tiles: combined with LED lighting and bold graphics, you get a whole new perspective: An indoor sky.

I love "steampunk." The idea of technology, powered by antiquated means, evokes an age that SHOULD have been. This working, Japanese laptop is what Steampunk is all about. Complete with Morse code key (hiding the trackball), and wooden space bar, this is the laptop to end all laptops.

In case you didn't know, I'm actually a big Trek fan. This is an unusual time in the Trek world: no active series, no movies in production. However, you can't keep Trek down. First, there is the new Star Trek: The Original Series - Remastered , which adds modern day digital effects and cleanups to the series that started it all (Kirk, Spock, McCoy). Essentially, reruns of the series are being shown across the country (44/Digital 12, here in the Bay Area), with new sequences and digital enhancements. See for yourself: Next, Tim Russ, who played Tuvok in Star Trek: Voyager , has created a new series of "webisodes," called Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, featuring original content and mini-movies. There are an...ahem...galaxy of famous Trek actors in the episodes, including Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), Grace Lee Whitney (Janice Rand), and Walter Koenig (Chekhov) from The Original Series; Alan Ruck from Star Trek: Generations (yes, and Ferris Bueller), as well as several ac...

OK, Charles has officially got me hooked on the new tradition of doing "the full ride" from work, over the Golden Gate Bridge, on Fridays. Yes, it's long (takes me about 90 minutes), and challenging (I've got a mountain bike, not a road bike, and I'm not that good a biker), but it's the closest thing I've experienced to the mythological "exercise high." For instance, yesterday, after a loooooong week, I was able to focus on finding a new path through the Presidio (thanks, Pete!), admiring the preparations for this weekend's Fleet Week air show festivities (am I the only one who thinks those Red Bull air race markers are incredibly phallic? Especially with all of the women in their tight Red Bull outfits?), and smiling at the pluck of a small Catamaran sailer with a purple sail fighting to get through the Golden Gate. It ain't heaven, but it sure is a nice Friday afternoon ride home. Courtesy of RouteSlip.com and Google Maps, you are wel...

Here's a simple, free application that seems to leverage peer to peer technology to allow you to watch a variety of TV and cable networks on your PC. No file downloading; pick a channel, and start watching. Why would you want the TVU Player? Well, with the channel selection, if you are a fan of TV from China or Korea, this might be your thing. :-) But seriously, I can think of two reasons: If you are like me, you might want to have the TV on in the background as you work, such as the latest news from CNN, etc. Here's the most important reason: all of the major broadcast networks are here. Why is that important? FOOTBALL. Do I want to watch the "plucky" 49ers game, or the pathetic Raiders game, when the national game features the Cowboys or the Patriots? Uh, I don't THINK so. Sure, I could get DirecTV, and pay a whopping $250 to watch those games...or I could watch them online, FREE. You do the math. It seems to work well; we'll see how well it works on Sunday...

If you hadn't noticed, a lot of the posts and links you see from me these days are from "Web 2.0" companies. What is Web 2.0? Well, that's up for debate, but basically it's the act of making the web an application layer: programs, functionality, and more, but living on the web. One of the most useful, and immediately beneficial? Pandora Internet Radio. I know, you groan and say "not another damned music online thing," but hear me out. First, it's FREE. Second, it's SIMPLE. Here's how it works: you type in the name of a band or song you like. Within moments, that song, or song from the band starts playing. Nice quality, good sound, no skips. As the song ends, it plays another song that it has determined is similar to the one you last listened to by algorithm: music type, vocal type, etc.). Like it? Click the "thumbs up" button. Don't? Click "thumbs down," and the song stops, and it tries another one, immediately. In th...