I had another scan/subject not work out today. It's very frustrating -- it's a lot of effort to put together a run of an experiment, and when it doesn't happen, all that is wasted, plus studies are pushed back, which makes me look bad. It would be wonderful if people wouldn't cancel, or, even worse, just not show up and leave me waiting around at the meeting place before I drive back home and bike back to work. Argh. Oh well, when it comes to frustrations in life, this isn't as bad as a lot of people have. I guess there's always the temptation to judge and feel frustration according to what we experience in daily life, not in perspective to how big the needs arn't being met are. All I really lose is some time, effort, and possibly some job respect. Could be worse.

My scale arrived today, and I finally can accurately figure out my weight and body fat. My first measurement, at 17:50 today, put me at 165.4 pounds (sans clothes), with 10% body fat. Not bad.

I'm looking to switch cell phone companies. Verizon has been pretty good to me, but my phone is increasingly erratic after the lake dunking, and if I'm to get a new phone, I want to get one that will last me for years. There is a chance I'll want to move to Europe for good. I don't know when, nor really even *if*, but if/when I do, I'm going to want to be using GSM instead of CDMA. That way, if/when I move to Europe, I can just pop in a new SIM card that I'd get from a European phone carrier, and be up and running there. In an ideal world, the GSM/CDMA radios would be removable and swappable between phones, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Oh well. Yes, I'm still looking at the Palmone Treo line of phones, perhaps the Treo 650 (coming out next month).

I installed Windows (dual-boot, of course) on my laptop so I could run Second Life. It doesn't run -- it just crashes. I don't know if my laptop doesn't have the RAM (possible), if my video card is inadequate (the forums suggest that others are using the same kind that I am), or if their servers are being flakey (apparently they often are). I can, at this point, enter the game, but when I start to turn around, or even turn very far in any direction, the game crashes. *sigh*.

Anyhow, back to looking at GSM cell service providers in the United States.. I found a list of providers at the GSM Consortium's website. Let's first establish the basis of comparison. I'm currently using Verizon on a plan that I don't think is still offered -- The DigitalChoice 350, which works out to be about $50/month, with 350 normal-time minutes. I don't come at all close to using my limit.