Well, I’ve finally gone through a full battery cycle using the new software. I’ve been able to get 5.5 hours of usage and 30 hours of standby. For me, “usage” includes a ton of web browsing and using 3rd party apps, as well as talking and emailing. For this cycle, I went in and out of WiFi networks, with 3G (not EDGE/2G) enabled the entire time. My screen brightness was set to about 1/3 (as usual).

I’d say 5.5 hours / 30 hours is a pretty sweet battery cycle. That’s much longer usage than my MacBook Pro battery ever lasted (although standby hours on a MacBook Pro are much higher because of sleep mode). Based on the Apple-provided tech specs, the iPhone 3G battery is living up to its name.

I can’t seem to figure out where the hell these little buggers keep coming from. There’s no standing water, that’s for sure. I packed up and nearly tossed out the little indoor Zen fountain. Not even the outdoor fountain has the privilege of being operational at the moment. And yet they still attack me in full force. Having eliminated all possible sources, defense is the only thing left. My defense systems are meager - a 12-pack of Off Brand (pun probably intended) deet repellent. Man, does it smell. Awful at first, like one of those nasty industrial chemical cleaners. But then it starts to get to your head. At least, it gets to my head. And I was practically swimming in deet. Eventually the smell starts to overwhelm, and then comfort me, with a bittersweet confidence that nasty mosquitoes will avoid me as their next meal. The little blood-sucking vamps can go find some other vic. This time, anyway. I considered it a declaration of war when they entered my home, and they even had the gall to attack first. Tomorrow, the world will have a few more stupid skeeters either dead or wallowing in self-remorse and self-pity when they discover how pathetic they really are, unable to eat because of a stupid smell.

I hate mosquitoes.

I think the idea that [writers, musicians & artists] deserve to get paid sounds great, but the truth is that most [writers, musicians & artists] — nearly all [writers, musicians & artists] — have not been paid through history. The Internet doesn’t change that. But it does make it possible for [writers, musicians & artists] to earn their living in new and exciting ways. That’s what I’m doing here. If you have a scheme to provide full employment to [writers, musicians & artists], I’d love to hear it, but I think you’re going to have some problems getting it rolling.

Giving [writers, musicians & artists] more copyright doesn’t make them more money. You could give me ten million years of copyright and the right to personally impale anyone who makes an unauthorized copy of my work and it wouldn’t change the word-rate at Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (nor the song-rate at iTunes).

More copyright just means that working [writers, musicians & artists] have to go through more permissions-clearance hell when they want to create new things from old. More copyright means that dead [writers', musicians' & artists'] works vanish from the historical record because their idiot descendants turn into lunatic saber-rattlers, or because no one can figure out who the right idiot descendant is. More copyright means that the public is denied the benefit of the 98 percent of works in copyright that have no visible owner, and that are out of print.

… from the Overclocked Blog Archive

Also see Creative Commons, the best way to retain ownership of your work while releasing it to the public for mashups, reworks, and republishings.

* I realize his post came from Jan 07, but I only just yesterday read all the short stories from Overclocked, when I happened upon this information.

I’m trying to remember what we did before that, b/c we didn’t go to there until evening….Oh! We went to see the Bastille, which is the most popular non-existant tourist attraction!  Technically, there is no Bastille standing anymore but there is a monument, called the July Column (Columne Juillet) in memory of the July Wars.  It is also by the modern day Opera House so we took a look at that too.  We were right by the Latin Quarter at that point, so we explored.  Did we go see the catacombs that day? WE DID.  Oh yes, that was one of the coolest things we did! The catacombs….1 hour of underground walking, walls of bones, and a damp coolness that literally does seep into your bones.  We REALLY enjoyed this.  Ok, so it’s all coming back to me….. 1. Catacombs 2. July Column/Opera House 3. Latin Quarter  4. Eiffel Tower

Tada! The end

There are some pressing reasons why both Jenny and I could “need” an iPhone 3G.:

• I’ve still never owned a fully bona-fide iPod
• I desperately need access to my Google Calendar when I don’t have immediate access to a computer…
• There have been at least a hundred times I’ve had to call a friend to find directions for something. Google Maps would be the best piece of mobile technology I’ve ever touched.
• With the App Store, I can load up useful stuff for work like an oscilloscope, or fake beer. =)
• Most people are surprised that I don’t have one!

Now if we could just find an iPhone 3G in stock somewhere in Tucson, we’d be good to go.

We also went down into the crypts, which sounds spooky but wasn’t. Although they did have some real bones in a glass case - it didn’t say who, though. It also smelled really musty down there! They had some really neat artifacts on display too, like original priest robes and old notes and tons of gold heart trinkets with “SC” on them.

Next, we paid the 4 euro/ticket or whatever to climb 244 stairs to the top of the church (what? we paid to put our legs in pain?!?) It was a narrow, spiral staircase and you got very dizzy. The burn in the legs was crazy! However, it was all worth it as the view was spectacular!!!!!! We had a full 360 view of Paris. And it wasn’t crowded up there either, which was nice. I mean, there were people and it was a narrow space, but we could definitely pause and enjoy ourselves. Then we did the 244 stairs back down (gotta keep the muscle tone even….) on jello legs. We sat on a curb and enjoyed an accordian/violin duo playing in the street and rested our legs. Then we headed down the hill. Funny thing is there’s a trolley thing that takes you up and down the hill. We didn’t even consider it on the way up b/c we didn’t want to pay when we could climb ourselves. However, now that our legs were so rubbery, we looked at it and found out, ironically enough, that it was part of the metro system and our day passes covered it!! So, we could have taken it up. Oh well. But we did take it down (and were the only ones, too, because who would pay to go downhill??)

Next stop: Notre Dame. We worked our way over via metro and foot, and passed some other popular places along the way like Palais du Justice, Saint Sulpice, and the Concierge but didn’t stop in those . (Although, after rewatching “The Davinci Code” we wish we would have gone in Saint Sulpice hehe). We arrived at Notre Dame and were met by a zoo of tourists. Sigh. Still, it was a spectacular sight from the ouside. We joined the queue for getting in (no fee - yay!) and pretty much had to stay packed into a tight group moving through the church. It was beautiful inside!! However, there was no room to stand and enjoy anything inside. If you paused, then everyone bumped into you. Sigh again. So we pretty much just had to move with the flow instead of being able to go at our own pace, which was disappointing. But still, it was beautiful inside and we got to see it and the admire the rose windows and architecture.

We emerged back into the sunlight and walk around back to a park called Square Jean XXIII. We had read that this had the best views of the church and that was correct. Plus it was a beautiful, shady park to sit and rest. A little jazz trio started up and that was a very pleasant experience - sitting in a park, in the shade, listening to jazz. All we needed was a glass of wine! Funny story - I guess since Jazz is American, no one knew to clap after a jazz solo? Or maybe it’s just a musician thing? So we were the only ones who clapped after solos and then others caught on and later would clap with us

We were close to the Latin Quarter, so we walked around there.  It was very Americanized. It had a Starbucks and a Body Shop and other American stores mixed in with French ones.  It was fun to explore.

It was dinner time so we headed back to our hotel.  We asked the person at the front desk about a good place to go eat and he recommended a little restaurant right down the street.  So we went there and got a table outside on the sidewalk and tried to decipher the menu.  We couldn’t, but with a little help from our waitress who knew a little English we ordered a salad for our entrée (appetizer).  It was a very different salad.  It was lettuce under some type of ham (it looked like prosciutto to me) under toast under something that I think was a pâté.  Weird ingredients to us, but the whole thing put together was quite tasty.

For our plat (main dish) Phil ordered Linguine with sun-dried tomatoes and basil.  What I ordered I was quite sure except that it had chicken and fromage (cheese).  Omg, it was amazing!  It was a boneless chicken breast, but with the skin still on, so it was cooked all yummy.  That was on top of a pile of sautéed onions and mushrooms which tasted amazing by themselves.  All of it was covered in a cheese sauce that had a hint of chili in it.  It was soooooo good!

We finished the meal with dessert, which was crème brûlée, of course!!  SO GOOD!

On to the Louvre.  OMG. It was disgustingly crowded.  Seriously, we walked in and almost walked right back out.  It was the equivalent of walking into Disneyland in the middle of summer.  Ugh. However, we braced ourselves and pushed on.  We made it this far, might as well go all the way, right?  Well, unfortunately with that many people in one space it just impossible for you to enjoy yourself.  Now, I can imagine the Louvre on a winter day, non-tourist season and having a whole space almost to yourself to get lost in….oh man, that would be lovely.  This was not.  However, I will try to be positive…The architecture of the place was gorgeous!!  That was about the only thing I enjoyed. The building itself is amazing piece of artwork.   We went and saw the Mona Lisa….woohoo! It was this small picture, encased by heavy, heavy glass, with a HUGE crowd around it all taking pictures WITH flash.  Oh yeah, that’s another thing we simply could not believe - they let you take pictures in there. FLASH pictures!!!  We couldn’t believe that.  Needless to say, we did not spend a whole lot of time in there.

I just figured out what bugged me about the whole thing.  Phil and I aren’t really that interested in art history.  We were not all the excited about seeing the Louvre b/c visual art just isn’t our thing.  However, there was this unspoken pressure that since we are in Paris, we just have to go to the Louvre.  What is it about it that has made it a must-see?  So that is why we went and that is why there were so many other people there. Doing the same thing as us.  So I watched all these people filing past and not even enjoying the art, or just pretending to.  There is no way you can even take in the whole place in one day. It’s huge.  It would take months and months of recurring visits, in my opinion, to really soak up the whole thing.  So the Louvre, which really is this amazing place of rich beauty and art history, has been turned into this Disneyland art museum and that really disappoints and almost disgusts me.  The Louvre is not being appreciated for the beautiful place it is, but instead is being used for tourism and money.  Sad. Ok, off of my soap box and on to other things….

After we emerged into sunlight and fresh air we were starving.  So we plopped ourselves down at the nearest cafe and enjoyed a pretty american meal at a french cafe (well, what do you expect? we were in a high tourist area)  But it was tasty.  But note to self: don’t eat by the tourist areas mostly b/c you’ll get americanized french food.

We headed back to our hotel exhausted after only 5 1/2 hours of sightseeing and took a long nap.  We stayed in for the rest of the night, except for when I ran out to get us a baguette and wine for dinner

Despite the aching feet, we did enjoy ourselves.  It was like we gave ourselves an overview of Paris so we could decide what we really wanted to spend our time on.  For example, we saw that the line to go up the Eiffel tower was equivalent to the line for Indiana Jones at Disneyland.  Hmm…come back later is what we thought.  Also, the Louvre is quite stunning from the outside so who can imagine what it’ll look like from the inside!  This one bridge, which I havne’t figured out the name to yet,  was goregeous and tempting to walk across, so we’ll have to do that when our feet can handle it.  Notre Dame was stunning, of course.  Musee d’Orsay is right there and beautiful.

Our intent was to get up early and head straight to the Eiffel Tower to see if we could beat the lines, but oops….it’s 11:00 and we’re just showering.  We were out late seeing Montmartre.  We ate in the Cafe de 2 Moulins (2 Windmills Cafe), which is the cafe from the movie, Amelie, of which we are great fans.  Then it was on to the redlight district.  Hmmmm….won’t go into detail.  Let’s just say, you thought Las Vegas was bad……Anway, walked to find such famous places as Le Chat Noir and Moulin Rouge.   Took some pics and headed back.  Oh yeah, riding the subway at 11:30 pm like pros (and there were still TONS of people out everywhere)

We did find out that the Eiffel Tower stays open until midnight, so maybe we’ll go for a ride tonight instead.  We are going to L’Opera Garnier today and then the Louvre.

We haven’t uploaded pics yet, but we have some.  We didn’t go crazy yesterday b/c we knew we’d be coming back to all the places we saw….so hang tight, be patient.  We are having a great time!