Sunday, July 5, 2015

Breakfast at home: granola with fresh, diced pink lady apple and unsweetened soy milk; water. Finished playing The Room for iOS. I was frequently unable to figure out the puzzles, but the hint system worked well, giving me enough info to continue but not so much to make me dumb or to give away the game play. The boxes are both a delight and a frustration in a fun way. In some respects it's similar to Monument Valley but more faux mechanical design than faux mathematical design. In Mac OS 10.10.3 Yosemite in Image Capture 6.6 if deleting photos does not work as expected (does nothing), quit and restart Image Capture then try again. This resolved the problem for me in which Image Capture would display a dialog with "Deleting..." but does not delete the files within the expected amount of time. (It would do nothing except display that message.) The problem was consistently reproducible until the application was restarted. Rode Muni to Embarcadero Station. Rode BART to MacArthur Station. Could not figure out where the Emery Go Round shuttle stop was without asking a station attendant. I could find no signage at all. Waited 20 minutes for an Emery Go Round shuttle but it did not appear and the NextBus times were not consistent. Started walking to IKEA and along the way I saw the Emery Go Round shuttle going in the opposite direction, so at least I knew it existed. I walked to 40th and San Pablo where I caught the Emery Go Round shuttle and rode that to Shellmound and Bay Streets to visit IKEA. Door to door from my home in the middle of the Sunset was 2 hours 11 minutes. (This is partly why people still drive.) I went to IKEA to buy a specific item. I had checked online beforehand that they had the item in stock—lots of green dots indicating plenty in stock. When I arrived I wanted a refreshment and got in line at the cafe by the registers but the line was not moving. After several minutes I abandoned it. It took me about 20 minutes to find the item's location. Along the way I passed the cafeteria, and it was the same as the cafe downstairs; a very long line that wasn't moving. IKEA was all out of the item I wanted. I sought help from a salesperson who did some checking but after several minutes apologized and said that it must have been an inventory error and that there are no more of them anywhere at this location. No further offer to remedy the situation (e.g., let me help you find the item at one of our other stores) even after I told him it took me over two hours to get there. I instead bought a similar item that isn't going to work as well. I paid for my goods and left. I vow to never shop at IKEA again. On the sidewalk to the bus stop a small black child on a small, noisy motorbike drove right up to my feet forcing me to walk around him while he gave me an evil stare. There was plenty of space for him to go around me, but he chose to make a point of making me step around him. Who raises children to do this? Rode the Emery Go Round back to MacArthur BART Station. Rode BART to Embarcadero Station. Rode Muni to West Portal. The sign said another L train would be in 14 minutes, so I started walking. Five minutes later an L train passed me, and I was in between stops so I couldn't easily catch it. I walked the rest of the way home. Door to door return trip was 90 minutes. Dinner at home with Patrick: waffle fries, leftover hamburgers. Lots of home audio system surround sound research and troubleshooting in Audio Midi Setup and System Preferences for Sound. I have six speakers but only two channels appear in Audio Midi Setup. Investigation continues. In total, a reasonably awful day in which most everything I encountered upset me. Things that did work reasonably well today included the inbound Muni ride, BART, and the restrooms at IKEA. I also did a lot of healthy walking. No lunch today.