MissMeliss: Escribition

In my day job, I’m often called to write about things like how to insure muscle cars and street rods, with special attention paid to things like how after market upgrades impact one’s insurance premium. It’s not very exciting stuff, though it pays well enough to give me the freedom to work on my own stuff, which is a lot more than most writers can say.

Since I don’t like the notion of sounding like Bambi when I write, I often research some of the parts that are mentioned, and one of the least expensive and most common upgrades I see are to wheels. In fact, Bullet wheels come up with impressive frequency.

If you’ve never considered upgrading the wheels on your car, let me tell you that for such a small thing, they make a huge impact. They’re the automotive equivalent of a signature piece of jewelry that enhances one’s outfit in just the right fashion. They are bling, but they’re bling even neophyte tuners can afford.

Shiny, stylish, and offered with free shipping as well as free mount and balance services, these wheels would make anyone stop and take notice of your car. Even better, most of them are under $200.

You may remember that I wrote about spying a vintage Mustang for sale in the Albertsons parking lot a few months ago. These wheels would have been the perfect finishing touch for that car, and I still wish we’d had the cash on hand to get it. As it is, we drive a Subaru Forester, and modding a Forester is sort of like putting a spoiler on a tricycle. There is no point.

Even so, I can dream about shiny metal rims every time I’m called upon to wax rhapsodic about the Silver Bullitt Mustang.

I’m still loving my mobile router from Powerful Signal, so much so that I’ve done a video review about it. It uses images from trips to SoDak, where I’d have given my eye teeth and Zorro’s too if I’d had one then. As it was, I still have nightmares about the ‘net withdrawl I went through on that trip.

Here’s why I’m so tickled that I got to receive one of these cellular routers to play with:

1. It’s compact. About the size of an answering machine.
2. The folks who work at Powerful Signal are incredibly nice. It came pre-configured, and they answered all my emailed questions in record time.
3. The signal from this router is usually stronger than the signal I get from the wifi router wired into my Uverse connection.
4. Even without pre-configuration, setup takes five minutes. One disk, two plugs, and a cardslot.
5. It works anywhere there’s a cell signal. So, pretty much, unless I’m in the no-signal zone in the Mohave Desert, I have net. And so do you.

About the only thing I’d do to improve this product is make it run on batteries. Or a car charger, although there’s a model that does the latter, I think. Even so, I’m planning to take it with me to San Francisco next month…just in case the advertised wifi at the hotel doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to.

Oh, and, here’s my review, in words and still images, because for some reason my computer is not detecting the integrated camera.

I was slow to jump on the podcast bandwagon, for reasons I can’t really explain. Nevertheless, I’ve since seen the proverbial light, and am now addicted to the medium.

Recently, I’ve become hooked on two free offerings from the American Theatre Wing, which organizations gives us the Tony Awards among other nifty programs, like sending theatre professionals into New York City schools, or making it possible for NYC students and their parents to attend special performances of various Broadway shows that also include a discussion with cast and crew members.

Downstage Center is a true podcast featuring in-depth interviews with performers, producers and playwrights. It’s available via RSS and XM Satellite radio as well as on iTunes.

Working in the Theatre is a video cast available on the ATW website or via iTunes and is produced in partnership with CUNY (City University of New York). It’s a panel-discussion show that rotates epsiodes featuring performers, producers, and playwrights.

Both are fascinating if you’re a true theatre geek, and interesting enough for the casual audience as well.

So, I’ve been playing with this very cool mobile router for about a week, and I’m totally in love with it. It’s smaller than the regular router wired into our Uverse connection, and in most of the house the signal is actually stronger, which is pretty impressive when you consider that the signal is coming from a two-year-old wifi card. Thankfully, I’ve got an unlimited data plan on the card (it must cost a fortune to use cellular routers without such a plan), so I can use it forever without killing my cell phone bill, but I do have to be careful because the card tends to run hot. It ran hot in my laptop, as well, so I suspect it’s just the nature of cell cards.

While I have to admit that I’m not entirely new to the concept of cellular routers, I am seriously impressed by how easy this was to set up (plug in card, plug in power, load software that I didn’t even need to muck with because it came pre-configured), and how compact it is.

Also, Kevin at PowerfulSignal.com is the nicest guy ever, and really patient when it comes to answering questions, especially from people like me who know just enough to be dangerous.

When Fuzzy gets home from Hong Kong, he’ll be playing with it as well, and we’ll eventually be posting a full review here in my blog.

Stay tuned.

P.S. Not a flickr fan? You can also check this video out on YouTube:

In honor of the latest Anita Blake book being released, I offer this link, to today’s comic at Penny-Arcade.com:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/6/2/.

Because everyone needs a little monster porn in their lives.

A few weeks ago I found out that I was going to be receiving one of these very cool cellular routers from Powerful Signal to test, use, and play with. It’s a device that uses a cellular card (which I have) and turns that signal into a wifi hotspot within your house. During the spring and summer, we’re prone to major storms, and while we don’t lose power for long stretches of time, usually, we do have blips long enough to make the Uverse router et a little nutsy, so I’m really excited about this.

(I’m also excited about it, because it means we don’t have to stress over finding hotels with wifi when we travel. Since my cell card has unlimited hours/traffic we can stay or visit pretty much anywhere, and bring our wifi with us.)

As part of the review of this router, I’ll eventually be making a video about it, which I’ll be sharing here. I’m still learning the whole video thing, but I’m sure it will be fun to play with.

I have to confess, the concept of playing with this mobile router has my husband pretty excited as well, mainly because he remembers me complaining about having almost no signal when we visited his parents at their farm.

I haven’t had the energy to deal with the amazing amount of words spinning through my head, lately, as I’ve been unnaturally tired. Today, I was up at nine, but then went back to bed until noon, and I only now feel human.

As I write this, my favorite comforter is being laundered, so that as soon as I finish dinner I can change the bedding on our bed. What I really want to do is go shopping for new stuff, but I’m going to be good and not do that til after my conference in August, especially since I just ordered a second headset, thinking the one I bought in Feb was having vista issues.

It turned out that I was having Vista issues, but since this one identifies itself correctly, it’s still a better choice.

And now I have a backup. Backups are good.

The rice cooker just flashed from “cook” to warm, so it’s time to but my turkey burger on the grill, so I can eat, finish the laundry and go to bed.

Ah, cool sheets.
I might have to squeeze in a bath first, so I can enjoy them properly.