Soft Bench, originally uploaded by Deviant Brainwave.

Cincinnati has had the snowiest February ever, and it’s not even the end of the month yet. There are huge piles of snow everywhere, and the side streets, including ours, have not been cleared yet.

The university is closed today, for the second day in a raw. I feel like a little girl, happy to have the day off from school. However, the reality is that I just have too much work to do, and I’m happy not to have any classes to disturb the flow of productivity. The fact that it would take about an hour to drive in each direction makes skipping classes even more sensible.

E. and I did make good use of our days off, though. After all, one cannot stay cooped in all day and still keep one’s sanity. We went out for a short walk in the snow, and took a picture of this lovely cushioned bench at the end of the street. There should be a snowman sitting on it, enjoying a nice hot cup of hot chocolate. We’ll need to add that to our To Do list.

Ice Sculpcture, originally uploaded by Deviant Brainwave.

Would you like ice with that?

Although I consider myself a gadget-happy person, I tend to be skeptical, especially about something that comes from one of the giant companies. Yet, today I am buzzed about Google’s latest contribution. I think this one is going to stick for a while.

Google Buzz is not a new thing. There is nothing original about social networks anymore, or about sharing content. I guess some of that is due to Google’s previous offerings like Picasa or Reader, but mostly it was all done before by Facebook, Twitter, and others. What’s special about Buzz is that it takes the good things from all of those, puts them together in one place, and makes it better.

The fact that the one place is within Gmail makes it easy to get to and accessible. This is also a disadvantage, because it sends way too many messages into Gmail that are being picked up by external mail clients like Thunderbird. However, people are quick when it comes to finding solutions, and when I buzzed out a question I promptly received a comment from a friend with a link to instructions that solved that problem.

When first looking on the Buzz page, it gives an association of Twitter with its rectangular boxes and short messages. But unlike Twitter, Buzz does not limit the writer to 140 characters, allows additional content without the need to use annoying short links and throws in some additional functionality. That functionality is somewhat reminiscent of Facebook. It has the ability to add content (though currently limited to seven specific services, including Twitter), and comment on other people’s messages. These are all the good things in Facebook without the addition of an overloaded site with too many useless applications and too much information that only becomes slower and more buggy with every new version they release. There are also a couple more features that I liked and didn’t see in any of the other networks – updated buzzes jump to the top and are easy to find, and new content is highlighted by a colour strip.

The main criticism I read so far about Buzz is concerned with privacy (though I can’t find the link to it at the moment). Yes, Google do know about me a lot more than I probably wish them to, but this is now a fact of life. And yes, I do worry about what will happen if all that information will fall into the wrong hands. However, considering the fact that Google are providing so many useful tools, and the only payment they ask is that I will sometimes see a well directed advertisement, I think this is something I can live with. Specifically for Buzz, I believe that this time Google are doing a much better job than any of the others when it comes to privacy. The privacy settings for each connected application and each Buzz enables the selection of exactly who you want to share your information with, which is more than can be said about Twitter. The down side of this is that I had to review and reorganize hundreds of contacts in my Gmail contacts list in order to make sure that the security works the way I want it to, but at least I got rid of some irrelevant addresses and duplicates and reduced my list by about 50%.

Another complaint is about the noise -too many social networks and too many messages. This is a matter of taste, there are some that enjoy that noise, and others that can use that little link at the bottom of the inbox that says “turn off buzz”. I have a feeling that the other noise will be turned off long before Buzz.

Azrieli, originally uploaded by Deviant Brainwave.

I’m back in Cincinnati. I realize that I haven’t posted anything to say that I was anywhere else, probably because I was just having too much of a good time to stop and post about it.

I spent ten days in the Tel Aviv sunshine, enjoying the company of friends and family, good food, coffee and wine and a repetitive stream of stories. There was some feelings of ambivalence. On the one hand, I was home, with the people I care about most and whose company I appreciate more than anything. On the other hand, I was a visitor, spending my nights on a fold-out bed in someone else’s house, uncommitted to the day-to-day life and worries of the place.

I did miss the comfort of my own bed, but if I had to stay a little longer I wouldn’t have said no. In fact, after a year and a quarter I still don’t consider Cincinnati as my home, and I don’t know if I will ever be able to. However, for now at least, I’m staying here. It’s time to get back to the grind of a postgraduate student’s life as the winter quarter starts tomorrow. Just one more to go.

BTW: The picture above was taken with the camera on my new Nokia 5800 phone. Not bad for a phone…

Tomorrow will be the last day of my internship. I don’t think there will be many things I will regret leaving behind. This was not my best ever job to say the least. Yet, as a perpetual pessimist with optimistic aspirations, I do try to find a positive twist.

While attempting to find a way to escape the loop of muzak that was constantly played in just the right volume to annoy on the PA system, and despite the excessively restrictive internet policy, I found solace with NPR Music.

After realizing I could not use my MP3 player for the entire day and still have a battery that will enable me to listen to music on my way home, I turned to the possibility of finding a stream that wasn’t blocked. Luckily, this was the case with some NPR stations. Of all the amazing selection of genres and shows, the one I got to like the most is All Songs Considered, along with its related live concerts. It is a pleasure to listen to an adult and to-the-point conversation about music, some of which I liked and some I just tolerated. I always enjoy being introduced to artists I have never heard of before, and in the past year or so since I started studying I feel that I have a big gaping hole of musical vacuum that needs to be filled with such introductions. All Songs Considered did just that. Through its amazing streaming shows and podcasts I finally managed to properly listen to artists like Neko Case and Conor Oberst whom I only briefly heard or head of before. It was also a pleasure to return to old favourites like Radiohead, The Arcade Fire and The New Pornographers. Oh, how I wish I could be at these shows. Of course, there were also some artists that were completely new to me, and I am still going through these recordings with the aim of finding out exactly which ones to return to.

All these discoveries do warrant an upcoming shopping spree on the Amazon MP3 shop, though it may need to wait for a while. With the end of an internship comes the end of employment, so until I rejoin the productive workforce I will have to make do with free NPR music podcasts while my shopping list keeps getting longer and longer.

Colourful leaves on the ground are one of the beauties of autumn. Leaf blowers are not.

Neighbour, originally uploaded by Deviant Brainwave.

Following on yesterday’s post, in which I failed to provide a picture of the yellow tree outside our window, here is one take just moments ago of our neighbour posing in said tree.

This is an amazing time of the year to be around Cincinnati. The leaves are changing their colours in bewildering shades and combinations all around us. Often I turn a corner and my mouth opens in awe of the impressive palette in front of me. Last weekend, E. and I went out for a drive to try and capture some of it, but as E. said, frames of these trees don’t do enough to broadcast the feeling of such a visual effect all around. One of the most astonishing things about it, is that it changes so quickly. The pictures below were taken a week ago, and already those trees have changed.

Naturally, we started on our street. Looking deeply into a street is the closest we could get to capturing the panorama of colour. Too bad it was too cold to step out of the car (the following morning the temperatures dipped below zero for the first time this year).

Autumn Lined Street, originally uploaded by Deviant Brainwave.

As we drove along we saw some more colours. The contrast of colours make them even more special.

Tricolour, originally uploaded by Deviant Brainwave.

Foliage is quick, though:

Foliage, originally uploaded by Deviant Brainwave.

One day the trees look like their on fire, and the following day the leaves are gone and they stand there naked, ready for winter.

Almost Naked, originally uploaded by Deviant Brainwave.

I don’t have a picture of the tree in front of our window. Three days ago it was green, with a few leaves turning red and yellow. During those three days I have left every morning before sunrise and returned home late at night, so the next time I saw it in daylight was this morning. In such a short time the tree turned bright yellow, and I’m guessing that within a week or so the leaves will be gone. I don’t know how much of this process I will be able to witness, as I’m expecting to be very busy in the next few weeks. There’s work, classes and a case competition. I could use a couple more days in a week.

Rainbow, originally uploaded by Deviant Brainwave.

One good thing to say about Cincinnati: it has four seasons, and the autumn is one of two nice ones (the other being spring).

As I drive back home from work I see the trees around me changing everyday. They become more spectacularly colourful. This won’t last for much longer, as some lose their leaves rapidly.

On Saturday the weather was gorgeous, and we drove to Woodland Mound to enjoy nature. The park proved to be a very tamed version of nature, but we did get to take some pictures of the autumn leaves.

Sunset, originally uploaded by Deviant Brainwave.

It has been a long time since I had the chance to witness a good sunset. I did see way too many sunrises, though, and as winter is approaching it is only going to get worse.

This sunset was nice, but not amazing. Unfortunately, my camera did not do justice to the colours. I’m afraid that after 6 years, my good old Olympus C750 UZ decided that it’s time to retire. It has been having some mechanical problems as well recently. I need to start my research for a new camera. Suggestions are welcome.