It Rains In Triplicate

So instead of being productive today, I played with improving my OmniFocus setup. I make heavy (and unfortunate) use of a neat AppleScript called Defer, which is a button I press when I don’t get something done when scheduled.

I wanted the opposite of Defer. When I go through my ToDo list in the morning, I want a button I press that says “do this task today”. So, based on the Defer script, I wrote the Today script, which can be found Here. This script will change the due dates of selected tasks to “today”.

The only major issue I see is the definition of “today”. So OmniFocus schedules on a per-minute granularity, so if you mark an item as due at 12 noon, at 12:01pm, that task is overdue. Further, OmniFocus (and AppleScript current date object) defaults to midnight, so marking an item as due “today” will automatically mark it as overdue.

OmniFocus lets you change the default time for due dates, which I have set to 11:59pm, which works for me. However, this value is not (as far as I can tell) exposed to AppleScript. So, I use the heuristic:

1. If the item selected has a due date, just change the year / month / day values to today
2. Otherwise, set the due date to today at 11:59pm, with that time being configurable in the script

So we obviously need baby furniture. For the first few months we have a bassinet and co-sleeper, but we need the crib and dresser for the nursery.

We found the stuff we wanted at Babies R Us. Several months ago. We go there, look at the pieces, do significant research to figure out if there is a recall, safety warnings, etc, wait in line to order them, and are told that they are “out of stock, and we have no idea when or if they will return into stock”. So, we look around more, go home, do research, come back, and be told the same thing.

No kidding, we did this three times.

Next round, we call up the store, and ask them if the product is in stock, and are told it is. Of course, we go there, and are told that there is no way someone could have claimed it is in stock. We did that twice.

So, after at least two months of this, we decided on a mismatched, but not horribly so, dresser and crib set, because we couldn’t find a set that was potentially ever in stock, and did not have a recent or outstanding recall notice against it.

Of course, it was not in stock, even though we called and asked in the morning, but it could be ordered and delivered.

So, they came to deliver it today, delivering the wrong dressed in the process.

They’ll make it right, but re-ordering the right dresser, really this time, and deliver it sometime in the next few weeks. Hopefully, they’ll get it right, and not decide that this dresser has gone out of stock again. It would be nice to have a place to put the kids clothes and changing pad.

I got to read a book while my daughter drifted off to sleep against my chest.

I had a pretty good day today.

… has a single button interface (like the iphone), but depending on how many times or how long you hold the button it does different things.

Somewhere, Tog is readying an air strike on Cupertino.

So, the entire Fox drama slate of television programs is based around Simon Cowell, the archetypical example of the poorly socially adjusted, mean, borderline asperger-type of personality.

24 is the story about turning Simon Cowell into a secret agent

House is about him as a doctor

Kitchen Confidential is about him as a chef

Lie to Me is about him as a behavioral psychologist

Terminator, I think, has him as Sarah Connor, but I’m not quite sure yet.

The whole plot resolves around this guy who is very good at what he does, but cannot relate to other people, and compensates by being uncaring and cruel. At some point during the hour, he may or may not have an insight and realize that he is doing it, compensates, but, in a very sitcom-ish fashion, does back to status quo the following week (because there wouldn’t be any worthwhile dynamic if he became well adjusted and a competent human being, of course)

In fact, the reasonably good shows that aren’t surviving, i.e., dollhouse, terminator, may be because this dynamic isn’t sufficiently brought to the forefront.