Turning on a dime...

There are basically two ways to handle a situation in which a client says "There's no rush."

The first is to ignore what the client says and do job in a workmanlike manner as if the deadline was normal.

The second is to schedule some other stuff to do (including personal stuff)—without overdoing it, naturally—before sitting down to do the job.

In my experience, unless there is a pressing need to schedule that other stuff (and here, of course, we get to play with the definition of pressing), you're better off to use the first approach.

Why? Because end clients have a tendency to surprise everyone and suddenly decide that documents sent to translation on a "no rush" basis are needed yesterday (further tightening the required/requested turnaround time).

Cheers...

Boxee begone!

I really don't think I've ever had to deal with a piece of hardware that has provided me with more features that just flat out didn't work (or worked intermittently) than the D-Link Boxee Box.

Now, I would expect this—and might even tolerate it—in a homebrew, alpha-level kind of product, but while skimming various Boxee-related sites, I not only found a lot of people in the same boat as I am, but also rumors of an impending new version of the hardware (a "Boxee Box 2"), which sort of implies that owners of current units are "early adopters" in the most unfortunate sense of the word.

There may be a way to "cut the cable" or do whatever it is one does to not use satellite TV, but in my opinion, Boxee ain't it.

Cheers...

Castle musings...

I can't complain too much about the Castle season finale. It resolved some issues—a bit too hurriedly for my taste, at times, especially near the end—and raised some others, which bodes well for a fifth season of the show.

Which raises a somewhat interesting question: In what direction would I like to see the story line continue?

Now, I suppose technically, it might be considered a 'spoiler' to let the uninitiated know that in the course of Monday night's story, Kate Beckett resigned from the NYPD (although anyone who saw any of the ads for the upcoming finale ought not be surprised). But there it is: Beckett's no longer a New York City detective.

So wouldn't it be a gas if the writers were to take the characters of Nick and Nora Charles (characters introduced, if memory serves, by Dashiell Hammett in The Thin Man, and memorably played by William Powell and Myrna Loy in a series of 1930s movies) and reverse them and turn them inside out?

Dig it: Beckett drops the cops for good, she and Castle hit it off and decide to live a life of leisure, but that doesn't really work (maybe they get dropped into the middle of a murder mystery or two), so Beckett eventually gets a PI license, and the two of them eventually go chasing after cases.

The mirror image is almost complete. Nick Charles was a former cop (not sure he was a PI, though), married to Nora Charles, a wealthy socialite who is devoted to Nick and who exhibits quite a bit of gumption when the chips are down. In my proposed updated version, Kate Beckett is a former cop, "significantly-othered" with Rick Castle, a wealthy fiction writer devoted to Kate, who is also no wilting wallflower in a crisis (when push comes to shove).

(I mean, it isn't as though this is some kind of breakthrough concept. Even if we take out the Nick and Nora Charles angle, you're still left with the raw material that worked pretty well in McMillan & Wife and Hart to Hart.)

A big point on the pro side of this suggestion is that it opens all sorts of possibilities outside the scope of the NYPD and New York City. On the con side, is the fact that the story arc(s) would now lie outside the scope of the NYPD and New York City (it's likely a lot of people would get rattled if that changed) and, of course, the major conflict between Esposito and Ryan remaining at the end of the finale is left unresolved—and it really needs resolution (along with some other less-critical conflicts, such as the one left hanging in the air between Captain Gates and Beckett when the latter hands in her badge).

Oh, and that other little issue mentioned at the very end of the finale? That could serve as a vehicle for propelling Beckett and Castle in a big way into the roles of Nick and Nora.

Cheers...