I'm in San Diego for the annual O'Reilly ETech (above) and for the second year running failed to get into the conference hotel, the Westin. Worse, for the second year running, I'm staying at the Comfort Inn, Gaslamp edition. Those with long memories and not much of a life may recall that, last year, it had no broadband as its supplier had gone bust. (AOL dial-up saved my bacon.) The good news is that this year it has Wi-Fi. The bad news is that it doesn't stretch as far as my room. I've pleaded for a move down the corridor to no avail because the hotel is full, as is, apparently, every hotel for miles around. Unfortunately, the whole of San Diego is overrun with millions of American chemists, here for a different conference.
However, I've already visited the two local shrines: Fry's cavernous superstore, which is about 10 miles away ($26 in a cab*), and the new Apple Store which is, appropriately enough, in the Fashion Valley mall ($2.25 by tram**). I paid my respects in the usual way, with a flash of plastic. The haul included an Emprex USB 2.0 disk-based MicroStorage system smaller than a box of Swan Vestas. It may well be rubbish, but getting 2.2GB of shirt-pocket storage for $79.99 was just too much to resist. Fry's also had little 1GB Flash/thumb-drives for $69.99.
* This obliges you to spend enough to save the cab fare. ** This doesn't oblige you to spend anything.
