turkeysz, originally uploaded by nate_marsh.

For many, Valentine’s Day is a special occasion to spend with your loved ones or robot pals. For me it’s always been about the turkeys, which made this day extra special for me.

While walking with my special lady around Brookline, we came across a group of 20+ wild turkeys! We are not talking about the uber-fancy sprawling-estate section of Brookline, it was still very residential, right next to the D line – right here actually:

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It was pretty cool to see all the birds, not particularly attractive animals but scraggly and resourceful critters.It was hard to take very good photos because of where they were standing but you are not missing too much, trust me.

After a few minutes, a common housecat wandered into the scene. As this photo shows the cat was initially pretty mellow – he had obviously dealt with birds before. For a minute I thought they would turn out to be great friends – then he tried to start a little trouble. They backed off for a second but eventually realized through their collective pea-sized brain that the odds were in their favor and chased the fellow off. Not much else happened after that, they are probably still there, pecking at stuff.

More pictures here…

Dead Mobile, by nate_marsh.

I unfortunately lost the original French version of the poem – it was amazing!… but a friend of mine was kind enough to re-translate it for me. I include a picture of N75 in somewhat happier & surlier time… crack open a bottle of vino and take a read -

Complainte pour un portable défunt
(Les derniers moments)

(traduit de français par N. Marsh, retraduit de l’anglais en français par C. Boyer)

1.7€ pour laver et sécher
Combien coûte-t-il, de pleurer ?

Ô N75 — bien que tu n’étais pas toujours soigné
sache que je n’ai pas fait exprès

de te nettoyer négligemment
entre mes chemises et mes sous-vêtements

Certes, tu me rendais facile à joindre,
Hélas, l’eau de javel t’a rendu moindre.

Avec toi, j’envoyais sans cesse des textos
Est-ce que tu captes toujours là-haut ?

Par ma faute, tu étais condamné à expirer
Tu ne communiques plus qu’avec les anges, finalement séché…

08/20/2007, by nate_marsh.

I’ve been playing with my new phone, the N75 which is a neat little device. One nerdy service that I am trying is with the unlimited data plan, you can actually send your crappy photos right to Flickr! No need to wait the extra 15 seconds to get ‘em on your computer first. Technology is grand!

Here’s a bunch of new things I like:

1.) My new phoney. The SonyEricsson T637 is not only the cheapest phone on amazon.com, with a cumlative $320 rebate on a $120 phone, it has ridiculous powers when powered with floAT. Bluetooth is pretty addictive, I can’t imagine another phone without it.

2.) My new mp3erator. I got the iRiver iHp799. It’s in the same relative price range as the iPod Mini and some other harddisk players, but it’s a gig of flash memory. I am not so impressed with the iPod or iRiver’s HD players, not impressed enough to drop >$350 to hold all my music, so I decided to get this super light, simple & nice sounding friend.

3.) The Kleptones – A Night at the Hip-hopera. This is a pretty fantastic mashup of a some Queen and a lot of popular and relatively unknown djs & mcs. It flows incredibly well, it’s a phenomenal example of what people can create when they ignore our fucked up copyright laws and start putting things together, you ain’t finding this in any record stores!

I have this little cell phone that I got with my plan, which is nice and simple. He’s a tough lil’ guy but nothing special, none of those fancy extras hawked through so many giant billboards. The Samsung SPH-N240 has been with me through countless awkward conversations and drunken tele-epiphanies…
Anyways, I think my phone was among the first generation of cell phones without any ringtones that sound anything like a real telephone. I don’t want to sound like Grandpa here, but it took me a while to get used to having only goofy ringtones. Like “Chicken Parade” and “Ring 5″, yeah there are some really shitty rings in there.
Anyways, my point is that now I’m hearing these rings on other phones that sound sort of like mine but then they break it down, hardcore. Like it’ll be “Chicken Parade – Reggae Dance Hall Remix” or “Ring 5 (Quadraphonic Mix)” I think Samsung must have some full-time ring-tone composers that obviously can only produce what the phones can handle. So, when they have access to the four types of beeps my can make, “Chicken Parade” is the best they can do, throw them the new Samsung SPxx 5000, though and prepare to have your pants knocked off.
That’s such a great thought Nate.