Tonight I performed at the Cornelia Street Cafe, which was much lovelier than I initially expected it to be. It's tiny, but the stage works far better than it has any right to, and they had fantastic attendance, considering it was Rosh Hashanah. All the storytellers were terrific, which I don't say lightly—and it's rare that it happens—but indeed, everyone who made it up to the plate hit the damn ball, and most made it to second or further. I was delighted to hear Joe Limone's "Red Sox Nail" story, and James Braly's surprise appearance with an utterly reprehensible (and unforgettable) story of afterbirth—I had heard about both these stories, so it was neat to hear them from the original tellers. Brooke Delaney and Josh Lefkowitz rounded out a very strong evening, and I was happy that I performed with them all.
UNINTERESTING GEEK CRAP ALERT
About a month ago I switched from using Microsoft Entourage for all my email and calendaring to using Apple's built-in suite of Mail, iCal and Address Book. Some may have wondered: how did the transition go? I know you were concerned, Mike, and you answer over 100 emails a day—was it hard?
No one is asking this, I know—I'm just humoring myself.
As a matter of fact, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought. A few add-ons really saved my sanity, so let me list them if someone else is making the switch:
Menu Master: this essential haxie lets you change any menu command in any app. Saved my bacon, as I have all of Entourage's key combos memorized into my muscles, so I just switched Mail's to match them.
Mail Act-On: this plugs into Mail's rule system to speed up sorting and processing of incoming mail. Very fast, clean, intuitive interface.
Mail Type Select: this gives you Type Ahead Find in your mailboxes. Type a few letters and presto, you are at your email.
Apple Mail Plug-Ins: every tool under the sun. Get Google Maps, autocomplete addresses—everything else.
All that said, the switch has paid dividends for me. No more Office running 24/7, which is good because even after the latest service pack it always sucks up processor cycles for no reason. All the Apple apps are more nimble than Entourage, and JM and I now (finally!) have a working calendar solution—we both have .mac, but weren't using 1/8th of the features.
YMMV, but for me it was an unmitigated success—and I really doubted I could switch at first, after seven years addicted to Outlook Express/Entourage.
END UNINTERESTING GEEK CRAP ALERT
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