There’s going to be an Engadget reader meetup tonight at UCSF! There hasn’t been one in SF for three years, so I’m excited about it. They’re giving away tons of gear, so get there early (doors are at 7PM)! I’ll be there hanging out and eating the free food, and generally making a nuisance of myself.

And then on Thursday I’m giving a talk at UC Berkeley! For those of you on Facebook, here’s the event listing. For everyone else:

Date: Thursday, October 11, 2007
Time: 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: 156 Dwinelle
City/Town: Berkeley, CA

I’ll be talking about podcasting, new media and how I became involved in the industry. It’s open to anyone, and it’s free. Hope to see everyone out!

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Today is my first day of work at Mahalo, and I’m down in Santa Monica getting to know everyone. I had a nice vacation, but it feels good to be working and talking about projects again. The show is going to be called Mahalo Daily, and we’re planning on going live in September! We want to have a few shows in the bag first, considering I have to fly back East for a wedding for a week next month. But don’t worry, we’ll have something special for you coming even sooner!

Pictures from today:

The Mahalo office.

My desk! Very messy, I know.

My new BFF.

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Now playing: Chromeo - Fancy Footwork
via FoxyTunes

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First of all, it’s Monday and I’m not at work. That’s weird enough. And I guess I’m on vacation right now, which is also strange for me. Usually when I took time off from CNET, it meant I was going somewhere. Now I’m just… home.

So far today I’ve cleaned the bathroom, tidied up the bedroom, emptied the dishwasher, organized my Adium contacts, mailed off some bills, thought about travel plans to Santa Monica, thought about travel plans to Connecticut, and got a much-needed coffee.

I really dont know what to do with myself. I’m sure with more time I’ll be dangerously close to driving Ryan insane just by being here (he has his daily routine down to a science), so I need to figure out something for the week. My main plan is to hit the gym a bunch, maybe take some yoga classes, and go climbing more. Get myself out of the house as much as possible.

I also find it weird to not be tethered to Outlook all day. I’m so used to reminders, and my folders, and just the constant influx of corporate mail. It’s very disconcerting to only rely on gmail. I’m trying to decide if I should start using Mail.app for my mail, or if I should stick to the web interface. Now that I don’t have two computers to worry about, should I move all my web based stuff to apps, like my RSS?

/sigh
Relaxing is hard work.

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Yesterday I went over to the Apple Store at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, to cover the line over there for CNET TV and to secure another test unit iPhone for our labs. I was there for about 4 hours, and by the time 6PM rolled around, the line was pretty damn long. I wasn’t intending on buying an iPhone that day, but when I got up to the counter and the smiling Apple clerk asked me what he could get for me, I blurted out “Two eight-gigers, please!” I caved under the non-pressure.

So now I have an iPhone of my very own. The one you see above isn’t mine, but Ryan’s. The reason why you don’t see mine is because I realized that I still have ’til the 10th of July before my T-Mobile contract is up. I’ve already spent $600–I’m sure as hell not going to spend another $200 just so I can use it now. Oh, but is it ever hard not to activate that sucker. You can’t do anything without activating it! Luckily, I’ll be surrounded by them both at home and at work, so I won’t feel like I’m missing out too much.

I have to tell you, I didn’t want to get sucked in like this, but it’s cool… really cool. Yes, the keyboard can be a little flaky. And yes, the EDGE kind of sucks. But my initial feeling is that it’s a very fun and easy to use phone. I guess I’ll have to wait until the week of the 10th to give my full impressions!

In the meantime, the real phone/MP3 player pros at CNET have taken their First Look, so go check that out.

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