Everyone spotlights the automata, but the musical collection is extraordinary. These aren’t just ‘music boxes’. There’s everything from musical jewelry like this ring and furniture, to a steam powered vehicle. My favorites were the Limonaire and the barrel organs.

Click the pictures here for some examples. The exhibit has monitors showing most things in action, there is a demo every day, and many pieces have a way of hearing their sound. The collection was given on condition that they be seen and heard. More need to be digitized. See the exhibit if you can.

Post from: Jeannie's Brain

The Guinness Collection

Then something happened: the entire experience improved.

A blog mentioned success with allowing the battery to run down until it turned the phone off, then fully charging it, and doing that three times. It worked. I am now getting double the battery life. Since I had already bought a second battery and a charger, this is the end of my battery problems.

And I got used to ICS. It was brutal the first few days – and I still want a menu button – but I like ICS now.

My only remaining complaint is the phone does not play YouTube videos full screen. I tried toggling the HQ button on and off and tapping the full screen icon, but nothing works. It isn’t a 3G or 4G issue, since I’m using it on my wifi. Very disappointing in a phone I bought for the beautiful screen.

Post from: Jeannie's Brain

Galaxy Nexus Update

That is the positive.

My first handset couldn’t get a good enough connection to even activate the phone. After three hours I exchanged it. This one is good on 3G or 4G but the wifi is still pretty feeble, even at home a few yards from my router. Good thing I’m grandfathered into unlimited.

Connecting to the computer with my Incredible was a no-brainer. The Nexus was a nightmare. I could not drag files to the phone. The progress screen went on and on and never transferred anything. Windows 7 – which has automatically loaded drivers for everything I’ve ever plugged in – did not find drivers for this phone. I had to find, download and install the Samsung drivers, then plug the phone in again for windows to ‘see’ it. Dragging files still did not work until I disabled USB bugging on the phone and dragged and dropped in one particular way.

The speaker is almost inaudible even after purchasing a volume booster app. Bad.

Battery life is ludicrous. If I keep screen timeout at 30 seconds, location off, only turn on wifi or 3G when I need them, don’t stream anything – or use the phone much – it usually lasts about eight hours. I will probably never use 4G, because if I turn it on, the battery dies in less than four hours. Bad.

So far I really don’t like ICS. Finally starting to get used to it after two weeks, but it was not easy. The first time I got a call I couldn’t answer the phone! I had to search for the procedure and call myself from another phone to practice. Making a call is also not intuitive.

It needs a menu button! The menu is three tiny dots hidden in different places depending on what you have open and when and where you tap. I miss the seven home screens. Yes you can do folders, but that means tapping three times instead of once. Annoying. The calendar is ugly and hard to use. Hoping a better one turns up soon.

Bottom line: I’m stuck with this phone. We are on Verizon and my husband needed his first smart phone. If it was only up to me, I would have waited for a better phone. Verizon doesn’t have any other decent options right now. I hate the look and feel of the Moto Droids, and I wouldn’t take an iPhone if it was free.

So I’m waiting for the other issues so many people have on the Nexus: sudden inability to charge the phone by any means and a boot loop when changing wifi networks. Yay.

Post from: Jeannie's Brain

Don’t Buy the Galaxy Nexus

• The Bride of Frankenstein
• Time Bandits
• Army of Darkness
• Babe
• Chocolat
• Amelie
• The Mask
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
• Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Post from: Jeannie's Brain

That End of the Year Thing

This is the first video I have shared on here, fitting because it’s the first Google Doodle that ever made me cry. Such an extraordinary person. I heard about it last night via the Queen Online and Freddie For A Day Twitters. It will hit the US Google page tomorrow – we get it late like all Queen-related media and merchandise. Good thing I’m a life-long Anglophile and order everything but DVDs from the UK stores. Here is Dr May’s post on the Google blog Another extraordinary person.

Pardon the fangirlism but I only discovered Queen this year. Better late than never! I am stupefied by their talent and personality. My musical taste has always been wildly eclectic so I appreciate that aspect of their music. Now collecting deluxe CD reissues.

Post from: Jeannie's Brain

Queen

Background

Last surgery

The “residue” that was clouding the cornea cleared up, and I didn’t develop the “skin” over the lens that required machine gun laser surgery in the other eye.

The vision is now better than in the other eye. It’s brighter due to less deterioration in that optic nerve. Vision in the first eye is blurry and peripheral vision is not terrific – that’s the first part of the visual field that goes in a slow optic nerve deterioration. Peripheral vision is not great in the other eye either. I can pass a driving test to get a license, but am not comfortable driving. No great loss since I had five accidents when my vision was better. You don’t want me on the roads.

The hyper sensitivity to light – and pretty much everything else – remained. They attempted to help by placing plugs in my tear ducts. This prevents the tears from instantly vanishing from the eye. That worked pretty well, but one of the plugs kept scratching my eye. I returned to the office, and they ‘repositioned’ that plug. The plug in the other eye also scratched so I went back and discovered the fellow who had ‘repositioned’ the other plug accidentally pushed it all the way into the tear duct. If an infection develops it will have to be removed – by cutting it out of my face with a scalpel. Well at least I have something other than the vision to worry about.

On monday July 25, I went back for a checkup and the layer of cornea tissue in the December surgery eye is being rejected. I hadn’t noticed any more aching and paining than usual. Rejection can nearly always be stopped with steroid eye drops, so they put in drops every five minutes for an hour, then sent me home with drops to use every hour for four days. I returned on the thursday and the drops had barely made a dent in the rejection.

Problem: the steroid eye drops raise the eye pressure. Raised eye pressure damages the optic nerve. They can replace a cornea, not an optic nerve. And this was my better, brighter eye! Going back tomorrow morning to see if there is any improvement.

The rejection was stopped by the eye drops and the eye pressure did not rise. I woke up sunday with no vision in my right eye. Not using the ‘B’ word. The vision slowly faded back in over about five minutes. That’s the optic nerve going…

Post from: Jeannie's Brain

Eye Update

At the office visit early saturday morning, the graft was 90% adhering.

90% is good unless you’re a cornea graft.

I was sent home to lie down flat again. Monday morning when I returned, the graft was failing and falling off and I was in severe intestinal pain from my reaction to the diuretic. First they inserted more air into the eye in order to force the graft to adhere. This was done with only an eye-numbing jell and was painful. After the procedure, I had to lie flat for two hours – not easy with severe intestinal pain. After two hours they looked again.

It was not adhering.

What followed was a full hour of extraordinarily painful surgery. There was fluid on the wrong side of the transplanted cells preventing them from sticking. They removed it, replaced the graft and filled the eye with extra air for pressure. I thought I would go insane from the pain. The cells started working and they could see my iris for the first time through the cornea. I had to lie there in pain for two hours. Finally the last, shorter procedure of removing some of the pressure. This was the most painful of all (due to the increased pressure) ending with what felt like a knitting needle slowly skewering my eye. I was then sent home to lie down flat for five more days.

The intestinal pain gradually receded and I was able to eat. The graft is now adhering and the cells are working to clear the cornea. I was allowed to get up at the end of that week but still could not bend forward or do anything at all strenuous. I was on antibiotic drops for two weeks and not allowed to leave the house except for doctor appointments (risk of infection).

This week I have been able to make the bed and cook a few dinners. I still need to use a cotton ball to dry near that eye, and can’t exert any pressure near my eyelid (stitches at the top of the eye). Finally I can make it through a day without taking a nap. Must continue steroid eye drops for six months. The eye should gradually stop hurting over the next three months, and the vision should improve over that time. I still feel pain in the spot where the last needle was inserted.

How did I not go insane lying there all that time? My phone. Everyone makes fun of Twitter now, but Seesmic on the Incredible is easier to use (and see) than facebook, chat, Plurk or email. It was my lifeline and contact with the outside world.

I am hugely grateful for each one of the Twitter @’s and DMs, and for all the facebook messages I could not reply to at the time. They were the one bright spot in a harrowing couple of weeks. Thank you so much.

And thanks again to the #cnetfans people who sent the amazing bacon package:

Post from: Jeannie's Brain

The Last Eye

Again.

I was born with two eye diseases. The operable one can be cured by replacing a defective layer of cells beneath my cornea. My right eye was done in 2007 (details for the curious and non-squeamish in my post Eyes ) now it’s time for the left eye.

There is good and bad news in having it done a second time.

Good: I know what to expect

Bad: I know what to expect

I’ve been lying awake at night thinking about the bad, so here’s the good: this time I have a netbook and a smart phone.

After surgery, I need to lie down flat for five days and can’t bend my head forward or exert myself for a month. Last time I could not sit up and use a computer for a week. This time, after the first couple of days when I start to feel better, I can get live streams and podcasts on the phone and netbook while still lying on the couch. IRC is out, but I can stay in touch on Twitter.

It’s great to be a connected couch potato.

And I’m really glad I only have two eyes!

See you January 3 in #cnetfans

Post from: Jeannie's Brain

Eyes: The Sequel