"Yo, your mom's gonna love that menorah."

The West Coast answers SNL's Narnia Rap (a.k.a. "Lazy Sunday") with "Lazy Monday." filed under: video, humor, music

The "Whatever happened to..." project

One loses track of many people in the course of one's life. People get off at this stop, miss the train at another. The train of life chugs on. Did you ever wonder whatever happened to those people? The ones who influenced you in some minor way. Or perhaps in a very significant way. I admit it. I've googled the names of one or two old girlfriends. C'mon who hasn't? I've even been bored enough to google people from the seventh grade, fercryinoutloud. At some point, I tried finding a few people who were very influential in my life, but whom I'd lost touch with long ago. It's amazing that it's so hard to locate some people with Google. You'd think they're names would come up somewhere... Alas, I only had decent luck with a few, and then quickly got distracted by the 237 other things that occupy my so-called free time. In fact, I started this list and this blog post 14 months ago, and I'm only getting around to posting it now. The plan Operating under the assumption that everyone will eventually google themselves, I'm posting the names of people whom I've lost touch with and wondered about. Since Google will crawl this site eventually, I hope they will see their name in Google, with a link to this page. The list The names are in no particular order. I'll probably add to it over time. I'll also update this page when I find out whatever happened to any of these people. If you know any of these people (or maybe are one of these people), I'd like to hear from you. Jim Filiault JP Walz Sean English Ashley Mooser [K. Ashley Mooser] Brian J. Boxall Rocky Mullin (I kinda know where he is) Stephanie Jorgl Shelley Hurt? (from La Voz... "You're loved, pumpkin!") Mike Mogenson Michelle Spivey Danielle Malanczuk Darren ___ Ki Hong (from 777 s. Mathilda) Laurie Parker Paul F. Page (journalism teacher, Saratoga High School) Kristi Rux Tami Paulsen Carlo Carbajal Ed Svoboda Corina Doody Sharon Fernekees Karen Fernekees Julie Fernekees

Caught up on new photos

In case anyone cares, I caught up last weekend posting to the photoblog. I know one person who noticed, anyway (hi Sarah!), since her son Sage showed up in yesterday's entry and she sent me an email. No, it wasn't a death threat. Sarah is one of Velm's bestest friends and we visited her and her tykes in December in Missouri.

How to make a comic

Comic artist Kazu Kibuishi (Copper, and others) has posted a cool tutorial showing his process of creating a comic, from pencilling to inking to coloring. I figured Aaron, Jason, and Ynnej would be particularly interested in this.

eBaum's World coming to a TV near you

USA Network is going to make a TV show out of the weird and wacky time-waster of a site (what? I'm not saying that's a bad thing) eBaum's World.

Yahoo! to buy Digg?

Rumors are surfacing that Yahoo! will announce the purchase of Digg next week, although the Diggers are denying it. I've mentioned to a few friends in conversation that I predict social-bookmarking sites like del.ico.us, Digg, and reddit will be snapped up in 2006 like donuts in the PD break room. Then someone reminded me that, um, Yahoo! already bought del.ico.us in December. I should've mentioned my prediction here earlier. I'm very interested in social bookmarking sites, by the way, and I may have an announcement regarding a similar service one day soon. Filed in: social-bookmarking, tech, Web 2.0

"Gimme a roll"

"Vampires aren't even evil. Football players are." Hey Ynnej and Zonk, keep these guys in mind while you get together your D&D group in Boston.

Distractions for the masses! This week's top 5 totally unrelated links

TypeTester For the font dork in all of us. Especially useful for web designers, developers, and CSS mavens. » http://typetester.maratz.com/ ShitCrunch Giving shit to Web 2.0 » http://shitcrunch.wordpress.com/2006/01/05/9rules-to-web-20/ Clerks II trailer » http://blockofstores.com/teaser/ Ever wondered how the Internet works? » http://www.wimp.com/theinternet/ Flickeur Awesome Flickr hack [Flash]. » http://incubator.quasimondo.com/flash/flickeur.php

Photoblog status

I got a bit behind in posting to the photoblog this month. Things have been a little crazy in my life the past six weeks or so... New cat = problem child. Dad's been back in the hospital twice. And there have been some very significant changes in my job at work. I hope to get back on schedule with a bunch of cool new photo posts this weekend. Any requests? La Voz era black and whites? Hair bands? Twenty straight days of Ynnej with different hairstyles? More BAA Schoolie flashbacks? Nothing but Zia McCabe? C'mon, gimme some good ideas.

The Bush presidency as RPG

Awesome. www.defectiveyeti.com

Introducing Google Gulp

"Beta Carroty — Want to be healthy without actually going so far as to eat (shudder) vegetables? Get your daily pick-me-up dose of cancer-fighting carotenoids with this smooth, not all chalky morning smoothie." Oh, those wacky Googlers.

New reeeeally big iMac

Jenny and I met up with Scott LaMorte at MacWorld last week for about an hour. Scott and I checked out the new 20-foot iMacs. Those screens just keep getting bigger and bigger!

First impression of your website is important

A recent study by researchers at Carleton University in Ottawa shows that the brain can make flash judgements almost as fast as the eye can take in the information, meaning that a user's first impression of your website is made in the first 50 milliseconds of viewing. About six or seven years ago I was marginally involved in the beginning of web credibility research by Stanford's Persuasive Technology Lab. Their "How can you boost your web site's credibility?" top 10 list is a good, basic primer for budding user-centered designers and information architects. Filed in: branding, web design, usability, web credibility

Custom printed MMs

Cooooool...

A couple easy things you can do to prepare for an emergency

Because you never know when you're gonna get hit by a bus. Get a Road ID with your allergies, emergency contacts, etc. Add one or more ICE (in case of emergency) numbers to your mobile phone.

Analysis of Apple's new software and hardware announcements

FM tuner for iPods new! Finally! Now I might buy an iPod. If I can't listen to NPR on it, I don't want to spend $200 bucks or more for a music player. This new little gadget will retail for only $49, but as of this writing it hasn't appeared on the online Apple Store yet. Edit: I lied; here it is. It just wasn't included on the iPod Accessories page (!). OS X 10.4.4 upgrade Includes a bunch of new Dashboard widgets, but I'm not sure what else. Run Software Update now and you should get it. iLife '06 upgrade ($79) I am soooo going to buy this upgrade for me and Velma. Here's a run-down of five of the six included apps (no iTunes upgrade this time)... iPhoto upgrade Faster, support for 250,000 photos, integration with other iApps, fullscreen editing and comparison mode, Effects Panel for color correcting (similar to Photoshop's Auto Adjustments), improved quality for Photo Books, new photo calendars and cards with the extremely high quality Apple template styles, Photocasting (essentially an RSS-based photoblog). iMovie upgrade Animated themes, multiple open projects, automatically export to your iPod or to a video podcast. iDVD upgrade Widescreen menus, support for third part DVD burners, tighter integration with iMovie and iPhoto through the new iLife media browser. Garage Band upgrade New Podcast Studio which will simplify the process of recording and adding effects (audio and video) to podcasts, lots of new effects, integration with iChat, and tons of new free sounds. iWeb new! Fantastic Apple templates and effects (image masking, cropping, rotating, reflections, etc.), ability to create and share photo albums, blogs, and podcasts, integration with .Mac for one-click publishing (unclear how easy it'll be to publish to other servers), drag-and-drop playlist integration with the iTunes Music Store, automatic RSS feeds, and even a photo viewer that uses AJAX! It's pretty friggin' slick. .Mac upgrade .Mac has been updated, mostly to run iWeb and the other aforementioned new features. iWork minor upgrade 3D charts, better image editing, table calculations, new themes. Dual-processor iMac new! Intel's inside! (No, the "Intel Inside" sticker doesn't seem to appear anywhere on the new Macs. Thank bog.) The iMac G5 just came out, to rave reviews. Now we have the next generation iMac, with Intel's Core Duo chip, purportedly 2–3 times faster than the G5. Same design as the G5 iMac with Front Row, built-in iSight, single form-factor, new remote control, etc. Dual-processor MacBook Pro brand friggin' new! The new Intel-based MacBook Pro is purportedly nearly 4 times faster than my Powerbook G4. I am instantly jealous. From a branding perspective, it was interesting but understandable that they have departed not only from the PowerPC chip but with the PowerBook name. However, I think the name MacBook Pro is a little weak, but whatever, they finally got the word Mac in the name of the product, which was always a strange omission. So what else? Brighter display, new built-in iSight camera, Front Row, IR sensor and Apple remote control, larger trackpad, Sudden Motion Sensor which parks the hard drive if there's a sudden change in orientation (like getting knocked off a table), DVI out, backlit keyboard, larger HDs and graphics chips, new industry standard ExpressCard Slot instead of PCI slot, and they finally fixed various issues with the shoddy power cable connector with the new MagSafe, a magnetic cable connection to the Book. Ships in February. Apple Universal and Rosetta All of Apple's OS X applications, including iLife, iWork, Safari, Address Book, etc., run natively on both PowerPC and Intel chips using Apple's Universal technology. Additionally, the new Intel machines ship with Rosetta, allowing PowerPC applications to run on the Intel machines. Hmm. Carbon anyone? Jobs announced that the entire hardware line will be transitioned to Intel ships by the end of 2006. He premiered the first TV spot, and I was not at all surprised that it uses a Moby song as the background. Watch Steve's keynote If you want to see the whole show (it's long but worth it), including premieres of the new iPod and Intel commercials, check it out here [QuickTime]. What's missing? A couple things I expected to see were an Intel-based MacMini (I guess they need something for next spring, right?), and an upgrade to Front Row, which still seems like an early 1.0 product to me.

AOL snaps up Weblogs Inc. — Are blog networks the new black?

With a bevvy of successful sites such as the popular Engadget and all their Unofficial XYZ Blogs (Apple, Photoshop, Microsoft, Google, fill in the blank), we should have realized that Weblogs Inc. was a prime target to be picked off. Let's hope AOL doesn't shoot itself in the foot with this purchase. Weblogs Inc. has built an impressive network of vertical market (a.k.a. niche market, a.k.a. affinity market) blog properties in practically every category you can imagine. While many of the blogs are still in their infancy, apparently that network was impressive enough to earn a reported "about $25 million" pricetag (according to Reuters). But Weblogs Inc. is not the only blog network. Gawker Media has the popular Gizmodo, Gawker, and Wonkette properties, among others. And there are a few smaller (but growing) players out there too, such as Business Logs' 9Rules Network. In a related note, VeriSign recently bought Weblogs.com for $2.3 million, and Moreover.com for an estimated $30 million. Weblogs.com is a tool which allows bloggers to ping a server to alert people — via pingbacks, newsreaders, etc. — to know that their blog has been updated. Weblogs.com processes close to 2 million pings a day. VeriSign's Michael Graves outlined the reasons for the purchase and future plans on the VeriSign blog (apropos, don'tcha think?). Filed under: tech, business, blogging, blog networks

Everything is gay

Hilarious video on Google Video. You do know about Google Video, right? It rocks. filed under: humor, video

Spiraling chaos

According to LiveJournal user foundphoto4life, "my friend sarah new hampshire found a journal in a box in a junkyard. there were pictures inside of the girl who wrote it. shes made a livejournal in the name of girl and has been posting some entries from it. its crazy!" I don't know if it's real or not, but it's convincingly well-written if it's fiction. Quite a few years ago I realized that I had to consciously divorce chaotic people from my life. I had been affected in extremely negative ways too often by the type of people who thrive on chaos, and I resloved to avoid those types in future. The turning point was being in a serious relationship with a manic depressive (that was not her only problem, just the main one) who was only happy when she was unhappy. Leaving her house late one night, after apologizing for the umpteenth time for starting a fight I hadn't started, I had the gut-wrenching realization that I was beginning to hate the person I loved. I've known a lot of chatoic people in my life, and of course some of those relationships are not as bad as others, are still worthwhile even with the all the headaches they can cause. But one of the most important life lessons I've ever ever learned was that sometimes it's just not worth it anymore. You have to have enough self-respect to protect yourself and your sanity and sometimes that means just saying, "I don't need this person in my life anymore." This girl's lj makes some of the chaotic people I've known look like saints. Here's a sample: "... i guess i should explain myself. the past couple of entries i've written have been jumbled and infused by crystal meth. they are ramblings that make no sense out of the moments in time they were spewed out of me... i didn't mean for this to happen and now i am being swallowed whole..."

DRAFT: Delta

You probably didn't see mention in the news of Delta flight ___'s engine burnout and emergency landing on December 23. __, a passenger on that flight,

"Brace! Brace! Brace!"

You probably didn't see mention in the news of Delta flight 1187's engine burnout and emergency landing on December 23. Brandon Heckman, a passenger on that flight, writes of the experience on his website. "...I rolled forward, wrapped my arms under my knees, and wrapped my fingers around the seat frame. I closed my eyes...and imagined giving all of myself to the plane — I thought that by giving my soul to the plane, I could make it somehow lighter and that we'd land safer because of it... I didn't realize we'd landed until the nervous applause started..." As I read the story, I realized...I think that's the same day I was flying to Missouri. Makes you think.

Star Wars as an animated gif

Yeah, the whole movie. As an animated gif. Cool : )

MacWorld prediction: New mid-level consumer machine

Perhaps only a web designer would notice such a hint, but there's a placeholder space for a new image on the Apple website, exactly where a new addition to the mid-level lineup that includes the iMac and Mac Mini. If your monitor's not too poorly calibrated, and you look carefully, you'll see a color shift in the gray backgound where the new button will probably be added on Monday, right about the time Steve Jobs is uttering the words "...and one last thing..." at Moscone Center in San Francisco. My guess is that we'll see an entertainment-based Intel mini there.

Intel rebranded

Intel this week debuted its new corporate identity, plus a completely redesigned website. The new logo plays off the huge brand awareness of the company's "Intel Inside" mark with the swoop-mark around it. The new site's good and clean, but somewhat evocative of SGI's design from a few years ago (before they let it slide downhill), even down to the display font.

Yahoo! continues to bolster its offerings with purchases

Yahoo!, like many of the biggies, quietly buys up other companies and then integrates their technologies into Yahoo!'s offerings. This is usually only noticed when it's a relatively well-known company they gobble up, like Flickr. Here's a partial list of companies you may have heard of, from the SEO by the Sea blog: Konfabulator The original widget makers, pre-Dashboard. Now dubbed the Yahoo! Widget Engine. Upcoming.org A cool calendering/events listing site. Del.icio.us The popular social bookmarking site. Looks like they finally redesigned and got rid of the ugly UI. blo.gs Ping service sort of like weblogs.com and blogrolling.com, with social bookmarking qualities sort of like Del.icio.us. Farechase Travel search engine already integrated into Y! Travel. Oddpost Email and RSS aggregation that's been compared to Gmail. Musicmatch Music site already integrated into Yahoo! Music. Dialpad Internet telephony/VoIP. Look for integration into Y! Messenger. » Full list and analysis... Filed under: blogs, technology, software, business, VoIP

Passions

Things I'm passionate about, in no particular order:

• music of all sorts, but most especially ze rock en roll
• technological wizardry, especially in the software realm, and less so about hardware
• sharing information with others (why else would I spend so much time writing stuff here?)
• trees, and environmental concerns as a whole
• indoor sports with Velma
• modern architecture
• art, graphic design, and typography
• photography
• enabling activism for others
• learning
• the future — envisioning it, exploring its possibilities, dreaming and wondering about it, exploring other people's visions of it, keeping abreast of our progress toward it
• humor, of the dry or surreal kinds
• books

filed under: lists, about mark

Orson the sugar-coated cat

When he's not busy attacking my feet or jumping half-way onto my lap but actually succeeding only in plunging every last one of his front paws' nails into my upper leg so he can pull himself up onto my lap, Orson is the sweetest thing since pure sugar. Come to think of it, he kinda looks a bit like a large bag or pure sugar exploded and completely covered him :) He's the sugar-coated cat! Now, he looks a little funny in this photo, because he still had stitches in his lower eyelid when I snapped the pic. And you'd look a little weird with your eye half stitched shut too, okay? I picked him up (again) from the SPCA a couple days ago; he had to be checked back in because he developed a cold and was sneezing green kitty snot all over Nanette's house. Yay for green kitty snot! But when I picked him up he'd had his sutures out that morning, and I signed all the paperwork and paid the $80 and took him home as our first adoptee. Now if I can just get him to stop waking me at 6am by pouncing on my face.

Posting new pictures

I had enough battery on the 'Book to process about 18 photos on the plane yesterday, so I'm posting some new stuff to fun with light. None from Missouri yet, obviously, since I've only been here long enough for a drive in the dark from the airport, a hamburger at Waffle House, and 11 hours of sleep. Haven't even walked out of the house yet today.

Massive earthquake! California falls into Pacific Ocean!

I slept 12 hours and finally got enough REM sleep to have a ton of dreams. Including two that startled me awake. The most startling one was being in some house somewhere in San Francisco with a bunch of people — I think we were at a holiday party — and a small-to-medium earthquake happened. But the earth just kept shaking after about 45 seconds, and then it started to shake harder. And harder. Just about the time it shifted from about a 4.5 to a 5.5 to a 6 in about two seconds flat, we looked out the window and started seeing buildings falling down in big clouds of dust, and then the ground beneath our building broke completely off and the whole house started floating toward a big crevice, which we plummeted into in a hurry. As we went over the edge and all flew into the air, I think my last words were something like "Oh, well that's just great." And I woke up in Missouri.

Off to Missouri

I got zero REM sleep last night and I have to catch a flight in a few hours. I'll be in MO until the 29th, and therefore probably too tired when I return to do anything on New Year's Eve, but oh well. I haven't had time to post any pictures to the photoblog this week so it'll be stuck on the dreaded purple Jenny (or should that be purple-dreaded Jenny?) possibly until I get back. I might have time to post while I'm in MO though. Have a good holiday!

An Adams fan finally speaks the truth about the Hitchhikers movie

I was uncharacteristically silent here about my opinion of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" movie after I saw it earlier this year. Since then, when asked by friends what I thought of the movie, I have said something like "I liked it but I was somewhat disappointed." But I've always felt a twinge when I said this, like it was a cop-out. I've finally come realize that I was probably not willing to admit to myself that I was more disappointed in the movie that I had originally thought, that I just couldn't bare to face the reality that the filmmakers had released such a phenomenal cock-up on the millions of fans of Douglas Adams' work. MJ Simpson is a longtime Adams scholar who was privy to much inside information during the making of the film, including a pre-release screening last March. Simpson then published a scathing review on his website and subsequently suffered an onslaught of negative feedback because of it. But I have to admit that he's essentially spot-on about each and every criticism. I applaud Simpson for putting his honest opinion out there, and for taking the shots that came from it. And I say he's right. The filmmakers took out almost all the jokes. They removed the funny from Adams' trademark funny dialog. The movie suffers from a twisted and nonsensical plot that was made even worse from an utterly outrageous editing job. Simpson says it and I'll say it too: It's okay to mess about with the plot. Adams did it in every version of Hitchhikers. But the dialog still has to be funny. It's a long review, it took nearly an hour to read, but it's worth it. After all this, I still can't get past the fact that I really, really want the DVD. I just can't help it. I'm a rabid collector of Hitchhikers stuff and I admit I simply must add the movie to my collection. And maybe a part of me is hoping that I'll grow to like parts of the film more by watching it a few more times. I mean, it wasn't totally abysmal; there were some good bits. Just a shame it wasn't as good as it could have been.

Google's nearly as smart as Deep Thought

Search Google for "answer to life, the universe, and everything".

Laptop thefts in SF

From craigslist Date: 2005-12-06, 7:03PM PST For the second time in two months, I have been sitting next to someone in a cafe whose laptop was literally wrenched out of their hands. The first time was at Bean There on Waller and Steiner right before Halloween, the second was today at Jumpin' Java on Noe near 14th. In both cases, the culprits were trios of African-American teenagers, usually dressed in black. Their standard M.O. is to enter the cafe, buy something at the counter, then as they leave, to grab the laptop computer nearest to the front exit before they dash out. The two who took the laptop tonight had a third accomplice who drove a getaway car, a weatherbeaten gray and black Honda Accord. Within minutes of the first theft, they hit a second cafe not far away from the first. The police on the scene mentioned that there has been a rash of these thefts. A first group was caught earlier in the year, and now a second group seems to have taken over. Any cafe within spitting distance of the Fillmore district seems unsafe. Laptops are usually resold on the street, or even in Oakland. If you use a laptop in a cafe, you should be extremely careful. I am probably going to buy a cable-lock for my own computer, which can be locked to the leg of any cafe table I use. Avoid sitting near the front door if using your cafe at a laptop. In both thefts I witnessed, the laptops were both running on battery power, meaning that there were no plugged-in cables to hinder the thieves from grabbing the devices. And back up your data! Tonight's victim was a software developer who told me the laptop was unimportant compared to the extremely valuable data that was on it.

Orson

On Sunday Velms and I brought home Orson, a five month old kitten from the San Francisco SPCA. We'll be fostering him for about a month but intend to adopt him after it's determined whether he needs surgery on his left eyelid, which currently has a few stiches in it because his eyelashes grow inward and are in danger of scratching his retina. He's an adorable, all-white cat with loads of energy. I've never seen a more calm cat while in a car, though. As we brought him home, he just lay in his cat box and contentedly looked out through the holes. He's curious about everything, naturally, but has settled into his new home wonderfully, and we're trying to train him to stay off the bed (not by my choice, but it's better to not push Velma's mild potential for alergic reaction too far). He's already a spoiled little cat, as Velma bought him a load of toys. I've never had an all-white cat before. But he's so cute I can mostly avoid the urge to spray-paint him odd colors. Photos to come. And if you just can't wait for cute kitten photos, check out Cute Overload in the meantime.

Johnny Knoxville, "The Ringer" trailer

In the words of one of my coworkers, "the Farrelly Brothers and Johnny Knoxville are going to hell for this."

"Pass the Chronic (what!!) -les of Narnia!"

SNL proves that even two white dudes can gansta rap. Sorta. Is SNL getting funny finally? 'Bout time. Too bad I don't have TV.

Hah! Calvin & Hobbes snowmen tribute

This is great. Almost makes me wish we got snow. Almost.

Samorost 2

Samorost is an absolutely awesome Flash game that came out a couple years ago. Now there's Samorost 2. Amanita Design is the company that came up with these.

Strange "Lost" commercial

Channel 4 in the UK is playing "Lost," Ynnej's favorite show last year. Their website boasts an "unseen episode" called "The Journey," but you can only watch it on Windows machines. Lame. And apparently famed photographer-cum-director (although I absolutely detested the Dandy Warhols video he did and I've never been that enthralled with his photography either) David LaChapelle did this strange commercial for "Lost."

Debugged enews.org home for XP 2000

And it took me only 3 minutes. That's certainly a new record! 'Course, I'll probably find out something else is wrong in XP when Mr. Attitude looks at it...

Two days to stop the Patriot Act

From MoveOn.org: The White House is pressuring Congress to reauthorize a new version of the Patriot Act that is worse than the original law and doesn't include needed reforms. This could come before the Senate as soon as Thursday. A bipartisan group of senators have agreed to fight the Patriot Act — by filibuster if necessary. This is a huge moment. Senators from both parties are standing together to protect freedom and liberty — and they?re ready to fight. You can sign this petition to show them and the rest of the Senate that you support filibustering this bad bill. The Patriot Act has to be stopped until it includes reforms. political.moveon.org/patriotact/

Macromedia R.I.P.

It's official. The Macromedia brand is no more. Learn more about the finalized consumption of Macromedia by Adobe here. I am looking forward to the Adobe Web Bundle, though. No word on the pricing yet...

MC Jelly Donut

Jelly Donut takes on all comers in Oakland emcee battle, and kicks ass! [Quicktime]

I had to srub my hands for 3 minutes

Got a flat tire on my bike on the way to work yesterday : ( Changed it today in the bike storage room at work, and had to scrub fo' evah to get all the black road-crud off my hands. Hmm. And I breath all that exhaust and crap in every day? Blech : P

Merry Xmas?

Awwww. How sweet. Even sweeeter. [both Flash]

New enews.org homepage design

I redid the homepage of enews.org tonight. I'm getting pretty good with the XHTML/CSS coding. It took me under 4 hours to code the whole page. That's not including the design, of course, which took a bit longer. Of course, I still need to look at it in IE/Win tomorrow at work to see how much that browser breaks it and how much I'll have to redo with CSS hacks/patches. And I need to debug a couple minor things that prevent it from passing validation for now.

Does Firefox 1.5 have Mac problems?

I would say yes, from my experience so far. I've been experiencing somewhat sluggish performance, and have already had two hangs. I don't think Firefox is supposed to take up 105% of the CPU cycles (see Activity Monitor screenshot). I also saw this strange behavior when I had an Apple page open in one browser window, which had a Flash file in it, then I opened a new window and moved it out of the way, and the Flash video from below showed through the top-most browser window, with flickering trails as I moved it (click screenshot for large version).

Pictures from Sonoma coming soon

Velma and I went to Occidental last weekend for Denice and Alex's housewarming party in this amazing house they are renting. We had a good time, met some new people, and I took a bunch of pictures, some of which I'll be adding to the photoblog soon. And we rescued a baby goat that had been born that morning, walked away from his mama, and was about to wander into the road.

New design portfolio

About a week ago I finished a new, slimmed-down single-page design portfolio. I needed something quick and more up to date than what I had a year and a half ago, when I was looking for a job. I have more elaborate plans for a future portfolio, but those will take more time and I wanted something to point people at now. Check out the new page and let me know what you think. I'm also redoing the front page of enews.org since it hasn't really changed in a couple years. That'll probably go up this week.

New star rating system on photoblog

On Saturday I implemented a new system on the photoblog which allows you to rate each photo on a scale of 1–5 stars.

10% off coupon for Circuit City

Circuit City sent us this coupon for CNET employees and their friends and family [PDF, 740k].

Front Row now available on other Macs

Update to my October 12 analysis of Apple's latest product releases: According to this article by Andrew Escobar, the new Front Row application can now be downloaded and installed on any Mac running OS X 10.4.3 (or later), with iLife '05 (for iPhoto support), and iTunes 6.0.1 (or later).

Badly Drawn Boy's "Year of the Rat"

This is a great, heart-warming video from Badly Drawn Boy.

Can you say "direct rip-off"?

So I guess Creative's new business plan is just to copy the iPod business plan word for word? Okay, so they add a couple nicities in the new Zen VISION:M that I wish the iPod had, like an FM tuner. But I mean, c'mon, did they just lay off the product design team and say, "Let's just steal the iPod blueprints"?

Skaters organize to save their park

I really liked hearing about these Oakland skaters who rallied together and showed that some seriousness and grass-roots organizing can pay off. filed in: activism

Annalee Newitz's Techsploitation

One of may favorite columns in Metro and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Annalee Newitz's Techsploitation is a weekly dose of tech talk from the viewpoint of a rabble-rouser looking out for your rights. Filed under: activism, tech, politics, censorship, web, regular reads

Citizens fight back against TV DRM

"...Let's say, for example, that it's a couple of years from now, and your TiVo (bought anytime after July 1 of this year) has recorded the excellent Marx brothers movie Animal Crackers, which was just broadcast on TNT in HD. Tomorrow you're getting on a plane to Australia, and you'd like to save a copy on DVD to watch on your computer during the 15-hour flight. "You're entitled to make a personal copy under federal copyright law, so it should be no problem. And in fact, it was no problem back in the days of analog broadcasts and VCRs. But with the Broadcast Flag in place, TNT can send out a signal that tells your TiVo not to make HD copies of Animal Crackers. So when you burn that DVD and put it into your computer somewhere over the Pacific, you get a bunch of garbage. The FCC has just stolen your rights..." » Read the article at SFBG.com... Filed under: activism, tech, tv, politics

Windows Live Local ups the ante in the maps game

I gotta admit that the Bird's Eye View function in Windows Live Local is pretty cool. Doesn't work quite as well as Google Maps yet — for example, drag-and-drop on the map doesn't seem to work right — but the images and the ability to view from north, south, east, and west is all pretty swank.

Google Transit

Google is testing a new product in the Labs called Google Transit that works similar to the several third-party Google hacks out there that marry public transit routes with Google Maps. Google Transit's only working for Portland, OR, right now, but it's pretty cool. Google Maps has also started integrating a new Details tab into some of the listings.

New worm IMs you

Don't respond to an instant message that says "lol thats cool". » Read full article...

OMG these T-shirts are so cute

I am so going to buy one of the shirts with a Steve on it. Then Jason can harangue about me being such a zealot.

That does it, we can't move to Missouri now

There's already a Mark Bult in Springfield, MO. Two of 'em, it looks like! I was testing a search site I'd never heard of before until today, Mamma.com, and of course I had to "mamma" myself. That's like googling yourself, but, um, even weirder sounding.

Two "topic centers" launch

Two of the topic centers I mentioned recently went live today. I'm pretty happy with they way they came out.

Google's plans for their dark fiber

Technology pundit Robert X. Cringely believes Google has the WalMart business model in mind in its strategy to buy up dark fiber. "...in one of Google's underground parking garages in Mountain View...in a secret area off-limits even to regular GoogleFolk, is a shipping container. But it isn't just any shipping container. This shipping container is a prototype data center. Google hired a pair of very bright industrial designers to figure out how to cram the greatest number of CPUs, the most storage, memory and power support into a 20- or 40-foot box. We're talking about 5,000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk storage that can be dropped-off overnight by a tractor-trailer rig. The idea is to plant one of these puppies anywhere Google owns access to fiber, basically turning the entire Internet into a giant processing and storage grid..." » Read the article...

Did you miss Pink Week?

» pinkweek.org

Designing "topic centers"

I've been working on some new page types at work called "topic centers." They're basically intended to make related content from disparate sections on the site readily available in one place. For example: 1) audio software for your PC, 2) MP3s you can download, 3) games for your PC, and 4) video previews/trailers for upcoming DVD releases, all collected in a new topic center called "Home Entertainment." It's been fun, because I can push the design envelope a little since these new sections need to look rather different than normal category "doors" (as we call them). One of the challenges is to present these somewhat dissimilar content types in a unified page design. Another challenge is to humanize the site more — presenting hundreds of pages of software downloads can look boring as hell if you don't infuse some personality into your site. So far, I think my solutions are working pretty well. Here's a snippet from one of the other topic centers, this one called "Best of Download.com," on which we feature the most popular downloads according to both our members and our editors. Filed under: design

You Knit What??

This blog by punk rock knitter and knittykitty is hilarious. Velma, you'd better hope none of your stuff attracts their notice : D From their disclaimer: "Look kids, we're ragging on nasty knits here, (And occasionally a model's obviously airbrushed 15 inch waist) because we ourselves are knitters, and we know that knitting a garment takes a LOT of time and effort, and it pisses us off that these people think we're going to waste our time on this crap. "Seriously. It's not like we're attacking random knitbloggers, or anything, which we've considered, because damn, some of y'all have designed some seriously fugly shit. But, we're not overly fond of death-by-knitting-needle threats, so we decided against it. "So, we're sticking to national publications/yarn company published patterns/online knitzines. If you're some random onlooker and you want to take shit personally, big fat boohoo to you because, one, you didn't design the fugknit in question so get over it, and two, don't you have some knitting to do?" Edit: I just read every entry in the entire blog, back to last April.

Crumpler Bags

These guys have a hilarious Flash site. Right up Mr. Attitude's alley.

Microsoft to undermine AJAX?

In its usual mode of creating a competing technology that usually doesn't quite work with the original (JavaScript v. JScript, etc.), Microsoft is reportedly developing a web app development framework code-named Atlas, in order to compete with AJAX (Asyncrhonous JavaScript And XML). In case you haven't been paying attention, AJAX is the technology to watch. Even a few of the giants are testing the waters with AJAX; Google's Personalized Homepage and Google Maps are good examples, and both Yahoo! and Microsoft have launched beta sites using AJAX recently. » More on Microsoft's Atlas... » More on AJAX... Filed under: tech, web dev, browsers, javascript, css, ajax

Miscrosoft Live

Microsoft appears to be making an entry into the area of user-customizable web experience sites with the new Live.com, which appears to be using AJAX for things like drag and drop without page refresh. » http://ideas.live.com/ » http://www.live.com/ Edit: I just came across another Microsoft site using AJAX, and this one's implementation is a little better. Start.com is a stripped down customizable home page. » http://www.start.com/ Filed under: tech, web dev, browsers, javascript, css, ajax

How to skateboard with a friend

http://indyskate.com/kickpopmike2.gif

Fancy newsletter in shiny metal and minty green

We just finished a long-needed redesign of one of our newsletters, the Download Dispatch Mac Edition. All our newsletters are available in HTML or plain text, with the notable exception of the lowly Mac newsletter, which had been text-only until today. Here's a before-and-after comparison... » Subscribe to the Mac Dispatch (or any of Download's newsletters — PC games, PC software, free MP3s, etc.)

Steve Jobs: America's most prominent Arab-American

An article (killed by Fast Company) reveals that Steve Jobs may be the most prominent living Arab-American. Jobs, head of Apple and Pixar, was adopted as a child. Frederic Alan Maxwell's article (first few paragraphs here) reveals that his biological father, Abdulfattah Jandali, immigrated from Syria in 1952. Not surprisingly, Jobs' reaction to Maxwell's biographical digging has been less than enthusiastic. Filed under: apple, people

Flickr's humble beginnings as an MMORPG

In an interview with Flickr's Eric Costello, Jesse James Garrett of Adaptive Path learns that the popular photo sharing site actually began as an offshoot of a massively multiplayer online game called The Game Neverending. Also notable is the news that "soon enough in Flickr you?ll be able to order prints, which is a much-requested feature from our users," according to Costello. I'm still betting that Flickr will be swallowed whole by Yahoo! (Flickr was bought by Y! a few months ago), since it's Yahoo!'s habit of completely obliterating the brand and interface of purchased properties; anyone remember the great branding and UI of eGroups? No? Exactly. Because Yahoo! bought 'em in order to create Yahoo! Groups.

Revver: New viral video site

From News.com: "Forget Google. The Internet's real killer app has always been the strange little amateur videos, like the Star Wars Kid or the Numa Numa Dance, that find explosive popularity almost overnight...." » Read News.com article... » Visit Revver.com... Edit: Another new video site — YouTube.com Filed under: video, humor, distractions, tech

I'm getting a headache

It's been a very slow day without any caffeine whatsoever. About all I've been able to accomplish is posting some more photos to my photoblog. I really need some tea or something...

Distractions for the masses

Jeebus! I have been so swamped with work I haven't had time to post anything at all in forever. But here's a bunch of funny videos and websites I've been collecting for the past week... Japanese TV This is freakin' awesome. If you're familiar with MTV's Jackass (hi Ynnej and Mr. Attitude!), for the first couple minutes of this TV clip, you may think this is just a Japanese version of the dress-up-as-an-old-man-and-freak-people-out gag. But there's a twist. "Romance of the Jedi" Star Wars as homoerotic love story. "This Place Sucks" Superfriends meets "Office Space." "The Donald Rumsfeld Week in Review" Evidence that he's starting to crack. Arnold's Neighborhood If Sesame Street were in Sacramento, it would be brought to you by the letters GOP. Colorful What would it be like if you released 10,000 superballs at the top of a hill in San Francisco? Speaking of colorful I have no idea what the hell this is, but I spent the last 25 minutes playing with it. Somebody at work described at as "Tellitubbies on acid." And there will undoubtedly be more, based on this news item: "...Viacom-owned Comedy Central will launch a broadband video channel on November 1. The channel will feature short, original-content videos produced specifically for the site, as well as clips from shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. And there goes the workday..." Filed under: humor, Flash, videos, distractions

Test post directly from Flock

Flock is a new browser. It features, among other things, an in-browser blog posting interface. It automatically connected to my Blogger account and posted this entry (assuming it works) to my blog without me having to go to Blogger first. More about Flock later...

Apple's Oct 12 product announcements deconstructed

Edit: TUAW reports that you can burn videos purchased from the iTMS straight from the Finder. Edit: TUAW thinks the jump from 5 to 6 for iTunes is a slapdown to JHymn, the software that strips Apple's FairPlay DRM from files purchased through iTMS. They may seem trivial on the surface, but when you dig a little deeper into today's product announcements from Apple, you see there's a little more to the story than "just another iPod," and "five TV shows are now available for download through iTunes Music Store." "Only five?" "Yeah." "Um, okay." "Yeah..." Revamped iMac G5s There are a lot of significant hardware upgrades (faster video chips, standard SuperDrive, etc.) under the hood of the new iMacs, but the main thing Steve Jobs touted in his presentation today [Quicktime] was the new built-in iSight. While somewhat disingenuously positioning the videoconferencing capabilities as "new," (c'mon Steve, they're great, but iChat AV's been around since Tiger shipped last year), he demoed the built-in iSight and it's new partner mini-app Photo Booth. But the iSight and iChat videoconferencing are old news. PhotoBooth may be the only item we can call purely new. Photo Booth Most of the technology in this little app is standard in plenty of other programs, but now it's all in one place and integrated with using the iSight. Photo Booth allows you to take photos of yourself with the webcam, and includes a bunch of standard effects you can do to the images, like sepia and x-ray, plus some cool ones like an Andy Warhol effect and a bunch of face-warping manipulations that can make you look sorta like the Grinch or a Klingon. But for my money the coolest thing PhotoBooth does is a function of both the hardware and software working together to solve a common problem with webcams, but with a typically brilliant Apple solution. Webcam photos are almost always poorly lit. The Apple engineers thought about building in a flash, but solved it this way instead: PhotoBooth flashes the computer's entire LCD screen white, making the screen the flash. Genius, I say. Note: It's unclear whether this effect works with CRT monitors or not; we'll have to wait and see. iRemote? The other new thing on the iMac is a standard remote control, but a typically Apple simple one. Looks like a Shuffle, actually. Why a remote? Read on... Front Row This new app clearly shows Apple's forward focus on removing the barriers between users and the various media they use. After the introduction of the Mac mini, there was talk that the little box was a perfect home entertainment computer, from which you could serve your iTunes library, your videos and movies, and more. That's probably what Apple's product teams have been thinking all along, and Front Row is obviously another step in that direction. It's sort of like Dashboard. Elegantly simple, Front Row offers the user instant access to all their entertainment media types, whether it's podcasts, audio books, short movies, long movies, home movies, photos, music, and on and on. Note that I specifically said entertainment media types, because we're not talking PDFs and DOCs here, folks, there's no mention of those in Front Row. However, Front Row is clearly a v.1 product. For starters, it's a little strange that the top-level of Front Row's interface has just four categories: Music, Videos, DVD, and Photos. This forces podcasts and audio books, for example, into the Music category, which is just plain awkward. Books are not music. And why are DVDs and Videos separate categories? I suppose it's because one's playing off your hard drive and one's playing off your DVD, but this distinction is hardware-specific, not media specific. They should really have nixed the DVD category and instead included an Audio category, where audio books and podcasts could be found. DVDs should just come up under the Videos category when a disc is inserted. I suppose there's an argument to be made that your DVD could contain photos instead of a movie, but shouldn't Front Row be smart enough to check the filetypes on the inserted disc and then place it in the appropriate category on the fly? Anyway, Front Row is (presently) available only on the new iMacs, presumably because they're the only ones that ship with the new remote control. And there's no word yet on whether/when this is going to be available on other Macs, nor whether it'll be a free update to Tiger users. Update Dec 9, 2005: According to this article by Andrew Escobar, Front Row can now be downloaded and installed on any Mac running OS X 10.4.3 (or later), with iLife '05 (for iPhoto support), and iTunes 6.0.1 (or later). Video iPod Steve Jobs touted great reviews of the Nano during his announcement today [Quicktime], with nary a mention (not surprisingly) of the problems reported by some users with highly scratched screens. But this didn't prevent Apple from introducing the long-rumored video iPod. But the early take from many of my office-mates on the new iPod has been lackluster at best. I'm not sure what people expected it to do...was it supposed to beam 3D video into your brain? It's an iPod. With video. It's not going to be that stellar, people. The size of the screen and the nature of video file sizes is going to prevent any lightspeed jumps for a while. The video feature is really going to be best for plugging the iPod into a TV or computer to show the vids on a larger screen. It's about portability of the videos, not having a great user experience watching tiny movies on a tiny screen. The new iPod features: TV out, MPEG4, a very bright color screen, a slightly wider screen, a slimmer form-factor (reportedly 12?31% thinner than the older 20GB iPod), and 30GB and 60GB versions. Related note: The black-and-red U2 limited edition iPod has apparently gone away, now that the new video iPod is available in black as well (although without the red scrollwheel). iTunes 6 Last but not least, in a PR move worthy of the one Netscape did when it jumped from 4.x to 6, iTunes has gone from version 5, which was only unveiled a few weeks ago, to version 6. Unfortunately, there seem to be few changes. I admittedly haven't updated yet (I'll be holding out a few weeks in light of the problems with 5.0), but the only significant new feature I can discern is the addition of a few TV shows to the iTunes Music Store (iTMS), which is not really a change to the iTunes app itself. The other changes are also only in iTMS, not the standalone app: 1) "Gifting" (buying iTunes and sending them to someone else). Don't even get me started on whether turning the word "gift" into a verb is a good idea or not. 2) Customer reviews. 3) A beta feature called Just for you, which is simply personalized recommendations based on your purchasing habits. The new video content added is rather paltry, if you ask me: 2,000 music videos, 6 Pixar shorts, and 5 Disney/ABC TV shows: "Lost," "Desperate Housewives," and three others of little consequence. Of course, the savvy among us know that the delivery of Quicktime video was already available in iTMS 5, so this is no big lead forward. There have been numerous music videos available for download for months. There are also some downsides to the new video offerings: 1) The resolution is only 320x240. Sure, this makes for smaller files and faster downloads, and it is the native resolution for the new video iPod, but it's hardly great quality for playing fullscreen on your computer. 2) Videos are encoded using the Apple's FairPlay DRM, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case there is a limitation on videos that's different from the music you purchase on iTMS: burning videos to a CD or DVD is not allowed at all. So how do you back them up or transfer them to a new machine when you upgrade your computer? Lame. FYI, download time for a 320x240 one-hour episode (okay, 45± minutes) will purportedly take broadband users about the same amount of time as downloading five full albums. So you'd better have a reliable connection. Related product note: With the announcement of the new iMacs, the eMac has apparently disappeared from the online Apple Store, and it's unclear whether they will be available in future. As a side note, this would therefore mark the first time that Apple is offering no products with a CRT monitor.

Papercasting is all the rage

Well, okay, maybe not. In a somewhat anachronistic effort, Sean Gallagher has started a plog papercast (a.k.a. paper log, a.k.a. padcast), which he bills as "dead trees delivered digitally." By means of a pad, notebook, typewriter, scanner, and traditional weblog software, Gallagher posts his musings just like any other blogger, except not. Complete with outbound links, comments, trackbacks, and even RSS feeds, all on paper, mind you, Gallagher's idea is one truly for the books. And some of the scribbling are even quite entertaining. My favorite entry so far, other than the description of how a visiting cat is courting his wife, is the flowchart of his typical day posted on March 9. Although the entry describing dealings with his ex is insightful as well. Some people haven't gotten the joke, but to me that's just further evidence that humans should probably eat their young. Edit: I started this post several months ago but never finished it. Since I first visited it, Gallagher has A) changed "plog" to "padcast" to "papercast," and B) apparently moved the backend to WordPress, which has messed up the navigation a little, possibly giving visitors the impression that there are no posts on the monthly archive pages. You just have to click the title to view the entry. Filed under: blogging, media, distractions, humor

DRAFT: Sustainable design resources

Mostly culled from Print magazine's July?Aug 2005 green design issue; more comments to come in a later edit. Social Design Notes blog » backspace.com/notes Minneapolis College of Art and Design's Sustainable Design Online Certificate program » online.mcad.edu/green.html SuperNaturale, hip DIY » supernaturale.com Future Farmers, a decidedly green interactive design firm » futurefarmers.com Greenpeace's Solar Generation » en.solargeneration.de Worldstudio Foundation, encouraging social responsibility in the design and arts professions » worldstudio.org The Moderns, a design firm with a sustainable bent Woodside Institute for Sustainable Communication Envision, architectural and interior design firm TerraSkin, a non-tree paper Design & Source Productions, NY ORG, design firm

Buy your whole house at Ikea. No, literally, your whole house.

With BoKlok (I have no idea how to pronounce it), Ikea has entered the market for affordable modern prefab housing, something that Dwell magazine has been covering the resurgence of over the past couple years.

New design for the photoblog

I've been working on a new skin for the Pixelpost-based photoblog I installed last month. It's an iterative process, design, so this screenshot reflects the 8th variation on the theme. One of the major things I'm doing is making the size of the photo a little smaller, so nobody should have to scroll to click the Next or Previous buttons. I think it's finally done, so I've moved on to the coding part. Since I'm A) doing it all with the cleanest web-standards-based xHTML/CSS I can muster, and B) plugging it in with the PHP from Pixelpost, it's going to be a bit of a slow process. So don't be surprised if the new design doesn't show up for a while. Currently I'm just a couple hours into the semantic markup, so it still looks like this:

"Hexor the Wicked, will you be my prom date?"

How many clichés can you pack into one movie commercial? Modernhumorist brings us Hexor the Wicked, Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford in Commander in Heat [mp3]. Filed under: humor, entertainment, radio

DRM is designed to break campatibility

ZDNet's David Berlind wrote a lengthy article last week complaining that his $20,000 of audiophile equipment can't play the 99¢ songs he downloads because his system is undermined by Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology embedded in the audio formats. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)'s John Gilmour promptly responded to point out that DRM is designed to break compatability. Gone are the days when you could pop a cassette into the stereo to record that cool new song off the radio, and pass it on to your friend the next day at school (okay, I'm showing my age here with this example, I know). "It's really simple," wrote Gilmour. "DRM is *designed* to break compatibility. The whole point of DRM is *restrictions*. The point of all previous audio formats was compatability. CDs play on any CD player. Cassettes play or record on any cassette player. Neither one cares what you do with the audio that comes out. By contrast, DRM is designed to prevent the audio from coming out in any way that the oligopoly objects to..." Ignore my somewhat dated example above and bear with me. DRM is a way to take back control from the consumer. A completely understandable objective from the corporations' standpoint. But if you're a consumer of music, video, books on CD, et al (and who isn't?), you are on the other side. Let me state it bluntly: It's us against Them®. As Gilmour points out, it's up to consumers to revolt to turn back the tide. The EFF is a great place to start. Filed under: activism, tech, media, music, movies

Stewie Live

When I see these sorts of interactive applications on the web, I always wonder if I just have a really short attention span or if everyone else also gets bored after 25 seconds of telling Stewie to dance and poo and fart. And then I wonder how much the company spent on an interactive agency to make this application, and my mind boggles. [Flash] Filed under: animation, distractions, entertainment, Flash, humor

Remember to re-register to vote if you've moved

Election day is less than a month away, which means (in California anyway) that you've got about ten more days to re-register if you've moved recently (hello Velma, Jason, Phu, Andi, Jake, Jenny, Aaron, Nyte, Holly, and Chris!). Unless of course you want vote in a place you no longer live in (me? been there, done that... no fun — too much driving involved). For those in CA, you can use this online form from the Secretary of State's office for a few more days before you'll be forced to go hunting down PDFs online to print and mail in. Fortunately, you can also use the form to apply for an absentee voter form. In fact, you can check a box for "permanent absentee voter," and they'll mail you a form before every election. Good deal. Filed under: politics, activism

Jon Stewart on politics as marketing

"Ultimately, people would respond a lot better to being treated like adults ... if politics wasn't treated like marketing. Every few years Hollywood produces a film, whether it is Warren Beatty's 'Bulworth' or Chris Rock's 'Head Of State,' in which a presidential candidate goes off-message, tells it like it is, and the voters respond warmly. The last time we saw anyone try this was Howard Dean and he was dismissed for his lack of polish. But who said that? The polishers." The UK's Guardian has a good article on Jon Stewart. Filed under: humor, politics, media

Joke of the Day

George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld are flying on Air Force One. The President looks at the Vice President, chuckles and says, "You know, I could throw a $1,000 bill out the window right now and make somebody very happy." The Vice President shrugs and says, "Well, I could throw ten $100 bills out the window and make ten people very happy." Not to be out done, the Secretary of Defense says, "Of course, I could throw one-hundred $10 bills out the window and make a hundred people very happy." The pilot rolls his eyes and says to his co-pilot, "Such big-shots back there... hell, I could throw all of them out the window and make 56 million people very happy." Filed under: distractions, humor

Google Human in beta

On the heels of Google's announcement that it'll build a new complex at Moffett Field and team with NASA Ames Research Center to advance the space program, comes the announcement of Google Human. Filed in: tech, humor

How wide should a column be?

Many studies have been performed over the decades that show that it's easier to read a narrow column of text than it is to read a wide column. The reasons are many, but the primary one is that, by the time you reach the end of a wide line of type, way over there on the right side of a page or screen, it's hard to quickly snap your eye back to the left and pick up at the next line. If the column is narrow and your vision has only tracked an inch or two or three to the right, it's very easier to snap back to left without losing your place. This is why newspapers and magazines are all printed in columns. It's also why novels have wide margins and narrow pages. That's why I noted with some amusement an irony in this Usability News article, titled "The Effects of Line Length on Children and Adults? Online Reading Performance," which posits that "...it has been recommended by researchers that shorter line lengths (about 60 CPL [characters per line]) should be used in place of longer, full-screen lengths..." What's so ironic? Count the article's characters per line. Filed in: design, typography, usability, web dev

This guy is even more anal about pixels than me

Jonathan Rentzsch describes "three cosmetic flaws [in OS X] that, more than anything, disclose the author's continued descent towards the final ('Siracusa') level of interface design neurosis/obsession." Filed in: Apple, design, tech, UI

Is Beck a Sc**ntologist?

"...Beck has been reported in various places, by a number of people, to have attended the Apple School of Los Feliz, which was run by Scientologists. Beck's elementary class portrait as 'Bek Campbell' appears in an Apple School yearbook... Beck dropped out of school in the ninth grade, after a short time in public school. Many children raised in Scientology, like Juliette Lewis, Leah Remini, and Lisa Marie Presley, drop out of school early. Cult-educated children who are later enrolled in accredited schools often find themselves hopelessly behind their conventionally educated classmates, so dropping out of school is an easy choice..." Filed in: music, society, religion

What's all this "Filed in" crap?

In preparation for the time when I will transition from Blogger to Movable Type and finally be able use categories, I'm beginning to add them to new posts in hope that it'll ease the process of porting from one system to the other. Filed in: about enews.org, blog tools

5 distractions

Because you have too much time on your hands. PhotoMann's Vending Machines of Japan Apparently in Japan anything and everything can be found in vending machines. You know, just in case you need some beer, porn, Coca Cola Light (?), toilet paper, fried foods, Hello Kitty popcorn, rhinoceros beetles, or, um... used schoolgirl panties. What if The Shining was a feel-good family comedy? (Quicktime) This was passed on to to me today as: "...A contest to re-cut a trailer from a movie, only in doing so, change the genre of the film. Titanic to horror movie, documentary to drama, and so on. This year the winner turns The Shining into a feel-good family comedy." I just wish I had a link to the contest itself! Scary ginormous squirrels Weird Product Dept. Turn your profile into a table leg (or something?) Geek alert! Web-based fridge poetry using AJAX = cool.

The iTunes 5 Announcement From the Perspective of an Anthropomorphized Brushed Metal User Interface Theme

John Gruber is farging hilarious.

Too much too fast for Apple?

Fast on the tail of warnings last week about upgrading to iTunes 5.0, it looks like some iPod Nano users are experiencing severely scratched screens. If the reports at FlawedMusicPlayer.com are true, it seems that scratching can occur even when cleaning the Nano with a microfiber cleaning cloth, or carrying it in a shirt pocket (with nothing else in the pocket). However, many Nano owners report they have had no problems, according to this News.com article. Perhaps more importantly, Apple announced ten security fixes to address Mac OS X flaws that security experts described as "critical." You know what that means... Quit everything, fire up Software Update, and expect to get nothing else done for the next hour while it all downloads and then asks you to restart your machine.

Tech notes

Mozilla.org has announced a critical update to Firefox to fix some security issues. If you're really adventurous, there's also a beta of Firefox 1.5 available. News.com's redesign is in beta. .Mac gets an upgrade and a much-needed makeover on the Apple.com website, which is great for those (like me) who are still weighing whether the pricetag is worth it. The site now has short QuickTime movies showing how each feature works. The bloggers have been all abuzz over new webstats package Mint. And I fixed the Browse function on my photoblog, which was busted for a few days.

Jed's Other Poem

Stew made this cool music video for Grandaddy's song "Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)" on a circa-1979 Apple II+ with 48k of RAM.

Need a Gmail account?

New Gmail accounts are closed, but you can still invite yourself via SMS.

Where are they now?

Among the landslide of obscure musicians' names mentioned in this long but interesting forum post titled "rock stars who went back to work," I learned that:

• Justine Frischmann of Elastica has been a teacher.
• The bassist for Jesus Jones was a bartender in Chicago.
• Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs, Deep Purple, etc.) worked as an airline pilot for a while, before joining Kansas.
• Topper Headon (The Clash) has been a taxi driver (and possibly a herion addict).
• Rick Buckler (The Jam) now makes a living restoring and selling old furniture.
• The B52's Kate Pearson has a motel.
• Moe Berg (anyone other than me remember The Pursuit of Happiness?) has a regular DJ gig at a small pub called The Tap.
• Greg Norton from Husker Du runs a restaurant outside of Minneapolis.
• David Lee Roth now works as an emergency medical technician in New York.
• Philip Kramer of Iron Butterfly went on to become a rocket scientist before he disappeared (apparently killed in an auto accident).

And last but not least:

• "the drummer from metal church works at the ace hardware store in olympia, washington (i know this because i worked there too, and on his application, he wrote under previous job 'drummer for metal church')."

Color scheme "Bult"

The Return of Design is an excellent site that I've gone to a few times for color schemes, so imagine my surprise when I saw one named after me. Color scheme "Bult" was inspired by my current (and soon to be replaced) enews.org homepage.

Ouch, that pinched

I gave blood again today, and had a slightly less enjoyable experience this time, if only because the needle really pinched this time and hurt a little when I squeezed the ball. And Verna, or whatever her name was, who did my pre-donation interview, was as slow as molasses and somewhat, er, English-challenged. Which was amusing, but not exactly confidence-boosting coming from someone who's going to take blood out of your body. But whatever. Won't prevent me from going again next time. Anyway, donate blood [1] [2] if you can. It might save somebody's life.

Reconsider your iTunes upgrade?

Apple has acknowledged that some users have experienced problems upgrading to iTunes 5.0. I had no trouble when I upgraded iTunes on two of my three computers. But Yuliya experienced a difficulty that wiped all her ratings. That sucks. So, before I upgrade iTunes on my main music computer at home (the one with the majority of my 15,000+ songs and ratings on it) I will do what I didn't bother to do on my laptop and my work computer. I'll make a back up of my iTunes database files. Perhaps former Apple Genius Justin can give us some more advice? Edit 1: Still waiting for Justin to get back to me, but I think he may still be in Europe. Edit 2: More on mysterious iTunes problems in this post on the SeanTech blog.

Anti-porn segment gets it backwards

Edit 2: No you can't... ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- stld-rfp-xxx@icann.org (reason: 550 5.1.1 ... User unknown) Edit 1: You can send comments to the email address listed here. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has decided to postpone a decision on the creation of a long-awaited .xxx generic top level domain (gTLD), reportedly dues to concerns raised by both the Bush administration and the porn industry. According to a News.com article, a Commerce Department representative said they have "received nearly 6,000 letters and e-mails from individuals expressing concern about the impact of pornography on families and children." Apparently the brilliant neocons swung into action to ? imagine this ? oppose pornography on the Internet. What a surprise. So they organized a campaign and got the talk show hosts blithering and got Hank and Phyllis and Jimmy-Bob to fire off letters to the White House saying "We dont like no nekkid peoples on the interweb! Save are chillen from the Evil Satan-Loving Porn Perveyors of California!" Um, did anyone actually think about the point of having a separate domain for porn? No, they didn't. Because these people aren't opposed to a new gTLD for porn. They're opposed to porn. Period. I've supported the idea of a .xxx domain for something like seven years (yes, ICANN can take a loooong time on a lot of these decisions). The whole benefit of a .xxx domain is that you can put all the porn in one place and then it would be very easy for parents to filter the .xxx domain out on their computers. The problem is, the current proposal for creating .xxx doesn't actually require all the porn sites to switch their sites to .xxx. It's entirely optional. Dumb. And ICANN apparently doesn't even have a plan that would transition porn sites to .xxx over time. You could make it optional for two years, and required after two, and then it wouldn't be a burden for porn sites to transition (after all, it can be technically done in a couple days; it's more the burden of having to change your site's branding and advertising). After two years, you could levy fines for sites that don't comply, increasing the fine each month for a year, and then shut them down if they don't comply by the time the third year ends. What needs to happen here is this: 1) ICANN needs to grow some...spine...and stand up to the porn industry. They need to adopt my brilliant plan, which I will gladly let them do at no charge ; ) 1a) The lawyers who will come running to sue ICANN for relegating the porn industry to some sort of "ghetto on the Internet" need to drop dead. 2) ICANN then needs to grow some more spine and stand up to the noisy conservatives and politely tell them to shut the fuck up you don't know what you're talking about let us handle it you twits. 2a) The anti-porn conservatives need to get a life and accept that they're never, ever, I repeat, ever, going to get rid of porn. As an aside, I should note that I'm a member of the ICANN's At-Large Chapter, which ostensibly allows anyone in the world to participate in these sorts of decisions, but in reality has become over the years more of a smokescreen that acts merely to give the impression that individuals who aren't aligned with any powerful special interest group or corporation still have a say in the decisions that affect the namespace. So people like me have to resort to blogging about these issues to hopefully rattle a cage or two, since no one at ALAC takes any notice or even solicits our opinions anymore.

Why is this day different from all others?

"...Before we go any further, there's something we need to be clear about. Pirates were and are bad people. Really reprehensible. Even the most casual exploration of the history of pirates (and believe us, casual is an accurate description of our research) leaves you hip deep in blood and barbarity. We recognize this, all right? We aren't for one minute suggesting that real, honest-to-God pirates were in any way, shape or form worth emulating..." But, talking like a pirate is fun. It's really that simple. » Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Um, whoops

I managed to break my photoblog for about a half-hour this afternoon. Hooray for Internet&trade! Don't panic (locate your towel). Everything's all right now. Last night I added most of my photos from 2001–2005 to iPhoto and I was astonished to see that I have 10,226 so far! And that's leaving out 95% of the Acterra photos I haven't even added yet. After I thought about how easy it is to snap lots of digital photos, it didn't surprise me much anymore, but that first realization of how many pictures I've taken was a little shocking. I mean, after all, I only have 15,852 songs in iTunes. At this rate, I'll surpass that in iPhoto in no time. Edit: Check that, I just took 85 more photos. So now it's 10,311. Bog I love having my camera back!

Spew check

"Three are so marry chances, in the course of our dairy affairs, in witch Eros can inter into our calculators..." Why we still need human copy editors.

Update

I spent the last two days at work in two eight-hour trainings about the "Agile" or "Scrum" software development process. My boss put me in this class because I've been made part of a small team that's responsible for significantly increasing user engagement with the site over the next three months. The team project is a bit daunting (because the target we have to hit is rather a tough one) but not something I'm worried about. And I was honored to have been entrusted with this responsiblity, not to mention glad that they're even including a designer, since the designer's contribution is often more of an afterthought. But Jim has apparently recognized my experience in usability, so adding me to the user engagement team presumably seemed logical. The training, however, was mostly a waste of time for me. Which I'm loathe to admit to Jim since I'm pretty certain that the seats in this training were hard to come by and the company spent a pretty penny on the training guy. I did learn a few things, and I can apply a couple of things to work I do, and going through the training will help me better understand what all the programmers and project managers I was in there with when we work together. But the process itself has almost no value to my work, and unfortunately it was mostly a big waste of two days for me. Now I just have to think of a polite way of saying that to the boss tomorrow. In other news... I added my photoblog to photoblogs.org a couple days ago and have already had something like 25 or 30 visitors from there in a day or two. There's some fantastic work out there, and a lot of great photographers on photoblogs.org. If you go there and end up making a profile (it's free), you can save your favorite photoblogs in a watchlist. And you can add me ; ) I've been taking photos more often now that my camera has been revived (knock on wood!). I stopped on Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island last night on my way home from the hospital in the East Bay, and took some really cool photos of the Bay Bridge and a panorama of The City that I hope to stitch together this weekend. When I started the photoblog last month I was initially worried that I'd never be able to keep up the pace of one photo per day. That's 365 photos a year! And they have to be quality ones. Not just crap. But looking through my archive, I realized I have quite a few good pictures in there I can use. I'm hoping I might just be able to keep it up. Especially if it makes me actually get out and take more photos. The Pixelpost software is what makes it possible, really, because actually posting every day is the hard part. But now I can process and upload 10 or 15 photos in a night, and set them to post one-a-day for the next two weeks. As it stands now, I have enough photos already in the database to last through early October. I've been so beat the last few days I still haven't finished cleaning anything post-desert, including laundry, so I'm kinda running out of clean clothes. I'm also running tragically low on food (tonight's dinner was frozen corn and two cereal bars), but still holding out on going to the grocery store, seeing as I absolutely hate going grocery shopping. The Dandy Warhols' latest came out on Tuesday and I haven't even finished listening to it yet! Gotta rip it to iTunes tomorrow and listen to it at work.

Quick update

My dad's still in the hospital, although he's been transferred to a place in San Leandro. This is easier for me to get to (about 30-35 minutes unless there's Giants and/or Bay Bridge traffic), but unfortunately harder for any other visitors, like the pastor from my dad's church, his best family friends, or my mom. Yeah, my mom. She's been going to see him every day (about every other day now that he's in San Leandro) since I told her what happened. This was initially just a bit odd, since they've been divorced for over 20 years and almost never talked with one another. But it's actually been very helpful since she could make it to the Los Gatos hospital from San Jose each day a lot easier than I could from San Francisco, and her being there every day provided me with a better idea of how he was progressing from day to day. He's doing a lot better this week in the new hospital, although it's still going to be a very long recovery. I posted a dozen or so new photos from the desert to the photoblog, so you'll see a new one each day for the next week or so, then there will be relief from the Burning Man photos for awhile. I also jiggered the code that displays the thumbnail on my blog's pages (in the sidebar at right) so it hits the database to show the most recent thumb, instead of just the static thumbnail pic I had up there for the first week. Willhelm asked for a desktop version of one of the photos, so I posted a larger version. Been busy at work trying to catch up on stuff. Stellah's been working exclusively on the Download.com Music redesign (to bring it in line with my design for the rest of the site) and the CBGB stuff that happened last week, so I've been handling all the other design needs at work. Luckily, we're hiring a part-time contractor this week to do some production work. Ynnej is moving to Boston in a couple weeks (*sob*). Which hasn't really hit me yet, I think. So we're gonna party tomorrow like there's no...tomorrow. Erm, yeah. Gonna go visit my dad now and show him some photos from Black Rock City. He gets a little stir-crazy in the hospital, since it's noisy with beeping and humming machines and there's basically nothing to do but lay there or watch TV. So I've been taking my Powerbook to show him various pictures, as a distraction. Hopefully, if I get back early enough, I'll have time to wash the playa dust off my bike. I was going to go for a bike ride somewhere in the city today to take some photos, but it's probably going to be too late when I get back from the East Bay and get the bike clean enough. I had a call from Tony Alves, who I haven't talked with in a few months, so we were chatting. I really need to clean this place up. There's camping stuff and dusty clothes everywhere.

Back from the desert

Going to post some new photos to the photoblog tonight.

New photoblog

I installed this PHP-based software called Pixelpost and played with it a little over the weekend. It's pretty spiffy. It's free, which is excellent. Another thing I like about it is that I can upload a bunch of photos and then go out of town, and it'll post one a day while I'm gone. Which is exactly what I'm-a gonna do. So for the next week you should be treated to a photo a day from last year's Burning Man trip, while I'm in the desert hopefully getting some more good photos this year. Did I mention that my camera seems to be working? The one that's been sitting in a box for the past nine months or more? The one I thought didn't work no more? Well, I fired it up the other night to see if it might work, on the off-chance. And sure enough it works! Sort of. The internal battery seems dead, so it won't retain the clock setting. So all my photos are going to have the wrong date, and who knows what other EXIF data will be wrong. And the LCD display still flickers strangely every once in a while, which is what is was doing before it died last year. So I don't actually hold out a lot of hope that it'll last through the next week, but it'd be nice. I was going to buy a new camera, but it would've pretty much cleaned out the bank to get the one I want, so this is better for now.

Vote for Pete

Finally, Peter Drekmeier is running for Palo Alto City Council. People have been trying to get him to run for ages. I'd definitely vote for Pete if I was still in Palo Alto.

Save CBGBs

Download.com will be the exclusive webcaster for this Wednesday's Save CBGBs benefit concert in New York City. The show's lineup won't be announced until tomorrow but I know a few of the acts. I'm sworn to secrecy, of course. But I can tell you it's gonna be a great show. For anyone who doesn't know. CBGBs is the birthplace of punk rock and was the early stomping grounds for artists such as The Ramones, Blondie, The Talking Heads, The Beastie Boys, and so many more it's ridiculous. More recently, acts such as The Strokes have emerged from CBGBs. CBGBs' landlord has given them notice, but there is an indication that Mayor Bloomberg's office might be persuaded by public outcry to declare the legendary nightclub some sort of historical landmark or something. You can send a letter to the mayor (waaaay better than an email), or sign a petition to the mayor.

Copyright Office IE-only protest

» Update here...

Action alert: oppose Ron Nehring for CA Board of Forestry

[From Forests Forever] Who is Ron Nehring, and why does the governor think he should sit on the state Board of Forestry? A Republican political activist since college, Nehring is currently the vice-chairman of the California Republican Party. He is a senior consultant for Americans for Tax Reform, the far-right group founded by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist (see: http://www.atr.org/). He was also director of development and public affairs for the National Center for Public Policy Research (http://www.nationalcenter.org/), a conservative think tank that, among many other conservative causes, argues against taking action to stop global warming and against preserving roadless forests. Appointed to the board on July 12 by Schwarzenegger, Nehring promises to bring a strong bias in favor of the timber industry. He also lacks any actual forestry experience. His primary qualification for the job seems to be that his house came close to urning down in a forest fire in 2003. Nehring's appointment is now before the Senate Rules Committee for confirmation. According to Section 731 of the Public Resources Code of California, a candidate for membership on the board should have "general knowledge of, interest in, and experience with, problems relating to watershed management (including hydrology and soil science), forest management practices, fish and wildlife, range management, forest economics, or land use planning." Nehring has not claimed any of these qualifications. The nine-member Board of Forestry is appointed by the governor and is supposed to represent a range of interests. Nehring's appointment would tip the balance of the board yet further in favor of industry and away from sound conservation practices and citizen participation. "In addition to his lack of any relevant qualifications," said the Sierra Club's Paul Mason, "Ron Nehring's potential to do lasting damage merits a quick denial of his confirmation." TAKE ACTION Write a letter to Sen. Don Perata, the Senate Rules Committee chair, and urge him to hold a hearing on the Nehring nomination before the Senate adjourns on Sept. 9. Tell Perata you oppose Nehring's nomination and ask the senator not to confirm Nehring's appointment to the California Board of Forestry. Sen. Don Perata, Chair, Senate Rules Committee State Capitol, Room 205 Sacramento, CA 95814 POINTS to MAKE in YOUR LETTER to PERATA ~ Please hold a hearing on Nehring's nomination before Sept. 9. ~ Several important issues are coming up before the Board of Forestry, such as the revised Jackson State Forest management plan, and the proposed rule change that would weaken protections for endangered salmon. This is not the time to seat another potential timber industry advocate on the Board of Forestry. ~ According to Section 731 of the California Code, Nehring lacks the necessary experience to sit on the board. ~ Given his background, Nehring can be expected to tilt the Board of Forestry against environmental protection. He will not fairly represent the community, and should not hold a seat reserved for members of the general public. ~ Please reject the nomination of Ron Nehring to the Board of Forestry. Other Rules Committee members are: James Battin (Vice-Chair) (R-La Quinta) State Capitol, Room 3067 Sacramento, CA 95814 Roy Ashburn, (R-Bakersfield) State Capitol, Room 5094 Sacramento, CA 95814 Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach) State Capitol, Room 4040 Sacramento, CA 95814 Gilbert Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) State Capitol, Room 5100 Sacramento CA 95814

Big announcement tomorrow from Download.com Music

I can't say what. But it's cool. Check the site tomorrow.

I need your phone number

As I mentioned in a previous post, my mobile phone died last week (for the second time in a about a year) and I lost all my address book data. So, I need your phone number. Yes, you. As long as you're sitting right there at your computer, why don't you email me all your current contact info? And the reward? Well, now I can send you a postcard from Black Rock City next week : ) BTW, the phone I finally settled on (I researched this for many weeks this year, knowing my crappy old phone needed replacing), is the SonyEricsson S710a. I unfortunately had to also go with Cingular Wireless, and a two-year contract to boot, but I'm trying to get over that by repeating to myself: "It's alright that the coverage sucks in many places, it's alright that the coverage sucks in many places, it's only a cell phone..." The main reasons this particular phone was a must: A) It's got Bluetooth, so I can wirelessly sync to my Mac. B) It syncs with my Mac without having to hack the software (enabling me to back up my phone book easily). C) It as a highly-rated 1.3 megapixel camera. Oh, and you want my new phone number? You'll have to email me your contact info first, because there's no way I'm putting it on the web : P

Weekly Standards spotlights Download.com redesign

The Weekly Standards is a website that features large corporate sites that have been redesigned using web standards. They approached us for an interview-via-email and luckily our new CSS wizard Greg Penhaligon took on the task of writing a full article for them. A few of my initial responses to TWS's interview questions are also included as pullquotes (the last paragraph, which begins with "My advice for other designers..." is also a pullquote from me, but they style it incorrectly so it lacks an attribution. I've let them know and it might be fixed by the time you look). There's been more feedback on the web about the redesign, and I've been collecting links to all the various places where people have commented. I'll post a list soonish.

Worst album covers ever

Okay, I don't know what's funnier. The Sun collected some of the worst album covers ever. They're great. And I mean that in the they're-actually-really-awful way. But then imagine my surprise when I got to number 8. I know it's not nice to laugh at the expense of my dad while he's in the hospital, but who knew he had this alter ego? And how creepy is it that the guy is apparently feeding alcohol to a 16-year-old? Ha ha ha! Hilarious. 'Course, when you're done looking at those, you can always check out the Sun's Page 3. What's that you say, ya don't know what Page 3 is...?

Spock sings an ode to Bilbo Baggins

All I can say is, thank bog the '70s are dead. Filed under: wtf?!

Journals

I carry a Moleskine around with me in my pocket wherever I go, every day. It's helpful for taking notes, jotting down ideas and thoughts to blog, writing reminders to myself, and drawing icons and other designs (I'll probably upload some pics of some of them some time, when I have a camera again). I never get as detailed and complex as some of these journals from the 1000 Journals Project, Book, and MoleskineArt. They're beautiful. Works of art even. Book is actually on display in a museum in Ireland right now. I've known some artistic people over the years who made great journals too. Aaron, Hilary, and Olya come to mind, and I've seen a few of Jason's jottings although never a whole journal. So this is an open invitation. I'd love to see photos or scans of your journal. I'll post ones I think other people will like too. Email me, or leave a comment if you don't know my email address.

That weight on your shoulder

...is god.

New Copyright Office service to work only in IE

The U.S. Copyright Office is developing a tool by which citizens may pre-register copyright claims via the agency's website. Only problem is, it'll only work with Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which is not exactly known as the most secure browser in the world. Not to mention the fact that government agencies shouldn't be leaving out large numbers of the public when they offer services. I've registered my dissent. You can to, through the Free Software Foundation. To whom it may concern, In the web development world, professionals create web applications that will work for the widest possible audience. By developing a Copyright Office interface to the public that will not work for a significant and growing number of citizens who use browsers other than Internet Explorer (IE), the Copyright Office is sending a clear message to citizens who use browsers other than IE: "Sorry, you're a minority of users, therefore you're not important." If the developers of this web application suggest that the number of citizens using browsers other than IE is insignificant, I'm afraid that their data are fatally flawed. Check their facts; they are selling you a product that won't work for all the people who will want to use it. By effectively turning away large numbers of citizens who want to use this service, the agency will treat them like second-class citizens. This is unconscionable. Only an amateur would build a web app that's browser-specific and later have to back-engineer for it to work for the rest of the audience or market. And since no timeline for this future functionality has been announced, the public must assume that it is a low priority. What happens, then, if a budget constraint cuts it altogether? The public's saddled with a tool that many can't use. sincerely, Mark Bult web development and usability expert

DRAFT: Download.com redesign

http://denial.loose-screws.com/journal/archives/2005/07/gnome-journal-redesign-coming-up/ http://coda.co.za/archive/20050720/23:34:50 http://www.schmag.com/2005/07/cnets-downloadcom-gets-5-cool-points/ http://jayber.org/ http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=284989

Tease

I promised I'd post a screenshot of the progress on the enews.org redesign, and I know you've all been waiting with bated breath ever since (wtf does that phrase mean, anyway?), so here it is. So far. Because, as you know, I'm an endless tweaker of minute Photoshop details. Plus I haven't finished all the sections yet, and the changes I made tonight on the Rants template are going to affect the designs I'd almost finished for the Portfolio template... Ah, hell. I'll probably finish by Halloween.

That's a little harsh, isn't it?

Photo of the Day | Kill Your Boss | August 6, 2005 | in the Mission I guess this guy had a bad day. I'd rather kill my television, personally.

Rupert or Bob?

New Scientist collected the top ten suggestions for naming the Solar System's recently discovered tenth planet. I can't decide whether I prefer Rupert or Bob.

Highlights (lowlights?) of the past month

Jeesh, there's been much too much going on, but just not enough time to blog it all. So here's a brief synopsis... My dad's still in the ICU, it's been over a month. He may be transfered to another bed in the hospital soon. This has been a very difficult thing for me on many fronts. First and foremost ? and most obviously, I would think ? I was just plain worried. But it also has meant a ton of driving up and down the peninsula from SF to Los Gatos and back. It's all very tiring and time-consuming, and a lot of the time it's unsatisfying and pointless because there's little I can do if I get there on a day he can't talk or if he's completely zonked out from drugs or physical therapy. Of course, this all happened at the same time as mucho work craziness: We were launching A) the redesign I'd been working on for 6 months, and B) a completely new Videos section. Velma had also moved in during this time, and living with a person in an open loft with no private room one of us can retreat to is going fairly well but nevertheless takes a lot of work. I'm accustomed to more privacy and our sleep habits and some other things don't sync 100%. There are benefits, too, but I'll address those some other time. There's been plenty of other stuff at work happening, keeping me a little stressed. Nothing bad, just major deadlines and a landslide of projects. I've been feeling verrrry tired and run down. To top it all off, my mobile died completely again, wiping all my numbers. So if you call me on that 408 number, I probably won't get the message. I'm scrambling to try to get the new phone I want, so I should hopefully be able to send out new deets in a few days.

Not quite ready for prime time

I've been diligently working on the redesign of this here blog and enews.org as a whole, and I'm nearly done with the design phase. Of course, then I have to do the hard part ? produce the HTML and CSS and *yikes* PHP. I'll be relying heavily on my Movable Type book and probably have to call Jason a few times for help. I'll try to post a screenshot tonight or tomorrow.

The DST bug?

I was musing the other evening that it was getting dark earlier, and that soon I'm going to be riding home in the dark again (always a fun addition to the set of circumstances that endanger an urban cyclist's life on any given day), and Velma mentioned that she thought daylight saving time (DST) had been pushed back by a month this year. The 2005 Energy Policy Act, signed recently by Resident Bush, does push back DST by four weeks. But, I learned today, it doesn't go into effect until 2007. This will, in turn, create a series of unfortunate problems that some technology analysts are saying trumps the famed Y2K bug. Most people have lots of electronics with clocks or timers. Often these gadgets auto-update their clocks to compensate for DST. When the correct date in spring and fall roll around, the chip in your VCR or microwave or digital camera or cellphone or the-list-goes-on, knows to change it's internal clock. Some Internet-enabled devices, like my Macs, can set their clock by syncing with an online clock. But many devices are never going to get the update they'd require to know that DST starts a month later in 2007. Can you imagine your DVD manufacturer providing a downloadable firmware update on their website? Not likely. So does this mean we'll have millions of wrong clocks and potentially obsolete electronics heading to America's already overfilled landfills starting in 2007?

Daniel Clowes on his f*&%king awesome job

ReadyMade (which is a really great magazine I should've mentioned in this earlier post), asks comic book artist Daniel Clowes, "How did you get that f*&%ing awesome job?" Clowes earned a following for his self-published Ghost World comic books, which he later adapted into a really good and well-received movie. United Artists will release Art School Confidential [set pics] reportedly later this year (which I obviously have to go see with art-school geek Aaron), an adaptation of a story from Clowes' Eightball comics.

Arty decks for a good cause

Skate Press is autioning off 50 skateboard decks, designed by artists such as Andy Jenkins, Don Pendleton, and Andy Mueller. Proceeds will go toward building a skate park in curator/designer Joe Kral's hometown in Minnesota. » Skate or Die Auction... » Opening exhibit photos...

Clarification

In case there's anyone left who still doubts that Richard Simmons is gay [WMV].

Top 5 for Friday

Excellent photoblog » wvs.topleftpixel.com Laksman This guy's design portfolio is really good. » www.laksman.com.ar Slick alternative theme to Windows XP Vista might sport some better looks when it comes out next year, but this XP theme, by an awesome Chinese designer, is waaay better. » www.rokey.net Apple's Mighty Mouse » www.apple.com Things that are not in the U.S. Constitution » www.usconstitution.net

A warning label I actually approve of

Is there any way we can really get warning labels like these? I mean, I'll sneak into every hotel room in California and affix them myself if I have to.

First look at Vista

Early screenshots of Vista (the operating system formerly known as Longhorn) indicate that Bill and his team have once again been paying some attention to what Cupertino's been doing for the past two years in OS X. Some of the UI improvements in Vista look promising: Finally decent-looking text rendering (hopefully this will extend to all apps), support for inline changes to the assumedly XML metadata associated with all sorts of files (like "Rating:" above -- doesn't that look familiar?), and an overall cleaner interface. Although I've always preferred this awesome theme done by Chinese designer Rokey. Of course, the look and feel is merely a fancy dress on a pig (or a steer in this case?) if it isn't backed up by significant changes in usability, operability, stability, trustworthiness, and a long list of other things Microsoft has a less than stellar track record on. But I was fairly impressed with XP. It wasn't gonna make me switch or anything, but XP was a vast improvement.

Don't trust Trusted Computing

"My data is my life, and I won't keep it in a strongbox that someone else has the keys for." Cory Doctorow, on the news that Apple's kernel makes use of Intel's controversial Trusted Computing technology [ 1 | 2 | 3 ], swears he will switch away from Apple in a heartbeat if it comes true, and maybe even have his Apple tattoo removed. As Cory points out, Trusted Computing renders the concept of "open formats" meaningless. You can have a program that writes documents in a supposedly "open" file format like .html or .mp3, but Trusted Computing can restrict .mp3s created by, say, iTunes, to only play in iTunes. Or another example, you can have .html files that are only authorized/recognized by a certain browser. This is the sort of thing we expect from huge corporate monopolies from Washington state, not from Cupertino. Let's hope other Mac addicts rattle the cages furiously and loudly about this dangerous development.

Download.com Videos

Yesterday afternoon we launched Download.com Videos, a new section joining Software, Music, and Games. So far there are over 500 videos in categories such as Extreme Sports, Animation, Movies & TV, ESPN, Music Videos, and more. Five hundred may not seem like a lot, but considering we only had 90 days to develop this whole beast from designs to publicly launched beta product, that's pretty good. This was a little challenging for me, and I'm not particularly enamored with the design of the section, but I had less than two weeks to do all the design, and a lot of changes had to be made during the development process, all the way through last Friday night. Aaron, who's the product lead, heard more than a couple "Fine, I can live with that"s from me. He's no stranger to the phrase, it being the mantra he had to adopt when creating Download.com Music about a year and a half ago with a fraction of the functionality he wanted to see on it for launch. The main problem for me was that the Videos category came to fruition about 3/4 of my way through the overall Download.com redesign project, and I had to hurriedly fit in this new section. Fitting its tabs into the UI was not a problem, since I had been warned to keep plenty of room for new tabs so we could expand into other content areas in future, but now I had to design this whole new section from scratch, right in the middle of crunch time finishing all the rest of the site's designs. So it came out looking rather hurried to me. But hey, it's beta.

Xena, warrior planet?

Scientists have confirmed the tenth planet in the Solar System, the first identified since Pluto in 1930. They've dubbed it Xena (is Dr. Brown a Xena, Warrior Princess fan?). Now we'll have hundreds of TV and radio reporters trying to figure out how to pronounce it. "Is it 'ecks-eena' or 'zee-na'?"

Vodaphone Futures

This Flash site presents future technologies in a really well done, interactive site.

Is it Arial or Helvetica?

Can you tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica? This quiz is truly only for the typographic dorks out there like me. And hey, I only got 8 out of 10 correct.

Will the groundhog ever catch his shadow?

A hilarious campaign by Pennysylvania's government, preceding last year's Groundhog Day [Flash].

grrrrr snarrl *bite* youch! duh

I present the latest evidence in the ongoing argument between Ynnej and me about whether dogs are stupid or not.

Hooked on ...keyboard humping?

I've got to get this song in my iTunes.

Apple introduces smallest MP3 player in history

It's awesome! [QuickTime]

Top 10 Web fads

Remember the Dancing Baby, Hampsterdance (sic), Star Wars Kid, and Mahir? Then you might remember some of the other things those crazy kids have come up with over the years on Internet®. CNET has published its Top 10 Web fads as part if the 10th anniversary of CNET.com. My question is, do I have any readers who've been Net-savvy long enough to remember Kibo?

A little polarization always cheers me up on a Monday

From Craigslist: Dear Red States... "Don't these people READ? Well, as you will see from my research, they indeed do NOT read..." Feeling blue? Can't we all just get along? Purple America

Download.com redesign launches

After nine months of design work and a fast-paced production timeframe of about a month, the redesign of Download.com went live on Monday. There are some spacing issues that I need to call to the attention of the production team, but it actually launched looking better than I thought it would. Feel free to peruse the new site and post a comment whether you like it or you hate it. And if you feel nostalgic for the old look, you can always count on the Wayback Machine. Kelly forwarded me the first comment to come in: "Whoever came up with this design deserves a pay raise. This is much better." I'll remind her of that in nine months when we're all sick of green ; ) The early stats say that the new design is driving more users to rate and write reviews of software, which was one of the things we wanted to do, so that's good. But it's way too early to see the overall impacts. I'll eventually get around to posting some before and after screenshots in my portfolio. After I catch up on sleep maybe.

Lunatic Googlers

Thirty-six years ago today, something awesome happened and the world was changed forever. No, I'm not talking about my birthday, that was 36 years + a month ago. I'm talking about the first time mankind set foot on another planetoid. Yes, our moon is a planet, insofar that the Earth and Luna are together considered a "binary planet." Those lunatics over at Google decided to commemorate the day with Google Moon. Hint: Zoom in all the way for a truly unique view of the moon's surface.

Waiter Rant

Waiter Rant is an entertaining blog by an anonymous waiter (who's also a good writer and story-teller) at a bistro in New York, I think. The post with tips to patrons is especially good, and the comments are just as interesting. And you have to read the post titled Special People, which is hilarious.

Tell the President to fire Karl Rove

From Act for Change: When it first came to light that someone in the White House had leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative working to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, President Bush vowed that he would find -- and fire -- the responsible parties. Now, Karl Rove's lawyers have admitted that he revealed Plame's identity to at least one journalist before the first stories were published. It's time for the President to hold Rove accountable and fire him. Rove's political retribution against Plame didn't stop there; he also launched a coordinated campaign to smear both her and her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Ambassador Wilson, you'll recall, was the one who publicly disproved the President's infamous claim that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Africa. » Tell the President to fire Karl Rove...

A personal note

In case anyone has wondered why I haven't put anymore photos from St. Louis up yet or haven't posted in almost a week, it's because my dad's been in the hospital in critical condition and I haven't had time.

That Tree Stood for So Much

Jason Wilson was just 21 when a Lakota elder gave him a spirit name. Wilson, she said, was destined to carry a heavy weight. He would need the medicine of the name she offered, she told him, "to carry that weight in a good way, a strong way and as far as it needs to be carried." Three years later, on a September day in 1998, the bearded redhead from Missouri lay in a fetal curl on the floor of a Humboldt County forest, rocking and sobbing in the duff. Next to him was 24-year-old David Nathan "Gypsy" Chain, his head cracked open by the blow of a tree felled by an enraged logger.

» Read the rest of the LA Times article...

Eritrea

All the news coverage of the G8 meeting (on NPR and the BBC at least, since you won't hear anything about it on the US media) has meant that I've heard an unusual amount lately about African nations that one doesn't normally hear covered that much even on NPR and the Beeb. Within two hours today I heard two pieces on two different shows about Eritrea. You've probably never heard of Eritrea. Neither had I in 1993 when I met a tall, lanky Eritrean named Teclu Tesfazghi. At that time, almost no one had heard of Eritrea, because it was the world's newest nation, after having just won independence after 30 years of war with Ethiopia. Tec asked me to donate my design services to help fundraise for the International Committee for the Eritrean Blind (ICEB). Three decades of war had devastated the small North African country's population. Nearly everyone had been touched by the war; tens of thousands had lost limbs, eyes, and so on. The ICEB was establishing itself in the U.S. through expatriots living and working here. Tec was doing some contract work with the City of Palo Alto, where I had worked until very recently, and he was volunteering to raise money for the ICEB. I designed and wrote content for a calendar that was to be sold by local volunteers to raise funds to send back to Eritrea, in order to create skills-building programs that would allow the blind to go back to work. We had almost no photos or other graphical assets for the project, and it's not as if you could go to a stock agency for photos of Eritrea, so I had to be very creative. I also had to do a lot of research on this country, in order to create some interesting text for the calendar. This was a bit of a challenge, since the country was brand new and encyclopedias still had it listed as a province of Ethiopia, if it was mentioned at all. This was, I might add, before the time that the Web made such research a lot easier. In the years since the project I've followed the small nation's progress with interest, whenever I came across and information on it. While Eritrea's future was very bright in the mid-1990s, war with Ethiopia flared up again and the democratically elected head of Eritrea shifted towards dramatically totalitarian policies. In one of the NPR pieces I heard today, I learned some new things about Eritrea I had never known, but which shouldn't surprise me. For example, I didn't know that the U.S. had poured money and weapons into the country for years and had maintained a strategic listening post there for use during Cold War spying on the U.S.S.R. and other nations. Terry Gross interviewed author Michela Wrong, whose new book, I Didn't Do It For You, is a history of Eritrea. I should very much like to read this book. I have strategically and un-subtly added it to my Amazon Wish List in case you would like to purchase for me as a belated birthday gift ;) There are precious few books about Eritrea, but another one I enjoyed quite a bit was To Asmara by Thomas Keneally, who is most well known for having written Schindler's List (the book which the movie was based on). To Asmara is a novelized version Keneally's own travels in the land during the last years of the revolution that set Eritrea free from Ethiopia, and it was a very good book indeed.

Some landlords are such pricks

"Landlord Evicts Victim Of Murder Attempt For 'Being Too Loud' "

What is the best way to die?

I find the Guardian's Notes & Queries column to be great fun and even occasionally enlightening. But this topic elicited the most hilarious reponses.

"Boobies never hurt anyone"

Uh oh. "A dozen antiwar activists from Mendocino County took their tops off in San Francisco's Union Square shopping district Thursday..."? Hmm... Mary Bull strikes again? » SF Chronicle article...

Cool story by Paco

I had no idea Paco wrote short stories. He used to work here, as a designer, much like me (although for News.com, not Download.com, so we rarely talked). But I passed him in the hall two days ago and he said he's leaving this week and asked me if I ever take on freelance work, as he might want to pass along work to me. When he later emailed his post-CNET contact info, I checked out his personal website. He's pretty damn talented. Darn it, why do I have to find out these things after people leave?

Acterra closes Schools Group

Dear friends, I was extremely disappointed but not at all surprised to learn today that the board of directors of Acterra has voted to end the High Schools Group program. The environmental movement is faltering and the problems we face won't be resolved tomorrow, or next year, or even ten years from now. Today we must take a long view. The future depends on our youth. We have to invest now in programs that will make future environmental leaders out of today's ten- and fifteen-year-olds. Bay Area Action once had one of the country's most innovative and effective programs for teens, an age group for which there's almost no environmental education. In 15 years the Schools Group helped enact legislation, brought public pressure to bear on polluters, educated the public on myriad issues, and -- most important of all -- provided hundreds of teens with invaluable leadership training of a sort that they couldn't receive anywhere else. During the time when Bay Area Action (BAA) and the Peninsula Conservation Center Foundation (PCCF) were discussing the possibility of merging in 1999 and 2000, the board and members identified the Schools Group as a "core competency" and the program was retained because it was something the organization did well and that no one else did at all. We filled a void. Now, sadly, Acterra's board has turned its back on youth. No one fills the void anymore. Acterra has consistently moved away from nearly all the goals that were identified as important by the members and stakeholders during the time of the 1999-2000 merger talks. During that time, several surveys and meetings of members and stakeholders identified several core characteristics in BAA that were lacking in the (I shall be blunt) aging PCCF. People described BAA with terms such as "action-oriented," "effective," "youthful energy," and "hands-on involvement." Indeed, it was the PCCF's board of directors that approached BAA with the merger idea; it was a "friendly takeover." At the time, those in the know sometimes described the PCC as the Peninsula Conversation Center; a place where a lot of issues got talked about but not much got done. As the merger talks between BAA and PCCF grew serious, many people expressed fear that BAA would lose its action-oriented edge and be in danger of taking on some of the less flattering characteristics of the older organization (not that BAA was perfect either). Today, five years after the merger, it is with a heavy heart that I must confess that Acterra has become the thing that we feared most. Over time, Acterra has shut down many of the programs that were considered the most vital and impactful (Urban Agriculture, Schools Group, Youth Environmental Action, and Bay Area Earth Day, to name a few). Since Acterra is not an organization of the type that affords its members a vote in its direction, I have elected to vote in the only way I can: I will not renew my membership and choose to no longer support the organization I once loved dearly. with deepest regret, Mark Bult PS> As some of you undoubtedly know, I left Acterra a year ago. Even then I saw the early signs that the Schools Group would probably not last much longer. Unfortunately, the forces aligned in this direction were more powerful than myself and the few remaining board members who still believed strongly in the Schools Group (yes, there were still one or two).

Saturday, June 18 -- St. Louis

South Grand Velma started my tour of St. Louis in South Grand, which happens to be the gay neighborhood (no wisecracks), where we walked around and I marveled at all the brick buildings. So much brick everywhere! I was in heaven. I love old brick buildings, and so far this place was putting even Boston to shame. We had Thai at a pretty good place for lunch; the food was too hot for the redhead, however. I browsed the Riverfront Times, which is the equivalent of the SF Weekly. Cherokee Street We headed over to Cherokee Street, which is an old neighborhood (they're all old!) with a lot of antique shops, and we took pictures of cool old stuff, and kittens. There were puppies and kittens. Yes. Puppies and kittens. As we walked along, protruding high above all the buildings in the not-too-far-off distance was this high brick tower with "LEMP" pained on it in letters that must've been at least a story tall. We kept musing about what it might be, especially because we kept passing streets and buildings and businesses with the word (?) lemp in their names. Turns out it was the site of the Lemp Brewery (long closed, sadly). Pretty cool lookin' old factory, though. The Busch brewery (still open, sadly) happens to be about three blocks away, which we discovered when we kept walking. Layfayette Square We needed some fuel (read: caffeine and sugar) by this time, so we found a new and quite deserted café in Layfayette Square, an area Velma wanted to show me. The Arch You can't do St. Louis without going up in the Arch. Well, you can actually. And I was quite prepared to, since I'm not usually one who has a burning desire to stand in long lines amongst the great throngs of those rather strange life forms known as tourists. But my dad had told me he'd seen some snazzy documentaries on TV about the building and engineering of the big upside-down U, plus Velma had told me that it was actually pretty cool to go up in, so we decided what the heck. It really was pretty cool. Once I got past the security, that is. Since it's part of a federal park, and, I suppose, a tasty target for terrorists, there are now queues and metal detectors. As luck would have it, we ran into the guard with the inferiority complex at being the equivalent of a park ranger when he most assuredly would've preferred to have passed the police academy entrance exam on the third attempt. So, after the slight delay and mild frustration imposed by the small man with the big arms, we paid our $20 and killed a little time in the underground museum before our tour's time, and then crowded into the little white pods to head 630 into the air in the huge metal Arch, or, as I like to refer to it, the half-a-McDonalds-logo. The view is pretty cool (those little white specks in the photo above are people). On one side you're looking out over all of St. Louis, and on the other side's the river and Illinois on the other side. We actually spent something like 45 minutes up there. At one point a group of people laid down on the grass way down below, spelling out "Hi" to the people up in the Arch. The Landing Afterward we walked over to the Landing, which is a small district across the street from the park where the Arch is located, and had dinner and rested our feet. It'd been a long day so far, and I wasn't even sure if I was going to be up for the City Museum, which I'd been looking forward to. [More tomorrow...]

Head like a rainbow

Ynnej's friends demanded photoze of the slackstress-of-many-hair-colors, and here they are. May 2000: Everyone agreed that the red looked pretty cool. Four seconds after this photo she flashed everyone. That's our (crazy) Jenny. December 2000: Green! Just in time for xmas shopping. Or xmas protesting. Whatev. December 2000: Heh. I just threw this one in cuz she looks funny. Ain't I sweet? The green started washing out pretty quick. March 2001: Is it blonde or purple? Ynnej in the middle of dyeing her hair. May 2001: Awww. Ain't she cuuute? The purple actually came out pretty decent. May 2001: wtf? Is she checking her breath? June 2001: Dreads (sorta). You think this pic's embarassing? You should see some of the other ones.

Feelin' good

Feelin' good tonight because I gots a nice raise today. It'll make living in the Bay Area a little easier. Maybe I'll even be able to pay my dad back the small loan I had to take earlier this year. 'Course, knowing my luck it'll bump me into another tax bracket and my pals at the IRS will take most of it away to spend on bombs and pensions for Halliburton executives. Best part (other than the actual money, of course) was the fact that my boss said I was getting the raise due to my "radness." :D This is why I like the people I work with. [Has a beer to celebrate. Actually, a "premium malt beverage" `,: ' Go figger.]

Chromasia

This guy's good. Really good.

On MO coffee

Jen E. asked how the coffee was in Missouri, so here are my impressions.

Long-haired Ynnej

Photo post for Ynnej, whose friends wanted to see more photoze. Sorry, but I don't have any other hair colors on my laptop. But maybe later this week I'll have a chance to go through the archives at home and post a shot of the purple-headed Ynnej.

Blast from the future

"...The Middle West region, previously known for its scenic beauty and quaint small-city life, is in a state of anarchy," Rothman said. "Citizens suffer under the thumb of regional warlords, many of whom use mass slaughter and starvation as a means of controlling the population and suppressing nomadic tribes of Presbyterian extremists..." From the Onion, June 2056.

And they say everything in Texas is big!

Photo of the Day | Big Bottle, Little Arch | June 25, 2005 | St. Louis, MO This monstrous bottle of Vess Lemon Lime soda was spotted in downtown St. Louis next to the highway. It made even the Arch look small ;) Now I kinda wish I had made Velmer stop the car earlier that day so I could've snapped the huge Conoco sign that was as big as a hot air balloon, but oh well.

Mr. Rogers is dirty

"...Just move your body slowly like that. Like there's a wave going the whole way through your body? Yeah. Then make it come back, huh? Yeah. See? That's really nice..." Mr. Rogers is dirty.

Privacy: Know your browser or get phished

A newly reported JavaScript vulnerability in nearly all browsers could allow Black Hats to redirect you to a trusted site, then pop up a look-alike window over it where they could purloin your personal info. "...the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer for Mac, Safari, iCab, Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox and Camino are all vulnerable. Opera 7 and 8 are affected, but not 8.01, according to Opera... To take advantage of the flaw, a cybercriminal would have to direct a Web user from a malicious site to a genuine, trusted site such as an online bank, in a new browser window. The malicious site would then open a JavaScript dialog box in front of the trusted Web site, and a user might then be fooled into sending personal information back to the malicious site." A few tips: 1) Always make sure the location or address bar (the thing at the top with the "https://www.whatever..." web address in it) has a web address (URL) you are positive you recognize. For example, https://www.ebay.com/myaccount/ is probably the correct website for accessing your eBay account, but the address https://www.ebay.ws/myaccount/ looks deceptively similar, but could be a scammer. 2) Make sure that the above begins with "https://" -- it's the 's' that's important; it stands for secure. 3) Always make sure you see your browser's lock icon (or whatever icon yours uses) somewhere in the browser chrome; usually down at the bottom somewhere. That also means it's a secure connection. These alone will not protect you from scammers and phishers. You have to learn how to use your browser and learns its vulnerabilities, and be ever vigilant on the Net, whether clicking on a link in your email or typing in an address blind in your browser. » Read the CNET News.com article...

Big Boy says hi

Photo of the Day | Mark and the Boy | June 19, 2005 | St. Louis, MO I came across Bob's Big Boy here in the City Museum, which is The Awesomese Place Evah. Period. I mean, like Dr. Suess cool. More photos later.

Soooo much to do before I leave town

I had this week-long vacation planned for months, and it was going to happen after we launched the redesign of Download.com. However, several things at work meant that the planned launch date for the redesign got moved back. Now my vacation falls right smack in the middle of production. So, I've been stressed for the past two weeks and cranking out tons of page designs, not to mention tons of changes to said designs. I think I've designed as many web pages in the past two months as I did in the previous two years. And they're not simple ones. They're very complicated! When I'll be gone I'm flying out to Missouri on Friday afternoon, June 17, and I'll be back Sunday, June 26. If you need to reach me while I'm away, email me. I won't be checking my home voicemail while I'm on vacation. My mobile may or may not be working while I'm away (having problems). I'll be away on my birthday (thanks for the card, Holly!), but if you insist on sharing how much you treasure our friendship, I'll gladly accept large sums of cash in the mail, or any item on my Amazon Wish List, or, y'know, just a hello in the comments of my blog ; ) If anyone desires a postcard from middle-America, let me know and I'll send you one. Even if I don't know you. Just send me your address if I don't have it...

The many faces of Velma

My latest little web project is a fairly simple, one-page photo gallery which I created as a surprise for Velma's birthday, which is today (happy birthday, V!). She's very hard to buy gifts for. She eschews material things, so I have to be creative when it comes to gifts. To top it off, she's about 1,000 miles that-a-way right now, which makes celebrating her birthday in person out of the question. At least until Friday night when I arrive in Missourri. So I came up with this little gallery idea. Interestingly, it's almost becoming a tradition for me to do something for her website. Last year I turned her static website -- which I never had time to update for her -- into a Blogger-powered site, so she can update it herself whenever she wants. Velma's been taking self-portraits for years, so it makes for a wonderfully interesting album of pictures over time. It really shows a lot of faces of that cute redhead Ilike to hang out with. "She's very chameleon-like," said Jason when I showed it to him. I want to start doing a better job of keeping notes on how much time it takes to make these sorts of side projects (I rarely bother to keep track when it's not a paid job and I'm therefore not billing someone), and I thought aspiring web designers might find my description of the process useful, so here's a brief synopsis of how I put it together. Scanning: 2.5 hours On Monday night, after work, I slid my portable Canon scanner, which I like a lot, into my backpack with my laptop and headed over to a nearby café, and sat down with a large mocha to scan 36 photos. I had borrowed the pictures several months ago from Velma, telling her I'd like to scan them at some point when I had time. Since she knows me so well, she probably thought it would happen about the time hell froze over. Placing 4 pictures on the scanner at a time, careful to keep them in order, I scanned them all at high resolution (600 dpi at 1:1), knowing that I might want to use them in larger versions at some future point. However, the versions for this project would be sampled down to 400 x 300 pixels. Design & imaging: ±6 hours I spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and a part of Thursday night designing the template in Photoshop, then imaging all the scans. The design is based on Velma's blog template, which is a variation on a standard Blogger template that I had tweaked the colors and spacing on until I liked it better. The high res photos had to be separated (from 4 to 1), cropped, and then laboriously color-corrected (some of the prints had horrible color casts). Then there was retouching, sharpening, and placing all 36 images into the template I'd designed. Then I had to make smaller versions for the tiny thumbnails. HTML & CSS: ±4 hours I built the page and the CSS in Dreamweaver on Thursday and Friday nights. I decided to do most of the HTML without nesting lots of tables, although I did use one table to contain everything. But CSS positioning is used to place all the images and the text. The paper background and the white photo border and black photo corners are actually one image, and the 300 x 400 pixel photo in the middle actually floats on top. When you click the thumbnails, a JavaScript loads a new image (pre-loading all 36 photos would have made a slow-loading page). All the photos are JPEGs (naturally) saved at 55% quality using Photoshop CS's standard Save for Web function. Each is about 35KB on average, although they vary from 24KB to 44KB or so. Fixes for Internet Explorer XP Professional: 2.5 hours Of course, even after Jason used his PC to preview the page for me and confirmed that it looked fine in IE, Firefox, and even Opera, I checked it at work on XP Professional and all the spacing was off. So I had to redo all the CSS, which then somehow inexplicably broke the JavaScript (which I hadn't actually touched, go figure). So I fixed it best I can... Of course, it works fine in everything else. Bloody Microsoft. Seems the JavaScript doesn't want to reliably load the new photos every time. It works sporadically, which is infuriating. I'd be willing to bet good money that it's related to Microshite's unreliable implementation of JavaScript and its use of the competing Jscript language. Overall time spent: approx. 15 hours » Check out the gallery...

"Cleaner coal." Um, yeah.

Here's some greenwashing -- sorry, I mean "commercials" -- from the company that brings us dirty energy and weapons contracts. And, um, NBC. All I have to say is, what brilliant ad agency came up with the idea of selling coal-powered energy using classic "sex sells" imagery?

I'd like the double meat pizza, please

Believe it. The world portrayed in this video is not far off.

Update on the Apple iWaste campaign

From the Computer TakeBack Campaign: "Last Friday, Steve Jobs took a positive step by deciding to offer free recycling for iPods at the Apple stores. Finally, after calling the Computer TakeBack Campaign's concerns 'bullshit,' Jobs has moved one step closer to the Campaign's call for Apple to accept responsibility for its iWaste. Recycling iPods at Apple stores is a great thing -- but Jobs should go further than just the iPods. Apple's obsolete computers like Mac Classics contain lead and other highly toxic materials that will be dumped into our air, land and water. Apple should accept all Apple products at its retail stores. Jobs should also offer free recycling to the hundreds of thousands of Apple users who don't live near Apple stores. We want Jobs to be the hero he can be -- and offer free and convenient recycling for all of Apple's obsolete products." » Tell Steve Jobs: Don't Be A Mini-Player, Take Back All Your Toxic Trash

Mission Lights

Photo of the Day | Mission Lights | December 8, 2004

What did I do to deserve this?

It's only 10am and already Microsoft Entourage has frozen my entire system and Firefox has completely fucked itself on not one but both computers on my desk. To top it off, Force Quit has hung. How do you force quit Force Quit?! By using Terminal, of course. How do you find out what the command is to force quit using Terminal? Look to the Internet. How do you do that? With Firefox. What do you do when Firefox is hung on both computers? Suicide by Mobius strip!

Things I don't miss one damn bit about working in the nonprofit sector

Okay, at the risk of sounding like I still have sour grapes (well, maybe I do, whattya gonna do about it?), I was thinking last night about my job today in relation to my job a year ago, and this list started coming to me. So, in no paricular order, things I don't miss one damn bit about working in the nonprofit sector:

• Coworkers who have no idea how to use their computers.
• So-called environmentalists who don't even know the basics of office recycling.
• Aged receptionists who fall asleep at the front desk.
• People making requests for design services by using such laughably antiquated terminology that it's obvious they have absolutely no clue what they're talking about.
• Having to be the in-house tech when it certainly wasn't my job, I wasn't being paid for it, and I had other important work to do.
• Having to use computers that make 386 machines look fast.
• Having to buy my own software and hardware just to get my job done. To the tune of hundreds of dollars a year, usually.
• Having people say thank you but never actually showing you that they meant it. You value what I do? Prove it. Pay me enough to live on.
• Board meetings.
• Constant moaning from certain individuals who dragged everyone around them into a downward spiral of inertia.
• Coworkers who don't listen or remember what you say, no matter how many times you say it.
• Tex's singing.
• Working with an overwhelming majority of people who have absolutely no concept of what you do and its value to the organization.
• Always having 190% more to do than is possible to do in the time and salary alloted for your job. In other words, working at a place that has no idea what it takes to do your job, why it's important, how complicated it is, what sort of resources it takes, etc. ad nauseum.
• Staff meetings.
• Never having a budget for your project. Ever.
• Having to raise your own salary.
• Having to do 17 different jobs.
• Having to update the EcoCalendar every week.
• Having to fix other people's mistakes, even though you've shown them how to do it right about a million times, written an extensive manual, and constantly remind them how to do it the right way.
• Working in a place where it seems any sense of fashion or aesthetic fell into a black hole sometime around 1996.
• Having to try to keep a straight face when someone uses phrases like "You're putting out a real negative energy."
• Equally, trying not to roll my eyes when we sponsored events like sunrise ceremonies.
• The PCC building. Which is an ugly concrete hunk of shit.

Very cool DVD

Whle I'm on the subject, am I the only one who regrets not having put up the $100 or so needed to get a copy of this awesome collaboration between "This American Life" and artist Chris Ware, as a public radio pledge gift?

Godless America

I always hated Julia Sweeney. That's a little strong, I suppose. Maybe I just hated the characters she played on SNL, which I thought were always terribly unfunny. They included the ambiguously-gendered Pat, who, if the box office take from the movie is any indication, was apparently hated by most people. I haven't watched SNL in years, in part because of cast members like Sweeney. I guess I blame her a little bit because I lost interest in a show I used to watch every Saturday for years. I hadn't heard anything about Sweeney in more years than I can remember, and I probably wouldn't have heard anything about her for many more happy years to come if it hadn't been for today's episode of "This American Life." Now, "This American Life" is my favorite radio program and has been for years. I mentioned it in a post here back in May of last year, calling it the best show on radio. Which I still believe it is. But even I must admit that I groaned a little bit when host Ira Glass said that Julia Sweeney would be doing an excerpt from her one woman show as part of this week's radio program. But then I perked up when I heard what the episode, titled "Godless America," was about. Ooh, I thought, this should be interesting. From their website: "At a time when House Majority Leader Tom Delay calls for enacting a 'Biblical worldview' in government, when Christians are asserting their ideals in the selection of judges, in public school science classes and elsewhere, This American Life spends an hour trying to remember why anyone liked the separation of church and state in the first place. Julia Sweeney, among others, gives a full-throated defense of godlessness. Julia's faith began to crack after reading Biblical passages like the one pictured here, of Abraham about to cut the throat of his beloved son, Isaac..." Now, the entire program was excellent, as usual, and it got me fired up about the christian (I think I'm going to start de-capitalizing the word from now on, when used in reference to evil factions of the religion) right that wants to do things like amend the Constitution to include wording that proclaims the United States a christian nation. But I was most surprised by the vignette by Sweeney at the end of the show. It's excerpted from her one-woman show, "Letting Go of God," which just closed last month in Los Angeles and apparently was getting rave reviews. And from this excerpt, I can see why. She proved thoughtful (and funny in a way that none of her characters on SNL ever were) about an episode of her life in which she began to question her Catholicism. And as she admits, she was truly a believer, practically a poster child for the church. It's truly an excellent piece of writing, and I hope at some point she publishes it as a book. You can hear it, and the entire "Godless America" episode, which I highly recommend, on RealAudio in a day or three when "This American Life" puts it on their website.

One of the president's men

There's been a fair amount of vitriol from conservative talk show hosts and Republican legislators this week defaming Mark Felt for his "un-American" act of feeding information to Bob Woodward about the Watergate break-in. These proclamations are ridiculously ironic coming from the likes of comentator G. Gordon Liddy, who went to jail for his part in the scandal. I first saw the film All the President's Men in 12th grade journalism class, and it made me proud, and it made me want to be a newspaperman. I highly recommend the book as well. My copy is so worn it's held together with rubberbands. If you don't know much about this tide-turning point in United Sates history, you may want to pick up a copy of the book or the movie for yourself. It's a truly fascinating story of intrigue. Meantime, here's this week's Washington Post story in which Woodward remembers first meeting Mark Felt, and how their relationship grew over the years.

Barricades

For Willhelm Von Monocleman, who demanded more photos and salve. I'm working on the salve. Photo of the Day | barricades, Yerba Buena Gardens | February 14, 2005

What are you doing on Labor Day weekend?

Pretty good article in the Chronicle on Sunday: "Think Burning Man, and you think of naked revelers, a sprawling impromptu tent city layered with dust, eye-popping art in the middle of the desert, and the torching of a four-story wooden man. You're right. And wrong. » Read the rest...

Goblet of Fire

Trailer is out! [WMV or QuickTime]

Donut Day

Dammit. Wouldn't ya know it. Today's Donut Day, and there's not a single Krispy Kreme in San Francisco.

This one goes to 11

Barrester rawks [QuickTime].

Fun with web stats

Using my stats package I can see the search terms people used on Google, et al, that resulted in one or more links to my site(s) ending up in their search results. They're pretty interesting. Here's the last week's top 100. Apparently 2 people were searching for "hobbit porn" and 2 for "ynnej". Are these related? Two people were looking for a "velma". Two people searched for "pictures of velma," which of course could be people innocently looking for pictures of the chick from Scooby Doo. But then 1 person searched for "velma having sex." Um...yeah... And I don't even want to guess about "velma space trip". Also, what's up with "peeking ass", and "pictures of salami"? rank | search term(s) | no. of searches 1. morrissey 10 2. google craigslist 8 3. kurt cobain 8 4. jock sturges 6 5. bodyscapes 5 6. lace curtains 4 7. beauty gallery 4 8. air america itunes 4 9. pearl jam 4 10. enews 3 11. teengirl 2 12. inbed 2 13. velma 2 14. hobbit porn 2 15. ynnej 2 16. eddie vedder 2 17. raining hard 2 18. pantsed 2 19. jeffrey archer+the fourth estate 2 20. pictures of velma 2 21. 1984 rage at badlands 2 22. flying cats 1 23. ????? ??????? 1 (this one was in Japanese or something) 24. catholic schoolgirls 1 25. awesome babe 1 26. sonic youth 1 27. air america radio itunes 1 28. interactive planet 1 29. l33tspeak lotr 1 30. conversation starter 1 31. lennon the musical 1 32. stop frame animation 1 33. most amazing videos ever 1 34. ryan buckley 1 35. monologues cell block tango 1 36. waffle house all star breakfast 1 37. anton newcombe does not support dig 1 38. library fire 1 39. bodyscape 1 40. bob cock 1 41. jock sturges pictures 1 42. velma having sex 1 43. baycon blog 1 44. acid cube 1 45. the fourth estate jeffrey archer 1 46. herb ritts 1 47. espouse 1 48. air america itunes radio 1 49. love theme romeo juliet 1 50. www.enews.org 1 51. effective conversation starter 1 52. menu cicero pizza san jose 1 53. jeff ament: b 1 54. www.olya.net 1 55. +beauty+gallery 1 56. waffle house margarine 1 57. listen `air america` itunes 1 58. love theme from romeo and juliet 1 59. jeffrey archer `the fourth estate` murdoch 1 60. customer bult 1 61. peace love and understanding` images 1 62. mashups` `cat power` `bjork 1 63. morrissey pictures 1 64. romeo juliet henry mancini 1 65. whine 1 66. downloadable novels by jeffrey archer 1 67. mike kahn photographer 1 69. i`ve got something to tell you hey now you want to say now new your sanfrancisco if you like to p 1 70. craigslist rant 1 71. cobain 1 72. t-shirt band slogans 1 73. changing room pictures 1 74. redwood forest photos 1 75. love themes in `romeo & juliet 1 76. alternative alphabet poster 1 77. lesbian porno 1 78. peeking ass 1 79. things people say while on a road trip 1 80. pictures of salami 1 81. +berries +picking +san francisco bay area 1 82. real women have curves` torrent 1 83. theme song from romeo and juliet by henry mancini 1 84. ozark handspun 1 85. robert bechtle posters 1 86. rupert murdoch robert maxwell fourth estate 1 87. wool picker 1 88. zia mc cabe performing tits out 1 89. kate moss+boogaloo 1 90. johnny rotten 1 91. automobile body repair shops tiajuana, mexico 1 92. bumpercars.com 1 93. beauty contents 1 94. charlie trotter george bush 1 95. os x icons 1 96. velma space trip 1 97. heinlein 1 98. jock sturges photos 1 99. mashups cheney 1 100. cute girls feet cgf 1

Bogbumper

I found this blog with lots of bird photos today quite by accident on the same day I talked with Olya on the phone, who called to harass me about not having worked on her website for a long time. And to cough at me. Because she has the flu.

Learn to dance like a white guy

Act now! While supplies last! [WMV]

Will modern raiders find the lost Ark?

A few days ago Ynnej passed on the news that there will indeed be a fourth Indiana Jones movie (yes, with Harrison Ford). According to this amazing fan site, it'll be set in the 1950s, so as to coincide with Ford's...erm, advancing age. My only question is, who will take the place of the Nazis as the bad guys? The commies? On a related note, apparently archeologist Vendyl Jones has received the blessings from Jewish spiritual leaders to finally excavate the location he believes is the secret resting place of the actual Ark of the Covenant. No, seriously. This article in the Israel National News calls him "the inspiration for the 'Indiana Jones' movie series," but Jones' own website's FAQ casts some doubt on this, as does an interview from the films' DVD box set, where it's pointed out that Indiana was named after Spielberg's dog. But I guess the two explanations are not mutually exclusive. However, the Israel National News article quotes Vendyl Jones as saying he helped the screenwriter: "...Jones' escapades and explorations were the inspiration for the blockbuster movie 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' of the 'Indiana Jones' trilogy. The man who wrote the first draft of the film, Randolph Fillmore, was one of the volunteers who worked with Jones in 1977. 'I agreed to help him write the movie,' Jones said, 'as long as -- number one -- he wouldn't set it here (in Israel). Some people believe the ark is in Ethiopia or Egypt, some believe its in Constantinople or Rome. I just didn't want it to be portrayed as being here. The second thing was, "Don't use my name." So he didn't. My name is Vendyl -- V-E-N-D-Y-L. So he just dropped the first and last letters and it ended up Endy Jones.'..." Whatever. All I know is this: The End of Days is here. Abandon hope all ye who are not Saved. Repent now, sinners! Or burn in everlasting hellfire ye shall!

Totally. Shitty. Day.

My computer at home had been defragmenting for 36 hours straight. I got fed up and stopped it. Then my main hard drive went missing. Then another one went missing. That's only my main drive. My startup disk, with all my music, many months of photos, not to mention a year's worth of bookmarks, tons of work, all my applications, etc. I got the main drive back, although I don't know what sort of trouble it'll give me when I try to back it up and reinstalling the system. Which means buying Tiger and a new hard drive to put in the box. A cost I didn't want to have to incur right now. The other drive that went south was still trying to fix itself when I left for work this morning. I have a feeling that one's going to be a problem. The drive utility failed four times before I decided to try a different tactic, started running the routine, and ran out of time and patience and left for work. It has all my email backups and lots and lots of personal work on it, not to mention all the files for a website I've been working on for about three years. I got to work and my laptop kernel panicked on wake again, which is an intermittent problem that lots of people have been having with PowerBooks for the last couple years, and no one seems to be able to figure out how to fix it. I've been searching for an answer for six months. This is the second time it happened in two days. It means I have to force shut down and restart. Sometimes this results in corrupted files. Twice so far it has corrupted my email database, since that application is up when the kernel panic occurs. Then my computer at work, which is practically brand new, started acting weird, which it occasionally does when app-switching between Entourage and Photoshop. Luckily, the crash I feared as I stared at the spinning ball (which I should practically never see on a dual G5, let alone for a solid 40 seconds) went away and nothing happened. But I saved right away. Then Photoshop decided to repeatedly quit when I was trying to paste text into it. Text. Just text, fercryinoutloud. Then a little man from the mail room brought me two roses. I had no idea he liked me. He never said a word. Oh, there's a card. "Hugs, V." I wonder if his name is Victor...? Turns out the V. was probably for Velma. She knew I was having a bad day, since she'd called me from Georgia and could instantly tell I was having one of the worst days in memory. Actually, it's a wonder the phone receiver didn't shock me when I picked it up, considering how electronic equipment's been reacting to me today. But how she was able to send me roses from practically the other side of the country in a matter of about two hours, I do not know. Unless they really were from Victor. Anyway, I had to work late (second day in a row), but I'm in such a lousy mood by now that I decided it was high time I treat myself to finally seeing Episode III, since I've been delaying it for a week, telling myself I wouldn't go see it until I had all of the Ozark Handspun stuff to the various printers. Which they are, as of yesterday. So I'm sitting in the theater, right in the middle (I actually got a good seat because there were only three other people here when I arrived), typing this because I have nothing better to do for the next 25 minutes until the movie begins. After a day like this, I need this film to pick me up. It better be good.

TV.com

Ynnej will be interested to know that there are currently 247 photos of the "Lost" cast on the new TV.com, which launches tomorrow. I've just been looking at the sneak preview on our internal staging server, and it looks pretty cool. It's an all-new site. This is just one of dozens of domains CNET owns, which I'm constantly finding new ones of. Yesterday I learned we apparently own WebFerret, a desktop metasearch utility for Windows. Who knew?

Deep Throat revealed?

Vanity Fair has an exclusive [press advance PDF] on what may be the true identity of Deep Throat.

Postcards from the Ozarks

I got two postcards from the redhead who's in Missouri for the next couple months (although she's probably on the road to Georgia while I type this). I liked this bit from the one with the giant trike: "...While we were out some young kids stole my purse (w/ glasses + wallet) from the truck. Then we hauled rock -- and I'm sweating again." Sounds like a relaxing vacation, don't it? Poor Velmer.

Aging parents

My dad's in the hospital and this is the first time I've ever been that worried about him in all the past year's events -- selling the house, moving into a retirement community, knee-replacement surgery, several weeks of recuperation in the on-site health center, then returning to his apartment and an ongoing regimen of physical therapy. I suppose those were all easier to prepare for because I had warning. I knew he was going to sell the house for like a year, and he told me about the retirement community idea at least six months in advance of moving, and same with the knee surgery, which I suspected would mean a lengthy recovery afterward. I was prepared for all that. When you get a phonecall from an administrator at the retirement community and she says she's "worried about your dad" and doesn't know where he is and they checked his apartment and he wasn't there, that's slightly panicking. Turns out he had left me a message on my other phone at roughly the same time I was talking with Cora, and he had checked himself into the hospital on Tuesday because of an elevated blood count and they needed to run some tests. He's alright, although he sounds a little disoriented, or maybe just drugged. But he'll be in the hospital for a few more days. Ever since my dad's knees went bad and he started having so much trouble walking and stuff, it's made me realize just how old my parents are getting. I looked at his face a year or so ago in the way we usually don't when we're looking at people we've been looking at for all our lives -- and he was just so old looking. My mom's still in pretty good health and stuff, although her eyesight's been terrible in nighttime conditions for many years, which makes driving at night a really bad idea. But she had keratotomy surgery on one eye quite a few years ago and it made a huge positive difference. I'd always been pretty resigned to the fact that my parents were a lot older than most of my peers', since they got me pretty late in life, and I know this has had several important impacts on my life. For one, it meant that they were hopelessly incapable of relating to me by the time I reached my teens, and it's pretty much been all downhill from there. Of course, this is the way of the world, so I guess it should come as no surprise. But when I was 18 or so I realized that history would repeat itself unless I myself had kids when I was in my early- to mid-20s (and admitedly I wasn't so dumb as to think I'd still be able to relate to my kids when they were teens, but at least it'd be a little easier). Now, however, in my 30s, I am in eminent danger of repeating history if Velma and I have kids. Oh well. Maybe someone will invent a Parent-Child Relater Device? sometime before 2020. Another important impact is one that hasn't happened yet. My (theoretical) kid(s) may never know their paternal grandparents. And vice-versa. This would be a shame, of course, because I'm sure that somewhere down deep inside my dad there's something grandfatherly he'd want to pass on. Fishing maybe? Anyway. I'm a little sad about all this today. But at least I don't have a tumor.

Celebrating (belatedly) Towel Day

At home sick today. Haven't even opened the shades yet because I'm afraid it's another nice day and then I'll want to go outside in it. I was checking my email in my underwear (nice mental image, huh?) and Ynnej pointed out via IM that Towel Day was yesterday, and I totally missed it. So, being in my underwear already, I decided I had to be more like this guy and so I got my dressing gown (that's a robe to all you Americans -- and I have the nicest robe evah, thanks to Velmer), a nice, steaming hot cup of tea, and sat back down with my trusty towel at my side. Only problem is, now every time a truck rumbles by outside, I fear they're bulldozers. Don't have any idea wtf I'm talking about? My god mankind, have you never read the Guide?

On magazines

Jen E. (hi!) commented on my post, "Somber reading. Or: Why I hate the New Yorker." I was mostly being a snobby, reactionary designer because of the illegibility of their website, since it reminded me of the year that I subscribed to the New Yorker back in something like 1993 and later felt like a loser because I never had time to read the 30,000-word articles. What a waste. It might just as equally be the case that I ranted against the New Yorker simply because of a surging inferiority complex brought on by the fact that I'm slowly but surely becoming one of those short-attention-span people you spoke of `,: Jen, your point about being exposed to ideas that you wouldn't necessarily otherwise be exposed to is the most compelling one to me. It's the same reason I still occasionally tune in KGO AM and listen for a few hours, to remind myself that the things I hear on those talk shows are the way most people out there think (KGO has more listeners by far than any other radio station in the Bay Area), and that not everyone listens to NPR. Anyway, I still hate the design of the New Yorker. I know it has this style that's all its own, that the magazine in fact thrives in part on this historically backward look. But I mean, this is a totally subjective thing, and whether I "like" it or not means nothing. And whether someone else likes it or not means nothing to me. But I can't read it. It makes me ill to open it. But hey, like I said, I'm a design snob. It's what I do ; ) So, magazines that I like the design of? Time, although its content increasingly falls into that short-attention-span genre. Dwell is great, but mostly because of the photos and typography, since the recent switch to using great swatches of cyan, magenta, and yellow throughout is garish (although I know they're just trying to be all pomo). The writing is good too, and I especially like the editorial staff's emphasis on sustainable design. How was recently redesigned and looks great. But then, you'd expect nothing less from a magazine about design, no? Computer Shopper was the scourge of tech magazines for years, but was redesigned last fall and now looks great, even though I normally hate the look of all tech magazines. I'm not just saying I like it because it's published by my employer (although I expcet a kickback if anybody subscribes because of this post). They actually pack in a lot of product info and detail on all sorts of tech products, and yet do it with style and make it very readable. I mean, hey, I actually read it! Which is more than I can say for any other Windoze-oriented magazine, considering I only use Macs. Two magazines that do a much better job of presenting longer articles in a compelling way (putting the New Yorker to shame) are: National Grographic (of course), and Mother Jones, the latter of which underwent a much-needed redesign about a year-and-a-half ago, which came out fantastic; 100% goodness. Professional, easy to read, great typography. And excellent writing, natch. And I might add, National Geographic excells admirably in melding modern, accessible design within a historically-based brand image (the yellow border, the old-fashioned logotype, etc.), where the New Yorker fails. On the other hand, a magazine I like a lot content-wise but hate to look at is E: The Environmental Magazine, each issue of which looks like it was designed by an intern taking "desktop publishing" courses at a community college. Too bad, since there's such good information inside. And that reminds me, Real Simple is also really well designed. The writing is a bit fluffy for my tastes, but I actually learn something from it when I pick it up to leaf through once or three times a year. Oh, and Jason: I still think the New Yorker's cartoons are funny about as often as I wash my car. I think the last time was about 3 years ago.

Is your nail polish making you impotent?

Did you know cosmetics aren't regulated by any government agency? I had no idea. I thought the FDA handled cosmetics. But the industry is left to police itself. So you could be using cancer-causing chemicals on your face, nails, hair, whatever -- and you wouldn't even know it, because they don't have to put it on the label. » Learn more...

No, you can't see my ID

Our brilliant representatives have passed the Real ID Act, which will open the door to all kinds of privacy invasions. Do you really want the bar you visit one time to be able to collect your mailing address by swiping your ID's magnetic stripe when you walk in the door? Guess what sort of junk mail you'll be getting in a few weeks. And that just scratches the surface of this bill's problems. » Read more about this travesty...

I said "u," not "o"

Velma and I have occasionally discussed a few of the many sticky issues involved in having kids. Perhaps a telling look at how cursory our discussions have been so far is the fact that we've talked at least a couple times about the challenge of what last name they should have. What? Are there other more important things to discuss about having kids? Let's face it. Saddling a little 'un with the last name Bult could be considered child abuse. And c'mon, the last name Gentzsch has enough consonants to write a short story and only one vowel! Both our last names, over the years, have been slaughtered in pronunciation by people who claimed a certain level of (presumably higher) education, such as teachers or other authority figures. I've been called everything from "built" to "butt," and of course the most popular choice being "bolt." How anyone looking at four simple letters with only a single vowel can pronounce it as anything other than "bult" has always baffled me. Gentzsch seems as simple to me as Bult. I mean, sound it out, people! What else can it be? Absurdly, I still find immense joy in the fact that someone once pronounced it "giznatch." But, seeing as how traumatizing it can be in 7th grade summer school to be called "Mark Butt" during the first-day roll-call by your (apparently either sight-challenged or retarded) typing teacher, it seems rather unfair to set up one's progeny for the same embarrassment. Not to mention poor little Clara Giznatch. Strangely, Velma and I both have a certain strange pride in our last names. Her more than me, I would say. When I was 19 or so, I actually considered changing it to something like Black, so at least I could stop having to spell it constantly to people over the phone. "Bult. Mark Bult. B-u-l-t. No, I said 'u,' not 'o'." No one ever asks you to spell a last name like Black. More recently, I've decided there are certain advantages to having a name like Bult. Ever googled yourself? Do you have a common name or an odd one? When I try looking up old friends I've lost touch with, it's impossible to find anyone with a common name like Dave Wise. But if someone were trying to find Mark Bult, that's easy. This has obvious benefits when you're in business for yourself. "Who designed your website?" "Mark Bult." "How do I get ahold of him?" "Oh, just google him." I suppose it's less good when you're on the FBI's Most Wanted List and would rather blend into the crowd. (Luckily, I don't need to worry about that. Anymore.) What Velma spent the most time discussing was actually what to do about the child's last name. We both dislike (I was going to write "despise," because I do, but I can't speak for Velma -- I'm not sure if she despises it as much as I do) the paternalistic pattern of showing lineage for only the male, i.e. giving the child the father's name. It makes equally little sense to give the child only the mother's last name. The idea of hyphenating the last name appeals to me the most, but is imperfect at best. What do the children do if they get married and have kids? Pile on more hyphenated last names? Hello, allow me to introduce Clara Bult-Gentzsch-Jones-Hoeffler. Anyway, all this is why I found this (very long -- like New Yorker length) discussion on MetaFilter interesting. Of course, it brought up even more issues I hadn't even considered yet. And no, we're not thinking of naming our daughter Clara.

Distractions for the masses!

Here's a massive post of totally irrelevant stuff to wipe out a week-plus of inertia from your Rant's host, moi. The following links should keep you entertained. Unless, of course, you have a life. Apologies to those who foolishly tune in to the Rant to read about what's actually going on in my life. Hah! What do you think this is? A personal blog? Oh, hmm... Well, here's a Reader's Digest version of the personal shtuff:

1. Been very busy at work with the Download.com redesign. We've hired a CSS whiz contractor and I'm getting pagetype designs completed and signed-off by the bosses. We aim to unveil the redesign in the last week of June or first couple weeks of July, depending on a few variables that are up in the air at the moment.
2. Been moving the GF unit into the loft, and spending as much time with her before she leaves for Missouri (which she did yesterday). I will not see her for a month, when I will be visiting the middle of the country myself.
3. The loft is immaculately clean and tidy. If you didn't attend the Book Crawl, you missed its sparkling cleanliness, and btw, you suck and that's all there is to it, but if you're really nice (bribes gladly accepted) I may give you a second chance and extend an invite to drop by and have a cocktail or a smoke on the roof or whatever turns you on.
4. In my few "spare" hours at home, I've mostly been hard at work on OzarkHandspun.com, the almost-finished website of Velma's dad's specialty yarn business. Announcement coming soon. Just days away, really!

And with that, on with the distractions!

My head hertz

This one's for the math geeks who read this blog (there are at least two of you). Time yourself on this quiz. Post your results in the comments. Winners get a totally awesome prize (bragging rights).

Guess-the-Google

Another cool Google hack from Grant Robinson [requires Flash].

Somber reading. Or: Why I hate the New Yorker.

And now, for something completely different. I hate the New Yorker because it's overly-referred to by utterly pretentious people ("Oh, did you read that article in the New Yorker...?"), plus it's horribly designed (which I acknowledge makes me a complete hypocrite because I'm such a design snob that I refuse to read a poorly designed magazine). Oh, and the cartoons suck. I know everyone thinks they're so brilliant. They're not. They suck. I know the New Yorker also features some brilliantly good writing. It's just that I can't bear to look at the magazine long enough to read any of it. So when a colleague recommended this article on climate change on the New Yorker's website, I bookmarked it and decided to go read it later. When I did, it was infuriatingly like reading an article on the web in 1997. Their website is as poorly designed as their periodical ("I say, let's cram 10,000 words of copy on a single page with not a single illustration or pullquote or anything to break up the monotonous sea of gray, and declare that it doesn't need to be designed well because it's such good journalism." -- See what I mean about pretentious?). But I was glad I did anyway. But only because the article in question is good. A somber reminder that the world will not be saved by technological advances alone. But I did have to read it in three sittings. Too much text on one page.

Is there a website you hate?

Take out your anger with NetDisaster.

Best. Parody. Evah.

Store Wars

"Love Theme From Romeo & Juliet" - Henry Mancini

What song was number 1 the day you were born?

Look, nobody cares that you're a DJ

ROFL

Guild Wars MMPG

This one's for Ynnej.

ROFL(AC)*

Aaron tells of "...a find I made in high school...of a recording called Raymond and Peter: Shut Up Little Man. This is the story of some kids who moved into an apt. in lower haight in '89 next to the most vile, vicious drunkards ever recorded. After being threatened by one them ('I'm perfectly willing to kill anyone that thinks they're tough. I was a killer before you were born, I'll be a killer after you're dead' is the greeting the kid gets when he asks them to please keep down the noise), they decide to record these rantings in case something unspeakable happens as a record for police. This quickly turns into an obsession, then a global phenomenon... As darkly humorous and engrossing as the record is, the history on their site is even more so. It goes from them being scared to death, to listening parties at their apartment, to a play in LA, NYC, and elsewhere, to a radio show, to a possible movie, and on and on. It's a real page turner." * rolling on floor laughing (and cowering)

What's your type?

I'm a liberal? Worrasurprise. What are you?

Was' up, migda?

An interesting correspondence between Roger Ebert and height-challenged actor (I'll probably get an angry comment about that one...) Danny Woodburn, about the offensiveness of the word midget.

This hack's a gas (sorry)

Want to find the cheapest gas? This Google Maps and GasBuddy hack is for you.

For the comics-addicted

Ynnej might be interested in this app. "Comictastic is a Mac software that intelligently reads web comic pages and pulls out the comic image for viewing offline. It does this automically every day. Which is a great time saving app if you have dozens of comics you want to view every day. Kind of like a page-scraper for web comics..." [via TimYang.com] I'm sure there's a PC equivaent out there for Jason. Or maybe he should just break down and get a Mini. Wait, I don't want to condone Jason buying more stuff; he doesn't need more stuff. Although, it would mean that Jason would have a Mac... Dag flammit, my desires are at odds!

#1 expert espouser

In doing a little research on other sites that link back to enews.org (using this nifty tool), I found something interesting: My blog ranks 4th in Google's results (today) for the word "espouse," 18th for "whine," and, not surprisingly, 3rd for " 'splain." I come up 236th for "rant," but that's hardly surprising, since that's the other* reason why the web exists. Why is this interesting to me? In case you hadn't noticed, the title of this blog is Rant, whine, 'splain, espouse... Just today I had been considering whether to lose this title or to keep it when I transition the site over to Movable Type. But "Rant, whine, 'splain, espouse..." still pretty accurately describes the contents of my little collection of meandering thoughts, so I had decided to keep it. And that was prior to finding that Google considers me an expert on espousing. Now I'm convinced I should keep it. * First reason = porn.

Looking for a loft in SF?

My friends Holly and Chris are renting their loft: One-bedroom, one-bath loft in desirable Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. Parking in basement garage for one car, ample street parking also. Laundry facilities in building. Quiet, grassy backyard amphitheater with fruit trees and flowers. Loft windows look out onto quiet, private courtyard with ferns, redwood trees, and flowers. Located two blocks from trendy 18th Street corridor with popular San Francisco restaurants such as Chez Papa and Baraka. Have morning coffee at Farley's café, browse for books, buy an ice cream cone or a bottle of wine, or rent a video - all within two blocks of the loft. Ten minutes to SBC Park, Downtown, Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, and South of Market nightlife. Five minute walk to light rail which connects with CalTrain, BART, and Muni. Ten minute walk to CalTrain station. Easy access to both Hwy. 101 and Hwy. 280 for commuting. Monthly rent $1,600 includes water, garbage/recycling and landscaping. First, last, and deposit required. Available to view starting May 15. Move in date June 1, 2005. If you're interested email Holly.

Book Crawl tomorrow

Tomorrow's the first Book Crawl in something like two years, and it's happening right in my neighborhood. The major benefit being that any hangers-on can come home with Velma and I afterward to have a cocktail and rest their weary feet before heading home. The loft's been cleaned (well, mostly -- gotta finish that tonight!) and we even moved the furniture around a little bit. If you haven't RSVP'd, please do.

The luster has worn off

It's somewhat sad to say, but the exhilarating newness of living in The City has finally worn off. I'm not saying I don't still enjoy it immensely, because I do. It's just that the luster inherent in any big, new change in one's life can only last so long before it eases away and you settle into a normalcy. I knew it was bound to happen. And six months is a pretty good high. But within the last month or two, I've felt it waning. I've explored almost every street and alley around where I work, and many of the ones near home. I can venture further afield, but this takes longer, of course, and it's harder to do on a 15-minute break or a lunch hour. And there are still plenty of things to do and see. But the exhilarating rush of it all being so new and exciting and different has gone. Oh well. I guess I just have to move. Topeka, here I come!

Save the High Line

The Friends of the High Line are endevoring to save an unused, 1.5-mile elevated rail line in NYC to turn it into a park. It's an awesome example of urban renewal and an inspired idea for creating public park space. They have an informative and highly usable website [Flash] showing the proposed design in great detail. The organization's main site is also an excellent example of how to do a nonprofit website well.

I wish I had written this

» www.fuckthesouth.com

Cleanning the loft, H2G2, and Lennon, the musical

Velma and I spent most of the weekend cleaning up the loft in an attempt at getting it in some form of presentability before The Return of the Great Book Crawl next Saturday. Moved stuff around, folded laundry that I hadn't had time to do, emptied some more boxes and recycled a bunch of stuff. On Friday we saw The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with Jenny and Hunter. I will reserve my review of the film for later, when I have more time. On Saturday night I took Velma to see "Lennon," which premiered a couple weeks ago and is playing at The Orpheum before going to Broadway. The musical is the story of John Lennon's life. Being a huge Beatles fan, I thought Velmer would like it. When I got the tickets, though, I was a little hesitant, since it hadn't premiered yet and I wasn't even sure if it was going to be any good. But it was great. And that's a lot for me to say. Because I hate musicals. But it really was. Lennon is not portrayed by on particular actor, but by all the cast at different times. As hard as that is to imagine, it is spectacularly well pulled off. Truly effective only because the script is excellent. The acting and singing was excellent as well, but the key to this trick working was definitely in the script. It was moving and inspirational, fun and rockin', funny and raucous, sad and bittersweet. The only real low point was the drunk, loud, obnoxious guy in the stairwell who wouldn't shut up during one numbers. Firemen came, cops came, everyone was loud and annoying. The band, by the way, was fantastic. Two guitarists, one bassist, three horns, two percussionists, two keyboardists...did I leave anybody out? There was only one song that seemed a little too long and boring, sort of breaking the pacing of the show, but maybe they'll shorten it before the musical heads to NYC.

Invasion of the little people

There were all these little people at work today. Am I being politically correct? What's the correct term? Age-challenged individuals. Rugrats. Kids. It was Bring Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day (their emphasis) at CNET, so a slew of kidlets were being ushered around my floor, where all the funtime activities were happening. Pizza lunch and a screening of The Incredibles (I would've gone, but I possibly would've felt slightly out of place). Interestingly, most employees who brought their kids brought very small children. It seemed to be a lot of toddlers, a few tweens, and one girl who was maybe 11. I remember when I was a kid and I used to go to my mom's work when there was a school holiday like Parent-Teacher Conference Day or whatever. Or spring and winter breaks. I used to look forward to it so much. I'd help around the office, filing and stapling and doing lots and lots of copying. I always loved doing the copying, maybe because I got to use this big ol' machine, and whenever it jammed or refused to work, the adults seemed amazed that I could actually unjam it. When I was a bit older I had an ulterior motive. By the 7th grade I had started my first publication, an Ozzy fanzine called "The Fellowship of the Blizzard." I hadn't even read The Fellowship of the Ring, but my friend Rocky Mullin suggested the name, and I thought it was awesome. I was collecting scads of Ozzy ephemera. Clipping photos and stuff out of magazines like Circus and Hit Parader, and writing everything for the newsletter myself, and "typesetting" it (it would be years before I'd hear that term, though) on a typewriter at the public library after school, where you had to put quarters into a timer to rent the IBM Selectric. I'd take the magazine pictures and the cut-into-columns articles and paste (well, sellotape*) all of them together on a sheet of Hletter-sized of paper. I had no clue what a halftone was, and no idea about any other production techniques (like not using tape, for example) until much later in my "career." After a couple months, I'd have enough pages put together and I'd be anxiously awaiting my next school holiday, when I could go to work with mom. I'd spend half the day photocopying my little newsletters, collating, and stapling, and at the end of the day I'd head home with mom, my backpack bursting at the seams. [image to come] I did this from 7th grade through the middle of high school, and I think I made about 40 issues. I actually had a few subscribers, and I had a couple of stores that actually sold them. "Rock shops," as we used to call them. Not where you buy crystals. That craze came (and went, thankfully) later. A rock shop was where you got your Def Leppard T-shirts and your Whitesnake bumperstickers. Don't laugh. I was 14. Anyway, The Fellowship of the Blizzard was the precursor to my eventual four-year career as an indie newspaper publisher of Western Front News. But more on that some other day. All I can say is, I seriously doubt that my mom's places of employ ever knew how instrumental they were, being patrons to my burgeoning career as a self-styled newspaperman/boy. But they definitely foot the bill for a decent amount of paper and copier toner over four or so years. And for that, I thank them. (* So disappointed that my xPad spellchecker doesn't recognize the word "sellotape". Not to mention "bumperstickers"!)

The caffeine plateau

How can I have a double espresso and still be tired and unable to focus? WTF is wrong with me? Don't answer that...

I guess it's over then

On my way home I biked past a fat lady singing opera on the corner of Harrison and 13th.

Photo of the Day: 16th Street clouds

Photo of the Day | 16th Street clouds | March 20, 2005

Download.com Music turns 1

Download.com Music, home of 50,000 free and legal MP3s, turned one year old this week and today we celebrated with a free lunchtime mini-concert by The Court and Spark in front of our building on 2nd Street. If you like roots rock or alt-country, you'd probably like this popular SF band. Download two free songs here.

Photo of the Day

untitled | dirt alley behind CNET | February 22, 2005

Quote of the Day

"Professionalism has no place in art, and hacking is art. Software Engineering might be science; but that's not what I do. I'm a hacker, not an engineer." ? Jamie Zawinski, 1998 (one of the original Mosaic team)

Jeffrey Archer's The Fourth Estate

Slightly related to the previous post: If you like political thrillers, the 1997 Jeffrey Archer novel, The Fourth Estate, is a good tale whose fictional characters are thinly veiled versions of real-world media tycoons Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch. Archer is a good writer, as well as being a former member of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Most recently, he spent some time in a UK prison, which he chronicled in a book titled A Prison Diary (which I haven't read). In a spectacle hardly noticed in the States, the 62-year-old Conservative Party member sued a newspaper for libel when it published a story that he had paid £70 to sleep with a prostitute and then paid her £2,000 to keep quiet. He was sentenced to four years in prison when a jury found that he had lied in court and had faked a diary to create an alibi for his case. His crimes aside, in fiction Archer spins intrigue like Grisham, but is a far better writer. Not as good as Le Carre, but certainly in the tradition of that master and Forsythe. If you like any of these fellows, head over to your local used book store and pick up something by Jeffrey Archer. I quite enjoyed Honor Among Thieves, a 1994 story about the theft of the Declaration of Independence by a President Clinton impersonator, backed by the mob, and financed by none other than Saddam Hussein. I know how it sounds. But Archer is simply a master of making even this sort of absurd plot seem entirely plausible.

Will we one day ask, "What was a newspaper?"

"In the year 2014, The New York Times has gone offline. The Fourth Estate's fortunes have waned. What happened to the news? And what is EPIC?" Apparently a Georgia Tech student project, EPIC 2014 [requires Flash] is an interesting visualization of what the future might hold after the convergence of traditional Fourth Estate media, technology, and social networking. Some of the conjecture seems a little unlikely at first, but then I had to remember things like AOL buying Time Warner (btw, I'm telling it like it was, not the revisionist history that we have now, whereby the parent company has reverted to being called Time Warner and AOL is a subsidiary; let's remember that, yes, as bizarre as it seemed, it was AOL that bought Time Warner, not the other way around.) EPIC 2014's vision of a future where traditional media has been supplanted by "participatory journalism" is not entirely unlikely. Social networking and alternative media have taken the world by storm, and it isn't likely to revert, only to continue to evolve in ways that most of us can't imagine. EPIC 2014's vision is an interesting peek into one possible future.

I have this big red bandage thing on my arm

I gave blood for my second time ever today. Considering how easy it is when your company sets it up for you, brings the blood center people in and sets them up in a big conference room all day, I can hardly think of a good excuse to not donate. I used to be pretty squeamish about needles, but I guess I'm over that. I never knew my blood type but after the first time I donated, they sent me a donor card. Apparently I'm a rare blood type, so now I feel even more obligated to donate whenever I can. Jerry, my doc, was a chatty fellow with an amiable smile who noticed my address on my paperwork and said he'd lived near there when he first moved to The City, and asked if I'd ever been to City Art. Which of course I have. It's a great little cooperative gallery, owned and operated by local artists. Apparently Jerry is one of the organizers/owners, and also one of the artists. Looking at this stout man with his nearly bald pate and white lab coat, who'd ever have thought he was an artist? Not I. Just goes to show you (me anyway), that anybody can be an artist. Anyway, donate blood [1] [2] if you can. It might save somebody's life.

An awesome Google-craigslist hack

Paul Rademacher has created a Google Maps- and craigslist-powered page for viewing rental and for-sale listings across the country.

Ho. Ly. Crap.

I'm not sure I welcome this news. No, it's not April Fool's Day.

Photographer: Timothy Fadek

On a slightly different but semi-related topic: I came across these interestingly telling portraits of people protesting the fate (for lack of a better word) of Terry Schiavo. The photos are by Timothy Fadek, who has some other excellent work in his online galleries from the Iraq war, Haiti, and several other topics. I especially like the portrait of Bill Clinton. I was never a huge fan of William (although I'd take him back in an instant today), but I view portraits with a relative detachment from my emotional responses to the subject.

Just stop your ridiculous whining about her soul

I refrained from bitching about the uproar over the Terry Schiavo case, mostly because I simply get gruntled every time I think about it. For starters, 99% of the press coverage neglects to mention that she became brain dead because of an eating disorder. She was bulimic to the point that she suffered a cardiac and severe brain damage as a result. But does anyone ever raise the question, "Why was Terry bulimic?" If the media focused for a change on issues that might actually inform the public debate, rather than fomenting the furor by only focusing on whatever issue is most incindiary, we might have a more cognizant American populace, rather than the overabundance of mouth-breathers who brought us an all-new Four More Years. Ack, I got started bitching.

Makin' a million. Well, not really.

Astrid Bin's attempt at retiring her debt in a year via her website seems not dissimilar from several other websites like this, except that I actually like her performance art. Too bad her current collection sits at just over $2,000. And that's Canadian dollars.

Peeking inside the Changing Room

Yesterday I went to see the premiere screening of Changing Room, the first short film by my friend Holly Million (née Kaslewicz). It's a comedy about serious issues. It's mostly about women's body issues and the Western cultural image of "perfection." But it also touches on issues, such as the effects of breast cancer and how toxins in our environment are actually carcinogens that lead to cancer (picture: A plastic surgeon fantasizes about a breast augmentation gone awry). Holly's been working on this film for seven years I think (I remember reading one of the earliest scripts in 1999, I believe). Back in 2000 she asked Flux51, my former design company, to produce some props for the film. We made fake magazine and catalog covers that parodied the sort of image-peddling publications we are all-too familiar with these days. G skewered GQ by featuring a picture of a woman whose dress had a dramatically plunging neckline. Veronica's Secret featured a model with an impossibly small waist (and was also a nod to Holly's longtime friend Veronica, although not intended to infer that she looks like the overly dramatized photo). And the San Francisco Conical was a bosom-buddy to the well-known daily newspaper. Yes, on these parodies, all puns were definitely intended. I'll have to dig those files out sometime and post the designs. During the screening, I was surprised that I even teared up a couple times. Not so much because of the messages, although I admit they're powerfully important, but because there was so much of Holly's personality and her own personal experience up there on the screen. Interestingly, I had a more personal reaction to the story not because of the struggles of the characters, but because I know several of the real people behind the characters. I know that parts of the story are true. At the same time, I was incredibly proud to see how well it turned out as a piece of film, how much Holly had accomplished, knowing how very long she's worked toward its completion. In fact, during the brief question and answer period following the film, I marveled for the first time about something I've always known about Holly, but had never realized in such fullness until that moment. She is a true renaissance woman. Fundraiser, filmmaker, nonprofit director, writer, editor, wife, friend, singer, surfer, and assuredly dozens of other things I don't even know. And don't even think about going up against her in Trivial Pursuit. Not to mention any game that involves knowing tons of movies! She'll whip even Ebert's fat ass. Holly's got numerous other film projects planned, but Changing Room's not just going on the shelf. The plan has always been to show the film to women young and old, but especially in classrooms, which is why it runs a short 25 minutes. If you know any teachers or school districts that might be interested, please contact Holly.

Subscribing to the blog

I forgot to mention that, at the same time Mike told me about his new internship, he asked... "Forgive my ignorance but is there a way to subscribe to your blog? I didn't see one. You post a lot of kewl stuff but out of site out of mind, ya know." Well, pretty soon there will be a couple of ways to "subscribe," as I continue the move from Blogger to Movable Type. You'll be able to: 1) be notified via email when a new post is made or a post in a category you like, i.e. "Design" (so you don't have to be innundated with emails about what I had for lunch), and/or 2) subscribe via RSS. But at the moment I'm still reading the MT book and haven't implemented the new features. So for now, if you want to be notified about updates I can just emial you once a week or so. But more importantly, I'm already planning to spam everyone I know when I've got enews.org up and running on MT, because it'll be so much more interesting and useful to people then.

Mike Kahn

My friend Mike Kahn has landed an internship with Free Range Graphics, a politically left leaning ad agency / design firm with offices in Washington DC and San Francisco. I first learned of Free Range about three years ago when I saw one of their Flash-based viral email campaigns, one about BushCo's wonderful forest policy (it's on their website, but impossible to link directly to [don't get me started about this being a longtime problem with Flash-based websites, or Jason and I will be at each other's throats all over the comments]). Mike's a good photographer and was influential in my decision several years back to purchase the Sony digital camera I bought and enjoyed so heavily until it died last fall. Mike's been living in SF a little longer than I have, attending the Art Institute and building his skills and his multimedia portfolio (he also does video, Flash, etc.). Mike has some helpful basic photography tips and tricks on his website, as well as a very cool Flash photo essay on Rigo, the artist whose arresting large-scale murals are now a well-known part of the downtown San Francisco skyline.

Those nutty eastern europeans

Besting "America We Stand As One," this music video is possibly the best cover song ever recorded (WMV). I can't decide if the best part is the ass-pants or the fact that 2/3 of the band is playing a kitchen.

Google Maps adds satellite photos

The already way-cooler-than-Mapquest Google Maps beta has just added satellite photos. You can look down from above on places like the White House or Headwaters Forest, or see how many planes are on the runway at JFK.

Are you a Yankee or a Rebel?

Apparently I'm 44%, which is "barely in the Yankee category," which seems impossible to me. But whatever. » Take the test...

Honey, I sunk the yacht

Oops...

Note to self: Go back to MOMA before June 5

Headed over to the MOMA for about 30 minutes today, since today is free first Tuesday, and Stellah wanted to take another look at some paintings by Marilyn Minter she had seen earlier. I've been seeing the posters for the Robert Bechtle retrospective around town for months, but had never been that impressed with his work. However, in the brief walk-through we took of part of that exhibit, I was reminded that posters and books -- no matter how good the reproduction -- simply cannot do justice to truly great paintings. I have a newfound respect for Bechtle's work, and I definitely need to go back and see the entire exhibit before it closes June 5. I'm putting the first Tuesday of each month on my calendar right now.

Yelp

Yelp is a cool social-networking/shared-reviews type site that I just heard about from Stellah, who is seemingly one of the site's most prolific reviewers. Good place to find recommendations on bars and restaurants, as well as other things.

Most amazing rock video ever

» www.americawestandasone.com/video.html

Does anyone ever check your credit card signature?

They're supposed to, right? Every time you sign a credit card receipt, they're supposed to check your signature versus the one on the back of your card, to make sure they match and therefore to ensure you are the authorized cardholder (or at least a good forger). John Hargrave decided to experiment. Even if you don't read it all, at least skim through to the final outcome.

Simply incredible

I bought the DVD for The Incredibles last week on impulse when I was getting something else. It's cool, especially since I haven't even watched the movie yet, and I've just been having fun watching one or two of the special features on the bonus disc every few days. But today I came across this little gem, which will leave Ynnej slathering on once again about how she neeeeeds to work at Pixar -- a tour of the Pixar offices, complete with plenty of pictures.

It's like spelling it Lead Zeppelin

One of the most common and completely, flabbergastingly annoying mistakes I see on at least a weekly basis is for people to use the incorrect spelling of "led" when they write something like "John Doe lead the team down the slope to certain death." To all those people: "lead" is a noun, and it's a hunk of heavy metal. The past-tense verb-form you are attempting to use (but actually just abusing) is spelled without an "a", you dolts. This is why the world needs copy editors. Or just a decent education.

Download.com redesign progress report

The redesign of Download.com is going very well. Last week I presented several design directions for the Front Door (our internal jargon for the homepage) to the managers, and while they like all the designs and there didn't seem to be a single preference, everyone leaned in one direction, so I'm going with that one. It happens to be the one that I prefer as well, both from an aesthetic standpoint and a functional user-centered design standpoint. My progress over the past six weeks has been exhibited on the wall outside the boss's office (pictured below, new designs above boring old site), so everyone's been invited to see what I've been up to. Apparently the big CNET boss Shelby was down here for a meeting with Scott, the head of Download, last week and they spent 15 minutes looking at the wall. I haven't asked Scott yet to see what Shelby thought, but I'm curious. Several of the directions we went in would emphasize a somewhat more separate brand for Download.com than the other CNET umbrella sites (CNET.com, News.com, Shopper.com, CNET Reviews), which would be a departure. And I'm not sure it would be a welcome one. But we'll see. Since my direct boss is out of town for two weeks, I'll be spending most of my time redoing all the other major page types (Category Doors, Product Page, Most Popular Page, etc.) in the new design, after which we'll have a more holistic idea of how this new design will work. It'll be interesting to see them all on the wall and to see what people think. This project has been particularly fun, since site redesign, user interface design, and content design are all strengths of mine and things I enjoy doing immensely. But the day-to-day design requests are not necessarily all that glamorous. For example, whenever there's a holiday coming up we do a themed mini-feature. Since that holiday known for the appearance of a little hopping furball is coming up (don't even let me get started about wtf do rabbits and eggs have to with the supposed resurrection of some guy who got nailed to a big wooden X), I was asked Monday to whip up header graphics for the holiday downloads page. These are pretty cheesy, but they're quick turnaround projects and come up fairly often. I do a few of these sorts of things, another one being the Power Downloader guy, a superhero mascot who suggests specialized software downloads to readers each week. Since the theme changes weekly, I need to come up with a new little illustration of PD cracking a safe, ripping CDs, or whatever, each week. Just so you know, these two examples are decidedly not indicative of the direction we're going in for the redesign of the site. And then, of course, there were the more interesting and fun designs of these three features: The Net Phones / VoIP feature, the iTunes Advanced feature (which I haven't posted since it actually went live), and the 2004 Staff Picks feature. I prefer doing these, for reasons which should be obvious, than stuff like this.

Squee

» Squee, definition of

You Say You Want a Resolution

I may have already mentioned this really good article about Julia Butterfly Hill, I can't remember. But it covers a lot of interesting stuff she's been up to in the past couple years that even I didn't know about, and I keep pretty good tabs on her work. You Say You Want a Resolution » Read it at East Bay Express...

enews.org scheduled downtime

I am in the midst of transferring my host and changing a lot of things, so if any or all of enews.org is down in the next few days or weeks (not sure how long this is all going to take), you'll know why. If you're a geek, you may be interested to read on... What's going on? For a year or more I've been weighing the possibility of moving my entire site to a blog format, but using a much more robust system for the backend and thereby giving the front end -- the face the user sees -- a more pleasant and interesting experience. Why? Part of this comes from my desire to continue web publishing, but to enable me to do it more effectively and more easily. Years ago, going from straight BBEdit coding to Claris HomePage increased my productivity tenfold. Then, when Dreamweaver was finally improved enough in v.3x that it was worth swithing to, that once again increased my productivity by leaps and bounds. When I decided to make use of Blogger's ability to work on my domain, this enabled me to publish information, opinions, photos, and yes, just plain ol' rants, at another level of increased proficiency and speed. By moving my entire site and all its content areas (from my blog to my links pages to photo galleries to my portfolio) to a single content management system (CMS), I expect to once again greatly improve my ability to publish updates with ease and speed. I intend to add lots more content, and more importantly, categories, a feature sorely lacking in Blogger's otherwise fairly great CMS. What I'm doing and how I'm doing it I've signed up with a new web host (interestingly, this'll be the first time enews.org will be moved since its inception in 1994), one which offers a number of features that are quite hard to find at most ISPs. Among those important to me are: 1. Movable Type comes pre-installed (although as an add-on feature for a small extra fee). 2. I can have, on my current plan, 5 alternate domains and 100 subdomains. Which means I can host a bunch of sites on my site, and they can all have their own unique domains, without need for masking or forwarding. So, for example, you'll see Olya.net and Velma.org and BayAreaAction.org pop up eventually on their own domains, without the need to forward them to (example:) http://www.enews.org/velma/ as I do now. I can also choose to implement these sites as http://bayareaaction.enews.org if I want (this is called a subdomain). This is a particularly important feature to me, since it's hard to find at other hosts (except as a costly add-on) and I have lots of domains registered to me that I'd like to manage all in one place. 3. An excellent front-end control panel for managing the files, databases, email accounts, access and passwords, certificates, add-ons, features, and everything else. You'd be surprised how many ISPs either lack this funtionality entirely or have very poor implementations. In my experience, about 99% of them have sucky ones. There are a few other features I like, which are mostly competetive with higher-end hosts who are keeping with or ahead of the curve in offering new features to customers (thereby making them standard features for the industry). These include: 1. More storage and bandwidth. 2. Many more email accounts than 1 or 5 or 10 or whatever pathetic number is offered by most ISPs (they tend to make money as people discover they need more email addresses and then have to add them for a fee). With my new plan, I have 100 accounts and 1,000 addresses. 3. Static IP address. 4. Webmail and spam filters. 5. PHP, plus Perl of course, and capability for server side includes. There are a few other features that are cool, but I'm not sure if I'll be using them anytime soon: 1. Shared SSL certificate (so I could host https:// secure pages without the need to purchase a costly certificate of my own). 2. Shopping cart. 3. QuickTime streaming server. Treacherous lands ahead There are numerous problems involved in switching hosts, especially when all your email runs off the domain in question, not to mention your blog, your portfolio, the websites of several of your friends, and your girlfriend's blog. I have to make sure I don't screw up everything while taking down the site on one web host's server, and then putting it back up elsewhere. I have to do this for all the sub-sites I'm hosting for other people. I have to change the DNS registry worldwide to make sure everybody in the world is going to the new server instead of the old one. And I have to cross my fingers and hope that no email gets lost in the interim. To make matters more difficult, I have to quickly figure out how to reformat and reorganize everything on my old site into a different hierarchy and navigation scheme, since I'll be integrating several disparate content areas on the old host under the umbrella of one CMS on the new host. For example, for the past two years my blog has been using a standard Blogger template that I tweaked a little but never enough to integrate it into the enews.org site, or even to add navigation back and forth. So, if you're on the blog, there's no easy way to get to my design porfolio or to my photo galleries. Conversely, there's no way to get to my blog from my porfolio or photo galleries or wherever. Also, the Blogger template's nice, but it's not really indicative of the rest of my site's look and feel. So, a few months ago I started redesigning enews.org for how it would look when I eventually could integrate all the areas and make it all one blog with numerous categories (you'll see them listed on the left in the screenshot on this page). ---- Well, I'm going to have to complete this entry later. I've been tryint to post this entry for two days, and Blogger is having a ton of trouble with their servers.

Interesting article on the creator of BitTorrent

"...For Cohen, it's all a little surreal. He gets up in the morning, helps his wife feed their children, and then sits down at his cord-and-computer-choked desk to watch his PayPal account fill up with donations from grateful BitTorrent users - enough to support his family. Then he goes online to see how many more people have downloaded the program: At this rate, it'll be 40 million by 2006..."

» Read the rest in Wired...

*ow*

Velms and I went to the snow for the first time in two years (well, my first time in two years, anyway), and I punnished my muscles all day Saturday shredding Sugar Bowl. A great time was had by all. We stayed in the legendary Dartmouth Cabin, which Alex and Denice have been telling us about for over two years. It's a rustic but excellent cabin a hop, skip, and a jump from Sugar Bowl (you can cross-country to the lodge, or drive about 5 minutes to it) and it only takes about 3 hours to get there unless you hit traffic, which Velms and I avoided by waking up at 5:20 a.m. Saturday to head out before anyone else was awake. It was beautiful weather up there; some people were wearing T-shirts skiing. It was warm and balmy and the snow conditions were great once the sun heated the slopes up a little and melted the ice off the top. I'd never been to Sugar Bowl before, with the exception of having dropped in to look two years ago during a storm, but we weren't intending to ski. Of course, I was 'boarding, not skiing. I thought I might have to relearn things since it'd been over 2 years since I've been on a snowboard, but I hit the bunny slope to see if I remembered what to do, and it was so lame and easy I headed straight for the double-black diamonds. And even those aren't that difficult at Sugar Bowl. Pretty easy, in my opinion. A few of the double-blacks at North Star are more interested and harder, although I spent a fair amount of tim on Saturday trying to negotiate moguls, which I suck at, on a snowboard. But I wanted something a little more challenging, so I kept at it. Anyway, the cabin was great (you have to snow-shoe in, you can't drive to it), the people were cool, the food was awesome, and the weather was fantastic. I was, however, so tired by the end of Saturday and so sore the next day that it was fruitless to go again, and I kind of wanted to relax a little anyway, so Velms and I snow-shoed a while and made spirals in the snow, and then headed home. And to Ynnej, to whom I acknowledge that I still owe a promised snowboarding weekend to for Jenny Day, I can only say that you would have enjoyed some of it, but absolutely none of the music that was played at the cabin or in the car on the way up and back (including old Beatles and Ani), and you would have felt constantly intimidated by being the youngest person in the room. BTW, did I mention that I have a blister, a sore beat-up shin, and muscles that feel like they've been put through a meat grinder?

When it's raining hard, I take BART

Photo of the Day | Powell Street BART | March 2, 2005

Icons rule, ok?

Methinks Jason a.k.a. Mr. Attitude is in the midst of redoing his site Bumpercars.com, since he's been talking about it lately, and he changed hosts a week or so ago. And 'lo, he's redone the front page with nothing but icons! Whee!

Tare-wha?

Kristie and Rick Knoll were early pioneers of organic farming. So why are they now rebelling against organic? (I thought Velma Jean might be interested in this article, in case she ever wants to start that farm whe was telling me about over the weekend.)

Nick is not a dick

I work with this big guy with awesome hair who looks like he should be front row at a Social Distortion gig. Or maybe in the band that opens the Social D gig. His name's Nick. SF Weekly says he's not a dick.

Sneak peek

I've been working on a website for Velma's dad's home made yarn business. Here's a sneak peak of the logo. More to come next week.

Maybe I'll just turn this into a photoblog

Probably not, though.

Because I have lots to say but I'm too tired to say any of it

Photo of the Day | Velma, window | Menlo Park, CA | January 8, 2005

DRAFT: book

This is a great book. I expended a Barnes & Noble gift card to buy it, but I'd been coveting it for over two months. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/081184529X/ref=ase_enewsorg-20/002-5246729-8958401?v=glance&s=books

Super-duper exclusive Hitchhiker's Guide movie dirt: Filmmakers run out of money, ditch special effects

You read it here first! \\ Reposts must attribute enews.org/blog! // Here it is fans, photographic evidence that Hammer and Tongs, filmmakers responsible for bringing to life the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, have blown their entire budget on cheap hookers, expensive booze, and no tea. In an effort to deliver the movie on time (i.e. far enough in advance of Revenge of the Ranch that it'll have enough time to make some dough) the filmmakers have had to ditch the last few scenes and have instead opted to use sock puppets. Above: Exclusive evidence extracted from the official trailer, seen here. A Hammer and Tongs representative refused to comment beyond this brief statement: "They were not cheap hookers."

LOTR in l33tspeak

An excerpt... [At Isengard, Grima and Saruman are discussing the attack on Helm's Deep] Saruman: "U can get hax for anything!" Grima: "Wtf?" Saruman: "I R leet. I've got teh wallhax for Helm's Deep!" Grima: "Cool1" **The armies of Uruk-Hai are arrayed out before Isendgard. Saruman: "Leet hax0rs, go and pwn!" Uruk-hai: "WOOT!" » The rest...

Note the awesome topless babe drinking glass

Photo of the Day | Drunk Ynnej, post-Wondercon | February 19, 2005 Sadly, the awesome '70s topless-chick glass died a week later, upon impact with a cabinet door. The sister in the set (a brunette with outrageous tatas) gave up the ghost a month earlier, in an unfortunate incident with a dishwasher : (

Band names and T-shirt slogans

One in an ongoing series designed to piss off Ynnej. Good T-shirts: "I time travel in my sex dreams" "Wikipedia Bitch" Good band names: stickerdoodle flameretarded

I wonder if they have foley artists for porn

Don't ask. Update: Jenny asked. Jenny found.

Sony strong-arms Beatallica

Last week I was downloading a bunch of MP3s off a little place called Usenet and one of the things I saw was something called Beatallica. I had no idea what it was, but I added it to my queue and went back to watching the cast commentary on the extended cut of the Return of the King. (Yes, I stipulate the dorkiness of my life.) A week or so later I went back to the downloads folder and added all the files to my iTunes (total count: 11,273 as of last night), and I had to listen to a few of them, natch. I gave Beatallica a whirl (virtual whirl?) and it turned out to be Beatles and Metallica mash-ups. But performed with real instruments, not mixed like mash-ups usually are. It's like Metallica covering Beatles songs, but sort of melding together the lyrics. Or a Beatles cover band playing in the style of Metallica. In fact, upon first listen, I wondered if I'd stumbled upon some rare Metallica recordings, the singer sounds that much like James Hetfield, and the renditions are that Metallica-like. It's really quite astonishing. Doing a little research, I discovered that Beatallica is a real band, they've been described as something of an Internet sensation, and that their popular website has just been shut down by Sony's heavy-handed lawyers, who approached Beatallica's ISP and webmaster with a fistful of cease-and-desists. As if the music community or the fans needed another reason to hate the music industry, the overzealous stiff collars at Sony, which owns the rights to a lot of the Beatles catalog, are either to stupid or greedy (or both) to comprehend that parody and satire, not to mention cover versions of songs, are protected under the U.S. Constitution. This has been tested many times in the past by lawyers, and the Supreme Court has always upheld the right of one band to cover another band's material, not to mention the right for artists to skewer other artists with parody. Anyway, the music's actually exceptionally good, the lyrics are smart and funny, and the latest buzz is that Lars Ulrich contacted Beatallica to say he supports them and would talk to Sony about the whole uproar. Learn more about the Beatallica in these interviews, here and here. Meantime, if you're a fan of artists' rights and that Constitution thing, please use the online petition to tell Sony to drop dead.

Time out for funny cats

Because you can never have enough funny pictures of cats.

Jesus was a democrat

Cool new T-shirt site IHeartBlue will donate 5% of purchases to progressive organizations keeping the pressure on the fellows in DC who think that family values only defined as going to Church on Sunday and owning as many assault rifles as possible.  
 
 
 
 
 

Six Apart has redesigned their site(s)

Six Apart, the company that brings us Moveable Type, TypePad, and recently bought Livejournal (and the company that I really really wanted to work for back when I was beginning to look for a job), has redesigned their corporate site. It's good, very clean and lots of added new content. They moved to SF in December and I'd been wondering where their new location was. The new address is on their website, and it turns out they're about six blocks away from CNET. Does that mean we're...dare I say it...six apart? (Okay, it's more like five, but how could I resist?) So anyway, I was out walking today, nowhere near the Six Apart offices, because, y'know, I'm not a stalker or anything, and I walked down this little side street, as I'm wont to do, and there were all these birds singing and some great jazz saxophone in the air. This is decidedly not the normal soundtrack of downtown SF, nor even SOMA, so I had to intestigate. There was this guy out back of his business playing sax along to some music on the stereo, and it rung around the whole street. The best thing was, he had this audience of dozens of birds that were all perched on his fence and lining all the wires and trees and fire escapes across the alley from his place. It was really cool, as if the music had attracted them, and it seriously seemed as if they were all kind of hanging out looking at him playing. Okay, so his birdbath and bird feeder may have had a little to do with it, but it still made me wonder how much of it was the music...

Things I don't like about working every weekday 9-6

I really, really like my (still semi-) new job. But the switch to a regular five-day-a-week work week with regular hours has definitely been a change for me. I've never worked anyplace -- ever -- where they actually needed me to be there at 9am. In fact, at the only three jobs I've ever had that weren't working for myself, I told them when they hired me that I'd be in no earlier than 10am, and if they wanted me to come in any earlier than that they'd better be prepared to deal with the psychological issues caused by my having to sit in rush hour traffic. So here is a short list* of things that aren't that great about having to work every day 9-6: 1. Waking up at 7:40am 2. Getting out of bed (at 8:28am) 3. I don't get to listen to NPR all day long anymore, like I did when I worked at home 2 or 3 days a week. I sometimes listen on the Internet at work, but the sound quality of KQED's stream is terrible, plus it's harder to concentrate on some aspects of my work when I have people talking in my head. As opposed to those other times when I have other people talking in my head. 4. Having to either prepare lunch beforehand or eat out at lunchtime (gets expensive). Or go hungry. Which I do sometimes. 5. Don't have all my iTunes with me (only ±7,000 on my PowerBook, 10,500+ on my G4 at home). Although I'd like to try to put the rest on my laptop if I can figure out how to copy all the settings too. Don't want to lose all my ratings and playlists. 6. Actually have to get dressed before noon. They frown on me arriving at work in my underwear. * I reserve the right to amend this list. Coming soon: Things I do like about working every weekday 9-6. (Wheee! Lists are fun!)

Weekend plans

In no particular order. 1. Visit my dad and help him move stuff 2. Cicero's with dad and Velma 3. La Fondue with Olyapinenutcase 4. Take photos of yarns for the OzarkHandpsun.com website I'm designing for Velma's dad 5. Take some hot naked photos of the cute redhead 6. Lots of butt grabbing and breast holding 7. Menlo Park farmer's market 8. Try to track Jason down and give him one of his gifts, and see if the other one ever arrived 9. Decide whether to buy The Art of Modern Rock before the price increases on Monday 10. Buy the Judi Bari book 11. See if I have enough time to get Dave his Queensrÿche T-shirt 12. Get some backup hardware or at least DVDs at Fry's Crap, that's a lot more I have to do this weekend than I thought.

Why I haven't been posting as regularly

Okay, I've lapsed a little on the posting in the past couple weeks. And I've especially lapsed on the Photo of the Day. The latter is partly because, since the death of my beloved Sony F707, it's been a lot less enjoyable to take photos. I've been using a borrowed Olympus from Ynnej, and while I'm very appreciative that she's loaned it to me for so many months, it's a pretty old camera, with some pretty limited functionality even in manual mode. So taking the sort of photos I like to take is not really possible a lot of the time. But I went out for a short walk today at work, and walked up Bryant from 1st, and took a few decent shots, so here's one (one that's actually in focus -- I wish this camera had a manual focus ring like my old one did). Photo of the Day | February 25, 2005 | Bryant Street, San Francisco The other reason I've lapsed a little on the posting is that I've simply been really busy at work on a huge project. Last month my boss put me in charge of redesigning the entire Download.com website. This is a large and weighty responsibility, not to mention a task that requires a lot of work and time. Luckily, she thought it important enough to give all my normal design tasks to our other designer, my compatriate Stellah, and let me have the month of February to concentrate on the redesign almost exclusively. This has been fun. And it's much needed. DL hasn't had a major design overhaul in five years, which is about 80 in Internet years. And since we get a couple million visitors a day and we're one of the major revenue streams for CNET, a redesign is long overdue. Anyway, by the end of the day when I get home, I'm usually too tired and, more importantly, too tired of looking at web pages, to do any posting. But things will pick up soon, and then you can all go back to regularly ignoring my long, boring posts. Like this one.

Darryl Cherney retires

Or does he?

If you're going to buy a new iPod

...you'd better make sure you have a spare FireWire cable lying around. I hope this more doesn't mean Apple's going to stop including FireWire ports on future computers. I think they're already putting 1 instead of 2 on some models. Lame.

They wear ties? Really?

Ever wonder what happens to skinheads when they get old, get married, have kids, and move to the suburbs? The Infiltrator learns this and more during a meal at Applebee's. Makes me shudder.

Korn guitarist finds God, leaves band

Of course. Makes perfect sense.

Fascinating early Apple stories

I've never been that terribly interested in the many books that have come out over the years about Apple; I never bought a one. But having grown up in the Silicon Valley, witnessing it all happening around me, and having been an early user of Apples and Macs when I was in grade school and high school, it's hard not to be somewhat interested. Of course, the Mac platform is an integral part of my life now, and has been for almost 20 years. Today I use it for nearly every aspect of my life, from listening to music, managing my accounts, purchasing books and many other things, viewing and sorting and editing my photos, writing and editing, watching movies, listening to the radio, and communicating with my friends and family. Not to mention that my livelihood depends on Macs. Considering the extent to which I use Macs in my life today, and for how long I've been using them (I remember using the little 128k with the 7-inch black and white monitor, and no internal hard drive, everything fitting on one tiny floppy), perhaps it's strange that I've never been that interested in the history that brought it all about. This changed somewhat when I ran across folklore.org the other day and spent about two hours reading stories about the early days of the Mac, written by the guys who were there. I was particularly interested to read about Steve Jobs' yelling at Bill Gates about stealing the Mac's mouse and interface ideas for Windows, about when Andy Hertzfeld learned who was responsible for a particularly embarassing game on the PC, and Jobs' (in)famous Reality Distortion Field. Floklore.org lays it all bare. It's honest and forthright, at one moment showing an obvious pride in some of Apple's great accomplishments, at the next moment recalling the poorly-handled Stalin-esque mass firing of most of the Apple II team.

A radio station website that doesn't suck

I finally found a radio station with a website that doesn't totally suck. Of course, it has to be in Seattle. Because apparently stations in the San Francisco Bay Area are not allowed to have a decent website, even when they finally give it a much-needed redesign (which sucks just as bad as the old one). What, did they have the interns design it? Interestingly, this is an instance of backwards-logic where the for-profit stations have really crappy websites, while the nonprofits like KQED and KEXP have really good ones. I wonder if radio is the only industry where this is true? After all, there aren't many other industries where for-profit companies and nonprofit orgs compete.

Interactive fiction

Back in the mid-'80s, a then-famous computer game company named Infocom put out a game version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Notice that I called it a "computer game" company, not a "video game" company. This was well before video games took off. Not before they existed, just before they exploded and turned into the huge industry they are now. Infocom made what they termed "interactive fiction" games. Perhaps you remember (or at least have heard of) Zork. Or, if you're really cool, (or just really old and were a geek like I was when I was 12), you remember the game Adventure, which started on mainframes. Yes. Mainframes. This was pre-personal computers, people. Yes, I'm that old. I was in high school when the Hitchhiker's game came out. Infocom was huge at the time, and it was huge that they were putting out a Hitchhiker's game. I remember pilfering a copy and playing it with my friend Jim Stickney on his Apple II. Yes, this was pre-Macintosh. Yes, I'm that old. This was a role playing game. I know some of you have heard of that. You played the role of Arthur Dent, the hapless human whose house gets knocked down at the beginning of the book. And the radio series. And the record album. And the play. And the movie (but more about that later). Unlike the RPGs of today, there were no graphics in this game. That's right, none at all. It was all ugly green text on a black screen (you did click on the Apple II link, didn't you?), almost as enjoyable to look at as a DOS startup screen. But it didn't need to be good-looking, because it was written by Douglas Adams. And it was brilliant. It contained all of his wit, all of the absurdity of the now well-known novels, and step after step it kept you guessing and anguishing and making mistakes and ending up dead and pulling your hair out (explains a lot, doesn't it?). You see, the plot of the game, while based on the characters and events in the books, didn't exactly follow the storyline of the books. That's right, as usual, Douglas threw his fans into a tizzy by changing things around again, as he tended to do in each and every iteration of the infamous Hitchhiker's series. So, while it helps a lot to be familiar with the books, it doesn't mean you'll actually win the game. Jim and I played that game to death. I think we finally solved it, but we certainly had to use the Hint Book (sold separately). I still have the game and its cool packaging, or most of it anyway (it came with a Don't Panic button, some pocket fluff, and Vogon-signed orders for the destruction of the Earth, among other things). I even have the 5-inch floppy disk it came on, although you'd have a hard time finding anyone who still has a computer that can play it. But the great thing is, now I don't have to. The BBC has brought back the game, put it online, and even added a graphical interface so it's actually interesting to look at as well as frustrating as hell and completely and utterly enjoyable to play.

From the archive

I was spending a lot of time on my portfolio when I was searching for a job, but I haven't had as much time to do that now that I actually have one. But one of the projects I worked on a few years ago was a logo and stationery system for a nonprofit that works on affordable housing issues, Housing America. Most people who know me have never seen this design, and it's never been on any of my online portfolios, so I thought I'd dig it out of the archive for show and tell (okay, to brag).

A new feature I've been working on

This design took about 3 or 3.5 hours to do today. There's a second page to the manuscript, so I'll have to do a couple more hours in Photoshop. I might do the HTML/CSS, I'm not sure at this point. It's a cool feature, and uncovers a lot of stuff many people probably don't know about iTunes. It's all stuff I knew, unfortunately, but that's alright. And it's written exclusively for Windows users at this point (although Mac users can figure out almost all of the tips by swapping the PC hotkeys for the equivalent Mac ones). The plan is to revise the feature for Mac users later, since Download.com gets a lot less Mac traffic (there are much better dedicated Mac OS websites).

Things everyone contemplating buying an SUV should know

And presented in a unique way on the Flash-based site esuvee.com. [sound]

Flavorpill

Flavorpill is a really well-designed arts and culture newsletter with editions for San Francisco, London, LA, NYC, and Chicago. I subscribe to it because it's really cool to look at. Each week's header is designed by a different artist. It just so happend that I was informed last week that Download.com would be sponsoring Flavorpill and that I needed to come up with the DL-branded section headers. So this week's edition features one of my latest creations. It's the sort of fast-turnaround brand-building advertising work I've done a number of in the past four months here. I'm happy with some of them (like the Motor Trend ad) and not so enthusiastic about others, but I quite like the copy and concept for this one. Works well for the intended audience, I think.

Now I'm trendy

I've eschewed Moleskine notebooks because they seemed so trendy. Not to mention expensive. But I've been looking for a proper pocket-sized notebook for a couple months, and have been completely unsatisfied with all the ones I've seen in book shops, stationery stores, drugstores, and even the MoMA gift shop, where I thought for sure I'd find something I liked. I need something sturdy. It has to withstand being in my back pants pocket all the time, and that means it's going to get bent up. I use a notebook constantly since I moved to The City. There's simply so much I want to jot down. I'll pass a poster or fliers in my neighborhood and I want to look up the band or store or artist or URL; there are stores I pass that I don't have time to go in, or they're closed, and I want to check them out online later or remember to return when they're open. There are the little day-to-day occurences and oddities that one only experiences in the urban jungle, and I need to note them down before I forget. I've been using a small spiral-bound notebook, but the thing gets absolutely destroyed within about two weeks. And it's almost out of pages. Last week I came across a packet of three small Moleskine notebooks, only a few dozen pages apiece, and pocket-size. These are perfect: They fit in my back pocket and they're slim enough to not be annoying to sit on, they're sturdy enough that they'll last a couple months or so, which is all I need, because I'll fill the first one up just in time for it to be unrecognizably mangled, then I can move on to the next one (they came in a set of three, remember?). Best of all, the set was just a tad over $7. They don't seem to have the three-notebook set listed on their website, but I found mine at Stacey's Booksellers on Market.

OMG these people are nuts

Now that's what I call fire. [Quicktime]

Corpse Bride

Ooh, Velms is going to wet herself over this. It's the trailer for Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, coming (not surprisingly) in time for next Halloween.

Ow

Have you ever been punched in the stomach 50 times? 'Cause that's what this feels like. And that's after a fistful of ibuprofen. Before the vitamin I, it feels like I've been run over by a steamroller. I'm really sick. And it sucks. Bogdammit, I don't get sick four times in less than four months. This never happens to me. I don't get sick even twice in a normal year! WTF?! Grrrr... ow.

Indicative of why I like the people I work with

I email my boss a mockup and ask her to approve the design, and she replies: "hells yeah."

Congratulations Factor Design

It'll come as no surprise to anyone who's familiar with my work that Factor Design has been a huge influence on me for many years. They are celebrating their 10th anniversary with an monograph (seen in the inset picture on their website, above) that I'd really like to get my hands on, but so far haven't been able to locate through normal retail channels. Interestingly enough, their San Francisco office is about a block away from where I work.

Crazy stuff seen downtown

(within 5 minutes or less) Two guys in business attire walking down the street with a war protest sign. A bike messenger bellowing an unintelligible greeting, "Aaaarrghhhh!", to another bike messenger going the other direction, then and heading down the wrong way into Market Street traffic. "666" and an upside-down cross scrawled in chalk on a utility box. Who knew Satan was the lord of utilities? Two guys walking down the street wearing a billboard. Seriously. An entire billboard. (TheWalkingBillboards.com)

Sk8r grrls

Their aren't a lot of female skaters, so in the late 1990s sisters Tiffany and Nicole Morgan started Villa Villa Cola (I have no idea what the name means, but it's not a drink so far as I know) to bring together skater girls wherever they could find them. Many zines, parties, videos, bumps, scrapes, and bruises later, they have produced -- along with Lisa Whitaker and Lori Damiano -- the indie film Getting Nowhere Faster, which is all about girl skaters. I saw a flier about it in my neighborhood in November or December, and jotted down the URL villavillacola.com to check it out, but didn't get around to it until just recently. So I was disappointed to learn that I missed the local premier screening at the Roxie. But the trailer looks very cool. Apparently the film opens for wider release on January 25, so hopefully it'll be back in my neighborhood eventually.

My letter to Apple

Steve Jobs Apple Computer, Inc. 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino, CA 95014 Dear Steve Jobs, I have been an Apple customer since 1986, and would like to continue to be one until 2086. But the environmental stance of the company leaves a lot to be desired. E-waste is a tremendous threat to the people of countries where we export our garbage. It's unconscionable for any company -- any society! -- to export our problems and make them someone else's problem. Especially when it threatens their health, safety, and their very lives. If you continue to lobby against progressive legislation that attempts to provide solutions for companies, consumers, and future generations, you will eventually be forced by legislation to swallow a more bitter pill than if you announced a progressive program now. Take HP's example to heart. Apple is an innovator in so many ways, yet I'm ashamed of its corporate citizenship. Sincerely, Mark Bult » Write your own...

Flame

Photo of the Day | Yerba Buena Center for the Arts | December 2004 I have no idea what the significance of this burning candle was, but it was an interesting sight. It was apparently a live image, projected extremely large onto the wall of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Which, by the way, is a cool place which has an unfortunately terrible logo.

The week

It's been a full week. Ynnej and Stellah and I went to MacWorld on Wednesday to fondle all the new iGoods. Stellah bowed out early, and actually Ynnej and I didn't really stay that long either. It was kind of liberating to not have to peruse all the little developers' booths on the off chance that I might sometime need their products for some cheap nonprofit (no names here) that either A) isn't capable of using the more expensive but ultimately better product, or B) isn't technologically adept enough to know that they occasionally need to purchase software and hardware to keep their operations going. So Ynnej and I went back to CNET for an hour and a half so I could get some more work done before heading to my place to ingest alcoholic beverages late into the night with Hunter. But first we went around the corner from CNET to We Fix Macs, where FastMac was hosting a post-MW party. We earned our entry -- and therefore our on-tap beer and finger food -- by listening very politely to the FastMac woman's pitch for about 15 minutes. For the rest of the night, Ynnej couldn't stop saying how absurd it was that she was served a beer at this party without anyone batting an eye, and yet can't buy a six-pack at the liquor store. So we met up with Hunter, who's leaving for Mexico for three months, which means that I will once again have to endure the endless sobbing of my favorite Slacktress, who will assuredly spend nine-tenths of the time we hang out together complaining about how she's not getting laid. We got way too drunk. Goddamn Jack. Anyhow, this state of being didn't prevent Hunter and I from having a long conversation about society, mores, revolution, violence, randomness, the responsibilities of being an American and having children, libertarianism, murder, capitol punishment, philosophy, binary, and probably a bunch of other shit I forgot, while he smoked the longest single bowl in history. Hunter's the best damn thing that's happened to Ynnej in a long time, and I really, really like him. And hey, he's hot too. Ynnej and Hunter crashed at my house, because of course we're all too responsible to drive in such a condition, and I'm only sorry that the air mattress had a hole in it. Anyone know if you can patch an air mattress with a bike repair kit? Last night the midget Russian came up to unload the last three weeks' worth of life drama on me, so of course we had to go drinking. I finally, finally got to go to a bar in my own neighborhood! For crying out loud, I've been living there for over three months! So we got plastered and probably talked way too loud in the bar about how hot this person was or that person was, and she kept preventing me from pointing at the hot people. Yeah, like everybody couldn't hear us already. Best quote of the night (although I can only vaguely remember what it was about): "Fish and boobies -- awesome, awesome!" By which Olya meant, "Being in the Galapagos, counting boobies (the bird kind) would be coolness." To address Olya's insistence that she get a steak before the night was out, we went out looking for something that was still open at about 10:30. I was skeptical, but luckily the first person we asked told us about Sparky's, an all-night diner up at Church and Market. So we headed up there to search for it. Hooray for breakfast at 11pm! And steak. And a big sundae. And an even bigger tip for the waitress who put up with our drunken asses. I had lunch today with Ira L. Black, photographer (see image) and all-around good guy, who was part of my camp at BM04. We went for Indian across the street, and talked about the wonderful ladies in our lives. Oh, and also talked a little about photography and geek stuff. But mostly about the babes and how awesome they are. So this weekend I'll be in Pescadero saying goodbye to Andi and Josie, who are moving to Wisconsin. Or is it Wyoming? Aw, what's the difference.

Protesters call for Apple to clean up its iWaste

Here's a little news to prove to Mr. Attitude that I'm not just a trumpet for Apple's successes. Environmental activists engaged in demonstrations outside of the company's Cupertino headquarters and at MacWorld this week, calling on Apple to become a leader in electronics recycling and to reverse its habit of lobbying against legislation that would enact "shared responsibility" solutions whereby manufacturers would be held partly responsible for the end-of-lifecycle recycling and/or disposal of their products. "I think their image is very much at odds with reality," said Robin Schneider, executive director of the Austin-based Texas Campaign for the Environment. Schneider said the company didn't respond to yesterday's protest or to a letter she delivered to it asking it to improve its environmental programs. [from E-Commerce Times] "We need to get more big-name companies on our side, and Apple should be a leader, not a laggard,'' said Ted Smith, director of Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. [from TimesLeader.com] Yes, it's true. Apple could (and should!) be a lot better in this realm of corporate citizenship. To learn more or to write a letter to Steve Jobs, visit the Computer Take Back Campaign website, www.BadApple.biz.

Direct action gets better results

From New Scientist | vol. 183, issue 2462 | 28 August 2004, page 4 Chaining yourself to bulldozers and throwing paint over company executives is more likely to influence environmental policy than schmoozing on Capitol Hill. So says an analysis of the impact of the green movement in the US between 1960 and 1994. The study compares the number of bills passed by Congress with tactics employed by green groups in the same year. Jon Agnone, a sociologist at the University of Washington, Seattle, found that sit-ins, rallies and boycotts were highly effective at forcing new environmental laws. Each protest raised the number of pro-environment bills passed by 2.2 per cent. Neither effort spent schmoozing politicians nor the state of public opinion made any difference. But conventional politics does play a part. Environmental legislation is 75 per cent more likely to pass when Democrats control both houses of Congress. And it gets a 200 per cent boost in congressional election years, presumably because politicians see it as a vote winner. Agnone, who presented his results on 17 August at the American Sociological Association's meeting in San Francisco, says protest groups lose their edge when they become part of the system. Their most effective weapon is disruption. "If you make a big enough disturbance then people have to recognise what you are doing." [Also reported here.]

iTunes'll get you laid

Says so. Right here.

2004 paintings added to Olya.net

Although she doesn't believe I've been working on them (sheesh, some friends I have), I've added five of Olya's most recent paintings to her gallery. These are all from 2004, during her time in the tiny village of Klyuchee ("clyoo-chee") in southern Siberia. » Visit Olya.net...

The iGoods

So, my two predictions proved to be true (I'd surmised that we'd see iWorks and a Flash-based iPod, based on the industry scuttle and trademark applications I've been hearing about for the past two months), but Apple surprised even me by coming through with the rumored miniMac, actually dubbed the Mac Mini. The new iPod Shuffle is actually cooler than I had envisioned. And although Notes (part of iWork) looks very cool (but I reserve final judgement until I've demoed it), I'm surprised there are only two apps in the first rev of this suite. I presume, though, that we'll be seeing additions to the suite in the next two years. » Get all the info at Apple.com...

Updating the Beauty gallery

Here's a preview of another section of enews.org I've been working on. I've finally gotten around to updating the Beauty gallery, after about two years, with some new photos. You'll have a short wait before it's posted, though, since I'm still getting ahold of a few of the women in the photos whom I haven't talked with in a while, to reaffirm their permission to use these pictures.

Suckage of rain

Well that completely sucked. I just biked home in a downpour that left me drenched all the way to my socks and underwear.

Exclusive! MacWorld product announcement

While all the popular Apple rumor sites [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 ] are buzzing about the headless iMac, iWork, a flash iPod, the unlikely iHome, whether or not Tiger will be introduced, and a half-dozen other rumors, yours truly, enews.org, brings you the exclusive to end all exclusives. Steve-o will definitely be announcing the iBitch tomorrow morning. Remember, you heard it here first.

Michael Wolf, photographer

Photo of the Day | by Michael Wolf Anyone interested in going to the reception? Michael Wolf Architecture of Density January 6 - February 26, 2005 Reception for the Artist: Thursday, February 3rd, 5:30 - 7:30 pm Robert Koch Gallery, 49 Geary St, San Francisco Robert Koch Gallery is pleased to present Architecture of Density, an exhibition of large scale color photographs by Michael Wolf. Wolf has lived and worked in Hong Kong for ten years. Stimulated by the region's complex urban dynamics, he makes dizzying photographs of its architecture. One of the most densely populated metropolitan areas in the world, Hong Kong has an overall density of nearly 6,700 people per square kilometer. The majority of its citizens live in flats in high-rise buildings. In Architecture of Density, Wolf investigates these vibrant city blocks, finding a mesmerizing abstraction in the buildings' facades. Some of the structures in the series are photographed without reference to the context of sky or ground, and many buildings are seen in a state of repair or construction: their walls covered with a grid of scaffolding or the soft colored curtains that protect the streets below from falling debris. From a distance, such elements become a part of the photograph's intricate design. Upon closer inspection of each photograph, the anonymous public face of the city is full of rewarding detail -- suddenly public space is private space, and large swatches of color give way to smaller pieces of people's lives. The trappings of the people are still visible here: their days inform the detail of these buildings. Bits of laundry and hanging plants pepper the tiny rectangles of windows -- the only irregularities in this orderly design. In 2002, the San Francisco Chronicle called Wolf's work in Hong Kong "most improbable and humanly alert". In previous series, Wolf described the vernacular culture of the street. His early vision of the region dwelt on personal aesthetic gestures left in back doors and alleyways, such as makeshift seating in the streets. In these photographs, small tokens of human presence took precedence over monumental architecture. Wolf continues to explore the theme of the organic metropolis -- that which develops according to the caprice of its citizens as much as the planning of its architects. In Architecture of Density, his vision has evolved to evaluate the high-rises that shape the spatial experience of Hong Kong's citizens. Wolf finds in each building a singular character, despite its functional purpose and massive form. Wolf was born in Munich, Germany in 1954. He studied first at the North Toronto Collegiate Institute in Canada, then UC Berkeley and, in the mid 1970s, with Otto Steinert at the University of Essen, in Germany. Published monographs include Sitting in China (2002) and China im Wandel (China in Transition) (2001). Hong Kong: Front Door/Back Door will be published by Thames and Hudson in 2005.

DRAFT: New book on Judi Bari is published by right wing

visit the new Friends of Judi Bari website, or TheColemanHoax.com, both of which ___ the lies behind the new book.

DRAFT: Rainbow-colored bookshelves

Adobe Books has ... on 16th Street, between Guerrero and Valencia I learned about the impending color-coding a few weeks before, since it's a book shop I frequent. Several of the bookstore's employees were less than enthusiastic about the impending exercise, and one in particular grumbled audibly about it on more than one occasion when I was browsing the pre-reorganized shelves. A couple weeks after the change, the Adobe was the buzz of the town. There was a busy opening night (I've never seen so many people in that little store), the press were calling (I saw it on SFGate/the Chronicle, and heard it on NPR), and people have been coming in droves (well, not quite droves, but some other word that means more than normal amounts) to see and browse. And hopefully, buy a book or two. The employees haven't seemed nearly as angsty about the whole affair, and the colorful run has been held over a number of extra weeks. As of this posting, it's still there, or at least was last night. But it won't last! Check it out soon.

Sunrise

I mentioned that I stayed up all night the other day. I went up on the roof at sunrise to capture the SF skyline. Update: Ynnej requested a copy of this photo as a desktop, so here it is (1024 x 768). Photo of the Day | Sunrise from the rooftop | January 3, 2005

Big news in the blogosphere: Six Apart buys LiveJournal

Ynnej can no longer stodgily claim that "a LiveJournal is not a blog," since Six Apart (makers of Movable Type and TypePad) today announced that it has purchased Danga Interactive, the parent of LiveJournal.com. For those unfortunates who have been living in a hole for the past year or two, bloggers have been responsible for breaking all kinds of national and international stories, blogs have had a tremendous impact on coverage of the Iraq war and the 2004 election, Time magazine included bloggers among the People Who Mattered in the Person of the Year issue, and "blog" was Merriam-Webster's #1 word of 2004. The number of bloggers is growing rapidly, as are the readers. Movable Type is the industry leader in high-end server-end blogging software (MT powered the blogs of both George Bush and John Kerry's websites, for example), and TypePad is its mid-level counterpart. LiveJournal, on the other hand, has been around slightly longer. But that doesn't mean it's necessarily more mature. Most LJ users are in their teens and 20s, while MT and TypePad users tend to be a little older. And LJ is certainly not as robust nor as flexible, and it certainly leaves a lot to be desired in its UI and it's overall look. It's not pretty. But LJ also has its benefits (it's open source, for example, and has a very large user base), especially for the segment it serves, and that's exactly why it's a great purchase for Six Apart. Rumors started flying a couple days ago about this purchase, and there were a lot of fears, on the LJ users' side, that Six Apart would change the fee structure, change LJ's open source status, and other such idle chatter. But posts by both SA president Mena Trott and LJ founder Brad Fitzpatrick should bely those fears. LJ will actually remain a separate service with separate a develpoment team. Interestingly, though, the LJ employees will be relocating from Portland, OR, to Six Apart's new San Francisco headquarters (SA moved from San Mateo over New Year's, but I have no idea where their new office is). As a side note, although my own blog has been powered by Blogger since I started it a year and a half ago, I've been planning to move to Movable Type for six months. And it should be happening soon. I also have a LiveJournal account, by the way, but it's only so I can comment on my friends' LJs.

If at first you don't succeed

...then email me again. Honest, it's not because I don't like you. I'm not ignoring you. Your email message may just have been lost among the 1,500 spam messages I normally receive (this is not an exaggeration) over any period of a few days. If you don't get a response from me, perhaps I never saw your message. Try again (you do save your outgoing messages in your Sent or Outgoing folder, right? If not, here's a valuable tip -- most email programs allow you to turn this option on if it isn't on by default). I just spent an hour wading through over 4,600 accumulated messages in my Junk folder, looking to see if there was anything that slipped in there that shouldn't have. There were a few things. But c'mon, there's only so long one can stare at messages with subjects like "Get cia|is today" and "Fwd: Downl0ad spongebob movie" before your eyes glaze over and your head begins to ache. Why do I get so much spam? Well, it's not for lack of spam-blocking technology. I use three layers of spam filtering. But I happen to be particularly susceptible to this annoyance, and here are a few reasons why: Long-term email addresses -- I've owned the enews.org domain since 1995. And that gives spammers a long time to have archived my address(es), added them to databases, and sold them them all round the world. Email addresses published publicly -- My enews.org address has appeared all over the web for many years, since I was a contact for so many organizations and campaigns (Bay Area Action, Acterra, Headwaters Forest Project, Schools Group, etc.), not to mention so many companies (Western Front Graphics, Flux51, Mark Bult Design). Every time your email address appears on the web, it's liable to be scavenged by automated 'bots that crawl the 'Net looking for email addresses to add to their spam databases. Catch-all addresses -- I have my enews.org mail server account set to filter [anything][at]enews.org. This is called a "catch-all" address. There are several important reasons why I have to do this for my domain, but I won't bore you with them, as they're relatively obscure and technical. But this means that spammers can simply guess at addresses at my domain, making them up to see if anything goes through, and I'll get exponentially more spam than the normal email user because I get everything coming to addresses like Floobified[at]enews.org through Zombified[at]enews.org, and everything in between. Here are a few quick tips for you, however, so you don't fall into the trap I'm stuck in: Use spam filters or other anti-spam technology -- Obviously. Do I really need to tell you this? If the answer is yes, please leave a comment and I'll try to find time to compile some suggestions for good spam protection services or software. Change your email address regularly -- If you don't own your own domain (that's the "something.com" part), you have the luxury of being able to abaondon an address that becomes too bloated with incoming spam. Obviously, it's best to notify everyone in your address book when you do this, so they have your new address. Have a private account and a public account -- It's best to have a private address that you give only to your friends and family, and that you ask them to guard it against becoming public. Then set up a free account at gmail or Hotmail or Yahoo! or someplace. This would be the address you use if you're posting on a website forum, or subscribing to a listserv / email newsletter, or responding to an eBay posting, for example. You can always shut this account down on a yearly basis if it gets too spammy. Don't use catch-all addresses -- Avoid this if you can. If your ISP asks you if you want a catch-all email address, decline. If your address is "fred@whatnot.com", and you regularly get mail addressed to other people, like "somebodyelsebutnotfred@whatnot.com", your account may be set up with a catch-all. Turn it off in your webmail control panel, or ask your ISP to turn it off. Don't let your email address be published on web pages -- Avoid this if you can (if you have to, use the public address I recommend above). If a link to your address has to be on your website -- say, for example, as the contact for your small business -- don't let it appear as text on the page, use some technique that obscures the address with JavaScript, spells it out like "fred [at] whatnot [dot] com", or something else. This foils some, but sadly not all, the 'bots. [I'll eventually post some good ways to obscure your address, foil the 'bots, and still retain link functionality.]

P2P Wars, Episode II: A new hope

Ynnej, being a (former?) BitTorrent user, may be interested in this article about Exeem from CNET News.com:

A new hope for BitTorrent? Just weeks after legal attacks crippled the popular BitTorrent file-swapping community, an underground programmer from its ranks has stepped forward to announce new software designed to withstand future onslaughts from Hollywood...

» Read the full article...

Tired, so damn tired

I stayed awake all Sunday night, working, to try to force myself back onto a normal sleep schedule. I crashed for a few hours in the late afternoon Monday, which pretty much screwed up the plan. Now it's 1am and I really should've been in bed three hours ago. So why the hell am I up posting, instead of upstairs snoring? Well, I wanted to upload this screenshot of the impending enews.org redesign, which I spent all weekend working on, because I knew I'd forget to upload it otherwise. There's a lot more work to be done (I haven't even begun coding, and I'll have to figure out Movable Type), but the design is coming along nicely.

Lots of monkeys, and a guy with a snake up his nose

The editors who put together SFGate's Day in Pictures feature have, um, an interesting sense of humor. The daily collection of news photos from around the world is the best I've seen on the 'Net, but it's the often captions that take the cake. At the end of the year, they choose their favorite photos, and 2004 had some great ones. Although I'm left wondering about the preponderance of monkeys.

Bult kicks ass

Through the power of Internet? I have discovered that there's a Swedish metal band called Bult. The songs suffer somewhat from bad translation, but how can you resist checking them out when their website is at -- I kid you not -- http://bult.kicks-ass.net?

Kevin Cornell, illustrator

This is a very well-designed website. But I think Jason will especially like his drawings.

The E stands for Extra. Get it?

Perhaps it's the final example of my addiction. For the past few weeks I've been seeing outdoor ads around town for something called BE, whose tagline is "Beer with Caffeine, Ginseng, and Guarana Extract and Natural Flavor." Apparently this concoction is prounounced "B to the E." Ah, clever marketers. I popped into a local liquor store (of which there is no dearth in my neighborhood) to see if they had it, and sure enough, the little shiny black and red singles (it's a 10-ounce can, slightly smaller than a normal beer) were there in the cooler. That's when I noticed that this brilliant new scheme was brought to us by Anheuser-Busch, the makers of Budweiser. "Oh my," I thought, "do I really want to buy a Bud?" "But wait," I said to myself, the marketing message obviously beginning to work it's magic, "it's not just a Bud! It's B to the E..." I bought two cans and brought them home to try one. It's not too bad. It's faintly Budweiserish (did I just invent that word?), but with a lot of guarana taste in each gulp. No significant aftertaste. Thankfully. Apparently each can contains 22.5 carbs and 203 calories (yikes), and it's 6.6% alcohol by volume. Each contains 54 milligrams of caffeine (only about half a normal cup of coffee), which ain't that much. At least, not compared to my normal daily intake.

Ynnej, why aren't you listed

...in this guy's MVHS Alumni database? Maybe you should kick his ass. Or hack his db. Or, y'know, just smoke a lot and watch TV.

You know you've always wanted to

Thanks to the Society for HandHeld Hushing (a.k.a. the designers at Draplin Industries and Coudal Partners) you can now print your own cards (one of several designs pictured above) to hand to those annoying mobile phone users who seem to think that everyone in earshot is equally as interested in their petty conversations as they are. » Download the PDF here...

Small world

I needed a few things for dinner yesterday afternoon, so I walked two blocks to the Bi-Rite Market. It's a tiny little whole foods market on 18th Street. As I was queueing to check out, I heard someone say, "Mark?" I turn around and there's Schools Group alum Kristen Hayes. Turns out, she's been working there for three months, the same time I've been living here. She's taking a semester off from college and living with her sister, about four blocks from me. Makes me wonder if there are any other former Schoolies living in the Mission. I ran into one about nine or ten months ago in Mountain View, and she said she was living up here in SF somewhere. Speaking of others who live nearby, Acterra's Watershed Council Coordinator Katie Pilat lives a block from me. She bikes to CalTrain every day and takes the train to Palo Alto. Having done that for a couple weeks when I first got the new job up here but hadn't moved yet, I can attest to that making for a reeeally long day. Above: Olya and Kristen (pictured) and Carmen and Giovanna (not pictured) and I went for ice cream in Arcata, after visiting Headwaters Grove in July, 2001.

Remember the Graphing Calculator?

The story of how the Graphing Calculator managed to ship on 20 million computers is a fascinating and hilarious one. Ron Avitzur was an engineer at Apple in the early '90s when his project was cancelled and he was laid off. But he didn't let this stop him. He kept showing up for work anyway. His badge still worked, so why not? "I had many sympathyzers," Ron writes. "Apple's engineers thought what I was doing was cool... They thought my software would show off the speed of their new machine {the PowerPC was about to be launched -Ed.}. None of them was able to hire me, however, so I worked unofficially, in classic 'skunkworks' fashion." » Read the rest of the story...

Download.com's Staff Favorites 2004

So I've been working on this feature for the past week: Download.com's Staff Favorites of 2004. Staffers could submit their favorite download in the Games, Software, and Music categories on our site. I'm pretty happy with the way it came out, although it was a tight deadline so I didn't have time to do any interactivity; I would have preferred all the image links to be mouseovers. But there wasn't time. I did all the HTML in CSS with minimal use of tables (although it gets plonked into a template by our production staff, and the templates are a jumble of terribly bloated table code -- I fully expect to address this early next year). Of course, I also did the design, which is my actual job. Doing the HTML is a bonus. It's a bonus for me because it allows me to learn more CSS as I go. And it's a bonus to our production staff because it makes their job really, really easy. BTW, I'm not the guy with the bag over his head. But yes, my photo is included on the feature.

Citical flaw in PHP

Mr. Attitude and Ynnej may want to download the update to PHP that addresses a critical flaw discovered last week.

1000 Journals Project

"...If you ask a kindergarten class how many of them are artists, they'll all raise their hands. Ask the same question of 6th graders, and maybe one third will respond. Ask high school grads, and few will admit to it. What happens to us growing up? We begin to fear criticism, and tend to keep our creativity to ourselves. Many people keep journals, of writing or sketching, but not many share them with people. (when was the last time a friend invited you to read their diary?) You will not be judged here. And you will have company. This is for you. For everyone..." The 1000 Journals Project is a fascinating collaborative art project. I know a few people whom I think should add their names to the queue to received journals. Hilary, Holly, Velma, Olya, Jason, are you listening?

Does anyone remember SoundJam?

Those guys over at Panic (a really great software company in Portland) help fill in some of the story of the birth of iTunes, through the story of their own product, Audion. Sound convoluted? Well, it's not really. Just read the story. It's a little on the lengthy side, and certainly features too much Jobs-worship for Jason's taste, but it's really, really well written, quite funny, and features lots of little anecdotes and historical graphics.

Motor Trend ad

Here's a sampling of the many exciting things I get to work on here at Download.com. This is a half-page ad for our Music section. It's going to run in Motor Trend magazine.

Pixar likes Macs, what a surprise

Ynnej will be interested in this article about one of Pixar's tools, Review Sketch. "The Review Sketch tool...resides on all the Macs at Pixar," says the article. "...The director could draw on an image, and then play it back with the image moving underneath his drawing. A slider let him choose the width of the anti-aliased line." Anyone surprised that Pixar uses Macs? Can you say "Steve Jobs"?

Rumor: Flash-based iPod

Rumor has it that Apple will introduce a Flash-based iPod at MacWorld SF in January.

Awwww

» Love

Note to self

Note to self: When a homeless guy asks you if you have a light, first make sure he's wearing pants.

Spring water from the headwaters of Headwaters

In 1999, shortly after the public acquisition of Headwaters Grove and Elk Head Springs, I traveled to Humboldt for a rally for Julia Butterfly. The other reason I went was for a quick day trip to the main grove, where I wanted to pump a few gallons of water from Little South Fork of the Elk River. Susan Stansbury, Anamaría Niño-Murcia, and I hauled that water out of the forest and down the mountain (water's heavy!) and back down to the Bay Area, where I bottled it in some attractive bottles and offered them for sale as a fundraiser for the Headwaters Forest Project (now sadly defunct). We didn't end up selling many. So I still have the water today. That is, I have some of it. Most of it has evaporated over the years, especially the years I lived in the Mountain View hothouse I called The Studio. The Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters had a fundraising auction last Sunday, and I donated four bottles of the water with a slightly updated and larger version of the label (pictured above). BACH's a great organization, so if you're interested in Headwaters Forest, definitely get plugged in with them.

Big Rick

I happened upon Big Rick Stuart's website today. He was my favorite DJ on LIVE 105 a few years ago, and I was bummed when he was let go. He's still on KFOG today. But I never listen to that station. Maybe I should... Anyway, Rick's site is cool, but by far the coolest part is his six-page personal timeline of the stations he's been at over his entire career. It's a venerable mini-history of Bay Area (and a few beyond) radio, and it brings back a lot of memories. Rick's had stints at KUSF, the Quake, KITS (aka LIVE 105), and even KNAC in SoCal, which later became the legendary "Pure Rock" station that broke all those LA hair bands I covered back in the Western Front News days.

German stop frame animation

Peter Licht does interesting stop frame animation videos. [requires RealPlayer]

Apple should use this

Will this be the next iPod TV ad you see?

Hmmm...new party?

Howard Dean will "lay out a vision for the future of the Democratic Party" in a live webcast this Wednesday at noon (Eastern time) from Washington, D.C. More interestingly: "He will outline not just a direction for our party, but a concrete destination: a party built from the ground up," wrote Democracy for America Executive Director Tom McMahon in an email to DFA supporters this morning. "That means a party powered by millions of small donors, not millionaires. It means a party that speaks plainly and commits to concrete outcomes that affect real people. And it means a party that competes in every single race, for every single vote, in all fifty states," wrote McMahon. I think I'll tune in at www.DemocracyForAmerica.com on Wednesday to see what's up. I'd still have preferred that the Green Party would have been an actual presence in this year's election, but I'm all for having more kids in the pool -- especially if it means a challenge to America's retarded two-party stronghold -- and a new party with Dean at the forefront could be an interesting species indeed. Now if I can just convince congress to switch to a parliamentary system...

Nipping at my nose

Photo of the Day | Jack Frost is in the air | Yerba Buena Gardens | San Francisco, CA | October 29, 2004

Go north, young liberal

"I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history majors does one country need?" » Read the full article...

Sorry, we're closed

Photo of the Day | This Valencia Street shop decided to celebrate Buy Nothing Day | San Francisco, CA

Verse chorus verse

Photo of the Day | Kurt Cobain | San Francisco, CA | by Tony Alves

Rare and wonderful

After several years of legal wrangling with Ms. Love, Krist and Dave have finally been able to release the Nirvana box set, "With the Lights Out." The three-CD, one-DVD collection features many rarities and hard to find recordings, including an early Sub Pop recording of "In Bloom" with Dave on vocals, a live rendition of Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker," and much, much more. You want it? Yeah, me too (my Wish List).

The paradox of our time

by George Carlin The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things. We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete. Remember, spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever. Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side. Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent. Remember to say "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you. Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak, and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind. And always remember: Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Orange glow

Photo of the Day | CNET glows at night | October 22, 2004

Lucifer arisen

BeauSoleil gets an intense look on his face. "Before we could consummate our relationship, I was almost killed," he says in a voice that projects over the entire room. I steal a peek at the tweaker-looking inmate sitting next to us and can tell he's trying his best not to eavesdrop.

SF Weekly has an interesting cover story this week on Bobby BeauSoleil, one-time semi-rockstar, contemporary of Anton LaVey, Kenneth Anger, and Charles Manson, and currently resident of the state prison system. A black, fascinating story of the descent of a youth who was by all accounts a charismatic, accomplished artist in the 1960s and '70s, but whose hedonism spun his life out of control and landed in him in prison for murder.

Looking up

It was only a few weeks after I moved to SF and started working downtown that I realized something I missed already about having previously always lived in more rural (okay, suburban) places. I was taking one of my daily break-time exploration walks around the neighborhood of my office, and I passed a large ivy hedge that grows up a chain link fence near a parking lot on Clementina, when I was struck by the sound of a songbird. I suddenly realized that I hadn't heard a bird in The City yet. I've since passed this hedge numerous times, and I almost always hear that little bird singing. At least I presume it's the same bird; Olya assures me that songbirds are territorial, so I assume it nests in the ivy. It's a nice sound to hear, especially when sounds of nature are so rare here and so often in danger of being drowned out by honking horns, trucks lumbering by, and the disrupting sounds of almost constant construction. Yesterday, on another walk late in the afternoon, just as the daylight was waning and the sun shone orange-pink-red on only the uppermost floors of the tall downtown buildings, I noticed that hundreds of small dark birds were zipping by in huge swarms, about 150 feet up, seemingly heading toward the Bay. Migratory birds, I thought, heading south for the winter? I'll have to ask my birding expert. It's funny how few people look up in cities. I like looking up. Buildings, rooftops, wires, interesting clouds. And even birds. I probably look like a tourist half the time, walking around as if I'm gawking up at all the tall buildings in the Big City. But who cares.

Photographer of the day

Well I've been slacking on posting the Photo of the Day. So, here's somebody else's work to look at. Thanks to Diane a.k.a. Big D, who was able to figure out what photographer I was describing when I sent her a couple of rather cryptic emails trying to describe Robert ParkeHarrison's style (which is quite amazingly indescribable, so I don't feel so bad for not being able to put it in words properly). She had shown me a book of his work when I was in NC a few years ago, and I was simply blown away by it. A couple of weeks ago, when I was talking with Ynnej about photography and tried somewhat futilely to describe his work to her, I couldn't recall his name. Here's his other site. It's really too bad that the small size of all the web images doesn't do justice to the work. It's much more impressive larger. Next time you're at the MoMA bookstore or someplace with a good selection of photo books, look him up. Hey Velms, he's from Fort Leonard Wood, MO -- where's that?

Tell the rest of the world how sorry we are

Millions of Americans are ashamed of what happened on November 2. Many are using SorryEverybody.com to apologize to the rest of the world for what BushCo's done in the past, and what they'll do in the future.

Whole Foods coming to MV

W. El Camino Real, Mountain View, CA. 55,000 sq. ft. Opening date to be announced.

I used to really like Colin Powell

But after his famed performance at the UN I lost some respect for him. Surely he knew that when he resigned, the hated Condoleezza Rice would be his replacement (anyone want to adopt a sniper?). On one hand, I'm sure he's been raring to get out of that administration. But on the other hand, how coud he step down and let this happen? I hope he'll write a memoir now, because I'd really like to hear his side of things and regain some respect for a man I once regarded highly.

Help fight terrorism today. Adopt a sniper today!

You can help the poor, unfortunate snipers in the battle against global terrorism through Adopt a Sniper, a new program brought to us by the friendly folks at Sniper's Paradise and Snipers Online.

I finally have a home phone

I'm using voice over IP (VoIP), which means I can bypass Ma Bell (in this case, The Devil SBC) and route my telephone calls through my broadband Internet service provider straight to another VoIP user for free, or to another conventional phone user via their traditional Baby Bell service for an extremely low price. Yep, that's right. I am rid of SBC. So you can reach me at home at the 415 number I sent out via email to many people last week. One of the many cool features of my VoIP service is free voicemail that automatically sends me an email when someone leaves a message. And I can listen to the message via the Web without even needing to phone in and check my voicemail. Cooool. There are many other cool features. I'll expound on this later, since I've been working on a VoIP Special Feature for Download.com that will launch in a couple days.

Important note about my phone

If you're trying to phone me on my mobile number, I won't get the VM message right away. For some reason, my phone decided to stop ringing a couple days ago. Everything else seems to be working, but it doesn't ring when a call comes in. So reach me at the new work number during business hours, or call the new home number after tonight (I'm going home now to hook up the new voice over IP box to see if it works).

Now we know why he's called Dick Cheney

Sheesh. Why do people send me these things? And why the hell do I post them?

Have a Buy Nothing Christmas

Buy Nothing Day is just one day. But this year, you can have a Buy Nothing Christmas. I'm not sure I'd be able to get away with this one with Mom. It's already a huge stretch that I'm having Thanksgiving at my house for the first time ever. I probably don't want to throw too many cultural curve balls in one year.

Own a vintage PowerBook

I'm selling this PowerBook 170 on eBay. Over the coming months I'll probably be selling other things that way.

I had no idea Diane was into graffiti

Photo of the Day | Mission Street sidewalk, downtown SF | October 27, 2004

Boxes everywhere

I'm tired of unpacking. But there are still about 50 boxes to go.

Okay, so I'm a bad person. It's still funny.

President Bush was visiting a primary school and he visited one of the classes. They were in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings. The teacher asked the president if he would like to lead the discussion on the word "tragedy". So the illustrious leader asked the class for an example of a "tragedy." One little boy stood up and offered: "If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a tractor runs ?over him and kills him, that would be a tragedy." "No," said Bush, "that would be an accident." A little girl raised her hand: "If a school bus carrying 50 children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a tragedy." "I'm afraid not," explained the president. "That's what we would call a great loss." The room went silent. No ?other children volunteered. Bush searched the room. "Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?" Finally at the back of the room a small boy raised his hand. In a quiet voice he said: "If Air Force One carrying you and Mrs. Bush was struck by a 'friendly fire' missile and blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy." Fantastic!" exclaimed Bush. "That's right. And can you tell me why that would be tragedy?" "Well," says the boy, "It has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn't be a great loss and it probably wouldn't be an accident either.

Please give

I'm walking around this afternoon with a bright green bandage on my arm. I gave blood for the first time today at work (or anywhere, for that matter). I've been wanting to do this for a while, and I even made an appointment at the Heinlein Society's blood drive in San Diego when I thought Ynnej and I were going to go down there for a comic convention a few months ago, but we ended up no going and I ended up not giving blood. I've been a little freaked out about needles ever since I slipped in the tub as a little kid and cracked my chin open and needed stitches. It took something like four nurses to hold me down. I was pretty scared by the whole ordeal. It always stuck with me, and whenever I've had a blood test since, I get a little nervous. Once of twice I got a tiny bit woozy. So even though I've always thought it would be great to donate blood, and I think it's an incredibly, wonderfully generous thing to do for your fellow wo/man and a totally insignificant sacrifice of time considering it truly is, as they say, the gift of life, I've always been too nervous to do it. Until today. CNET made it easy by hosting the event. If your employer or school doesn't do the same, please consider making the tiny bit of extra effort to make an appointment at a location near you.

Wireless at 235 Second St.

If you're ever in the neighborhood of my office (235 2nd Street), you can hop on the wireless at CNET.

CNET advocates Firefox over IE

In a bold move, CNET has advocated moving away from the aging Microsoft browser. One of today's headlines on CNET is "Dump IE, get Firefox."

What Butterfly's been up to

Today's East Bay Express features a great covery story by Sam Hurwitt, You Say You Want a Resolution, about Julia Butterfly Hill and all the great work her Circle of Life Foundation has been up to in the last year or so, including a bunch of things I hadn't even heard about. Very good article. An excerpt, from a speech Julia delivered to a gathering of animal rights activists: "A big part of what I stand for is being part of a movement that I call 'resolutionary,' which means being focused on solutions. I feel like we've gotten so good at defining what we're against that what we're against is beginning to define us. So I'm here to try on the idea of what an animal-rights movement would look like from a position of building what we are for, not just taking down what we're against." Oh, and by the way, this weekend is the second We the Planet concert/festival.

Mixed up mashups

Ynnej might be interestesd in "Brazil is Full of Love" [MP3, 256 kbps, 12.1 Mb], a Bjork vs. Death Cab for Cutie vs. Cat Power vs. Chris Isaak mashup by the incredible DJ Earworm.

XThreadz

I walked past this place on my way home tonight. Gotta go back and check it out when they're open some time. Cool T-shirt designs.

U.S. foreign policy redux

A view from a couple o' blokes across the pond. And a really excellent use of motion graphics and type. [Quicktime, 24.8 MB]

Olya Milenkaya :: Selected Works 1998-2001

The Russian artist and midget activist (no, that doesn't mean she's pro-midget-rights, that mean's she's small and an activist) has returned to the States, and is probably en route from NY to CA as I type this. Since I have felt incredibly, terribly ashamed that I have lagged for so long on completing her website, which I've been promising to do for *ahem* about three years, I stayed up late last night completing at least a portion of Olya's color work. In my defense, the last three months have seen every significant part of my life go through incredible changes, but yeah, there's really no excuse for not having finished it before then. I'd promised I'd finish it before she returned from Siberia, so I figured I should make an honest attempt at doing some of it, or I'd feel like a complete ass and a terrible friend.

Teeming masses demand more pictures. And salve.

New readers are flooding to enews.org in droves. Three -- count 'em, three! -- new readers have posted comments of late: Mr. Stephen Coles, he of Typographica and of splendid type-related photos of signs in Stockholm, has demanded more photos of the new loft now that I'm all move in. Sadly, my wonderful Sony camera died several weeks ago, so new photos may not be forthcoming for a little while. And since this past weekend saw the arrival of my final truckload of stuff, any photos of the place at present would merely make it look like a storage locker. Mostly boxes, stacked six or seven high. But hey, Stephen, I've been meaning to get back to you about going out to lunch sometime. How about next week? Recently an anonymous poster was the second of our dear readers to rain praise on us for posting simple directions for how to listen to Air America radio on iTunes. Lastly, but certainly not leastly, Mr. Crack -- lately a prolific but nevertheless anonymous newcomer -- has asked Dr. Bult to recommend a salve to soothe his tender bits.

Who the dell is Mr. Crack?

Apparently I have a new reader. And a frequent commenter.

I know how you feel

Photo of the Day | Newspaper Rack, 1 Day After Election 2004 | 2nd Street, San Francisco

Whoops, sorry

From ABC News / AP: U.S. fighter jet strafes New Jersey school. Aren't they supposed to wait until they're deployed to a foregin country before they shoot up schools?

What liberal media?

You probably won't see in the newspapers or on TV that a couple thousand people marched through San Francisco last night (not to mention many other U.S. cities) to protest the election.

$12 Ynnej will want to spend

The Future Soundtrack of America

Aaron rocks

Yesterday I had an IM conversation with Aaron, my buddy who's in art school in Boston. azurartist so when are you coming to visit me espd dude, i totally want to visit Boston again. espd I have to figure out if I'm going to go there or to Missouri next spring, now that I have a 'real' job, and i have to watch my actual vacation days azurartist well mass is way cooler espd yeah, i know, but Velma wants to show me Missouri azurartist yeah well azurartist velma isint as rad as me espd dude, velma gives me hot sex, therefore she is radder than you by a mile. sorry, way it is. azurartist yeah I guess azurartist but Im artsyer espd true, you are artsier azurartist yeah espd but she has a better ass. espd and she'll let me draw it. azurartist fine azurartist Velma wins

The Swiss will reap the rewards of yet another harmless substance banned by your U.S. government

SF Chronicle: "Absinthe with a low level of thujone is already sold legally in a number of other countries, including Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Austria, Japan, Sweden, Italy and Britain, but not the United States. The Netherlands lifted its ban on absinthe sales last July..." My fellow Burners and myself polished off a bottle of absinthe flown in to the desert just in time for the Temple burn this year. Needless to say, I had to steer Velma to the Temple that night. She had a bit, um, too much. Couldn't see straight.

Mixed emotions

I am happy today because, after nearly a month of waiting and numerous problems, I finally have Internet at home. Of course, it took all morning (another half-day I had to take off work) to wait for the Covad guy, and then over an hour when he finally got here (but Rick from Covad was a good guy and did a great job once he was here). As an aside, my own part of the installation took all of 4 minutes. However, the elation I'd normally be feeling at no longer being deprived of my connection to the rest of the world is somewhat dampened by the fact that I am in a pisser of a mood because of national events over the last 24 hours, and I am currently listening to the rest of the country's president deliver a speech with sentences like, "America has spoken, and I'm humbled by the trust of Americans." Fuck you, you pig asshole lying prick. I don't trust you as far as I could successfully spit a rat. You're not my president. Your government is not my government. I renounce you. Yes, I am angry and disheartened. Shame, America. Shame on you.

It's official

I'm now officially tired of moving. I've been moving boxes and furniture every weekend (and several weeknights) for a month, and I've got one more to go. Today my feet are killing me. Last night I could hardly stand on them by midnight. It was actually painful to stand in the shower and I could hardly wait to collapse into bed. This whole move thing has not been aided by the wonderful timing of my dad selling his house at the same time, since this subsequently meant I had to move several decades of accumulated stuff out of his attic too. Luckily, I've had some help. Velma's helped numerous times packing and moving boxes and furniture, plus she took on the burden of making several trips to Goodwill and the Computer Recycling Center. Not to mention that she helped sort and move stuff from my dad's attic not once but on two Saturdays. Jason's helped on one trip to The City -- his truck full of my books -- a fact which he will remind me of at every opportunity for the next ten years. And Dave helped for about an hour yesterday, but he's promised to help all afternoon this coming Saturday. And Jessica helped muscle furniture up the stairwell a couple weeks ago with Velma. And Willhelm brought a truckload of stuff up too. Now I have to convince Peter D. that he can work of at least a couple of the 100 or so favors he owes me if he comes to help on Saturday for the last of it...

Schoolie alum Ryan Buckley checks in

"...I switched jobs (and careers, pretty much, I suppose) to take up a job as an economic litigation consultant. Using my econ degree now to make better use of my enviro stuff later. That's the idea, at least. "I think it's a good switch and I can tell already I have lots to learn. I'm working on the 60th floor of the tallest building west of the Mississippi. Crazy, huh? Running econometric regressions for companies that are in the process of being sued for millions of dollars...it will be an eye-opening foray into corporate America..." Rockstar Schoolie Ryan Buckley will be governor of California one day. You watch.

Scary thing is, it actually makes sense

"As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also uknown unknowns. The ones we don't know we don't know." -Donald Rumsfeld, at a DoD news briefing, 2002

"...to disarm this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president...for the present..."

I'd be really surprised to see Eminem's new video, "Mosh," on MTV. This is possibly the most politically charged video ever seen. But one can hope.

Green with...er, red with envy

If you thought the new black and red iPod is cool, check out ColorWare's pallette of colors. And you can even have them paint your PowerBook, iBook, or just about any other item for your digital lifesytle. Eliot Van Buskirk's article on MP3.com about his ColorWare experience gives a good indication of the quality.

Bet ya didn't know I had my MD

Come here, lovely lass, and show the doctor where it hurts...

Please pass the scorpion

Edible.com founder Todd Dalton experienced some amazing culinary experiences in his years as a conservation and wildlife specialist in locales such as Thailand, Venezuela, Australia, and China. He founded Edible, Ltd. to bring us some of the bizarre (by Western standards) epicurian curiosities enjoyed around the world. It's a well-designed Flash site, but they need a copy editor.

OS X icons for Ynnej

...who is going to be a Hobbit for Haloween: LOTR -- Armoury of the Third Age, swords, shields, and other Middle Earth objects by Dave Brasgalla.

These ones go to 11

Apple today introduced two new products: iPod Photo and a sleek black U2 special edition iPod. Yes, as in Bono and the lads. I'm starting to wonder what's in store for us at MacWorld in January...

Word of the Day: Ashcrofted

ashcrofted [ash'-krofftid] adj. removed from or disqualified for public office on grounds of religious delusions. Derived from The People v. President Ashcroft, the landmark Supreme Court decision that disqualifies all candidates for public office who espouse a religion and/or other organized forms of magical, delusional, or psychotic thinking, on the constitutional grounds of separation of church and state, a decision taken at the time of the restoration of the Constitution following upon the dynastic, so-called "anti-terrorist" or "neopatriot" era. Today's Word of the Day is from The Future Dictionary of America from McSweeney's, described as "a guide to the American language sometime in the future, when all or most of our country's problems are solved." The book's entries are from almost 200 writers and artists, and it comes with a CD of new songs and rarities from R.E.M., Sleater-Kinney, Elliott Smith, Tom Waits, David Byrne, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, They Might Be Giants, and Death Cab for Cutie, among others. » Read some other highlights... » Buy the book at Amazon...

Rachael Yamagata

Stellah passed me this CD last week with the words, "I think you'll really like it." So my multitasking Monday has so far had me tapping feet and swaying in my chair while listening to Rachael Yamagata's Happenstance. Needless to say (but apparently I'm saying it anyway), I really like it. I checked out her website briefly (a well-done Flash site; warning for Ynnej: auto-music), and I must say, she's not only got a wonderfully lush voice, but she's also quite beautiful. Lovely freckles. » Listen... [launches iTunes]

MIA

I stop posting for a few days and my scores of readers (um, I think it's six, actually) go nuts. To explain my absence: 1) I have moved, as many of you undoubtedly already know. Boxes, boxes, boxes. I have a lot more still to move, and a lot to unpack. 2) I don't have a land line yet, and therefore don't have an Internet connection at home yet. Friday, hopefully... 3) Having just started this new job, I think you can understand that I'm not excited to be seen blogging ten times a day at work, instead of actually doing what they're paying me to do. 4) I've been incredibly sick this week. Even had to take a sick day. So, after this weekend, when I have DSL again and a little more time at home, your regularly scheduled enews.org blogging experience will return.

Isabella Rossellini on learning

On "Forum" this morning, Isabella Rossellini was talking about her continued joy of learning new things from other people. She put it like this, which I thought was a nice way of saying it... "If you can make yourself available, you can take a trip into someone's mind; and anyone's mind is interesting."

Branding is as easy as 1-2-3

"It takes a lot to differentiate your brand in today's 'me too' world of electronic business solutions..." claim the branding experts at Enormicom. They've developed the brilliant Nametron 3000™, which "uses a complex system of algorithms and formulas to combine morphemes, phonemes and gigonemes to create a Singular Cohesive Action Moniker (S.C.A.M.®)." A little light fare from the real experts over at 37signals.

First night in new place

I finally got to sleep in my new place for the first time last night, after having hauled another truckload of stuff up from MV (Mostly books, which I moved alone, my friends will be glad to hear... But there are more, hint hint). Here's a photo from last Saturday, before I had moved much in. I slept like a log because I was exhausted from moving boxes. But I gotta wonder if the 3am trash pickup outside my windows is going to wake me each Tuesday morning. One thing I'll miss about taking the train for the past 6 workdays is that it's a great way to catch up on the newspapers (yeah, everyone knows that), but it was an excellent opportunity to go through and sort some ancient email boxes on my laptop. I was able to ping a few people I hadn't really talked to in a while. But I must admit, a 15-minute bike ride to work is a lot cooler than an hour-and-fifteen-minute train ride and walk.

This is why they call it Heat the Street

Photo of the Day | Burning Man Decompression: Heat the Street | San Francisco, CA | October 10, 2004

The blogosphere, pt. 2

This article in the Detroit News about teens blogging is pretty interesting, but most intriguing to me were the stats about age ranges of bloggers. According to market research company Perseus, there are some 4 million bloggers out there in the blogosphere, and more than half of them are in the 13-19 age range.

Exploring my new (work) neighborhood

I've been taking the train to SF each morning (read: I get up at 6am and get to bed at 3am), and if I'm lucky (read: get up early enough and haul ass to the station) I have a little time to kill on my walk (or bike ride) to the office, so I meander a little. Even if I don't have the extra time, I've been taking a slightly different route each morning. It's only six and-a-half blocks from the train station to the office, but these are city blocks we're talking about, not suburban blocks. Not even surburban city blocks. A city block is about 100 yards long. That's the length of a football field. So I walk (or bike) about six and-a-half football fields. But it's very interesting to look at the architecture, and the different stores, businesses, apartment complexes, and lofts. And I've passed several companies already that are right near my office and I didn't even know it. Font Shop International's SF office is right down the alley next to CNET (they have some of the best fonts in the world). And well-known designer Jennifer Morla's office is about a block away down Bryant. Aside from that, it's fun to just take photos in The City. Photo(s) of the Day The worst kind of ghosts | Clementina St, SF, CA | October 6, 2004 Downtown a.m. | SF, CA | October 6, 2004

Another killer thing about where I work

I fire up iTunes and discover that under Shared Music I have 34,000 new songs available for my listening at work. I suddenly love coworkers I haven't even met yet.

The loft

The leasing company says I've been approved. Needless to say, I'm ecstatic! I need to work out the deposit and first month's rent and sign the lease and get the keys all that stuff, but I may be able to start moving in this weekend, or certainly by early next week. Yay!

Ouch, head hurts

My friend Brad Borevitz is smart. Certainly his recent work as a grad student at UCSD's Visual Arts Department is too smart for my puny brain. As he describes it, "i write code that produces images as output on the screen in realtime or as output to files that can be printed or concatenated into animated video." An example is one of his compu-artistic endeavors, "A Children's Game Transformed by the Solvent of Computational Method Thus Allowing for the Displacement of a Moral Overlay by a Free Play of Algorithmic Patterning", which was done in JSP (so perhaps Ynnej will be interested), but whose text description makes me blink rapidly and ensures that I need to read it three times. Brad's essay, "Visions of 'The Iron Man': Industrial Culture and the Cyborg's Monstrous Sexuality", is another example. Ouch. My head hurts. Need more coffee... I love Brad for many reasons, the first and foremost being that he's smarter than I, and I really enjoy working with smart people. And although it's been many years since we worked together (or even seen each other), I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Brad for being the person who laid the groundwork for my skills as a web designer all those years ago (I think we met in 1995). Every time I explain the compression algorithm differences between GIF and JPG, I think of Brad. I also love his leather pants.

And now, for the rest of the story

Paul Harvey it ain't. GNN.tv is the Guerrilla News Network.

A month ago today

...I was broiling in the desert heat, and loving every minute of it. Photo of the Day | Black Rock City, NV | September 5, 2004

Why Ynnej would want to work at CNET

Photo of the Day | One of many reasons.

First day

Today was my first day at CNET's Download.com, where I'll be one of two designers in charge of the graphics on Download.com and it's sub-sites for Music and Games, plus Chat.com (coming later), and eventually some other stuff. CNET has a ton of other properties, but considering there are only two designers in my team, we've got our hands full. It's been a great day so far, the people are reeaaallly cool, the workplace environment is really cool, the building is even really cool, the free coffee is Peet's, and hell, I work at 2nd and Folsom, so I'm like a six block walk from the train station. That said, I'm definitely moving up here. I looked at no less than 15 lofts last week, and I may have one secured in a couple days.

One down, one to go

If all goes well, next Monday I will be employed at a very cool company with some very cool people. I'm not going to say where, just because I don't want to jinx it, and I haven't signed any paperwork yet. Yep, they offered me a job. Actually, they offered me a better job than I applied for. [bragging-filter-on]They said my experience and portfolio showed that I could do more than the junior design position they had open, so they changed the job, the title, and the salary. Needless to say, I'm delighted.[bragging-filter-off] I'm really looking forward to working there, and I'm quite excited. Now all I have to do is find someplace to live in San Francisco. I've got my heart set on a loft downtown, although I'm looking in other neighborhoods too, like the Mission, Potrero Hill, and I even drove down 3rd last Friday night into Bayview/Hunters Point and there are a lot of empty new buildings down there that might be live/work places opening soon; plus it's right on the 3rd Street Muni light rail opening next year. I'd like to be as close to downtown as possible -- walking or biking distance to work (2nd at ) would by nice -- but I certainly wouldn't sneeze at riding Muni. So this week I'll be spending at least one or two days in SF looking at lofts. If I remember, I'll take some photos to post.

The aliens have landed

Photo of the Day | Beached jelly | Stinson Beach, CA | August 29, 2004

Pray for President Bush - Day 1468

If there's a better reason than this to be very, very frightened for the future of the republic, I don't know what it is.

Acid cube

Photo of the Day | The Cube | Black Rock City, NV | September 2, 2004

Farewell

Last week I sent my last EcoAdvocate email newsletter. After almost three years, it was a little sad to say goodbye to my 2,600± readers. But I received some very nice comments from some of them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dear Readers, It's been four years since I joined Acterra as communications director, and over the past 12 years I've worn many hats: volunteer, board member, advisor to the High Schools Group, and Headwaters Forest Project leader, to name a few. But one of the most rewarding roles I've played here is as your humble editor of this little e-newsletter we started a few years ago. I've been fortunate to meet or communicate with many of you over the years, and I've always been impressed and heartened by your concern for and dedication to the many environmental challenges facing our communities. Through your feedback and a lot of work we've more than doubled this newsletter's subscriber base and we've brought you news of thousands of events from hundreds of our fellow nonprofits. It's been a fabulous success, and a very, very rewarding run for me personally. I recently left Acterra, and I'm pursuing my original career plan -- graphic design -- a trajectory which got waylaid when I decided to help save the planet for awhile instead. This is my last communication with you as your EcoAdvocate editor. There will be (and has been, as you may have noticed) a lull in service until a new person is hired. Meanwhile, I urge you to take advantage of this lull by getting out for a walk, a bikeride, or a hike before summer's gone, enjoy our beautiful Bay Area, and make sure you're registered to vote before the October 12 deadline (I just couldn't say goodbye without slipping in some action, sorry ;) Remember: Action is the antidote to despair! best wishes, - Mark Bult For anyone who wants to reach me in the future, you can always Google "Mark Bult". Just don't indiscriminately add me to any mailing lists, please :) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mark Bult-- Let me add my grateful praise for your excellent contributions to Acterra. Thanks so much. You are genuinely appreciated. Mary Davey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mark, We never met, but I felt your presence every time I got the calendar in the mail or visited the Acterra site. You made a tremendous contribution to my quality of life. Thank you and good luck on your career. - Arvind Kumar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Best wishes in your future endeavors, and thanks for all the hard work at Acterra, Mark! Ann Blake, Ph.D. Environmental and Public Health Consulting Alameda, California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thanks Mark, I have always loved the ecoadvocate and it has helped us so much to recruit volunteers. Good luck to you and best wishes!! Marilyn Latta Habitat Restoration Manager Save The Bay www.saveSFbay.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hi Mark, I just finished reading the Acterra emailing and saw your goodbye letter. I hope we'll stay in touch and hope we can work together on the Santa Clara Initiative campaign (June 2006 election) when we get the resources. Many of the ideas where spawned in your living room in Mt. View. In the meantime for us it is to organize, organize and organize. Thank you for your generous spirit and your gentle nature. With much appreciation of you, Ernie Goitein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I want to wish you the best of luck in your continuing graphic design work. Acterra was indeed fortunate to have your talents for such a long time. It will certainly be hard for them to replace you. I have been meaning for the longest time to get in touch with you and other folks at Acterra. I seldom come down to the Bay Area. I always have excellent intentions to drop by when I am there but somehow the timing hasn't worked out. So your leaving prompts me to get in touch with you, at least!! I am very involved in environmental activities here along the "Mendonoma" coast. I have attached a copy of the latest brochure I have worked on. (Don't look tooo critically at the graphic design or photographs). Again, best of luck in your latest venture. P.S. We are living in a place that has a loft which is great for guests. Let me know if you are passing through this way and would like a place to stay. Laurie Mueller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hey Mark! Congrats on the new move in life. Man does your design stuff look great. I think you shall do wonderfully. I'm in Berkeley for another three months and then will be in graduate school in Sao Paulo, Brazil for 2005 and 2006, where you and any other rad sheep you send my way are much welcomed to come visit. And if you find yourself in Berkeley anytime soon, give me a ring! David E. Harris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hey Mark, I just read your farewell letter in the online EcoAdvocate. It makes me nostalgic. I hope that your new career is getting off to a good start and that the transition isn't too tough. I miss you. Things here in Spain are getting better. I still can't speak for shit and I am becoming very frustrated. Nearly all the people all the program with me are from Southern Cali, and so most are not particularly people that I want to get to know, but there are a couple gems in there that I think I want to be friends with. It is difficult here, but I am def enjoying myself. I miss you, I'll talk to you soon. Carmen ®big cheeks® Ausserer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mark, Although I no longer live in the Bay Area, I have still be subscribing to the Acterra newsletter. I read about your decision to move on and get back to what you love. I am sure you're going to do work that is compelling, fun and will certainly be worth looking at and talking about. Thanks for your help with impact online (aka volunteermatch) and for giving my nephew Kevin Hanson an internship all those years ago. I appreciated both enourmously. Good luck in life and work. - Steve Glikbarg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hi Mark, Sorry to hear that you are leaving Acterra and that I wasn't able to make it to the farewell party over at David's place. I have been extremely busy with work and school. I want to say thank you for all that you have done for Acterra and the local environmental movement over the years. It's priceless. I'm too busy to even consider your job opening, but whoever takes it on has some HUGE shoes to fill. :-) Right now I am in my final week of the summer quarter with projects up to my ears! I'm getting an Associate's Degree in Interactive Media Design at the Art Institute of California-San Francisco (yeah, it's a mouthful :-). I'm also working one day a week for EcoIQ.com, a sustainability media start-up based in Cupertino. I am doing photography (slides and digital) and digital video/editing for them. Let's definitely keep in touch. OK? Perhaps one of these days we can actually get the proper funds to do a calendar or some other cool collaborative project! Best, Mike Kahn

DRAFT: Post-activism depression disorder

I miss the Moffett house sometimes

Photo of the Day | Moffett garden | Mountain View, CA | April 15, 2001

Compost your laptop

I was wondering what to do with my old G3 PowerBook. If it was one of NEC's forthcoming biodegradable corn-based laptops (yes, you read that right) I suppose I could just chuck it in the landfill. How cool would that be? And to think, I was considering hanging the G3 on a wall and showing a continuous digital slideshow on it. BTW, for the above NEC link (and also for this, and this, and this), my new favorite geek-related site is Engadget.

Breaking news: Library fire

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A tragic fire on Monday destroyed the personal library of President George W. Bush. Both of his books have been lost. Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said the president was devastated, as he had not finished coloring the second one. [forwarded by Jessica]

Blurred vision

Photo of the Day | Temple blur | Black Rock City, NV | Sep 1, 2004

Seriously, she's a native English speaker

I'm not entirely sure what Jenny was talking about when she asked me this. "Wait, which one is smoking that makes the penis bad?" But it was good for a laugh.

San Francisco calling

I looked at a loft in San Francisco on Friday and I'm more convinced than ever I really want to live in one in the City. It's time to move up from my current do-it-yourself loft situation to the real deal. I have an interview this Wednesday at c|net. I really like c|net, and have watched their progress since the early days of the Web, and it'd be very cool to work there. However, the woman who called me (who seemed very cool) freely admitted that the position she was calling about was a Junior Designer position, and she was afraid I might be bored. But I mentioned it to Velma, and she pointed out something that I hadn't thpought about since 2000 when I took the Art Director job at Acterra -- I could really use a job that's a little less challenging right now. It would give me some breathing room for a change and some time to pursue some of my other interests, instead of constantly working 40+ hours, or -- worse yet -- having only 20 hours to do a 40-hour job and always stressing about what's not getting done. The more I thought about that point, the more it felt good. So, while the salary's pretty darn low, if I could find a way to afford to move to SF and live on it, I think I'd really like that job. Of course, I haven't even had the interview yet, and they certainly haven't offered me a job, so this is pretty premature ;) And I've still got my résumé out to about 30 other places. One way or another, I definitely feel that I'm moving to SF soon. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the City is calling me and that it's time to try it out, see if I can become accustomed to all the grime without always feeling like I need tp pick up after everyone. I've been thnking about moving to SF since I was 16, but this is the first time I've actually been able to say I'm ready to actually do it. It's time to get it out of my system.

SF

Spending the afternoon/evening in San Francisco, looking around SoMA and going to the Beastie Boys show at the Civic. Possible job interview too. Glad I'll have my handy-dandy wifi sniffer ;)

Carmen, Yuliya, and Will

I was just telling Drew (who's the new Peter, who was the new Diane) that, of the Schoolies I've worked with over the years, there are a prime few with whom I've kept in touch, because they are such stellar individuals and I've always known they are going to do aweomse things the rest of their lives. Carmen is one of them. Shy as she was when I first met her four or five years ago, she really gre to become one of the most steadfast organizers of the High Schools Group and, more than almost anyone, was a real backbone of the group when there were some seriously long, difficult months. I heard from her yesterday via a quick AIM while I was asleep (she's currently in Ireland, doing homestay organic family farming; how cool is Carmen?): "hey mark! miss you and hope things are well, i know you have an away message up, but i just wanted to say hi and that i miss you and that things here are alright. kisses!" Yuliya is another awesome Schoolie grad. She's also abroad (and a broad). She's in Ghana doing a semester at university there. And attending traditional funerals where you apparently shake hands a lot. And getting proposed to by total strangers. Ghana sounds like fun, don't it? Learn more about what Yuliya's been up to by reading her LiveJournal. And then there's Will, who just got back from his first trip to Headwaters Forest. I remember being Will's jail support buddy at a San Francisco action outside Dianne Feinstein's office back in 1997 or '98. I was there to make sure he got out of jail and had a ride home after a planned arrest action at a peaceful protest (door blockade) of DiFi's role facilitating the Headwaters Deal/debacle, which unloaded a half-billion taxpayer dollars for a tiny portion of North Coast forest that was valued at a fraction of that amount, a deal which also managed to seal the fate of 120,000 acres of other trees. Ever seen a clearcut? Will stood up to be counted (and arrested) for what he believed in. And he never even got to see that forest until a few days ago.

Young Billy Gates

Photo of the Day | y'know, just because.

Japanese games are weird

but fun...

Velms will enjoy this

Ten iTunes courtesy of Rufus [link will launch iTunes].

Dig!

I remember first learning about this film about five or six years ago, when I met the filmmakers at a Dandy Warhols show at the Bottom of the Hill. I had no idea it was still a viable project, but apparently it's not only viable all these years later, the documentary won the 2004 Sundance Grand Jury Prize! To quote the movie website's [Flash] synopsis: "Dig! is the feature-length documentary shot over seven years about musicians Anton Newcombe, leader of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and Courtney Taylor, head of The Dandy Warhols, star crossed friends and bitter rivals. From the moment they met, The Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre quickly bonded over a desire to not conform to the tastes of the recording industry. Yet, the bands' choices over how to express their creativity and originality in a profit-driven industry eventually put them at irreconcilable odds..." To quote from the Brian Jonestown Massacre website: "Anton Newcombe does not support  the recently screened documentary film 'DIG!' in its currently edited form. He feels strongly that the 'Jerry Springer-esque' vilification of his nature is an inappropriate, mis contextualized,  and exploitative use of the footage..." I remember one of the top two or three shows of my life (and I've seen hundreds of bands) being a Dandys and Jonestown double bill at the Great American Music Hall in maybe 1997 or 1998, when both bands were just sooo on. And at one point in the show it seemed as if Anton was channeling Jim Morrison. It was a truly awesome show. And all this without the use of any subtances! (Me, that is -- knowing these two bands, I can guarantee they were using plenty.) BJM was always a highly volatile group. This was in clear evidence every instance I saw them. They'd erupt into in-band fighting literally during a performance, even in the middle of playing a song. I'm surprised they lasted as long as they have, frankly. The Dandys were my favorite band for years, and I photographed them almost every time they came to the Bay Area, from Santa Cruz to San Francisco (I even have some video footage around here somewhere). Their last two albums, however, left me a little cold. While they had a few fine moments, they just didn't capture the same vibe for me that "The Dandy Warhols TV Theme Song" (5 stars in my iTunes) did all those years ago. It was one of only two songs I've actually called in to a radio station to request in the past 13 years. I mean, seriously, any song whose guitar solo is comprised entirely of feedback and whose lyrics are complete nonsense has to be the greatest song ever! Anyway, it'll be great to see two of my favorite bands in Dig! Ynnej will want to see this film, if only because of Peter Holmstrom, whose photo she had on her dormroom door last March. It opens in SF and Berkeley on October 8. Wanna go? Here's the trailer [QuickTime]...

Well, maybe it is

Photo of the Day | Hilary at BAA | March 21, 2001 | Mountain View, CA It's not what you think, Hilary would never, ever download illicit MP3s.

Good Book

Photo of the Day | Christina | Somerville, MA | January 11, 2002

Yet another reason why OS X rocks

Hey, do this: Hold down your Option and Command keys, then press the + key a few times. Pretty damn cool, huh? Didja know your Mac could do that? What? Nothing happens? Okay, then you have Zoom turned off. Do this: Open your System Preferences, then click on Universal Access, then under the Seeing tab click the big "Turn On Zoom." Now hold down your Option and Command keys and press the + key a few times.

Not my future wife (no matter how much I wished it in 1998)

Photo of the Day | Zia McCabe of the Dandy Warhols | Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA | August 3, 2000 I think my girlfriend dumped me a few days after this show. This timing simply proves that if life was truly fair, I would've just married Zia years ago when she asked me to show her my tits (!).

You'll never look at a chicken nugget the same again

Sometimes I think PETA stretches the credibility of their very serious message a little too much, as when they claim stuff like "...chickens are inquisitive and interesting animals who are thought to be as intelligent as cats, dogs, and even primates." I spent a great deal of my childhood on a ranch. Guess what PETA? Chickens are not terribly smart creatures. But then I watch something like this, and it's easier for me to forgive PETA's occasional overzealousness.

Weird

Photo of the Day | Boston, from the Top of the Hub | January 2002 Weird. I was just gonna post this picture of Boston because it's a cool photo and because my pal Aaron just moved there to attend art skool. It wasn't until I resized and named the image "091104_Boston.jpg", with today's date (09/11), that I realized that this is a photo looking out toward Logan Airport, the same airport where the terrorists took off from, three years ago to the day. The white dot in the sky is an inbound jet. Hard to believe it was only three years ago. Everything seems to have changed since then...

The GUIdebook (hooray for icons!)

I happened across this great site called the GUIdebook, charting the progress of the graphical user interface (GUI) design over the years, including Mac OS, NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Rhapsody, Windows, OS/2, and even BeOS, Red Hat Linux, QNX, and Solaris. My favorite part is the icon camparison chart, but there's also some other great stuff, including tons of old screenshots, a timeline, sounds, and more.

Small world

Photo of the Day | Headwaters Grove | May 25, 2003

Ynnej, you have no idea

...how handy this was in BRC. Thanks again for a cool birthday gifty ;)

What's your Blogger Code?

-----BEGIN BLOGGER CODE BLOCK----- http://www.leatheregg.com/bloggercode/ B6 d++ t k s- u- f+ i+ o+ x+ e+ l- c- ------END BLOGGER CODE BLOCK------

5ives

What Merlin Mann did while I was at Burning Man...

show/tell

So I'm back from an eventful road trip, but I'm so burnt that I simply don't have the oomph necessary for posting anything about my journeys. I'll get around to it in the next few days, but for now here are a few more photos from the places I've been in the past week and a half... Stinson Beach Diane and Jonathan's wedding Marin Over the Sierra Black Rock Desert Burning Man Mono Lake motel Yosemite

Surreal, unreal, hyper-real

Friday 4:45pm // veggin' in the Men's Temple I've taken most of the afternoon off today and rested, sorted most of my pictures, and am ready to present a few to you, out there, in the "real" world. I'm not sure what this world is, out here in Black Rock City, but it's at the same time incredibly surreal, incredibly unreal, and incredibly high-definition real. That latter may have a lot to do with the incredibly harsh conditions one must endure to be out here. I'm still pretty amazed at how well I'm handling the conditions. Really I have no complaints at all. Minor inconveniences, a few small annoyances, but nothing compared to how completely out of it I thought I'd be in the hottest heat of each day's afternoon. But it's been really fine out here. I've tried to figure out a way to sum up the experience of BRC in a sentence or two, and this is the best I've come up with so far: It's part Mad Max, part paganistic Rainbow Gathering, part techno-geeks, and all dusty. So, because that simplistic description can't possibly do justice to the incredible sensory overload one experiences here (even when I'm just veggin' in camp!), let me try to show you a little bit of what it's like, with this random assortment of Photos of the Past Few Days... Velms, The Man, and the moon Lasers on the Esplanade Puffy thing on the Playa Center Camp hula dancers Velma communicates with ? Burlesque show at Infinite Oasis Velms and Mark chillin' Hookahdome Jack Mother Bear and Sarah Thunderdome Fire barrel The Cube The Flaming Catholic Schoolgirls performing in Thunderdome Village map This is our village, Infinite Oasis, just one of many theme camps. The highlighted part is Women's Temple camp (that's us). Update: You have no idea how slow it is trying to get these photos up. Think of the slowest modem in the world, and then trip over it's power cable twenty times, unplugging it in the middle of an upload. The sandstorms interfere with the signal going back to Gerlach, where there's supposedly a T1 back to the rest of the world. But it's a line-of-sight satellite from BRC to Gerlach (nearest little town), and when the dust is kicked up by the wind (which is pretty much always), the connection is crap. Update: Yes, this post was interrupted about 38 times before, so I had to try again later. I'm typing in the dark now,

Of sensory overload and spotty wireless

Tuesday 5:57am // sunrise I'm sitting in our camp's kitchen, which consists of two large carport tent structures we put up yesterday. It's one of five or six structures we're putting up in our camp. A couple of the domes are also up. It's first light, the dark blue sky is boiling orange on the horizon, over the tops of tents and domes and sculptures and the mountains in the distance. The wind kicked up last night after dark, and it's still pretty windy. Most activity dies down when the winds gets too high, because the dust is just too much to deal with. It hasn't actually been cold at all either night so far; it's actually been warm enough for me to walk around in shorts. A small group who've been up all night called me over to the Omega burning sculpture in the middle of our village, offering me a wiener they were roasting in the remnants of the fire. Early breakfast for me. The Omega is a large metal sculpture that has extremely hot fires burning in both ends, which you can walk through. If you walk through really slowly, it's kind of like taking a very, very hot bath. Very refreshing. The sun's getting higher in the sky and there are people beginning to rise. Mostly the HeeBeeGeeBees, the healers in our village who have a huge tent full of massage therapists going in shifts all day long. Our camp's pretty much late risers, I learned yesterday. If I'm up before most everyone else, this is definitely a late-rising crew. But we got the structures moving along well by the heat of the afternoon, and hopefully today we'll get the rest mostly done. There's still a shower and a couple domes to finish. Update: It's Thursday, the wireless was very spotty for a while and then blacked out by sandstorms. But today's beautiful, Velma and I are sitting near Center Camp, sending a few postcards via the Black Rock City Post Office.

Hello from Black Rock City, Nevada

It's been a busy three days, a lot of driving, and a lot of camp-building (and we're not done!) but we're here (most of us) and havin' a blast. The weather is wonderful. Barely any wind (save for the little dust devil that danced through camp at lunchtime) and it's not too hot. Maybe 93? I dunno. But it actually doesn't feel that hot to me for some reason. I'll upload a photo or two when I get some time, maybe tonight. I've had barely any time to take pictures and I haven't explored the city at all, save for biking to where I am now, Center Camp, which is where the WiFi access is at present. A little spotty, so I hope it lasts. But if all goes well, we'll have a repeater antenna out to our village in a day or two. Just gotta track down an antenna...

Heading to BRC

I'm heading to Diane and Jonothan's wedding on Saturday and then straight to Burning Man on Sunday, and I've been crazy with job interviews and packing for the dessert for the past 4 days. You can tell how crazy it's been because I've even neglected to post the ever-popular, much-sought-after Photo of the Day, which is a travesty that surely won't be forgiven by the innumerable readers of this blog. Undoubtedly the readership has subsequently plummeted from 5 to 2. I'll be posting (hopefully) from Black Rock City, NV (a.k.a. the middle of nowhere, in the Black Rock Dessert), from Sunday through Sep 6 or 7. Apparently our village (Infinite Oasis) will have wireless Internet (!). No phones in the entire city of 30,000 people. But Internet? Yup. So the plan is to post photos and such, direct from the dessert. We'll see :) For a taste of what's in store for moi, see Velma's photos from last year [@Shutterfly].

Oh, one more interview

I ran up to Oakland today (in the middle of packing for the playa) for an interview with Transfair, better known as the organization that brings us the "Fair Trade Certified" label on coffee, tea, and other stuff (they're also doing fruits now). They seem very cool, growing fast, looking for someone with exactly my skills and experience, and I think I'd fit in well there. The job is, however, in Oakland, so that would definitely mean moving to Oaktown, Berkeley, or SF. We'll see; they're going to bring me back for a second interview when I return from BRC.

Maybe, maybe not

I may work for the World Peace Music Awards. I'm not sure if I want to work there or not. But I interviewed with them and they pretty much wanted to hire me for a short-term contract right away. But I'm heading out of town on Saturday. So I did some quicky work for them. I dunno. I've got mixed feelings about working there...

Note to self

Must remember to ask Aaron the name of that artist.

Seriously?

This is a current job posting on craigslist. Design Logos for Major Food Companies!! + Admin support We are an employee-owned firm that develops new foods and beverages for national food companies ranging from packaged goods companies (such as Kraft, Nestle, Pepsi) to restaurant chains (such as Starbucks, White Castle, and Round Table Pizza). Our business is booming and our working enviornment is fun and fast-paced. We have been in business for 27 years. We are looking for someone with 2 sets of skills: 1) Administrative. Responsibilities will include: - Answering swtichboard phone - Typing/data entry - Miscellaneous office support (shipping, binding, copying, etc) 2) Design - You will be responsible for "spicing up" our presentations to our clients - This will include developing logos and brand identities for the new ideas we come up with - In the future, this may include digital photography and/or video to support the concepts - Knowledge of PHOTOSHOP and POWERPOINT are a MUST ...Wow. You mean, I could do data entry and develop brand identities? This must be a verry prefeshunal outfit. Um, switchboard?

Nice pants

The Ukes of Hazzard present their latest fantabulous music video (9 MB, QuickTime), for the smash hit "Gay Boyfriend." I have no idea how these girls get away with not being able to sing at all, but pulling off such a good video. I'm not qualified to pass judgement on the Ukulele skills, so I won't.

A couple of suckers

Happy birthday Julie Ann! Photo of the Day | Julie and Mark, heading to a Giants game | June 2000

Last month

A little more than a month ago I was in Tijuana. It was not fun. But I took a few decent pictures. Eventually I'm going to find a day to put these photos in a new online gallery. Photo of the Day | A really big banner, on a really big building

Bruce Sterling: On Blobjects, Spimes, and the Terrorism-Entertainment Complex

Purely aside from his reference to hobbits winning "Oscars by the bushel full," I thought some of you (Ynnej) might be interested in this address by Bruce Sterling. He is a sci fi writer, and a very good one. He was addressing SIGGRAPH, a longstanding professional computer animation festival/conference that you might want to know about if you eventually head in that direction as a career. He's also funny and informative. So you might just like it for that. Or, you may just have nothing better to do.

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day | Moffett Garden

I knew it

Photo of the Day | Proof that the phone company is in league with the devil.

Serendipitous chuckles

I was working really hard on... Okay, I was Googling my high school journalism teacher, Paul Page, and among the links I found Paul's Page (who was a journalism major in college). The "interview, high school journalism student style," was good for a few laughs.

Monsters on the Green

This fantastic shot is by my buddy Tony Alves, who I really have to call one of these days. I also have to update his website one of these years. This photo was selected as Shot of the Year in the 1991 year-end issue of a now little-known newspaper called Western Front News. Photo of the Day | Jason Newsted and Kirk Hammett, Metallica | Day on the Green, Oakland Coliseum | Oct 12, 1991 | by Tony Alves

Loop Feedback Loop

The street network of Los Angeles has become the most instrumented and managed of any American city. Sensors embedded in the ground and on poles measure rates and volumes, and deliver their data to control centers where it is assembled into a dynamic image of the collective traffic picture. Increasingly automated, signals also flow out from these control rooms, adjusting timings of lights at intersections and freeway metering ramps, dispatching incident response teams, and updating traffic reports, including live maps on the web. Loop Feedback Loop is an exhibit of the Center for Land Use Interpretation.

Look Ynnej, it's you and me

I'm the cat, BTW.

Confession

Last week I bought something at the Gap. Those of you who know me probably just let out a shocked gasp. If you don't know me, an explanation is in order. The Gap is one of the largest clothing manufacturers in the world, and as such, a company that wields immense power in its industry. It is also one of the biggest purveyors of clothing made in overseas sweatshops. I didn't buy any clothing. I bought a messenger bag. This doesn't really make it any better, since the bag was probably made in a sweatshop in China or something. But I try to find a modicum of justification in the fact that I've been looking for the idea messenger bag for over six months, and simply haven't been able to find what I was looking for anywhere else. Not until I walked by a guy in San Francisco last week who had a really great bag. I asked him where he got it. "At the Gap," he offered helpfully, not knowing that my well-hidden reaction inside was, "Aw, crap." I had an hour and a half to kill before I met my friend, so I walked down to the Gap to see if they were still carrying it in stock. Indeed, they were. And indeed, I bought it. It truly is a very good bag; has all the features I've been looking for and a few I hadn't been, and was a very good price. Damn. About a dozen of my closest activist friends would probably cringe slightly if I told them this, but I also know some of them are reasonable enough people to understand when sometimes a compromise must be made. And yes, I actually do mean "when one must compromise one's principles." I realize that's what I did. But I intend to make up for it. Because, in the same way that I try to make up for occasionally buying books from Amazon.com by purchasing an overwhelmingly larger amount from locally-owned used book stores, I believe that it's incumbent on me to not let my $35 go into the pockets of Gap Inc.'s shareholders without them hearing from me (or at least the company's management). So I intend to do something to balance the scales. I haven't decided exactly what yet. I've got a few ideas so far: 1) I might write a letter to the Gap about my concerns. 2) I might create a new microwebsite about the Gap's past sins, thereby educating more people about their shady labor practices. 3) I might bring back the Crap T-shirt (a parody of the Gap logo which an SF company used to produce, but mysteriously doesn't any longer), by producing them through Café Press (until I hear from the Gap's lawyers, I suppose). Wanna weigh in on which you'd prefer? Leave a comment... And in the spirit of telling multinational corporations that we indeed an informed consuming public, that we're watching them, and that we're demanding them to do better, here's the Photo of the Day (Heidi and Olya outside the Telegraph Ave. Gap, Berkeley).

ignore this

This is a time-stamp marker for Russian mailing purposes.

Ever been really bored?

I guess this is what reeeeeaaally bored Flash designers do when they've got no jobs to work on [Flash].

Goals for the rest of the day

A. Try to be more realistic by limiting myself to 3 major things per day. 1. Clean the studio, which is in major post-camping/post-shopping disarray. 2. Do more Burning Man research. 3. Do the BEA Call for Applications mailer changes for Smackterra.

Studio Xclusive

*News flash for Ynnej* Ynnej will want to give me a big kiss when she reads this: "The Seattle rock quartet Death Cab for Cutie recently stepped into the studio to cut the Studio X Sessions EP exclusively for iTunes..." Get it here... Not only that, but it seems that DCfC mainman Ben Gibbard has another side project, All-Time Quarterback. My dear, I certainly hope you can find a broadband connection in Alaska.

RoMANCe of travel

Almost three years ago I took a great trip to Massachusetts and North Carolina to visit old friends and make new ones. That was probably the best vacation I've ever had. I took a lot of photos, and put up a gallery just for the fun of it. I'm thinking of redoing it sometime, and swapping out some of the photos I used in favor of some I didn't, like the one below. Photo of the Day | Olya's dorm | Swannanoa, NC

What I've been workin' on today

The interactive design company I interviewed with last week had a rather urgent need for a design for a client called [name removed to prevent panicky lawyer types from hyperventilating] (the market leader in Flash memory, although you wouldn't believe it from their current website), and asked me to put together a design for them to pitch. So, today's Photo of the Day is actually a Screenshot of the Day.

Forward three...and stop

Jessica, who I used to work closely with (she was Bay Area Earth Day 2002 coordinator) and keep in touch with regularly, has been guiding on the South Fork for almost three years now, and she and a couple other guides (thanks Mike and Jon!) put together a private trip this past weekend for their friends. Yeah, I got invited too. Jess is definitely a fantastic guide, and I've been fortunate to go with her a couple times before. Definitely beats being stuck on a boat with two novice (and terribly unskilled) guide-trainees, like I was stuck with for an afternoon back in June. A good guide means a world of difference for those on the raft, not only in how pleasurable the trip is, but whether you're sore the next day. A lousy guide makes the crew work unnecessarily. A good guide doesn't need to, because she, for example, avoids eddying out at every little placid spot for no apparent reason, then making the crew paddle hard to get back into the current. This time, for both days I was fortunate to be the only guy on a raft full of beautiful women. Oh darn. Poor me. Plus Jamie, Jamie (yes, two of 'em), Carly, Shannon, Janet, and Velma were all excellent paddlers and a lot of fun to boot. The people were fun, the weather was great, the river was great, and we had a most incredible barbeque on Satuday night. One guy, Rob, brought more meat than I've ever seen outside a grocery store. His tandoori chicken was a huge hit, but it went fast and I didn't get a taste. However, I was a big fan of the simply incredible pork. I think it was the first time I'd had pork in about a year, and it was without a doubt the best I've ever tasted in my life. So, it sounds as if this maiden voyage of Water Wings Voyages (yes, we had a coupla Tweety Bird water wings fastened to the bows just for this weekend) will be an annual event. Should be a blast again next year!

Doin' the design thing

This is where I live and work. It's a mess right now, with stuff all over the floor. Which is why this is a photo of the wall, from the loft. Photo of the Day | View from the loft

Jessica the River Queen

I'll post more about the rafting weekend later. But for now, here's a photo of the lovely Miss River Queen. Photo of the Day | Jessica the River Queen | South Fork, American River | 15-Aug-2004

I'll be on the river all weekend

So, in order to satisfy the thousands (read: five) of regular readers of rant, whine... who will surely be at a loss when I'm unable to post a Photo of the Day™ on Saturday, here's a photo of me and Carmen on the South Fork of the American, from back in June. Yeah, I know, what's with that dorky hat? I hope you all get out and have a great weekend too (thismeansyouYnnej). Remember, summer's not around much longer! Pre-dated post of the Photo of the Day | Carm and Marky | June 19, 2004

And a good time was had by all

So yesterday, after my job interview in SF (which incidentally I think I have a good shot at), I had lunch with Big D, and then walked to SOMA to find the gallery where the Sneak Peek mixer for Movable Type 3.1 was a-happenin'. While the other gig might be alright, this was the company I'd really (really, really) like to work for. I met several people who work at Six Apart (like Walt and Mark), and they seemed very cool. I picked their brains without dropping the hint that I wanted to work there. My interactions just reinfoced my impression that the company's an extremely energetic, youthful, creative group. And made me want to work there even more, dammit. Ben and Mena, who founded the company, were simply the cutest as they ran the demo, Ben on PowerBook and Mena on mic. And then there's the new designer they just hired, Jamison (on the left), who is incredibly cute in the way that makes ya wish you were gay -- frosted blonde hair, pretty face, cute chipmunk cheeks when he smiles (which is apparently all the time, at least at parties), dresses like he just walked out of an American Eagle catalog. And he wasn't the only incredibly attractive one who works there, by any means. Hopefully Mena had had enough drinks that she won't really remember how I gushed embarrassingly about how much I really really wanted to work there, and then handed her my business card. Anyway, when I got home later that night, I checked my email only to find that Anil, Six Apart's VP, had commented on my previous entry about how much I want to work there, and said I should send him my résumé. Which I promptly did. Duh. PS> Check out Anil's photos, especially his moblog. PPS> Photos linked above are by Mie.

This is beginning to be the Schoolie alum blog!

Yet another former Schoolie heard from: Brian a.k.a. Meerkat is back home after two months of travelling around performing with the Blue Devils. Yes, Brian is a drum corps dork. And we love him for it. If you want to see him perform Saturday night, they are in San Jose. Photo of the Day | Brian (and Kristen's leg) | Dec 2001

One of my favorite Mac newsletters

MacResolutions is a Palo Alto-based consultancy run by Fred Balin, a former Apple product manager. I've never actually needed to call on Fred's expertise before as a consultant, although I've referred my clients his way numerous times. But Fred's occasional email newsletter is fantastic. It's one of the few I actually read all the way through, almost every single time. It's highly informative, well written, and only comes at you about every month or two, which even my ridiculously over-stuffed Eudora in-box can handle. I highly recommend subscribing to it. Especially if you're not a geek.

For those Calvin and Hobbes fans

For those Calvin and Hobbes fans (me, Ynnej, and at least half the universe), I offer this article from 2003 in a Cleveland alternative newspaper. Here's an excerpt: "...Watterson apparently has no immediate plans to bring Calvin back. In fact, it seems that he has no immediate plans to do much of anything. He lives a quiet life in Chagrin Falls. He paints landscapes with his father in the woods, but produces nothing for those who once embraced his comic strip. He won't do conventions anymore. He won't sign autographs. And he certainly won't sit for interviews..."

Another former Schoolie heard from

I was online at 4:19am (well, actually I was brushing my teeth, but my computer was studiously downloading some filez without me) when AIM rang me. Who the hell could be up at 4:19am? 'Twas Carmen, who is in Ireland, traveling around doing organic farming and staying with people on their farms. Bog, I love Schoolies, they fucking rock the earth. I promised to give you all hugs from Carmen (pictured in the middle with Giovana and I smiling more than her, because she hated her braces), and to pass on this message: "...tell people that i love them and that im doing well..."

The return of Mr. Attitude

Photo of the Day™ | Jason, a.k.a. Mr. Attitude, a.k.a. Headbanger Hellmonster, circa 1989 | photo by ? (probably Ed Svoboda) Jenny saw this photo the other night and said "Jason was pretty hot...back in the day," with both admiration and surprise in her voice. Yes, she is Mistress of the Backhanded Compliment.

Job hunt progress report: Interview No.1

So tomorrow I have an interview here [Flash] for an opening for Senior Interaction Designer. Not very sure if this is the type of place I want to work or not, but hey, they're the first ones who called and so we'll see where it leads.

The blogosphere

Since I've been really, really, really wanting to work for this company, whose Movable Type is described by Salon.com as "widely considered to be the world's most powerful blogging tool, the system that sits at the heart of the Web's busiest blogs," I was intrigued to see this story today at Salon [day-pass access requires watching a very short commercial]. Also of note was a good article at MSNBC on the blogging trend as it pertains to the mostly younger LiveJournal set (hi Ynnej, Yuliya, et al). Here's an excerpt that rings with truth: "...If this new technology has provided a million ways to stay in touch, it has also acted as both an amplifier and a distortion device for human intimacy. The new forms of communication are madly contradictory: anonymous, but traceable; instantaneous, then saved forever (unless deleted in a snit). In such an unstable environment, it's no wonder that distinctions between healthy candor and 'too much information' are in flux and that so many find themselves helplessly confessing, as if a generation were given a massive technological truth serum..."

Follow-up to VH / Dave's friends post

Warning: Serious dorkdom to follow. I forgot to mention: Surely another big part of the reason why this time spent with Dave's friends -- especially the after-concert socializing -- was so much more pleasuarable was because they spent a sold 25 minutes debating obscure Star Wars plotlines and details, not to mention philsophy related to whether the Rebel Alliance could be considered terrorists who mass-murdered more innocent people than the Empire when they blew up the Death Star (twice) and killed all the innocent contractors and laborers on board. I decided not to point out that it was Luke who blew up the DS in IV, and he was only loosely affiliated withe Rebels at best, but I did tell them all to watch Clerks again to settle the argument. Then I smilingly commented, "I can't believe you guys are seriously debating this." But I was secretly in love with all of them at that point. Indeed, even Ynnej's dorkdom would have paled in comparison. Unless, of course, the discussion turned to that of half-elves or Shirefolk.

The future's so bright

Photo of the Day™ | random grab from the Mayhemcam

Van Halen (still) rocks

Not quite 100% as hard, but yes, they still rock. Probably 95%. I went to the show with Dave and a bunch of his friends, and it was definitely the most pleasurable experience I've had going to a concert with Dave's friends (which I've done numerous times over the past few years). Usually this is a slightly uncomfortable situation for me. Mostly this stemmed from the fact that I don't know any of these people, and therefore it's a little hard to be a part of the conversation when it revolves almost entirely around their jobs (since most of them also work together), dissing the mutual friends who didn't come to the show, and talking about sports teams. So usually I feel like the proverbial third wheel. Not only did I typically have nothing in common with these people (other than knowing Dave), I almost always felt even more out of place because my life was so centered in my oh-so principled job in the nonprofit sector. My lifestyle, the sort of people I worked with, the people I knew, and the interests I had, were so far removed from these people's corporate jobs and lives, I couldn't talk with them very easily about anything mutual. Admitedly, there was even a tiny feeling of superiority on my part (the holier-than-thou "I make my living saving the planet, you make your living selling shit to people"). Regretable, but I acknowledge that a bit of that snuck in to my feelings. I seriously think that my much better time at last night's Van Halen concert, and the hanging out at Brittania Arms afterward smoking and drinking, was much more pleasurable for me because of my recent shift away from my possibly-too-many-years-long nonprofit career. It has definitely put me in a slightly different mindframe. Anyway, Van Halen rocked. The bandmembers all look really fit, and Eddie looks healthier and fitter than ever, although some people in our group said he was noticeably hurting from the arthritis. The sound was shite but the set was tight. A good time was had by all. And because I don't have any photos of Van Halen but really felt like posting something rock 'n' roll, here's a photo of Ronnie James Dio instead (which is for Aaron, since we were rocking out to Last in Line last night). Ronnie James Dio | San Jose, CA | 1990

Yet another example

Yet another example of why I'm tired of working there. I work with people who make requests like this: "Please put the prospect master for newsletter in my box so I can update." What decade are these individuals living in? What's she gonna do with that "master," "Xerox it"? I don't even know how to fulfill this request. I mean, quite aside from the disturbing use of terms that went out with the mimeograph, this individual has been working with me for a decade and still doesn't fathom that it works like this: 1) she gives me a change, 2) I make the change to the doc, 3) I give her back an original (or a master, if that's the way she wants it). How exactly does she think she's going to make the changes to a paper original? Cut and paste?! Sheesh. I can't wait to work with people who live in the 21st century.

Another former Schoolie heard from

From Hilary Hulteen: "...i'm living in an ancient little cabin (it was built in 1901 i believe) in a canyon village called sierra madre just outside of los angeles. though it's going to be i think increasingly difficult to be so far from the ocean (about 25 minutes), a river runs right behind the house outside my window so the sound of running water is comforting.. the email is just to pass on the word that if any of you or your crew are passing through this part of the world, i.e. LA or just on your way somewhere, consider this free lodging, whether i'm here or not. though the community here is really tight, this is my first experience living in a house on my own, and i'm stoked to be able to share it. there are a ton of gorgeous trails and a dam and a little market too - i'm just a few blocks from the end of LA county and the beginning of the national forest.. i'm also for the time being working at patagonia nearby, so if you want discounts on some super-green gear (including point blank surfboards), i'm your woman. :-) ..." BTW, if you haven't ever seen her photography, check it out. And she's geekly enough that she's been coding her own website by hand since she was something like 14. PS> The photo of her gorgeous eyes featured on her homepage is by yours truly. Hils is an incredible beauty, inside and out.

I wish I was going to Alaska

Photo of the Day™ | Ynnej is going to Alaska. Lucky for her, this photo was actually taken in Massachusetts :P

Will work for sushi

I finished the résumé late last night (read: early this morning) and today I applied for a bunch of jobs. We'll see. I'm not holding my breath. But I did send my résumé to a particularly ideal job that I've told some of you about. I really hope they respond. The rest of the day was beers at the BBC with Justin, Kathy, Velma, and John. John's an old friend of everyone else (and a new one to me) who's in town from Missourri for a visit. He was the librarian at the high school Velma and Justin went to, and a very cool guy. Not to mention a huge Heinlein fan who actually met and had a conversation with him years ago. Justin and John had cigars on the patio of the BBC, and I bought Zippo fluid for Ynnej's new lighter. The rest of the night was sushi and then hair metal talk with Aaron and Jenny (sort of -- she was knitting; she's not really into Dio all that much, can't imagine why ;) and then watching "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," which rules and Jenny'd never seen (!). Harrison Ford and Sean Connery in one movie? C'mon, how can you go wrong?

Photo of the Day™

Mark...er...out on a limb? | Headwaters Grove, photo by Olya

Good thing Ynnej's done with school

Because I am certainly going to be contributing to her time-wasting activities by linking to these Elven and Hobbiton fonts and these LOTR desktops.

One a day

The Daily Photo Project is an archive of photos of one man's face, from 1998 to 2004 (so far; and he says he'll continue until he dies). It's very interesting. I've always wanted to do something similar to this with my kids, if/when I have kids. I think it'd be incredibly interesting to watch them grown in weekly or monthly photos. Maybe even daily, although how ludicrously hard would that be to accomplish? But consider how interesting it would be, when you're older, to watch an animation/movie of yourself growing and changing from week to week. [By the way, check out his BoxBots too.]

Photo of the Day™

Apple Store | San Francsico

Photo of the Day™

I know Jason goes to Jamba Juice a lot, but apparently his habit has grown to the point that he is funding the 401k's of several of the employees at the Los Altos location. They love him so much they put his photo on the bulletin board. Jason, I think it's time for an intervention.

Jenny Day

To celebrate Jenny's birthday, which was actually Tuesday (but it was her last week of school, so I let her juggle me around in favor of her completing her final project for Java class, a bad-ass D&D character generator; I know, totally dork -- but hey, she did it in fuckin' Java! how cool is that?), I declared Friday to be Jenny Day. I gave her a bunch of photos of Schoolies to remember them by, and a certificate that granted to the bearer three wishes, and guaranteed that I would indulge her in (almost) anything (one day only, some restrictions apply). This is because, being the exceptionally good friend that I am, I normally flat out refuse to indulge Jenny in most of the just plain ridiculous things that she has a tendency to indulge in (self-pity, lack of self-esteem, and, well, self-indulgence, to name a few. but also, um, really really terrible movies). Well, I try anyway. Okay, so with this certificate she would be allowed, on Jenny Day only, to be indulged in any number of time wasting, childish, embarrassing, lame, stupid, bizarre, foolhardy, slackworthy, self-destructive, and/or completely drippy past-times that I ordinarily would veto out of hand. Like going to an incredibly cheesy girl-movie, for example. But I also wanted to surprise her with something in particular I had planned, so I picked Jenny up and we drove up to San Francisco. Turning up 3rd, she commented, "I hope you're not taking me to the MOMA, because I'm not really in a museum mood today." Well, good thing I hadn't planned to take her to the MOMA! Of course, I had planned to take her to a museum about a block and a half away, the Cartoon Art Museum. Well, I kept my mouth shut until we got there, and when I pointed to the sign and said, "I know you're not in a 'museum mood' today, but maybe the Cartoon Art Museum is cool enough to be an exception," she was either gracious enough to do a really good job of sounding like she really wanted to do it, or was actually being sincere. Well either way, we checked it out. Small place (but not too small), really cool space (read: Mark's kinda architecture). And just the right size to be not too much for someone who was "not in a museum mood." The current special exhibits are on political cartoons from 1800s-era SF newpaper The Wasp (fair), and Raggedy Ann and Andy (eh). But the other half of the galleries contain the permanent collection. Very cool stuff from the last 100 years or so, ranging from Fritz the Cat to Zippy and Peanuts to Astro Boy. The highlights for me were the animation storyboards and the Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes prints and sketches. My two favorite comics right next to each other on the wall! So we also did some shoppin', some futile walkin' around looking for the damn Urban Outfitters, some Apple Store visitin', and some hangin' in the park, where a guy walked by with a huge smile on his face and excitedly exclaimed in a thick Japanese accent that "Some people they say you ugly!" while pointing at me. To which my reply was, "Great!" To which his reply was to repeat that some people, you know down there, down the path the other way from the way he was going, thought I was ugly. "Fantastic! Thanks!" And apparently he was very excited by my response, because his smile grew to a point that it could not possibly have gotten any bigger and still remained within the constraints of his face, and he gave me a double thumbs up. Now I definitely want to move to San Francisco. Photo of the (Jenny) Day™ Jenny's 3 wishes: 1) To watch sappy movie Love, Actually (which was actually pretty darn good), without me talking at all. Yeah, I didn't really hear that last part. 2) That I'd use a LiveJournal icon that she'll make for me. I shudder to consider the implications of this, but I agreed. 3) That we'll go snowboarding this winter. Well, it was late by the time she finally came up with this one, and we were both pretty tired, so I didn't bother to point out that I'd have done this one anyway.

Photo of the Day™

Yes, it's lovely Heidi Wall, she of the Evil Eye desktop (which some of you might remember from my old G3 laptop), and her dad Larry, one of the inventers of the famous and flexible Perl. The Wall family lives about 3 blocks from me, and I used to know Heidi before she went to WA for college (here we are in Berkeley, on one of the famous Book Crawls in 2000) but have kind of lost touch with her a couple years ago. Gonna have to look her up... While the Photo of the Day™ is usually by yours truly, today's cool/odd photo is by/© Julian Cash.

What's your Geek Code?

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 | http://www.geekcode.com GCA$$/IT$ d--(---) s+:+ a C++(+++)(>++++) B* U(>++++) P+>$(>+++) L+(>++) ! W+++$$ N++ ! K w--- ! M++$ ? PS+++ PE(--)(-)(+) Y+(>++) PGP++ t+ 5(+) X++ R-(<+++) tv(--) b++++(++) DI-- D--- G(--!) e* h(+)(++)(*) r---(r%) y+ z+(*($)) ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

Another Blogger tool

...that Señor Ables may want to try. Picasa's Hello + BloggerBot allows you to manage photos offline a la Apple's fabulous iPhoto, but also adds the benefit of working with Blogger (Google bought Picasa recently), which iPhoto does not. Alas, it is Windows only, so I cannot try it myself.

"...Just use Hello to send your pictures to BloggerBot. BloggerBot will automatically resize your JPG pictures, add your captions, and publish your pictures to the Web..."

Blog templates

For Jason, who was hoping for more choices for his blog's look, here are some suggestions. My cursory glance led me to believe that most of them suck pretty terribly, but I didn't look at all of them. The ones at noipo.org seem pretty good.

Word of the Day™

...is here.

Photo of the Day™

Now with Minty Fresh Flavor™ Because Brian is the power of awesome. (And Voice of America rulez, man.)

Quote of the Day™

"I have been given the choice of playing God or leaving practically everything up to chance. It is my experience that practically everything is left up to chance much of the time; men who believe in good and evil, and those who believe that good should win, should watch for those moments when it is possible to play God." – Dr. Wilbur Larch (The Cider House Rules, John Irving)

Definitely preferably

Going through some old files, looking for something else. Instead I found a letter I wrote to a rather special girl who helped teach me one of the most important lessons of my life: It's worth it to take risks for love. thursday, august 30, 1995 / 2:08am You're not even out of town yet and I already miss you. I realized, sitting here, that I've been thinking of you about every six minutes for the past four hours. Hmm. Looking at your picture, the one that's sitting near my desk, is not helping matters. There you sit on the shelf, smiling out from behind the plastic frame. It makes me laugh out loud. And smile. I'm listening to a punk show on KZSU Stanford (just thought I'd mention it for atmosphere). I bet you're curled up in bed right now, sleeping, while the singer of this punk band screams "Fuck you!" in my ear (!). Interesting: I just changed the station and now Trent Reznor is singing "I wanna fuck you like an animal..." Hmmm. Irony is everywhere, and I forgot to bring my irony board. I'm actually supposed to be working, designing an ad for the Weekly, but I'm not. I bet you guessed that. I'd rather be on a rooftop. But maybe not in a dress this time. But preferably with you. Definitely preferably. Being on a rooftop alone could be alright, but being on a rooftop with you far outstrips just your average oh-I'm-on-a-rooftop-all-alone evening. { I'm not at home in the galaxy } In case you were wondering, that's the lyric that just played on the radio. I'll keep you apprised of the lyrics if you wish. Actually, I'll do it against your wishes too. Ha! I put your name in my phonebook tonight. And your phone number. But I realized that you'd be moving to Santa Cruz soon and that made me a little sad. Only a little. Well, okay, maybe more than just a little. But Santa Cruz would be a cool place to live, and I know you'll have a very fun time. You appear to have a fun time most places. Which is a good thing. There's someone hyperventilating on the radio now. Don't ask. I bet you're going to have a great time on your backpacking trip. Now that I've thought/written that I've been reminded again that I miss you and that you're going to be gone for ten days. Damn. Oh well, at least I've got this picture. I'll be able to remember what you look like, but I'll have to try really hard to remember what you feel like. How soft your skin is. How your earlobes taste. How much I like holding you. How much I like the way your hair gets all tangled whenever you come anywhere near me. And the way you smile. Hmmmm. This is going to be a long ten days...

Photo of the Day (aka happy birthday Ynnej)

Because 20 is a magick number.

There's nothing quite as annoying

...as ants all over your Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I only put the box down for a farging hour! Smargle fegging grumble mumble...

5 of the hardest decisions of my life

In no particular order. o Shutting down Western Front News, my first company and what I for a long time thought was going to be my lifelong career. o Leaving the nonprofit organization I spent 12 years of my life helping to create. o Breaking up with high school girlfriend Sharon -- whom I really, really loved but with whom I had a terrible, horrible relationship -- with no definite assurance that the other girl really liked me. (Luckily, she did. But it didn't make leaving Sharon much easier at the time.) o Deciding to tell Diane that I had been secretly, incredibly in love with her for a year. o Coming to the realization that Flux51 just wasn't going in the direction I wanted, and that it was time to break up the partnership and go our separate ways.

Photo of the Day

Redwood Park | Arcata, CA

I had no idea

But tonight I learned that the feel of cashmere is (almost) better than sex. I also learned that it's apparently named after a goat from Kashmir. Hunh.

Photo of the Day

What's your Hobbit name?

"Well, hello, Pearl Bumbleroot, I'm Milo Deepdelver. Thass some nice Hobbit ass ya gots on yeh. Would you like to come over to my Hobbit-hole and smoke somma tha ol' pipeweed?" » Find your Hobbit name...

Yes, now it's oneupsmanship!

Photo of the Day: Dandy Warhols | Fillmore, SF | summer 2000

Oh my

Very excellent. Very, very strange. See if you can make it through all 99rooms... [Flash+sound, but it's worth it]

You are never, ever

...gonna believe what this picture of Britney is made out of.

Word of the Day

smolfering /smol"fer*ing/ [adj.] Definition: Attempting to show an angst-ridden, sexy look, in the way that an attractive but probably vapid actor or model would, but instead failing miserably and simply looking angry or possibly constipated. Example: "The b-list actor tried to pull off a look that would've been described as 'smoldering' if he had a less unattractive nose, but he instead simply looked smolfering." What? Of course it's a real word...

The Russians are coming!

Well, one of the Russians, anyway. Yuliya the Great is back from Eurasia, although only for a few days before she jets off to Ghana. Wasn't quite sure it was her when someone came on IM as "LeninaBNW," but then I realized Yuliya's screen name wasn't on my list anymore, and I guessed she must've changed it. Hey, Y, if you get out of jury duty on Monday and have Tuesday afternoon free, call or IM me and I'll fill you in on what I had in mind for Jenny's birthday, but don't tell her because it's a surprise. You can come along if you're into it; the more the merrier! And now... Photo of the Day:

Googols of Google

I already knew a lot about Google. I've been checking out their other technologies [1] [2] [3] and watching the business grow for a long time, and I got a glimpse inside their AdWords program since Acterra was one of about 300 nonprofits chosen by Google employees to receive a free AdWords Grant. But I learned even more by watching this video about the IPO. Don't expect something flashy or slick (c'mon, let's face it, Google's the best in search technology but their aesthtic sense is about a 2 on a scale of 1?10), but it's a well-scripted and informative vid.

Pixar rules

Could I just say that the animation for "The Incredibles" looks amazing? Espcially the first clip. I can't wait for this movie, it's gonna be awesome.

Bored with the board

Don't tell anyone, but I actually used to look forward to board meetings. Yeah, that's pretty scary. But they were actually pretty fun to me. I was privileged to work with a group of people for whom I had amazing respect, from whom I learned a lot, with whom I liked to share time. Even if we were stuck in a board meeting. It was a group of individuals -- well, more of an extended family really -- I was proud to be associated with. Really, there's never been a group of people I've been more proud to be associated with. Things have changed. For the past year and a half, I've dreaded every board meeting. It's not the same people anymore. More importantly, it's definitely not the same organization anymore. Tonight I will break a perfect attendance record, and skip my first board meeting in 7 years. Instead, I'm gonna whip this newsletter into shape for a few more hours (gotta figure out a way to graphically illustrate how BushCo is hurting California's environment with their policies), and then I fully intend to track down a cute blonde and go skinny-dipping by moonlight.

It's a start

I have numerous other websites I need to dig out from old disks and make screenshots of, but here are my first 12 sites in the new portfolio.

Less distracting

This desktop makes it a little easier to stay in a designing frame of mind. Yesterday was a fun-filled day. I helped the über-talented artist Aaron Zonka scan some pencil illustrations that a yoga magazine is paying him to do (his first paid work!), then we looked at some photos and stuff. Then I biked to Menlo Park for a happy hour get-together at the BBC with staffers from the various orgs at the PCC, and a few other assorted humans thrown in for good measure. Good turnout, even without pool tables or dartboards. Regretfully I didn't get a chance to talk with Velmer's friend Shannon before she had to go, but I had fun talking with Justin and Kathy and the other Kathy and Jana and Jess and others, and even Carrie. Had a couple beers and was a little too buzzed for biking home, because I hadn't eaten anything but a bowl of chili all day, so when things broke up I decided to stay at Cafe Baroni and write long letters to Olya bemoaning life's infinite tribulations and amusing her with some photos I Shutterfly'd last week to send her. So I got a few more pages on the portfolio done yesterday, but not enough. If I can get a few more done tonight, I'll post them and then the pressure's on. I'll actually begin applying for some of these job things... Tonight: A farewell dinner with Julie and her new hubby Kurt, who are moving to Italy soon *snif*. Then work on the portfolio.

What is awesome?

o Loud rocking-the-planet music while you work. o Indian food with your friend Jess. o Fog. o Swimming by moonlight. o A nice hot shower after swimming laps and doing 140 pull-ups (well, water-assisted pull-ups anyway; I'm not crazy).

Well isn't that nice?

Looky below at the email I saw on the staff list, about a party to mark my "transition." Isn't that thoughtful. I wish someone had bothered to ask me if I was actually going to be free that day. --------------------------------- Mes Amis! July marks a major transition at Acterra. Our beloved colleagues are waving the white flags and moving onto other adventures. Peter, Mark and Jan are all off to new ventures and we shall gather to mark their transition with outdoor festivity. When: Sunday August 1st, 2004 2 PM to 6 PM Where: Chez Kayla (coordinates below) Who: Acterra staff, board, alumni, and friends Why: Change is good, ceremony regarding change is FUN and required How: Bring a story about one or all, food or beverage to share White pants and wild shirts encouraged (invasive plants verboten). Sentimentally yours, David, Cindy, Kayla and the K-9's PS Pour favour peruse the invite list and ensure all eligible invitees are included - Merci -- 112 Foxwood Road Portola Valley, CA 94028-8113 650-851-9202 Highway 280 to Alpine road, go west. 2.0 miles up Alpine to Los Trancos Road, left (only goes left, just past Alpine Tennis Club) Do Not Stop at Zots (tex!) 2.25 miles uphill to Foxwood, left 112 is the second house on the right, park where you can and come on up the 30 steps to the house! Rudy and Sheeba will bark, but they're (mostly) harmless! (at 2.0 miles Ramona St. is a left, stay on Los Trancos, winds steeply uphill) To find Foxwood Rd, * Look for 1091 Los Trancos Road and a group of mailboxes with a shingle roof over them on your left. * Monitor the mileage, it's pretty accurate. * If you come to a one-way road, come on back down, you'll go straight onto Foxwood at the end of long straight hill instead of going left around the curve. * Call!

Possibly the best use of Flash I've seen all year

» Hilarity will ensue... Totally worth the time it takes to download 3.7 MB.

muhahahahahah!

I have corrupted Señor Ables, the man who "doesn't read blogs"! See? It's opinionated old farts like me just can't resist the urge to rant, whine, 'splain, and espouse...to the 5 people who might be reading.

The Monday agenda

1) kill rock stars 2) floob all night 3) h9kr Current music: All Metallica, all night, and at extreme volume (I will undoubtedly have suffered a brain injury by morning, from the headbanging alone); currently: "Sad But True" Okay, let's give that another try... 1) Gonna try to get a shitload of work done at Smackterra. 2) Return a bunch of phone calls. 3) Go see my friend Jessica for dinner in San Francisco. 4) Possibly: swimming by moonlight.

ha. so there.

Something happened to put me in a not very good mood earlier today. But now I'm in a really good mood. Even though I'm angry. Because: 1) I'm not letting it bother me (much), even if I do have to force myself. 2) I'm getting muy shit done on the portfolio now that I said fuggit to the goddamn buggy thing that was screwing up my life for several hours last night (hooray for workarounds!). 3) The Cure fucking rocks. 4) Dancing around in your chair while listening to The Cure rocks. 5) Looking like an idiot if anyone walks by the open doors while you're dancing around in your chair to The Cure rocks. 6) Ginger ale rocks too. 7) And I'm keeping the flowers for myself. So there. 8) Ooh, now U2 rocks (I absofuckinglutely lurve iTunes on random).

Fun food fact #236

You wouldn't think that french fries and a good Fetzer Johannisberg Riesling would be a good dinner. But you'd be wrong.

Rude logos

French conceptual artist Claude Closky deconstructs letters from the world's trademarks, then puts them together again in an...um...unusual way [warning: link includes sound].

The good body and the even better body

Velmer and I went to see Eve Ensler's one-woman show, "The Good Body," in SF last night, and it was great. Even better than I expected. Afterward was even better...

Today's (okay, yesterday's) progress

I really did get a lot more done on the portfolio today, despite the fact that every time I switched to my desktop, I got really, really distracted. Goals for Friday: 1) Get a bit more done on the portfolio. 2) Go to Smackterra to fix a bunch of stuff and send out the EcoAdvocate. Late. 3) Go to dinner and a play with Velmer and try to behave myself even though she'll be wearing her leather pants.

Seriously

If you have ninja gear, you get hooked up with fries. Believe it.

My only complaint with Safari

is when it does this trick. Not cool.

lol

» Ynnej cries over things like this. I laugh. [.mov]

Let Cam do your breast exam

» Linky-dink [.mov]

Alter ego?

I bet Ynnej and Yuliya, who both for some reason persist in claiming I'm gay, will think this guy is my alter ego.

Well, thanks a lot PG&E

Due to a billing error, PG&E failed to bill me for the gas portion of my energy bill for the past year. Of course, they didn't bother to send me a letter apologizing for the oversight and explaining how lame they are for such a mistake. No, they just sent me a bill for $500.71 with no explanation whatsoever. Well, luckily the karma was smiling on me today for a change (normally I get the most moronic ESL failures when I call any company's customer service center), and I got the lovely and telented Monica, who took pity on me and I think felt sorry that her employer was lame enough to just sent me a bill with no explanation, and she kindly arranged for the bill to be paid off in 12 months (actually, it's PG&E's policy when it's their mistake, but I could tell she was pitying me). Anyway, it increases my energy bill by about 2/5 every month. Dammit. I can't believe a fucking pilot light consumes $17.92 in gas each month. I'm so shutting off the pilot.

Please please please

Register. It's so fucking easy. It's so fucking critical.

Mission accomplished

Got a lot done on the portfolio last night. Goals for tonight: 1) Do a bunch of Acterra webmastering that I really don't want to do. 2) Back up all my files at Acterra and bring 'em home. 3) Do more work on the portfolio.

Tonight's goal

1) No slacking. 2) Work really really hard on the portfolio and get the website pages at least mostly done. 3) Ignore the fact that no women find me attractive anymore. Damn them all! Okay, it's 8:16pm. Ready...set...go!

Someone else is reading

It's always nice to find out you helped a random person with Internet?... Thank you, thank you, thank you, etc.... I just received a Airport Express Base Station and this hint finally lets me listen to Air America Radio on my living room stereo. DId I say thank you? Jim

Nurture versus nature

More and more over the past few years I've been connecting the dots between things I probably learned from my parents. I have only a very miniscule circle of close friends. They are the people I respect a great deal, and would do almost anything for. Most importantly, I can count on them. I rarely ask them for anything, but I always know I'd get it. I think I choose these types of people because all my life I've wanted to avoid the sktechy people my mom chooses.

Tijuana

Thu, July 15, 2004 | 10:40pm | San Jose, CA Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Who the hell are all these people anyway? Jeebus, why the crap isn't she finished packing already? I thought she was doing this yesterday. Man, I really want to get through LA before rush hour, can we get on the road already? Come on. Come on. Come on. Come ON. Try to make the best of this. Try to make the best of this. Try to make the best of this. Oh, man... ------------------------------ I haven't been looking forward to this trip to Tijuana at all. I can think of about 50 good reasons to go to Mexico, and this is not one of them. I've had a baseball-sized knot in my neck all week. What has it been, something like 24 years they've been married? He's been crying wolf about going to Mexico for so many years that it's ridiculous. But now he doesn't have a choice. He's stuck there, whether he likes it or not. The marriage, as it once was, is over. Her words. She will have to tell him this, and this may be the biggest blow. But he has to see it coming. Can't imagine why I'm not looking forward to this. ------------------------------ Fri, July 16 | 4 something am | City of Commerce, CA We're right smack dab in the center of LA. If you look at the map of Los Angeles, the words "Los Angeles" are really big. But L.A. is surrounded by about several billion little nothing cities that make up what people really think of as Los Angeles. And right there, in the middle, where the words "Los Angeles" are really big on the map, there's a tiny little word a little to the lower-right: "Commerce". That's where we are. I took the first turn driving. San Jose to Los Angeles in under 5 hours, I'm a little impressed with myself. But right now I'm too tired to do anything other than wolf down my omelette and the driest toast I've ever eaten. The omelette sure is good. I'm pretty damn hungry, though. Trains roll by in the dark, behind the Denny's parking lot. City of Commerce, USA. ------------------------------ Fri, July 16 | 5:26am | Somewhere on Highway 5 Typing in the back of a van blazing down the highway is not easy. Neither is sleeping. Dammit. Is there a single mile of highway in Southern California that isn't incredibly bumpy? Pavement is uneven. I'm jostling around so bad in the back I can hardly stand it. I'm so glad it's my turn to lay in the back and try to sleep. Fuck. ------------------------------ Fri, July 16 | 7:13am | Chula Vista, CA What a dump. ------------------------------ Thank bog for friends. Velma and Jenny, you helped make the excessively stressful days leading up to this trip tolerable. Jenny, I appreciate that you went out of your way to go by the library and bring me audio books for the trip. Velma, coming by to wish me luck and give me a big hug was incredibly supportive. I'm so glad I have friends like you two. The simplest gestures, yet they meant so much to me. ------------------------------ Fri, July 16 | 7:58am | Chula Vista, CA I just spent half an hour standing in an Enterprise rental agency parking lot, cutting my cuticles. Yes, I am bored. I think I got an hour and a half of sleep on the road, from which I was awakened numerous bumpy times. ------------------------------ Fri, July 16 | 9:37am | Placio Azteca Hotel, Tijuana, Mexico Uneasy arrival. Is this the right hotel? Is he here? The doorman knows him, he'll call up to his room. Wait for him to come down. What will he look like? How long's it been since I saw him? Almost two years? Will the rental car be safe? Is there a garage? The rental company made a big deal about how safe it had to be in Mexico. SUVs are on the most wanted list for car thieves south of the border. A brand new one, like our rental, poses quite a prize. Wow, he's so thin. His hair is completely white now. Was it that white the last time I saw him? But he's still got the flat-top crew cut. He shuffles a bit, but he's walking pretty good. Maybe a little stooped, but I expected him to be using walking sticks. His eyesight is terrible. He doesn't even recognize us as he comes out the hotel doors, until he hears our voices. All he can see is blurry shapes and colors. All this time I haven't been sure how to greet him. At the last moment, I let it be normal. As normal as possible. But at the same time, everything inside me is acutely aware that these circumstances are not normal. It's strange how normal it seems. ------------------------------ Nice hotel. Recently remodeled. Pretty upscale. Should we have breakfast? The hotel has a very nice restaurant. How awkward will this be? The restaurant's muzak of choice is poppy country and western. In English. The clientele appears to be upper middle class, almost all Mexicans. The one incredibly blond guy looks so out of place. A large family at a long table in the corner and a pretty girl taking care of a cute little baby girl, two attractive stewardesses, lots of other handsome people around, probably all on there way from the States or to the States. We're about 5 minutes from the border. ------------------------------ Chit chat over breakfast is very copacetic. Almost too normal. I'm not hungry. I thought I would be. I was still hungry after the omelette 5 hours ago. But now that I'm here, I'm not hungry. Nerves. As more and more people enter the restaurant, I realize that there are some incredibly chic and hot women here. Like about one-quarter of the restaurant. ------------------------------ Fri, July 16 | 3:53pm | Room 217, Palacio Azteca Hotel I must be tired. I've been napping by the pool, even though there's a dozen screaming and splashing kids ten feet away. And one baby wearing pink water wings, who hasn't stopped crying for the past hour her mom has had her in the water. Why doesn't she take her out? The sun has hit the deck chairs directly. It was nice earlier, warm but a steady breeze in the courtroom that contains the pool. But now it's too hot. I finally have to go up to me and Tom's room to crash. I'm exhausted. I've got to sleep. She's up in his room. They were just going to lay down and rest. Not talk about anything heavy. That keeps going through my head. ------------------------------ I awake to the honking of horns. Wait, that's Tom blowing his nose. And belching extremely loud in the bathroom. And making as much noise as humanly possible, apparently. What did I get, another hour and a half of sleep? Ignore it. Maybe he'll go away. The door clicks shut. He went away. My head clears a bit, laying there as the air conditioning rattles quietly. I can hear some sort of music from an adjoining room's TV. I realize that, while sleeping, I actually had nightmares about what's to come. Isn't the mind a wonderful thing? ------------------------------ Hmm. The light switch in the bathroom doesn't seem to work. None of the three switches work. That's weird. Wait, Tom was in here earlier, wasn't he? Ugh, stepped in something wet. Did he take a shower? Okay, the light switches by the room door activate the power in the bathroom. That's weird. Jeebus, is that puddle on the floor yellow? Oh bog, this is going to be fun. ------------------------------ Tom's back. He turns on the TV, even though I was trying to go back to sleep. He sucks his gums when he's awake. And snores sometimes. When he's asleep. I wonder what annoying habits I have? Typing on a laptop in public, probably. ------------------------------ I like it when people hold the remote control and stretch their arm out as close to the TV as possible, as if that's the only way to make it work. ------------------------------ I have three words for you: Buffy with subtitles. I really need to go down and sit in the lobby or by the pool or something. ------------------------------ Fri, July 16 | 4:55pm | the lobby Thank bog for cushy couches, iTunes, and headphones. I may take a walk around Tijuana, or at least the nearby part, later. I've got a good sense of direction, luckily, but I'm still going to have to be careful to not get lost. One of those really cute women just walked by. It would be nice if this trip actually brought me some good luck. Nice. And a miracle. ------------------------------ Tom joins me in the lobby. And obsessively picks his teeth with toothpicks for 15 minutes straight. ------------------------------ Burning CDs for the drive back. This is why iTunes rules the universe. ------------------------------ Fri, July 16 | 11:08pm | Room 217 We had dinner at a cantina a half-block away from the hotel. Not very good, but I've never been a fan of molé. Afterward, we called the taxi driver who the hotel arranged to have on call for George, to get around to the hospital, to the airport to buy his tickets, whatever. He took us about 15 minutes away, to the playa (that's beach, for the Español impaired). He was incredibly helpful and kind all night, helping George down steps, walking with us on the beachfront, going to buy mom a churro. He deserved a huge tip at the end of this. I'm especially amused that his radio station of choice is a San Diego hard rock station that plays lots of Metallica and Ozzy. It was just after sunset at the beach, and still warm and mild. People playing soccer in the dusk. A campfire or two, and a dozen or so small circles of college-age Americans huddled here and there on the beach. A cult? Religious outing? A group of volunteers on a summer trip? I dunno, but they were standing in circles and seemed to be, um, praying in the twilight. A little strange. ------------------------------ Tom snores. Loudly. I really hope I'm tired enough to fall asleep and not care. ------------------------------ They had their discussion in his room in the afternoon. It went well, she reports later, although he was disappointed that he wasn't getting his truck and $10,000 right away. She clued him in to the financial picture and he took it better than we had anticipated. At least, better than most of the ways I had envisioned it. ------------------------------ Sat, July 17 | 4:47am | Room 217 Tom snores. Incredibly loudly. He may not survive the night. ------------------------------ Sat, July 17 | 11:12am | Room 217 Jeebus, Tom snores like a fucking windstorm. But I didn't kill him. ------------------------------ Sat, July 17 | 12:10pm | Hotel restaurant There's another large family gathering in the restaurant for breakfast. I guess this is the place to celebrate the occasions of your older relatives, because the large party yesterday and the one today both got serenaded by waiters. They were singing en español, of course, so I have no idea what the occasions were, but I think it was birthdays. There is an incredibly cute girl in glasses at the table. We have to go to the airport today to settle his ticket to inner Mexico. I still don't know if he's leaving tomorrow or if he's going to get his first eye operation here in Tijuana. He went to the general hospital yesterday and they told him it'll cost $100 per eye. That seems awfully low for cataract surgery, so we have to wonder. But one of his brothers is a retired doctor in inner Mexico, so it makes sense to mom and I that he go there before he gets the operation, where his brother can hook him up with a reputable surgeon, and he can recuperate with his family who are already waiting for him. Planning is an artform for Mexicans. A lost art. ------------------------------ Before we leave the hotel I corner him alone in the lobby. I tell her to keep everyone away, I want to talk to him. I tell him to get on the plane tomorrow. To take care of his eyes. To go do it there, where his family can take care of him. I tell him he has to recuperate and not to expect to be up and around in a week, trying to get his plans going right away to set up an alfalfa farming business. I want to be hard on him, but I can't. Even I am affected by his condition now. I tell him how hard it's been on all of us, not just him, but that's about all I can say about it. I wanted to rake him over the coals. But I urge him to go and take care of himself instead. Get well. There's time. He cries. He tells me to take care of my mom because I'm all she has, and tells me how much he cares about her and how he wants to get his business going so he can make money to send her. I know he profoundly means it. But it never turns out that way. His business schemes never work out the way he plans. But you can't tell him that. We talk about the money issues a bit. I remind him that selling the ranch won't happen overnight. It'll take time. There's a lot of shit to sort out, figuratively and literally, before it can be sold. He's got to be realistic. ------------------------------ Sat, July 17 | 4:08pm | Revalucion This is the tourist shopping district, but I fully expect it to be the only remotely interesting or fun part of the trip for me. At least I can take some photos. If I can find one or two good deals, that'd be even better. I shook everyone after a half-hour. Thank god. Alone finally, I feel more normal. I don't have to put up a front of glazed interest or happiness. I walk 15 or so blocks, zig-zagging around a bit to see the streets off the main drag, where all the Americanos are getting hustled. Two blocks further up the road from the tourist area I find a rock shop and browse the T-shirts and stickers and stuff. I want to but a T-shirt but the one I want has a stain on it. Oh well. I get a patch for Jenny. I'm looking for: Converse All-Stars in blue, a new messenger bag, and T-shirts. I find rip-off All-Stars, which I consider buying, for about $13. At another store, I find every conceivable color or All-Stars (the real thing, this time), even colors I've never seen in the States, but they're the same price I'd pay in the States. Maybe I'll keep looking... No messenger bags. Apparently backpacks, butt-bags, and all kinds of ugly leather saddlebags are still all the rage for American touristas in Mexico, but the messenger bag style hasn't quite caught on yet. The only three I see, at one of the 20 billion sidewalk kiosk shops, are pretty good, except they don't have a padded shoulder strap. When I get back to the café/smoke shop where they've been camped out waiting for me, Tom has been sent out to look for me. They got worried because I was gone more than the hour I said I'd be gone. Brilliant. Tom would never find me in a million years. Duh. Another wave of consternation comes over me at being perpetually treated like a 10-year-old. Yeah, it's Tijuana, but please. I'm not 10. ------------------------------ Sat, July 17 | 6:31pm | Palacio Azteca restaurant Dinner back at the hotel. Last dinner. We're leaving tonight. The chitchat moves to stories of the various California prisons. The nice ones, the bad ones. The corruption. How to get along. He "went to school," as he puts it, before his eyes went bad. High school equivalency and small engine certification. I'm actually impressed. I think of Rick Springer, who was imprisoned in the early '90s for smashing an award then-former President Reagan was accepting at a convention, and being tackled by Secret Service. I met Rick years later, after he got out, when I attended a book-reading he did. I was enthralled by the story of what it's really like inside. Later, when I got to know Rick, I learned he was the gentlest, kindest man I've possibly ever known. ------------------------------ We're leaving. Thank bog. ------------------------------ Sun, July 18 | 2:58am | middle of nowhere, Highway 5 Pitch black. Nothing but blank, black highway lanes stretched out in the pools of headlight illumination. A tiny, far-off smear of yellow and white lights off in the distance to the right. Must be a town a few miles off that way. Or another prison. I handed over the driving duties about an hour and a half ago. Tom took over. I tried to get comfortable in the passenger seat. Apparently this vehicle is built specifically to inhibit passenger comfort. I try about 29 different positions to no avail. I will have another crick in my neck when I awake. Tom likes to randomly say a word or two out loud when the other people are trying to sleep. ... We pass one of those roadway signs with all kinds of gas station and fast food logos. Tom [in heavy Polish accent]: "We have about quarter-tank. We not make it to San Jose." We pass a sign that tells us the next exit is the last opportunity for gas for 16 miles. me: "Well, maybe we should stop at that next exit." We pass the next exit. me: "Or not." ------------------------------ Later... Tom: "What is da lights." me, looking up: "Huh?" Tom: "There is lights. What is dey doing?" I look up. Whoa. I hope that's a plane. me: "Spraying?" Tom: "Huh?" me: "Spraying?" Tom: "Huh?" me: "A plane. Spraying. I don't know why they'd do it at night..." At least, I hope it's a plane. Could be a UFO I guess. The three white lights sure moved in a way that planes don't normally. Pretty weird. ... Tom: "I think is plane spraying. What is spraying I don't know." ... About a mile later, we pass a landing strip with its light ablaze. Not a UFO. ------------------------------ Sun, July 18 | 4 something am | Passing Lemore, CA I think of Julie, who used to live in Lemore. I really need to call her. ------------------------------ Sun, July 18 | Dawn, too tired to look at clock | San Jose, CA Almost home. Breakfast? No. Hungry, yes, but too smegging tired. I just want to drop off Tom, get my car, and go home to bed. My bed. My pillow. My sheets. No snoring. When we pull in at mom's, her car is gone. Leticia's car is blocking mine in the driveway. Leticia's supposed to be the only one there, taking care of the dogs. me: "They better have the keys inside." I'm at the end of a lifetime's supply of patience. Mom goes in to wake them up to move the car. Leticia's not there. Her obnoxious little boy is asleep inside, but she's MIA. The other woman's there, with her boyfriend. Yet another massive random person whose name I instantly forget each time I hear it. I don't want to remember these people. Leticia took random woman's car home for some reason. Of course, she didn't leave her keys, so we could get her smegging car out of the driveway. I lose it. I cannot contain myself. I throw all my stuff back in the rental. Now I have to take it home, leave my car, and waste yet another hour of my life coming back here later tonight to retrieve my car. I leave regretting that I lost my temper in front of my mom. But this was a hot poker on the last nerve. I just want to go home and sleep. ------------------------------ Sun, July 18 | 9:04pm | Mountain View Now I have to go take the damn rental back and pick up my car. My neck is still killing me. I feel like every hour of this ordeal has taken a day off my life. Fuck, I need Advil. And wine. Advil and wine. ------------------------------

DorkFest Part 2

Should we see if Zonk wants to go? OMG hotels are so expensive. I thought you are broke?

Saying "I do" is everyone's right

"I do support the right of every American to marry, including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender couples. I believe that marriage and other civil rights protections are essential to making all families safer and more secure. By signing this petition, I agree to support efforts to make marriage equality a reality in our country, and to oppose any attempts to discriminate against GLBT couples and individuals." » Sign it... I did.

To answer Ynnej's question

The Human Rights Campaign works for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equal rights. And the U.S. Senate will tomorrow (Wednesday, July 14) vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment. Makes me want to vomit. In 2000 I said I would lead the march on DC, rope in hand, if Bush won and tried to disassemble Roe v. Wade. I make the same promise today, about the Federal Marriage Amendment.

The Toolbox

Studio Computing Apple G4   Dual processor 1.42 GHz PowerPC   1 GB RAM   Mac OS X 10.3.4 and Apache server   64 MB VRAM   Monitor #1: 20" Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2020u, 1280x960, millions of colors   Monitor #2: 17" Nokia 447L, 1280x1024, millions of colors   Internal DVD-RW / CD-RW   Internal 120 GB ATA HDs (two)   Internal 80 GB ATA HD   External 60 GB FireWire HD   External 250 GB FireWire backup HD   External Iomega Zip Drive Apple Extended Keyboard and Pro Mouse Boston Acoustics Digital Media Theater speakers and subwoofer Kenwood AM-FM Stereo Receiver KR-V76R Philips DC 222 turntable Apple iSight SpeedStream 5360 ADSL modem, with service by SBC SpeedStream 2604 4-Port DSL/Cable Router SynOptics LattisHub 2803 16-port hub Cobalt NAS RaQ web server Hewlett Packard LaserJet 5MP Epson Stylus Color 740 Epson Stylus Color C84 Canon LiDE 50 USB 2.0 bus-powered scanner Wacom Graphire CTE-630 tablet Mobile Computing Apple PowerBook G4 15"   1.33 GHz PowerPC   768 MB RAM   Mac OS X 10.3.4 Canon LiDE 50 USB 2.0 bus-powered scanner Wacom Graphire CTE-630 tablet Smart ID WiFi Detector Targus USB retractable 2-button mini-mouse Jensen Digital Audio headphones (full size) Philips HE510 earphones (buds) Photo & Video Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F505V 3.3 megapixel camera Apple iSight Telephony Audiovox cellular, with digital technology by Qualcomm and service by Verizon Nortel analog land line, with service by SBC (local) and Working Assets (long distance)

The Leisure Commandments

From the book "Time Off! The Unemployed Guide to San Francisco" Thou shalt enjoy at least one sustained period of unemployment during thy career. I suppose I can look forward to fulfilling this commandment soon, if I don't get cracking on finishing the portfolio... Thou shalt switch careers to do something thou really enjoyest, even if it means taking a pay cut. Dammit, that's what got me in this farging situation in the first place. Thou shalt pursue on secret childhood dream without regard to status of the judgement of others. That settles it. New career-path: International spy. Thou shalt party until dawn on at least one weeknight. Check. Thou shalt lounge around thy house in thy pajamas. Anyone who knows how hot it gets in my studio in summertime can guess whether I've bested this one. Why d'ya think I like that fact that there are no windows? Thou shalt create, experiment, and ponder. Dammit, that's what I do for work, not leisure. Thou shalt reconnect with thy community. Yeah, 'cept I'm trying everything I can to get away from 'my community' right now. Thou shalt partake of the great outdoors. True dat. I gotta see the beach again sometime in the next two weeks. Thou shalt travel and explore, beginning with thine own hometown. Um, if I actually lived in San Francisco, instead of relatively boring Mountain View, I'd be all over this commandment.

*stress*

So I went to my dad's yesterday and I pulled up to the driveway and there's a realtor's sign outside. I've known for six months that he was going to sell the house. I even knew that he was putting it on the market any day now. But nothing quite prepares you for going to the house you grew up in, which will always have a place in your heart as "home," and seeing a "For Sale" sign. "In the air I'm sensing a change in the weather..." -"Crazy Life" Toad the Wet Sprocket -+- On top of that, I have to go (drive) to Tiajuana this weekend to deal with mom and stepdad drama. I'm really, really, really not looking forward to that. I have a really sore neck right now. Can't imagine why. -+- Mood: ugh Music: [angry-beat] "Nobody's Listening" Linkin Park Music: [nostalgic] "Crazy Life" Toad the Wet Sprocket

Want a little kiss?

Well, here ya go...

Some Kind of Monster

"...filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky ("Brother's Keeper," "Paradise Lost") wind up telling the story of how a de facto family can dismantle itself and then put itself back together, piece by embarrassing piece. The result transcends the rockumentary genre and becomes something uniquely its own: "Some Kind of Monster" isn't about rock music or even the people who make it; it's about people, period, and the myriad ways they mangle themselves and each other..." » Read the review...

From brushed metal to milk

If you're one of those (lame) people (hi Ynnej) who actually prefers the original OS X plasticky look over the newer (and much, much swanker) brushed metal look, perhaps you'd prefer this milky skin called Plaster. It's kinda cool, but far too white for my taste. If I'd wanted an eMac, I woulda bought one. Funny, I though Ynnej said she liked the gray look. Hmm, a contradiction? Who'da guessed.

New shades

I thought I'd lost one of the three -- count 'em, three! -- new pair of sunglasses I got Thursday, but I found 'em. And I really don't care if Ynnej thinks they're the ugliest ones, I like the green ones. Plus they were only $6, dammit.

I am absolutely, positively

...going to get some work done on my portfolio today. Right after I move that bookcase over there, and those tables over there, and clean off that tabletop, and move my stereo receiver to under my desk. I think Ynnej's amazing powers of slack are rubbing off on me |:/ Velmer will be appalled :(

Señor Ables will be sooo disappointed

...to learn that a certain JB has thrown in the towel.

Think geek

Possibly my favorite place for finding cool freeware and shareware apps: www.macupdate.com. My latest find being Books, which is pretty cool, and totally free. I've been looking for something like this for awhile -- a database to catalog all my books. And it exports to all kinds of formats, including HTML and XML, so I can figure out a way to put my lists online. Yeah, like I need another distraction from the Finishing of the Portfolio.

Ha!

And people think I'm a curmudgeonly pain in the ass to work with. Check this guy out.

For this retort, Ynnej got +10 hit points

Just a little story to prove that word Nazism goes both ways. [Not meant to infer that it’s bisexual.] So Ynnej and I were having a normal conversation yesterday in Togo’s (and by normal I do indeed mean that it was probably making all the people around us either embarrassed or afraid), and I again used a normal phrase that has been accepted as long as I've been alive (and undoubtedly longer), and which much more recently has fallen into some disarray and has been used by some people with one or two of the words left out, but still presumably having the same meaning. In this case -- and the phrase in question really isn't important to the actual point of this story, which I acknowledge is getting ever further away at this point in the narrative -- *ahem*, in this case, both uses have become so prevalent and are already so nearly identical as to be essentially the same thing, so it really doesn't matter to me which one people use, and actually I myself have said the phrase both ways. It doesn't make a difference in this case. So, the Point: Jenny actually took me to task this time for using the phrase in a way that she thought was wrong. She then proceeded to berate me. You know, in her good-natured way, which almost never includes heavy use of the word "bitch." Having a thick skin, none of this, of course, bothered me. Like water off a duck's back. I simply and calmly explained that the phrase meant the same thing both ways, and the way I said it was around a lot longer than the newer usage -- the way she thought it was supposed to be said. me: "Look, I just remember the way the language was 20 years ago, before it was adulterated by the likes of you." Ynnej (not missing a beat): "Don't you mean 'ye'?"

What are friends for?

I'm not so sure it's for this. Ynnej: "You totally look like one of the Weezer guys." me: "I don't even know what the Weezer guys look like." Ynnej: "y'know, like you. Except hot."

Getting so tidy

I'm so happy I finally got rid of almost all my extra wood, which had been taking up far too much room in the corner for the past year. Now I'm working on saying goodbye to a ton of old computer hardware I really don't need taking up floor and loft space. My place is looking a lot bigger today.

Is the a word for "dork" in Elvish?

Ynnej will surely desire this. But it's $75...

Moss and Knoxville enjoy gig -- and kisses

Sorry, Ynnej, looks like your favorite Jackass likes the ultra-skinny girlies. From the Daily Dish: "Supermodel Kate Moss was spotted kissing 'Jackass' star Johnny Knoxville at a London gig on Thursday night. The British beauty, 30, was seen 'all over' Knoxville at a private concert featuring Shane MacGowan and Nick Cave at the Boogaloo in north London -- just days after she split with actor Daniel Craig. A source tells Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper, 'The idea was for Shane to showcase his latest singles and other material for close friends. 'Kate brought Johnny along probably thinking she'd be safe there away from prying eyes. 'She spent the whole evening all over Johnny in the corner. They were (kissing) in full view of the other guests. 'It was quite shocking to see because everyone knows she's only just split from Daniel.' Another onlooker adds, 'She's a single girl having a good time. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a kiss with a good-looking man.' "

I am not a chef

...but my pasta sauce (not scratch, but most definitely not just off-the-shelf) has been recently refered to as "better-than-sex sauce".

Ynnej is going to go ask Apple Store boy out 8)

To: Mark Bult From: Jenny Cade Subject: whew Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 14:17:41 -0700 Okay, here we go. Fry's, then Apple Store. I'm so nervous.

Why do I want to do so much?

If I made a list of all the things about which I say "I want to do 'X' eventually," I would never finish the list.

real life

:? "I have amazing powers of suck."

Cleaning weekend

I really should be working on my portfolio today. But I've spent a bunch of (much needed) time so far this holiday weekend cleaning my studio, clearing off my desk, and switching a large monitor out for a smaller one (only because the larger one is starting to die). And taking apart my keyboard to clean the crud out of it. Let me just say, if you've never done this, you should/shouldn't. Should, because it's probably incredibly filthy. Shouldn't, because it's probably incredibly filthy. Ick. The amount of crumbs, dust, tiny little arm hairs, and assorted unfathomable (thankfully) gunk in my keyboard was absolutely astonishing. And I've only had it a little over a year. Took me close to an hour to clean. Again: ick.

"Life. Don't talk to me about life."

Being a good friend is being incredibly attracted to someone you really love and respect, and yet not sleeping with her because you know you're not what she's looking for and not what would be the best for her. Even though you both really want to. A lot. Being a good friend can really suck hard sometimes.

Desktops for design people

Veer.com

Death Cab

...has a new official website.

re: Firefox

For those who think Firefox is the coolest (and I may join that contingent one day), here are some cool Firefox customization tips. And Jeebus if it didn't take me about 3.5 hours today (and yesterday!) to find this link about the security flaw fix for Ynnej... Holy crap I think I read the entire Internet looking for it. Since this was discovered in late May, the .9 version you are running may have already addressed the problem, although I could find no mention of it on Mozilla.org >:\

Happy 4th, part 1

Spending the Fourth of July reading webcomics in your underwear is not un-American. I don't care what Ashcroft would say, he can

Ah!!!!!! Finally I found it!!!

The damn comic I spent something like six excruciating, mind-bending, frustration-making hours to remember the name of... www.orneryboy.com

the state of web comics

Double Agent is observation and analysis of the state of web comics by Chris Bishop, creator of HER!. And look, Ynnej, it's like you and me.

Support lesbian girly porno!

I came across Colleen Coover's "Small Favors" comic at Lee's last week (Ynnej dragged me in there and ended up needing a prybar to remove me), and I fell in love with the characters and the artwork in this little book. A woman-created comic about the exploits of incredibly cute lesbian girly girls? How could I not fall in love? Actually, I particularly like Coover's really simple, clean illustration style, but the fact that it's about hot little lesbians is a definite triple-score plus. Her style reminds me a little bit of a cross between Chris Bishop (who is awesome) and the creators of "Daria" (except better). What can I say? I really like the minimal style. And, well...lesbians. Support lesbian girly porno! Buy "Small Favors"! [ Book 1 | Book 2 ] Colleen Coover's lj...

I ate too much

I think I spent $80 on iTunes last night. But it all rocks. So it's okay.

Apparently it's summer in CA

Sez Ynnej: "I'm sweating and I'm naked and I'm all spread out and I'm still hot." 8 o

I'm really gonna like Dashboard

Learn more at http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/

For the Firefox fan(s)

Branding Firefox :: How UK designer Jon Hicks re-branded the emerging browser.

The best band ever

www.satanicide.com

Words to live by, whether you're buff or buffed

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." - Buddha The "Enlightened One"

Treesits go East Coast

» linky-dink...

To "buff" or not too "buffed"

Just because "everybody says it this way" doesn't mean it's actually correct. Bubble-burster: When you go to Dictionary.com and look stuff up, you must surely realize that Dictionary.com's definitions are not a single authoritative source. Dictionary.com is in fact a compendium of numerous definitions from various online sources, 11 at last count. Which is why you can go to 11 (or two) different sites (or maybe pick up a real dictionary fercryinoutloud!) and get seemingly endless different (and even conflicting) definitions, pronunciation keys, usages, and origins. Example: When you look up "buffed" at Merriam-Webster, it gives you both "buff" (verb/adj.) -- thinking you misspelled it -- and also the actual word you looked up, "buffed" (adj.): Main Entry: buff Function: adjective 1 : of the color buff 2 or buffed : having a physique enhanced by bodybuilding exercises Again, just because everyone thinks "buff" and "buffed" are the same doesn't make it correct. Being one of the few in the know, I prefer to smugly (very smugly, I admit) but firmly believe that original usage, definition, and pronunciation outweighs what has become fashionable, popular, or simply pervasive. Buying SUVs, chopping down 2,000-year-old trees to make fences, and invading 3rd world countries just because one has the military force to do so are all considered "acceptable usage" -- in fact these are the overwhelmingly popular "acceptable" uses, according to the vast majority of the population. But just because 98% of the population accepts them doesn't make it correct (or right) to me. I realize my smug assertion that I'm right and you're all wrong makes me an elitist prick. I'm okay with that. I strive each day to be better and smarter than I was yesterday; this is my moral responsibility. Indeed it's the moral responsibility of all individuals. And, in a way, you're all correct in your assertion that I'm wrong. Because if it's acceptable to you that "everyone else says it this way, so I will too, in spite of evidence that says I might've been saying it wrong all these years and just following the example of everyone else who was also saying it wrong," then you're correct too. You've got 98% of the population on your side. Go for it.

Ynnej = freak w/ capital f

Sez Ynnej: "I hate it when things are hot in my bed." Sez moi: ,: .

Charlize Theron gets naked?

Ynnej hates it when web comics guys can't spell. Well, I hate it when people use the wrong word. Like when people confuse "buff" with "buffed." They are not, I reapeat, not the same fucking thing. Buff means naked. Buffed means strong. Period. Buff does not mean strong. Jesus christ, people, get a fucking clue. So you can imagine my disappointment when I learned that Charlize Theron was not getting buff in her latest movie, as this headline (mis)stated.

The time has (finally) come

Yes, it's hard to beleive. But yours truly is once again a fully-licensed operator of motor vehicles in the state of California. It only took 7 years, $79, several years for the statute of limitations to expire on my past indescretions, and 1.65 hours at the DMV today (not including the time it took to go to San Mateo and back). But I'm not complaining. I was convinced I was going to show up for my appointment and be told I have to jump through 27 more hoops before I can actually just apply for my license again. But they gave it to me anyway. I only had to go to 3 different windows too. Now I just have to go prove it to the judge in Sonoma and convince him/her that I'm far too handsome to be fined $6,978,054.36 for going way too fast down 101 late at night coming home from a camping trip in HumCo.

The thesis Ynnej should have written

http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/liz-paper-2003/

Aparently the Reaganophiles are using Google now

Here's a little truth with your sugar.

Mother nature strikes backMayhem taints benefit concert at local park

By I.P. Knightly Neon Yellow News Service Palo Alto, CA -- Disaster struck during a blues concert in Foothills Park Friday night as mountain lions, deer, and squirrels emerged from the woodlands to retake their land, attacking horrified human concert-goers who ran for their SUVs in futile atempts to escape the fury of mother nature. The aged and children were easy targets for the fast-moving creatures. At the end of the evening 10,014 were dead, and 23 were missing. "Wait, there were only 350 people there," stated some guy who claimed to be one of the people in charge of the concert. He seemed like he knew what he was talking about, so we ignored him and interviewed imbeciles instead. At the lowlands Command Center set up by Palo Alto Police, rumors circulated that a ransom note fashioned of sticks and leaves was delivered by a scrub jay, but police officials would neither confirm nor deny the report, so we wrote about it anyway. "Nonsense," said Bob Katz, a spokesman and self-described sympethizer with the Foothills Liberation Front, or FLF. "The forest creatures of the foothills would never take hostages. We...I mean they...only kill and eat their prey on the spot. Those 23 'missing' people are definitely goners. The squirrels may be storing knuckles for next winter, but what can you do. The squirrels are freaking nuts, you know." "Listen, the humans have been encroaching on our land for too long," stated Katz. "The Foothills Liberation Front, in solidarity with our comrades in the Plant Liberation Front, will no longer stand by as humanity abuses our peaceful way of life with their horrible blues music." The Plant Liberation Front was unusually silent. Victims One of the victims was D. Fisher Price, described as a journalist-in-training with local tabloid The Daily Drivel. He was gored by a deer and then trampled by seven angry squirrels who appeared to be dancing on his face and pummeling him with acorns. Horrified witnesses could only run for their lives. "It was awful, no one deserves to go like that," stated Palo Alto councilmember Stu Dentloan. "But I suppose he had it coming. After all, he kept referring to the park as a 'preserve' in his newspaper, when everyone knows they're two totally different things." A memorial for Price has been hastily arranged by his employer, The Daily Drivel, which announced an advertising special for anyone who would like to remember him in print with a tasteful full-color front page ad, two for the price of one this week only. "Plant activist" killed Also killed was local resident Douglas Lichen, who reportedly had leapt to the stage when the mayhem began, shouting "Plants first! Plants first!" "I thought he was crazy," said a witness. "I was just running for my life, but I heard him yelling something about the inalienable rights of fungus and how we humans were the scourge that would bring on the end of days. Or some crap like that. Goddamn eco-freaks." Lichen, an activist with Plants First!, was torn apart by crazed mountain lions in the ensuing tragedy. A drum circle for Lichen will be held tonight around the large oak in the middle of Woodrat Field, according to Plants First! spokesbeing Darryl Cherney. Donations of biodiesel will be accepted in lieu of flowers. "Don't kill more plants!" said Cherney.

Official statement on the death of R. Reagan

Concert Friday

Yay! I could be here, but instead I'll be here. Sometimes I just hate my life.

Posting rampage continues (sleep is for suckers)

Stop frame animation. Just like my 4th grade summer school movie making class. Except, um, better. Pretty cool song. Pretty neat video.

Bwahahahahahaaa!

erg

Um, yay for MASH

"Your wife's name is GW Bush and you have 2.5 children. You're a sumo wrestler who drives to work every day in a black Iroc. It's truly a wonderful life when you consider the countless romantic nights you have spent with GW Bush in your shack in Canada."

Can you name

all the Radiohead songs in this yee-haw medley? Be sure to send this MP3 to all your Radiohead friends (or enemies?) who really loathe CW.

"The next 'Bowling for Columbine' "

Ooh, Ynnej, let's go see this. Smash the syndicate!

What the world needs now

is a lot more Roberts. You don't have a right to bitch unless you use your responsibility to vote.

I like books

Is that such a crime? If you answer yes to that, then your answer is really the crime. Books are the receptacles of knowledge that keep us a civilized species. Yeah, yeah, we've got the whole Internet thing and all, but c'mon, it's not a book fercryinoutloud. Books are tangible. They are often beautiful in their tangibleness. For example: well designed books, well printed books, or especially old books, and most especially ones that were produced with the care and craftsmanship that is simply a lost art today. Tipped in sheets. Letterpress. Colophons. Ooh, it makes me shudder just to think about it. To run your fingertips across a wonderful, soft sheet of paper and not only feel the pitted texture of the fibers, but to feel the type itself on a letterpress edition. That's a book. But I like all kinds of books. Not just old ones. Anyone who's seen my place will attest to this. I have hundreds of books. If I could afford it, I'd have thousands (I'm working on it!). Fiction books, nonfiction books, design books, old books, new books, softcover, hardcover, first editions, classics, obscure novels, picture books, children's books, they're all great! I've been cleaning out my dad's attic (since it's mostly my stuff stored up there) since he's planning to sell his house, and I've come across a few boxes of old books from my childhood and young adulthood, and about half of them or more are fantastic things that I want to keep. Golden Books, really old editions of classics like "Little Women" and "Little Men," yellowed Peanuts pocketbooks that I used to read endlessly on summer vacations in Canada, and even some rarities that I might part with, passing them on to collectors on eBay (anyone interested in an early "Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back" comic book?). What can I say? This is probably one of the most important things I have my mom to thank for. The fact that I'm as smart today is directly attributable to how voracious a reader I've always been, and that's a direct result of the fact that my mom always read to me when I was little and I had dozens of books in my little bedroom nook by the time I was old enough to start reading myself. I remember endless trips to the library when I was a wee tyke. Plenty of studies have shown a direct correlation between early literacy and later learning competency and whether kids were read to by their parents. I owe a big thanks to mom for this one. Anyway, in future I intend to start listing some of my favorite books here, not just the tiny "currently reading" list. You've been warned...

Parting, sweet sorrow, and all that crap

Today I resigned. This won't come as a total shock to any of my close compadres who have been well aware of my longstanding and ever-growing discontent with my job. Well, it may surprise Velma a little, since I think she believed I'd never actually do it. The reasons are so many and varied that to list them here would be an exercise in futility (and continued frustration, since I've already been dwelling on them for the past 9 months, and now I simply want to forget and move on). If anyone's really that interested, leave a comment and maybe I'll send you the email I sent MC outlining why I have been an unhappy camper for so long. Suffice it to say, this was definitely an example of One of The Most Difficult Decisions of My Life. BAA became for me an extended family, but in that great way where you actually like your family because they're people you chose instead of people you got stuck with. And in the past 11 years, in which I contributed to the organization in nearly every capacity -- from staff to volunteer, from project leader to designer, from board member to the guy who signed paychecks when there was no one else to do it -- I have never worked with a group of people from whom I have learned more, with whom I have had more fun, and with whom I have been indescribably proud to be associated with. I wish I still felt that way today, but those feelings -- that "second paycheck" -- has been missing for far too long. I know, I know. A bunch of you have been telling me for months (some of you for years), that I'd been underappreciated. I've known you were right. It's just that leaving something that you helped build for the past 11 years is like chopping off an arm. It's not an action you're really anxious to rush into. Well, now it's done. The amputation is complete. In trying to replace me they will fail utterly. I say this with sadness, not in the ha-ha-look-what-you-did way. It's simply that the odds are ridiculous that they will find someone with my broad and diverse experience of skills (writing, editing, communications, marketing, advertising, graphic design, branding, information architecture, web geeking, IT, blah blah blah); unfortunately, the phrase "not bloody likely" echoes in my head. It's simply not very often that you find a really good visual designer (if I do say so myself, and I do) who can also do the geek stuff, and who also has strong writing and editing skills. Then you factor in the salary they're able to pay, and there's just no way they'll find someone competent. I'm terribly afraid they'll hire someone half-assed, who really needs a part-time job and therefore "overcharacterizes" their actual experience in the interview. I am starting to apply for jobs. We'll see if I get weird looks when I show up to interviews with only one arm.

BayCon redux

cosplayers = *shudder* Yeah, there were Klingons, there was the blue opera singer from "The Fifth Element," and there was even a really good Samwise (who, interestingly, was a woman). But nothing compares to the proof positive -- seen here on the Internet for the very first time -- of why Vikings kick ass over pirates any day of the week. Yes, Ynnej and I survived BayCon, in all its dorkiness (it was nearly unberable by the time the masquerade ball rolled around), and my only real regret was that I dropped Ynnej's last piece of sushi, which I still feel bad about. Ynnej's only regret, aside from the fact that she said "okay" when I asked "can I try a bite of that egg sushi?" was that she didn't get sweaty with Viking David.

This guy lucked out

Ynnej, we should work on your resume...

So here we are at DorkFest 2004

Okay, so it was my idea to come. But I was being a good and loyal fan of my favorite author. Jenny's shirt is a hit. She made me write that. She twisted my arm until it hurt. Okay, that isn't really true. But let me show you why it's a hit (see photo). Reflections on DorkFest (a.k.a. BayCon): Jenny and I both agree that this is a surprisingly and amazingly PC community, for a genre that places a lot value on scantily clad women (see the art exhibit). Examples: The fact that a character noticed that a woman standing in front of him had a well-muscled back was "sexist." Ah huh. And that a billboard that another panelist passed on the way to the con was hawking beer with a stereotypical scene portraying a scantily clad woman dancing in front of a man, with the line "Dancing is a spectator sport." Surprising? Isn't dancing a spectator sport? It is for me. I don't dance. I laugh. Mark's non-PC reflection: There is a predominance of people here with really terrible hair and very large asses/hips. And kilts. What's up with that? Jenny pointed out that we are among the more attractive people in attendance. This should strike everyone who's seen me as something of a larf. That's why the photo is of Jenny, not me :) Jenny is a larf too. She made me write that. Next on the agenda, after food, is 13 hours of anime. Um, that's not gonna last. Er, at least, I'm not gonna. Will they have couches? That would rock. Of course, then I would sleep through most of it. Okay, wish us luck...

More from the Ruski

"...Funny you asked about the place where i lived because I went there yesterday. I went to a museum in the neighborhood and then took a walk to find my old house. And there it was: with the store across the street, with the playground out front. The trees used to be lower than the five story building, now they're taller. And hwen I left in '89, they were still building the nine story apartment building across from teh playground and now it seems old and decrepit. Generally, it all looks the same though. Yeah, there's lots of memories. And I'm hanging out with the kids that i grew up with: one of them is married and is about to have a kid, another quit school and is working and has a serious partner, another is about to get sent to the army, another is a top notch physics student at the same university where his and my parents studied and worked. Anyway, it's all a bit weird. I can't wait to get to grandma's though... I feel calmer when I'm in the country. Here, all I have in common with the kids is history..." - Olya

Good advice for Mac users

...on security.

Missive from Novosibirsk

"...So far, everything with the visa is okay, but not completed. Based on new regulations (as of May 20th) I have to register my visa in my place of residence, not in Moscow. And that makes things a bit sketchy because I'm travelling on a visa that's unregisterd, when the law says it must be registered within three days of coming to russia. Also, I have to pull a bunch of shit out of my ass about how I'm employed by a tourist agency, and will be working in Biisk, and therefore need to be registered there. All this visa business is half legal, I have found out. And I am not good at lying much, especially about things like this..." "...This internet time is a bit expensive so I'm outta' here. I love you much! Send everyone a hello (Jenny, Peter, Will, etc), kisses kisses, hugs hugs! :) " -Olya

Read it and weep, Willhelm

Beat this score. I hope you have three hours to kill... heh

Air America Radio on iTunes

Thanks to bitter-girl (hey Velms, and she has a knitting blog [!] ), I learned that WKIZ radio in Key West, FL, has an iTunes feed of Air America Radio. Finally, I don't have to listen on RealPlayer anymore! So, to use it, download this .pls file (.pls = playlist), then drag and drop its icon onto your iTunes, and voila, you're listening to the radio.

Oh, and Ynnej

Mac Hall is pretty good too. Although not as good as Apple Geeks. Oh, and hey Ynnej, I think you should read this article entitled Making Web-Comics Your Day Job. It may be a ways off for you, but ya never know.

I like Mandy, she funny

I like reading random people's blogs. Does that make me a virtual stalker...?

This is beginning to look more like Critic's Corner

"The Insider" shoots to the top of my list of Required Renting/Viewing. Al Pacino plays Lowel Bergman, the CBS News producer who broke the story for "60 Minutes." Russell Crowe plays Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, the ex-Big Tobacco VP who decided to turn state's evidence against the smoking industry and brought the bastards down. The film recounts an epic saga, a true story so much in the vein of "All the President's Men" that it could possibly restore my faith that there may yet be some honor among (some of) the Third Estate. In the face of an ever-rising tide of Fox "News" and MSNBS Kens and Barbies, I've found it depressing in the past couple years to even watch TV news. Journalism has never been so distasteful to me. This film has reinvigorated the feelings of altruism that bit me when I was 18 and made me choose journalism as a craeer path (albeit only for a few years). "The Insider" portrays the power plays made by the bully corporation against the whisteblower. We see the equally monolithic CBS network cave in the face of a legal threat, and we watch the whistelblower hung out to dry, the cracks in his armor begin to get bigger, the steel of his resolved shudder and shake, and it looks like it all might end in disaster. "60 Minutes" producer Bergman can't let it go. He's never let a source be left out in the cold in the face of a power play by a giant run amok or anybody else, and he ain't gonna let it happen this time either, even if they fire him. By now we all know the outcome. It has become world history. Big Tobacco lied. They were dragged out by one man who challenged their lies and backed it up by revealing all he knew as an insider to the industry for years. In this movie, we learn it wasn't just Jeffrey Wigand who we have to thank for Big Tobacco's downfall, it was also Lowell Bergman, and the fickleness of the executives at CBS who nearly killed the story -- did kill it, until Bergman pushed back on his own and risked his career and his neck. I can only hope that there are more Lowell Bergmans than there are Eric Klusters in the journalism world. But I suspect it's the other way around these days.

A cross between "Fast Food Nation" and "Bowling for Columbine"

Zonk and Ynnej and I went to CineArts at Palo Alto Square on Friday night to see "Super Size Me," which was simply fantastic. This indie film won the director of the film (who is also the star and the guinea pig) the Best Drirector award at Sundance this year, and it's clear why. It's a very promising first feature film. Director Morgan Spurlock was sitting on the couch at his childhood home in West Virginia on Thanksgiving 2002, stuffed with turkey and all the fixings, when the concept behind "Super Size Me" came to him. He saw a TV news report about two girls suing McDonald's for making them fat, when he thought, "What if it's true?" If someone went on a McDonald's-only diet for 30 days, would they see a measurable difference in their health? He enlisted the help of not one but three doctors, including a nutritionist, to measure the progress. In just a week, the results were surprising to everyone -- doctors and patient (/guinea pig) alike. The experiment unravels in documentary style: the ensuing weeks are interspersed with fun, funny, and interesting facts, figures, and statistics about "America's favorite food" and the mega-industry that feeds us so much of it. I stopped counting the number of audience-wide gasps and waves of laughter went through the theater. I was to swept up in it myself. I kept noticing that I had to close my mouth because my jaw was slack with disbelief at what I was watching. Like "Bowling for Columbine," this movie goes on my Required Viewing List. See this movie. And yes, it was even worth the theater price (which I rarely deign to pay).

Grrr

I just spent the last couple hours reading several articles, among them these two in the New Yorker and GQ, about the manipulations of foregin policy by the band of neocon pricks in the Beltway. I didn't think I could hate these people any more than I did, but now I do.

Is it just me?

I work with some incomprehinsibly annoying people. But there's one person in particular, who will remain nameless despite my utter willingness to shout her wretched name from the rooftops. She actually emailed me from the office today, as I worked from home, and asked me where the big banner was. Now, the idea to hang our 10-foot by 10-foot banner at the upcoming Green Blues concert was indeed a very good idea. I had already thought of it myself, but that's beside the point. I'm glad she had this good idea. What is completely flabbergasting is that she emailed me -- she's at the office, I'm at home -- to ask me where it is. Let me point out, for those of you who have no idea how big our office is, that it is approximately 14 feet wide and about 35 feet long. There are no closets. Therefore, there are very few places where a 10-foot by 10-foot banner could hide. Even a rolled up 10-foot by 10-foot banner is rather large. I was flabbergasted because I was, as I have pointed out, not at the office. I was at home. She was at the office. In fact, she was sitting 3 feet from the first logical place to look (behind the door, where all the other large, unwieldy items are), and could have simply stood up and looked 3 feet to her right. She was seated all of 15 feet from the next most logical place to look, which was where the banner actually was located. Have I pointed out that I was not even in the building, and that she emailed me to ask where this banner was? Ah, but let me not dwell on the sheer laziness of this. Let me not be outraged by the pure absurdity of emailing a guy 3 miles away to ask where something was that was located a mere 15 feet away. No, let's ignore all that for a moment. But please, dear reader, allow me to point out that what this woman did was to make something an SEP. An SEP, for those of you who haven't read the greatest trilogy that isn't a trilogy, is a Somebody Else's Problem. She had a good idea: "We should hang the big banner at the concert!" her quixotic little mind leaped for joy. "Where is that banner?" her little synapses fired back. "Hmm. Mark made the banner, he'll know," her little intellect conjectured. Now, while I am overjoyed to know that I am apparently The One Who Knows All, and that in her mind, if she doesn't know something, well, "Let's ask Mark," the joy I most positively (sarcasm filter=on) gain from this knowledge does not prevent me from feeling a tad consternated that, upon this realization, her first action was to fire off an email to me (not to actually look for the banner herself), thereby taking my time and attention away from my other work (did I mention that I don't work there on Thursdays?), for an incredibly stupid question which, I must calm myself here to not yell it at the top of my lungs, I HAD ANSWERED FOR HER IN PERSON JUST A FEW WEEKS AGO! I couldn't hold it in. Sorry. Yes, my dear friend, a few short weeks ago, she asked me, "Hey, Mark, do you know where the banner is?" I thought she was talking about the big banner, and said, "I think it's beside the supply cabinet, over there." She went over, reached in, pulled it away from the wall, and said, "This? Oh, no, I meant the little ones for tabling." The point here is, she held the damn thing in her own hand just recently. We had a discussion about it, albeit a brief one. But this was apparently completely lost to her faulty memory when she got the brilliant idea to bug me with this new little question today, taking up my time by making the problem of "I want to find the banner" into "I'll make Mark find the banner for me." This is not only the most inconsiderate kind of coworker, this is an intollerable one. Really. Would a jury convict me?

bog dammit

I scoured the web like a crawlbot for hours, but I simply cannot find that comic I've been looking for all day. Which I could've sworn (and loudly) was called something like "Angry Boy" or "Dead Boy" or...something. Dammit. Oh well. But I did find this, which is cool, because I thought I was the only one who did this... and also AppleGeeks, which Ynnej might like.

The Russian has landed

*snip* To my friends and family, Hello! Yes, I am indeed in Russia! I am in the city of Ivanova (about five hours drive from Moscow) visiting my Warren Wilson friend Ira. We stayed in Moscow one night and did the whole touristy thing; it was great! I don't have much time on the computer because it's really expensive so I'm just letting ya'll know I made it to Russia and everything is great. To everyone that came to my graduation in North Carolina: THANKS A MILLION!!!! I hope you're well. When I get to my grandma's, get settled in, and get bored, you'll surely start getting letters! From Russia with love, Olya *snip*

Looky who's back in CA

Dana Street has free wireless. Wheeee!

*stress*

Oh, I really have far too much to do. Why can't I live on a planet where the days are longer?

Dare to go bare

SF's Bay to Breakers (tomorrow!) is a longtime tradition. So is running it nude, for some people. SFPD are threatenening this year to cite any runners who don't cover up after they cross the finish line at Golden Gate Park. But they wisely declined to chase down runners-in-the-buff during the race. Can you imagine? There were over 200 naked runners last year. The cops'd need a platoon! Good on ya'! I say to the Bare to Breakers!

There must be a word for it

Y'know when you're listening to the radio or something else auditory, and you're also reading or typing at the same time, and someone speaking on the radio says the exact same word you're reading at that very milisecond? And it's not like it's the or but or floobie or something you read/say all the time. No, it's some word like vernacular or ampersand or something you must say/read about 2 times a year. There has to be a word for that. Does anybody know? I may have to read The Meaning of Liff again soon...

The best show on radio

Absolutely the best. The funniest, the most sublime, the most interesting, surprising, appalling, brilliant, entertaining, enthralling, and 27 other adjectives radio program on the air. "This American Life" just rules. If you've never heard it, I simply cannot describe it with mere adjectives. Go. Seek it out. Listen. (Yes, you can listen online at thisamericanlife.org. And if you're in the Bay Area, it's on KQED FM on Saturdays (like right now) at both noon and 10pm.

Lame title, great book

When I read that a journalist from the Austin America-Statesman had written a book about the death of Earth First! activist David "Gypsy" Chain in the North Coast timber wars a few years ago, I was intrigued to pick it up at the bookstore. However, when I read what the title was going to be, I thought, 'Well, that's lame.' But I started reading it last night, and A Good Forest For Dying is an exceptionally good book so far. I am pleasantly surprised. Somewhat startlingly, the first and only Amazon review that came up when I went to build the link for this book was from Gypsy's mother, Cindy Allsbrooks. She gives the book a top-notch review. From my early email correspondence with her -- in the days and weeks after Gypsy's death when I was still one of the best disseminators of info to the rest of the world outside the Redwood Curtain -- and in the years since, when I have had no contact with her but have watched from afar as she become a mediating and calming influence in the heated debate in Humboldt County, I have been wholly impressed by her seemingly endless well of empathy and spirit. I bow to her. If you were interested in the Headwaters Forest saga, this is one of four must-have books.

10 days and counting

Hey Ynnej and Zonk, we should totally have a geekfest weekend after King comes out on DVD, and watch all three extended versions. Sleep? Ha! Who needs sleep?

How to avoid Microsoft products

Well, when you're a web developer and graphic designer, you can never totally steer clear of the Microbehemoth, but...there are ways. I still have to test new website designs in Exploder eventually, but I develop using Safari these days. Willhelm was right when he told me about two years ago that it rocked. But I had no idea until I switched to Jaguar last year, and fell in love with tabbed browsing. So much less window clutter. And the bane of my existence is MS Word. That bloatware is responsible for more crashes, hangs, hugely overinflated document sizes, utterly unnecessary attachments, printing headaches, cross-platform fuckups, and just plain blasted annoyance than any program I've had the displeasure of using in the past 14 years, and so I avoid using it at any cost. Which is of course impossible. Because everydamnbody uses it, everydamnbody sends their .doc files at you and expects you to be able to read them, and everybody thinks MS Word is on everybody else's computer because, well, hey, doesn't it just come with your computer? No. And it's expensive. So I use this. Fuck you, Microsoft. Choke on your bloatware.

Y'know what's cool?

A brand spankin' new PowerBook G4. Y'know what's really cool? Laying in bed making this blog post, via Airport, untethered from the Ethernet and power cord (look ma! no cables!), because I went to check my Airport settings and discovered that someone in my neighborhood has an open wireless network. Hoo-ahh! Thank you! So I'm totally wireless, laying in bed with my new lover -- a svelte little G4 -- having just finished watching "The Nightmare Before Christmas" on DVD, and now listening to Air America Radio streaming on RealPlayer and surfing the Net. Ah, sometimes life is good...

I am ashamed

The events that have come to light in the prison in Iraq in the past couple weeks should have caused our country to announce its complete and immediate withdrawal. Our so-called "leadership" uses words like "despicable" and "unfortunate" to describe their supposed disgust with the actions of our soldiers. Empty words. It's fruitless to point out that the actions of a few should not disparage the entire military. In the eyes of the world, the entire U.S. armed forces has been shamed. Each and every American has been shamed. We should have slunk away with our tails between our legs, hoping that in time the world can forgive our utterly contemptible hypocrisy. I love my country. I hate the people who took it captive.

Write to the Russian midget

Olya will be gone for a year. No way to receive email. I'm not even sure there's a phone at her grandma's, but even if there is, she won't be calling anyone (can you imagine the phone bill?). Send her letters (she advises against sending any packages, since they will probably go astray in the Russian mail system, never to be seen again). Here's her address in Russia. Sorry, it's a graphic. But unless your computer is configured to read Cyrilic encoding (um, get a Mac), you wouldn't be able to read it.

Coooool...

What's better than

watching Spike and Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation while wearing no pants? Nothing, that's what.

Sneak peak

A little taste of what I've been working on for the past couple days, and what I hope to unveil Tuesday or Wednesday if all goes well. That's right, we're havin' a party...

I'm eating cake

Just thought you should know.

Finally a new template

Blogger has updated their site design and apparently added new templates. This one's by Douglas Bowman, www.stopdesign.com. Pretty worthy. Oh, and BTW Ynnej, I have enabled COMMENTS. Wield this awesome new power with wisdom, my child.

Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory

So a couple weeks ago Olya steals my copy of "The Da Vinci Code," which I didn't mind because I hadn't read it yet. I was already working my way through three other books at the time. "OHHHH! Have you read this yet?" she enthused in the Russian midget way that only Olya can. "I've been meaning to read this! Can I borrow it?" She grabbed it before I could even answer and disappeared. A week later she pounds on my door. "You HAVE to read this!" she thrusts the book in my face before she's even through the door. "It's sooo good. OHHH!" she says in that I'm-so-frustrated-that-I-can't-tell-you-why-it's-so-good-because-it'll-ruin-it way. So, yeah, everyone's been talking about this book for the last year or so, and I ordered it through the Quality Paperback Book Club (yeah, so I'm a book dork. so what?) a couple months ago, but I hadn't gotten around to it. I have this thing where I can't plan what book I'm going to read next. I have to pick the new book right after I've finished the last book, by considering what sort of mood I'm in at that particular moment. A little Adams revival, perchance? Pick up some Heinlein I haven't read since 8th grade? Or something new, maybe? One of the endless thriller paperbacks cast off by my dad and picked up by me, hoping there'll be another Le Carre or Forsythe in there somewhere? Or perhaps something from my stacks of obscure material; books I've picked up over the years because the cover looked interesting, so I read the jacket and thought I'd give it a try. Never heard of the author, usually, but what the heck. Surprisingly, some of my most favorite interest-expanding finds have happened this way... Anyway, I was presently working up to the end of "The Cider House Rules" ? which, I might add, Olya had also enthusiastically thrust into my hands recently, that time in a dusty used bookstore in San Francisco ? it would be out of the ordinary for me to, upon finishing one book, choose another recommended by the same friend. But out of the ordinary and me are kissin' cousins, so wouldn't you know it, when I finished "Cider" I was (not entirely surprisingly) in the mood to pick up "Da Vinci." I am not disappointed. A week later I am finished not only with the book (bleary-eyed at 4 this morning), but I have just spent a further I-don't-wanna-say-how-many hours cruising the Net for more info on Opus Dei, Dan Brown, and a plethora of interesting tidbits from the book. Oh, don't even get me started on Opus Dei... If you are into a good thriller, a pager-turner, this is a pretty damn good one. A damn sight better than Grisham's good books (both of them), as well-researched as a Tom Clancy but half as annoying and with thankfully more three-dimensional characters, and while maybe not as brilliant as Le Carre (well, not even close, I admit), at least twice as accessible. But above all, absolutely one of the most FASCINATING books I've read in years. Ooh, I now know why Olya was brimming with even more enthusiasm than usual. Read it. You won't be disappointed. Or I'll give you your money back.

Changing OS X icons

Ynnej, I think this program may be what you were wanting a month or so ago...

Don't mess with this chick

She's pretty badass. Pretty cool art site, tho.

Good news for people who floob

If you put enough butter on even the most burned piece of toast, it's still edible.

Ynnej, are you dorkly enough...

...to recognize even one of the names on this list? I'm not.

the anti-blog

This is for Ynnej and all her Hampshire floobies.

birthday rant

Hey, I just realized I missed my blog's birthday. Apparently I've been posting to this here rant more or less regularly (okay, pretty much 'less' there for awhile) for just a tad over a year now. Um, maybe I should buy my blog a cake...? Well, anyway, today three different people commented on my blog. You know who you are, don't be all greedy for me to name names here, you may regret it one day. But this just confirms something astonishing -- that I have a readership of three. Awesome, the power of the Internet, isn't it? Hmm. I suppose I could go look at my logs for once, and see if anybody else ever reads this tripe...

coool

Okay, even though one of my best friends is going half way around the world and I won't see her for a year or more, I'm suddenly in a slightly better mood. Why for? Well, duh: "Master Blaster (Jammin')", by Stevie Wonder, which I haven't heard since like 4th grade. This is why iTunes fucking rules the universe.

The Russian is gone

Olya has left the building :(

migration=migraine

Currently trying to: 1) move all Acterra.org to a new host and hope all the scripts don't break 2) keep MX/mail records with old host 3) set up e-commerce on new host 4) create entire store from scratch in less than a week 5) create a way to purchase tickets online and do CC processing with our old CC merchant account ...and finally: 6) do this all before next Tuesday, when we've said tickets go on sale for the Green Blues concert we announced last week. I need more Advil...

The most beautiful woman in the world

cool / not cool

Cool: going 111 down 101, but only for 10 seconds (101+10=111). Not cool: getting pulled over by the sheriff. Cool: getting pulled over by the sheriff 10 miles AFTER you've already slowed down. Not cool: "slowed down" to 83. Cool: sheriff doesn't give you a ticket for going 83. Not cool: sheriff still gives you a ticket. for not having a license. oops.

Mark's iTunes index

Number of songs in my iTunes library: 6,003 Number of days I can continuously listen before hearing the same song twice: 17.7 Percentage of songs that were legitimately purchased: approx. 97% Percentage of my CD collection that I've ripped so far: approx. 60%

Palo Alto is so bi(pedal)

Only in Palo Alto. Today I was only slightly surprised, but mightily amused, to see three bikes cross the road today at a crossing, and one was a recumbent, and one was a pennyfarthing (y'know, those really old-fashioned ones with the enormous front wheel).

Damn.

Well, it's 1:38am.

Ohmygod

I can't believe I'm going to get to bed before 1am for the first time in about 2 million years...

Thank bog Earth Day is over

April is always a tough month. Tons of Acterra work to do: Earth Day newsletter, Earth Day website, tons of events to add to the EcoCalendar, the Business Environmental Awards, the Decadent Dinner, the Earth Day Forum, and 742 bloody other things I gotta do. All in 20 hours a week. Hmm...yeah, that's very realistic. Nonprofits exist in an altered state.

Cita

Here's me first pass of Carmencita. I'm working on a bezier version (10-point-word for geeks who know what that means) that'll look a lot better, but this is a colorized version based on my initial pencil sketch. I think I'll call her character Cita. This one's obviously Bishop-influenced.

Not sure if this is a good sign or a bad sign

I think it's a good sign that two of my ex-girlfriends had lunch together the other day and later reported to me that they had decided to form a committee with three objectives: A) convincing me to quit my job, B) convincing me to move to SF, and C) to get me laid. I pointed out that there was a really easy way to fulfill the third item, but they both politely declined. As disappointing as that was (but hardly surprising), I'm at least gratified that they both still think highly enough of me that they want to help me get laid. I guess that's a good sign. Of course, neither one has called with any blind dates, and they both said they're not intending to schedule another meeting of their little cabal, so I'm becoming skeptical of the whole plan. Dammit.

Hmmm...

I just know that everyone's gonna say she has bigger boobs than that...

I blame Ynnej

I blame Ynnej and Chris Bishop for the amount of time I wasted drawing comic characters based (loosely) on people I know. I blame Ynnej because her supremo-slacking powers bring out my own slacker tendencies, and Chris Bishop because I farging love his art, and his paintings inspired me a month ago to finally draw a picture of Carmen that actually looked like Carmen. Okay, this isn't it here, but I'm going to colorize it and put it up eventually too. But I thought I'd colorize Ynnej last night (okay, at about 4am), so here is my first pass. I still need to work on the face a bit: change the eyes a tad, make the lips much smaller (Ynnej, has anyone told you lately that you have very small lips?), and alter the shape of the face a little. But other than that, I like it. Of course, it won't look anything like Ynnej to her Hampshire friends. But you mokes'll just have to trust me; that's what she looked like at 15yo.

Girl power

Yes, it's true, Ynnej has remembered how to be a girl. She even possesses girl clothes again. Well, one sock and most of her underwear, anyway. But this self-portrait is an obvious indication that she's once again regaining awareness that girlness is next to godliness.

Big, I mean REALLY BIG possibilities...

Okay, even though I've been able to do the same thing with Photoshop and Quark XPress since about 1988, I gotta admit that Rasterbator is pretty cool. It puts creation of gigantic coarse-halftone posters in the hands of the people. I have both a huge blank wall and a huge blank storefront window. Ahhh...so many possibilities...

How to do Flash well

This is a very cool interactive Flash website about the renovation of a sustainably-built cabin into a year-round home. It's got sound, motion graphics, user interaction. Very well done. This is the sort of Flash site I aspire to. Now all I need is about three spare months and someone to pay me to do it. hmmm....

Holy crap this totally rules

This is some really amazing animation and some incredibly funny shit.

So you think you can play the harmonica

Hey Ynnej, are you as kick-ass as this white boy?

Who says PC users aren't creative?

I'm about as Mac-partisan as it gets, but this impresses even me.

Whatever happened to the Chipmunks?

I don't think you'll see this on VH1...

Warning: Blogging while drunk may be hazardous to your reputation

Okay, well I'm not really drunk, but a couple hours ago I certainly was (but I reserve the right to blame any typos on inebriation...for example, I have no idea how to spell 'inebriation', and interestingly enough, the Blogger spellchecker flagged 'blogging' and 'for' [?!] but not "inebriation', so I'm gonna say it's correctly spelled). So Will and Olya came over after contra dancing ('contradancing'? i dunno) and we walked a block away to the slightly sketchy bar called Fred's, and had a pitcher and shots of whiskey. The latter of which definitely sent me over. Good thing we walked that one block to Fred's... And then we came back and talked late into the night about Russia (where Olya is moving in a month) and looked at pictures of weird looking vegetables and fruits (Saxton rules), and then looked at Ynnej's latest GCC, which I am waiting for her to update...

The floobie of it all

Some people doubt that "floobie" is all that it's cracked up to be. Surely, these poor, misguided individuals must be pitied. Yet it is neither satisfactory nor friendly to simply look down on their pitiable lives. One must educate these peurile waifs. One must bring them up! Do a good deed today. Make it a point, next time you're in your friend's room, to floobie along to the music. If there's no music on, strategically enthuse, "Boy, it sure would be a lot more comfortable for me to take my shirt off if there was some music on right now." Then, as the notes of [insert musician's name here] lilt through the air, simply start humming along. "Hmmm, hmm hmm hmmmm hummmmm hummm... La de da... hmmm hmm hmm hmm hmmmmmmm hummmmmmm..." and then, when your friend -- the poor pitable one who needs to be elevated to the level of those of us who are privy to the next-to-godliness of floobie -- is just beginning to register how annoying your humming is, insert a subtle "floobie, floobie doobie do" into the lyric. Ka-flam! It'll be like the End of Days™. The world will rend itself apart and a bright light will open up from the sky and your friend will be bathed in the brilliance of floobie. No more will his/her/its lowly life be empty and devoid of purpose, for the sheer oneness of floobie willl have shined upon him/her/it. Surely this will be a new day on Earth. Please copy and paste this into every communication for the next 3.14 years. And what makes you think ka-flam is not a word?  

For ynnej

entirely too little

egads, avert your eyes! it's a nipple!

my bog, now even those blatant flesh-pedders over at mtv are cowering under the pressure of the extreme righties. mtv has moved several of its more "adult" oriented music videos to only air after 10pm. because, as we all know, the kiddies all go to bed at 10. right? ahem. i haven't gone to bed at 10pm since i was in the 3rd grade, and even then i stayed up reading books, with a blanket strategically placed at the foot of the door so as to block out the light and not get busted by the parental unit. what was i reading? why, satanistic smut of course. i think it was "the great brain" and "harriet the spy," those godless tomes of heathendom. how i ever made it past 4th grade without beheading all my classmates, i'll never know. and what has turned the all-powerful mouthpiece of youth culture into jello? why, it's the American Family Association, Bastion of All That is Good and American™ and their new BoycottMTV.net, the newest addition to their scary horde of ultra-conservative hate-spewing Websites For Non-Bigots™, such as NoGayMarriage.com (seriously) and StopLiberalJudges.com. so the AFA has MTV cowering in a corner, and now ABC (can you say "Mickey M.™ owns it"?) is running for cover because NYPD Blue occasionally shows a bare butt. needless to say, no nipples. just a buttcheek or two. maybe a half-second of a profile of a breast (nipple strategically hidden by an arm). oh my. the Red Horde™ surly must be next. surely this sort of blatant exhibitionism of the human body will cause the End Times™?! warning to the San Francisco Chronicle: watch your step, funnyguys, because it's only a matter of time before someone at the AFA realizes the pun in the headline of this article: "Fallout from Janet Jackson's breast-baring continues at TV networks"

Google's perplexing fractal "holiday" logo

I finally tracked down the explanation for the fractal logo design on Google on February 3.

Grrr *fume*

Well, the ol' hard drive on the swank G4 has taken a very serious nosedive after TechTool Pro had supposedly fixed it. This is not very good news. A lot of the files on it I could stand to lose, but the fact that several months' worth of CD ripping into my iTuns folder might be lost is slightly more than annoying. So I spent the better part of (or rather a lot of, but not actually the "better" part, since the better part of Saturday actually involved Cicero's Pizza and the Beatles Laser Light Show at the De Anza College Planetarium) Saturday sitting in front of the computer screen while TechTool told me increasingly good news, then increasingly bad news. But it's incredible that, after all these years, it takes literally days to fix a damn hard drive. Or in this case, fuck one up even more than it was in the first place. Oh joy. Technology makes our life easier... Right?

Help, I've been pantsed! Er, or is it "de-pantsed" ?

You know what's interesting? (Or possibly not very interesting after all, but at 5:16am it's getting really hard to tell...) The words "pantsed" and "de-pantsed" mean the same thing.

This is fairly insipid

Probably not a very good T-shirt: "Ya know? ...Well, as long as you don't know, then you don't know that I don't know."

Caffiene is my god

Ahh, let's hear it for extra strong coffee* and the need to stay up all night working 24 hours straight... Well, when I say "working" I of course mean that I'll be multi-tasking about nine different things, so who knows whether I'll actually be 100% productive or not. I'm currently: Ripping CDs to iTunes (listening to Lynch Mob while ripping Red Hot Chili Peppers), checking email on occasion, building the new AuctionDrop website's UI, and blogging (duh). Oh, and ignoring the phone. * By the way, I still have no idea who bought me Wake the Fuck Up Coffee and put it on my desk. Own up, whoever you are... But thank you, it smells beautiful, and I'm currently operating on 10 cups of it.

Note to self: Conversation/argument with Jason about the definition of "generation," and the (false) theory that the more widely known definition of a word, although incorrect, is more valid than the correct definition. Counter-argument: By this same logic, the fact that a vast majority of Americans still believe -- after widely publicized evidence to the contrary and plenty of public admissions by BushCo -- that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 means that it must be true that Iraq had something to do with 9/11.

On the need for cultural literacy. Even when it's Americulture

Update: I finally found a link to the jingle [RealPlayer]. This one's for Jenny, who has never heard of Doctor Who and has never heard the classic Coca-Cola jingle ("I'd like to buy, the world a Coke...") ...and this one's for GWB.

This is a test. THIS IS ONLY A TEST. Do not panic. Locate your towel. Hold your towel firmly. We repeat: This is only a test.

Okay, so one thing that sucks about Blogger is that the support website is tremendously slow. Well, let's hope this is only a temporary thing...

I've just installed this weblog on my site and I'm experimenting with it. I'm using Blogger for the backend, which was relatively easy to install (a few glitches later, I'm up and running), which is cool because it allows me to post through a web browser from any computer. I'm also going to experiment with some Mac OS X freeware and sharware apps I found at VersionTracker.com to see if I can automate the process even further, such as a handy AppleScript I found there that'll allow me to Blog from any application. If it works... I'll let ya know!