Ooh ... shiny.

Found this while looking for something else. I’d seen the...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:32:34 -0700

Found this while looking for something else. I’d seen the Buddy solo, but not Vinnie’s. A lot of fun seeing them edited together.

There are no ees and aaahs.

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:19:43 -0700

Joey: "Oh. Oh oh. Ooh. Ah! Oh. Eee. Oh! Oh oh." Christopher Walker performs Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" http://bit.ly/4ouTSr
Ashley: When does she sing "Ooh. Ah! Oh. Eee. Oh!"?
Joey: I wouldn't know. Perhaps someone on the show's staff made it up?
Ashley: right... so then why is it funny? Like... you quoted shit that's not even in the song.
Joey: I pulled it up on YouTube, and now I'm not sure what you're talking about. He's reading the moany bit before the chorus, no?
Ashley: those are only ohs. There are no ees and aaahs.
Joey: And with that, this may have become the funniest conversation about music I've ever been part of.

"Paul is awsome as a singer, but there very best songs were John singihg, He had such clerity, sush..."

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:35:34 -0600

“Paul is awsome as a singer, but there very best songs were John singihg, He had such clerity, sush a shame he denounced Christ”

- A YouTube comment on this “The Night Before” video. YouTube comments are a go-to source for weird, but every so often one raises the bar.

Craig Ferguson, 09.24.2009 (Trying out Sketchbook on iPhone.)

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:34:13 -0600

Craig Ferguson, 09.24.2009

(Trying out Sketchbook on iPhone.)

Who wouldn’t want in on some of this action? The roof, the...

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:17:00 -0600

Who wouldn’t want in on some of this action?

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.

(Click image for video reference.)

"‘I deal only with classic literature. I don’t deal with stuff recommended by Oprah..."

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:52:00 -0600

“‘I deal only with classic literature. I don’t deal with stuff recommended by Oprah Winfrey,’ he notes with an arrogance that’s striking for a guy scourged with winged pests that feed on the blood of humans.”

- Don’t let the bedbooks bite

"Most people add milk and sugar because they’ve only ever had bad coffee as a result of extremely..."

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:18:00 -0600

“Most people add milk and sugar because they’ve only ever had bad coffee as a result of extremely stale beans, not enough grounds to water, and awful coffee makers. Bad coffee needs milk and sugar to be palatable to nearly anyone. And most people have no idea what they’re missing. Listening to someone rave about the great coffee from their office’s new pod-canister machine or the great new brew at Starbucks is like hearing a repressed, middle-aged woman say ‘I’ve had orgasms before… I think.’”

- From Cold-brewed coffee results at Marco.org

DiddyBjorkKanye

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:12:19 -0600

DiddyBjorkKanye

Contents of the SQE OP Care Package that just arrived: 2...

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:10:00 -0600

Contents of the SQE OP Care Package that just arrived:

2 birthday hats
1 package Girl Scout cookies
1 Better Software “photo holder”
1 coghead sticker
1 pugilist giraffe pen
1 toy web shooter
1 carabiner calculator
4 packages Smarties
1 StickyMinds brain pad
1 National Zoo Sumatran tiger factoid pen
1 PETCO Pals keychain card
1 inspirational pamphlet from the sometimes-angry Grandmaster Y.K. Kim, who, I hear, has eaten pet food in dire times
And, buried deep in the shadowy bits of this “Small Box” from FedEx, a mini DV cassette, which was the point of it all.

Feel free to live out your wildest Where’s Waldo fantasies. (Hint: He’s under one of the birthday hats, eating a Girl Scout cookie.)

It wouldn’t keep me alive for long after nuclear holocaust, but it made for a nice surprise on a Friday afternoon at the end of what I have been assured is “Seriously. Longest week EVER.”

Thanks, coworkers with too much stuff in their offices. I appreciate it.

(I like Samoas. Just putting that out there.)

Few & Far Between

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:00:00 -0600

I’ve been reorganizing my music collection all summer. It shouldn’t have taken this long, but once I got the CDs in alphabetical stacks, I realized the next step would be putting those CDs in giant cases and disposing of the jewel cases—some of which I’ve had since I was 10. I know this is ridiculous, but some of those went to the Netherlands with me in 1993. They’re just plastic, but those scratches—some of those probably came from when I droped my CDs down a stairwell in Amsterdam. That’s history, folks.

Anyway, I just came across the 10,000 Maniacs single for “Few & Far Between.” In addition to the album version of that song, it also has a live version of “Candy Everybody Wants” with guest vocals from Michael Stipe, a live covers of “To Sir with Love” and “Let the Mystery Be” (by Iris DeMent, who also wrote “Our Town,” which was the last song played on Northern Exposure and of which Kate Rusby does a moving cover), the latter of which is a duet with David Byrne from MTV Unplugged.

The single came out in 1993. Inside the “Printed on recycled paper” packaging is the following message:

Dear friend,

in 1992, young people turned the tide of political apathy—11 million of us went to the polls on November 3, a record breaking turn-out.

By voting in large numbers we seized the nation’s attention. Now we have a chance to make an impact on those issues that effect young Americans everyday, like tolerance, censorship, health care, the economy, and educational funding.

Rock The Vote gives you a way to get involved in politics and make your voice heard—as part of a huge movement of young Americans fighting together for the youth agenda in our schools, our communities, our workplaces and our culture.

Last year we won political power. ROCK THE VOTE is the way to use it.

Natalie Merchant

I tried to copy this accurately, including “issues that effect young Americans.” I won’t hold that against Natalie or Elektra’s copyeditor. Effect/affect aside, the message is a very interesting read, all these years later.

On one hand, if Merchant and MTV’s Rock the Vote people could have seen the 2008 election in the future, they would’ve been that much more driven. On the other hand, if they could have seen the intervening years—or, for that matter, much of 2009 so far—they probably would’ve shut the whole thing down.

In 15 years or so, someone’s going to look back at the Will.i.am video and wonder the same thing. Hell, half the country’s probably thinking it now about … I don’t know, did any musicians do songs about John McCain and the hope he brought to the nation?

Election season (however long or short) is a time for action. You can be hopeful and exuberant or angry and soapboxing, but it’s easy to be active—to feel like things might go your way if a percent of the population swings one way or the other.

And then, a few weeks later, when half the voters come down from nirvana, and the other half climb up out of their doldrums, we all meet in the middle and sit around and wonder what why we feel pretty much the same as we did a year ago.

Maybe it’s a problem with the two-party system. Maybe it’s just a problem with systems in general. Maybe it’s a problem with us.

Everybody’s wondering what and where they all came from.
Everybody’s worried ‘bout where we’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done.
Nobody knows for certain, and so it’s all the same to me.
I think I’ll just let the mystery be.

Big Brother and other relative things

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:03:00 -0600

I just clicked on a link in a Twitter post. It was meant to go to http://shuffletime.com, but instead it took me to a Twitter error page, with the following URL in the location bar:

http://twitter.com/link_click_count?url=http%3A%2F%2Fshuffletime.com%2F&linkType=web&tweetId=0000000001&userId=00000001&authenticity_token=10faff63z984ffef870f2ca039234a808dffb33c

[I changed the tweetId, userId, and authenticity_token, just because.]

It seems to show some of Twitter’s insides. No surprise that they track information related to links. Probably helpful for the API. Seeing it is interesting, but not scary (another day, another Twitter bug).

This, on the other hand, is a little scary: London Bus with 16 CCTV cameras inside.

2 things

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:28:35 -0600

First, the obvious: new blog theme. I like it, but it could just be the 1 am talking. What is it about blogs that makes you want to re-theme them in the middle of the night?

Second: I’ve started a photolog separate from the main blog. It’s called fewer words, and you can get to it from the top of this page. Not yet sure if I’ll post all photos over there, will post some photos over there, or will abandon it altogether after having forgotten that I created it.

Used the snap-the-photo-without-looking method. Love it. (Re:...

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:29:21 -0600

Used the snap-the-photo-without-looking method. Love it.

(Re: my earlier post—Shake It Photo doesn’t put the filter on the original, so it’s filter+frame or nothing.)

Playing with Shake It Photo iPhone app. Photo from Denver...

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:19:00 -0600

Playing with Shake It Photo iPhone app. Photo from Denver Botanic Gardens. Really wish there were an option to turn off the shake-to-develop feature (never my favorite part of using a Polaroid). I’d also like to be able to turn off the frame from within the app, but turning on the Keep Original feature saves a frameless version in the photo library, while keeping the filter on the image.

Of course, there probably are other apps that offer a similar filter along with other effects, but paying $0.99 for this is a little like buying a cheap Lomo—not a lot of cash for some nice photographic chaos.

This is pretty much what my week has looked like. What about...

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:28:00 -0600

This is pretty much what my week has looked like. What about yours?

The MacBook Pro (my work machine) has been in the shop for two weeks, having much of it’s innards replaced. Also, the weather was a little warm for a few days (though I think it got down to 59 last night, and might hit 51 on Sunday), so I’ve been hunched over my personal Mac in the coolness of the basement. The MBP’s fixed now, so I’ll likely be back upstairs in the office tomorrow.

I’ve never been so excited about editing video. Even before going in the shop, the MBP has been a bit of a hassle for months. Fingers crossed that it works as it should (and that, if it’s got any more breaking to do, it does it in the next year, before the service plan ends).

No offense to my personal Macbook, of course, which has performed like a champ. Mostly.

Also, today marks one week with she-who-knows-nothing-of-personal-space. In this photo, she’s pondering the age-old question of whether she will eat the iPhone or sneeze on my shoulder. It’s a trick question, of course, because the answer is both.

Artist Point, Flagstaff Rd, Boulder

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:11:54 -0600

Artist Point, Flagstaff Rd, Boulder

Kitten being useful

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:07:34 -0600

Kitten being useful

Tumblr lets me post audio, video, text … but not scent. This Whole Foods smells like raw fish...

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:46:00 -0600

Tumblr lets me post audio, video, text … but not scent. This Whole Foods smells like raw fish and fragrant soap (in bulk).

"Seem sad and self-involved to unapologetically love something you helped make? Sure. Whatever. But,..."

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:01:00 -0600

“Seem sad and self-involved to unapologetically love something you helped make? Sure. Whatever. But, Jesus, does it ever feel a thousand times better than never having made something you genuinely think turned out great. Seriously. Now that I’ve had it both ways, I can highly recommend choosing to make things you like with people you think are awesome. By comparison, the private consolations of doing otherwise turn out to be surprisingly modest.”

- Merlin Mann

"Joey, when you’re done with your dinner, you can play princess ball with Drew."

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:06:38 -0600

“Joey, when you’re done with your dinner, you can play princess ball with Drew.”

- Taylor G, 3 years old

Ooh ... shiny.

Found this while looking for something else. I’d seen the...

There are no ees and aaahs.

"Paul is awsome as a singer, but there very best songs were John singihg, He had such clerity, sush﻿..."

Craig Ferguson, 09.24.2009 (Trying out Sketchbook on iPhone.)

Who wouldn’t want in on some of this action? The roof, the...

"‘I deal only with classic literature. I don’t deal with stuff recommended by Oprah..."

"Most people add milk and sugar because they’ve only ever had bad coffee as a result of extremely..."

DiddyBjorkKanye

Contents of the SQE OP Care Package that just arrived: 2...

Few & Far Between

Big Brother and other relative things

2 things

Used the snap-the-photo-without-looking method. Love it. (Re:...

Playing with Shake It Photo iPhone app. Photo from Denver...

This is pretty much what my week has looked like. What about...

Artist Point, Flagstaff Rd, Boulder

Kitten being useful

Tumblr lets me post audio, video, text … but not scent. This Whole Foods smells like raw fish...

"Seem sad and self-involved to unapologetically love something you helped make? Sure. Whatever. But,..."

"Joey, when you’re done with your dinner, you can play princess ball with Drew."

"Paul is awsome as a singer, but there very best songs were John singihg, He had such clerity, sush..."