Weekend Beats

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

I had a fantastically groovy weekend.  Played a little Zelda WindWaker, indulged in a 6-mile hike to Bass Lake in Pt. Reyes, Nicole moved to SF, spent some time with Lydia, got a manicure, and now I'm checking out 0.03 release of Data::ObjectDriver.  Life's good.  Here are some beats from Four Tet to celebrate groovy weekends:

QotD: They're Grrreat!

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

What or who is your favorite product mascot?  Why?

Ok, so maybe this isn't an officially-sanctioned mascot or spokesperson, but I've always associated Mr. T with MovableType because they're both powerful and well-designed:

QotD: It's hot in here...

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

What's the most extreme weather you've been in?  A memorable storm?  Heat wave? Or something else?

A childhood vacation.  I don't remember whether it was Ocean Beach or Virginia Beach.  But there was a hurricane.  My father, sister and I were actually in the water being tossed about and having the time of our lives while they were issuing evacuation orders.  We didn't know at the time that the storm had been upgraded to hurricane status, we were just amazed at how large the waves were.  The most extreme weather and perhaps one of the best days of my life.

(No, it wasn't the safest thing to do, but both my sister and I had been on the local swim team and were pretty strong swimmers).

Travel is Dangerous

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

Phew. So that was Vancouver.

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

Long week finally over.

So the company I've been doing work for just acquired 8 new locations in the Vancouver area and sent me up to do some site surveys and install some new pieces of network infrastructure.  What I found when I got to these locations was pretty shocking.

One week was certainly not enough time to hit all 8 centers.  I could've spent a week at each individual location and still have stuff left to do.  Sadly, this meant I didn't get to see much of Vancouver.  What I did see, I liked very much.

My hotel was far enough out of the downtown area and into the ghetto that I got to see some interesting sights.  One of my favorites was a public service ad for recycling where a stick figure who dropped some trash on the ground was bitten in half by a great white shark.  Yeah.  I also saw a Masonic lodge with a gaudy neon sign on the outside.  I saw a crew filming some skateboarders grinding on some corporate sculptures downtown.

I got a license for XP SP2 while I was up here so I finally finished my install of XP under Parallels.  Got it set up with VirtueDesktops and it's so neat.  I'm surprised at how fast the emulated Windows feels, and I love that Windows can totally crash and not affect the work I need to do.

I'm looking forward to being home and sleeping in tomorrow.

QotD: Celebrational Muppetational!

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

Who is your favorite Muppet?  Why?

QotD submitted by knitwitology.vox.com

Animal.  Why?  Hmm... Animal Cantina

Eyes

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

In honor of the pending new Cornelius release, I bring you Eyes:

New Cornelius 8/23

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

This is very exciting to me.  Be warned; it's a full-browser-window QTVR with sound.  Click through to the promo for the next release on 9/27.  And lest we forget, new Tortoise on 8/22.  August will be a wonderfully musical month.

The Best of The Legendary Pink Dots

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

In honor of tonight's show, I thought I'd whip together a playlist of my favorite songs by The Legendary Pink Dots.  I first heard them in college, downloaded off some random Hotline server (yes, Hotline, remember that?).  I've only seen them perform once, in NYC, so I'm looking forward to tonight's show very much.  Without further ado, the songs and the albums they can be found on:

1. Birdie (All the King's Horses)
2. Prague Spring (Canta Mientras Puedas)
3. Friend - version (Canta Mientras Puedas)
4. Clockwise (From Here You'll Watch the World Go By)
5. Damien (From Here You'll Watch the World Go By)
6. This Hollowed Ground (From Here You'll Watch the World Go By)
7. Home (Maria Dimension)
8. Damien Remix (Remember Me This Way)
9. Belladonna (Canta Mientras Puedas)
10. I Love You in Your Tragic Beauty (Crushed Velvet Apocalypse)
11. The Angel Trail (Canta Mientras Puedas)
12. Princess Coldheart (Crushed Velvet Apocalypse)
13. The Ocean Cried 'Blue Murder' (Maria Dimension)
14. Slaapliedje (Nemesis Online)

Omitted from the list, but still very good when done in the studio is Saucers #1.  All the live versions I've heard of it are super-sketchy.

Update: if you're a lala.com user, you can listen to this playlist if you search for "the best LPD".

The Weblog RPG

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

I just had a "wtf" moment, when I followed a link over at digg and found the following text:

By registering an account with us you could receive experience points for viewing an article like this.  Those points could have been used to enter our monthly drawing for cool free prizes.

There was no mention of how much exp will be required to reach the next level of the blog.

Quick Update

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

Trip to Vancouver is back on for 7/16 through 7/21.  7/22 is the Flaming Lips show with Tish and Amy.  Last weekend (せんしゅう) hedre and I went to Fort Funston for the first time.  Yesterday (きのう), Tish, David, Jeremy, Fiona and I saw A Scanner Darkly.  This weekend (こんしゅうまつ), I plan on seeing The Legendary Pink Dots at Slims.

Congrats to the Vox Team on the 0.8.0 release.  As usual, the new themes don't disappoint and I'm pleased to see the qotd update.  One thing I'm noticing is that suddenly the compose page has for "link" buttons and four matching "center item" buttons.  Weird.

I'm going to try to limit my Japanese-only entries, as they're just for practice and they seem to bug people.  Instead, I'll work my vocab into regular entries and y'all can just deal with it.  For instance - there's a nifty Shadow of the Colossus statue for $88 - or 10,290 yen (いちまんにひゃくきゅじゅうえん).

Last weekend I also took my first Iaido class.  It's a bit tough on the knees and shoulders, but probably less so than Kendo would be.  I'm more interested in a formal art based on katas and kumite - at least for now.  I had an uneventful fourth of July - stayed home, cleaned house, watched lame movies and made about a billion Japanese (にほんご) flashcards.

きょうは きんーようびです。。。

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

こんにちは！

きのうは　ろくーがつ、　にじゅうくーにち、　もくーようびでした。

きょうは　ろくーがつ、　さんじゅうーにち、　きんーようびです。

あしたは　しちーがつ、　ついたち、　どーようびです。

いま　なんじですか？

ごご　ごじーさんじゅうよんふんです。

きのうは　げつーようび　でしたか？
いいえ、　きのうは　げつーようび　では　ありませんでした。

Blissful

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

Jen-tizzle snapped this shot of me somewhere up in the Marin headlands.  I dig it.  There are more pictures from her visit here.

Feel Better, Rui!

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

Rui Carmo is recovering from a hospitalization.  He runs the blog/wiki The Tao of Mac, which is hands-down my favorite place to go for industry news, insights, and humor.  He's closed all commenting on his site and is already inundated with email, so I'm posted this in hopes that it shows up in his referer logs.  You're in my thoughts today, Rui.  Get better.

Egads!

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

I can't think of a worse way to die:

A Disney Web site description of the ride says: "Zoom from 0-60 mph with the force of a supersonic F-14, take in high-speed loops and turns synchronized to a specially recorded Aerosmith soundtrack."

Poor kid.

きょうは もくーようびです。。。

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

きょうは　ろくーがつ　にじゅくーにち　もくーようび　です。

きのうは　すいーようび　でした。

あしたは　きんーようび　です。

わたし　の　たんじょびは　ごーがつ　じゅくーにち　です。

あなた　の　たんじょび　いつ　ですか。

More quarters please...

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

Does pinball count?  Arcade games were fine and dandy - I have fond memories of spending hours in front of the original Gauntlet multi-player and also Samurai Shodown (yeah, I think they really spelled it Shodown)... but I loved pinball the best.

Jen and I visited Santa Cruz boardwalk last weekend and I found my all-time favorite pinball game - Funhouse.  I took a picture for old times sake.  They had one of these at the local Chuck E. Cheese's where I grew up.  There was a big, creepy animatronic head that would taunt you.  I loved it.

Hooray for Robots!

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

I really dig the new robot themes.  Mena ftw!  Also; I got a nifty error telling me that the Compose doesn't work in Safari, but I don't seem to be having a problem.  Maybe I'm just not using all the whiz-bang features.

I love this recipe...

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

Spicy tofu stir fry!  Tofu cubes, red and yellow bell peppers, garlic and green onions, string beans and zucchini, roasted pine nuts and drizzled with a bit of honey and lime juice to make it sweet.  You roll the tofu cubes in a super-secret spice mixture prior to frying them.

Morning Jazz

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)



Dropped my car off at the shop this morning for its 7500-mile inspection - just a thousand miles late.  Took the buss through the Tenderloin (always an adventure) and stopped off at the Apple store to ogle the new Macbooks before walking into work at the SoMA office.  All the while I was in the mood for jazz...

I would've liked to share a video with you, but YouTube's API seems to be funky.  It's not finding the video I'm after, so I can't add it to my Vox collection.  But if you're in the mood for some morning jazz, check out Sculpture by Skalpel.

Update: Searching again, later, I was able to find the video for Sculpture - don't know if anything was changed or if YouTube has some caching that needed updating or what.  Anyway, it's here so I'm adding it to the top of this post.  Cheers.