April 2008
45 posts
extraview: Garrett Murray →
Ben interviews me briefly about Maniacal Rage TV. Check out the archive for other people he has interviewed, including NNN’s Tim Shey.
“And lastly could you record yourself saying, ‘I have a serious bed-wetting...”
– Shawn, requesting some useful audio from me
Introducing the Qwick Reviews Podcast →
I’ve been having a lot of fun creating these little reviews and I’m going to keep doing it. So subscribe to the podcast to get them automatically from here on out!
Watch15 Second Sandwich Review
I made this product, and then reviewed it. Again, we’re back to questioning my objectivity.
Watch90 Second Harmony One Review
I think it becomes clear, about half-way through this review, that I like this product. Perhaps I should distance myself and my love a little more from the products I’m reviewing so people don’t consider me biased.
HD version available at Vimeo.
My favorite part of last night’s LOST episode was the moment when, in classic television fashion, the writers needed to get rid of some background characters at the Locke camp so they had a terrible scene in which a BG character gets shot, and then another one rushes out to help her and gets shot, and then another one rushes out to help him and gets shot.
It was ridiculous. A woman comes...
“Crazy people never understand the extent of their insanity. That is why we have...”
– My sister in an SMS message
Watch45 Second Shower Head Review
If you’re considering buying a new shower head, you might be interested in this review.
Sorry for the bad sound in places but, you know, I was IN MY SHOWER.
After I wrote about a recent Fresh Direct onion/grape mishap, someone from Fresh Direct emailed me. And then someone called me. Crazy! The message they left was very long and very pained. The rep apologized about 100 times and kept telling me they would be working to fix the situation.
Note to Fresh Direct: I was just poking fun. I still love you (and recommend you). I think you might be taking...
Watch60 Second Haircut Review
An in-depth look at my haircut. HD version at Vimeo.
As an experiment, I just uploaded the same video (56mb 1920x1080 MP4) to both Flickr and Vimeo at the same time. Here are the results:
Flickr
Upload time was about 10 minutes.
Wait time after upload before proccessing was zero.
Total processing time was 05:37 and the video was ready to play.
Vimeo
Upload time was about 15 minutes.
Wait time after upload before processing was 41...
Watch90 Second SD750 Review
My very specific and absolutely accurate review of my new pocket camera.
View it at Vimeo for the HD version.
I’ve been on a big grapes kick lately. Naturally, the last time I ordered groceries from Fresh Direct, I added a bunch of seedless red grapes to my purchase.
When the groceries were delivered I was emptying the boxes and putting food away when I noticed there were no grapes to be found. Instead, there were two red onions in a plastic bag. The bag was labeled “Seedless Grapes”...
It was bound to happen eventually, but after four or so years of being tossed into random bags, my junk-filled pockets, a waterproof case and other such places, my little Canon SD400 is starting to die on me. The toggle switch for preview/movie/photo mode is extremely flaky (sometimes I can’t switch to photo mode and it’s stuck in movie mode), the screen will turn off and on at times,...
Reminder: Tumblr Users Group on Flickr →
If you’ve got a custom design for your Tumblr site, head over to Flickr and share a screenshot with the rest of the users. Lots of great stuff in there!
2m42s.muxtape.com →
A muxtape of songs which are 2 minutes and 42 seconds long—a length Josh Allen thinks is the perfect song length. (via kottke)
I’m constantly fascinated with America’s fear of sex and love of violence. Ars Technica recently published a news story titled “Parents: Severed heads in games bad for kids; sex is worse,” which pretty much sums up the general feeling in our country. Have we really gone so far with our sexual prudishness so as to prefer our children watch someone’s head forcibly...
“I’m on a first-name basis with my UPS delivery guy now. Well, he knows my...”
– Me, describing my recently made friendship
WatchULTIMATE Unboxing
“Hopefully I can keep this box MINT so that I can get a penny of two for it on eBay when this video goes out.”
1 tag
Tip: Remove items from the Services menu
Both a pro and con of the services menu is that it allows applications to set global keyboard shortcuts. Sometimes these can be very close to shortcuts you’re used to using in a favorite application, leading you to accidentally firing off a service rather than what you wanted from time to time.
Use the free app Service Scrubber to nuke the...
Droste Effect Packaging →
I’ve always found the Land O’ Lakes butter packaging strange (the woman holding another package), but I didn’t realize there was a name for the type of illustration. I just called it the “infinite butter effect.”
Today is the 23rd day in a row that I’ve worked. Granted, I haven’t worked a full 8-hours each of those 23 days, but there have been several where I worked more than 8 hours so it evens out. I think in between these two projects I’m going to take a nice long weekend and lie in the grass somewhere.
WatchNeighborhood Bike Ride
A spring-like day was an excellent chance to take a bike ride around the neighborhood and shoot some HD footage.
View at Vimeo for HD quality.
The LOST Script Style →
What’s strange about this is that while I understand the point of doing it in the script, I don’t see nearly enough references to “Jack is standing in a plain room and he JUST STARTS FUCKING CRYING.” You know, because Matthew Fox is always crying.
WatchCaptain the Opposite of Planet
“Something is dangerously strange with our dials and meters!”
GitHub →
Looking forward to trying this out with my next dev project. I’ve been using SVN for years now, but I like what I’m seeing with Git recently. Haven’t had a chance to try it, but I will soon.
One thing I see that’s missing here is integrated and automatic testing, one of Roundhaus’ killer features I hope GitHub eventually adds.
Firefox Add-ons: Fission →
I’ve been looking for something like this for a while. Even though I only use FF for webdev testing, it still bothers me not having a good loading indicator in the top of the window. (via gruber)
MRPC: Episode 30 →
The podcast officially becomes a thirty-something. Nothing better for a 30th birthday gift than neurosis, sickness, noise and cougars. NOTHING BETTER.
WatchYour Mother
“It’s her cholesterol levels… I mean, you wouldn’t want to eat it, but it is technically mayonnaise.”
Simple comments you might think about writing in response to a nice video you saw on Vimeo of a pretty girl singing a song, but that you shouldn’t write because your sense of humor doesn’t come through in text nearly as well as it does in person and she’ll think you’re either a jerk or suffering from some sort of neurological post-op medical condition:
This was pretty...
The shoes I ordered from J.Crew are really comfortable, they fit correctly, and they look nice. The problem is, the inside is soft leather and they squeak and creak as I walk. A lot. It sounds like I’m wearing rubber shoes or something.
I’m wondering if I wear them for a while inside the sound will go away after the leather breaks in a little bit. I hope so, because right now...
Last night I had an absurd night of insomnia: Fell asleep at 8PM, woke up at 12AM, finally fell back to sleep at 7AM, woke up at 10AM. NOT AWESOME.
I just sent my mom a link to Postcards From Yo Mamma because a lot of her emails to me would be perfect for that site (it’s crazy to see how basically all mothers write the same kinds of emails), and now she’s reading them out loud over the phone and laughing. Awesome.
Behind the Scenes Photos: MRTV Episode 4 →
It’s hard to describe just how thoroughly I am in love with each and every one of these photos.
I use the invisible feature of iChat almost daily. I have trouble focusing on work, so being invisible allows me to message people when I need to but not get any unsolicited incoming messages. The only problem is, there are certain people who I want to be able to see my status and message me at any time.
What the invisible feature needs is a global setting (mark yourself invisible) with a...