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I watched and enjoyed Ghost Dog last night, marking the first time in months that I’ve seen a new movie that I really enjoyed (the last one being Gladiator). The movie season just sucks this year. Guh. But I would recommend picking up Ghost Dog on video.
Today I start my new career as an ePIMP, with protection by the 37signals crime syndicate. Now all I need are some eHOs & a felt hat and I’m on my way.
Boom Box is an excellent article from The New York Times Magazine on the advent of smart television recording systems like TiVo and ReplayTV:
“The owners of the 100,000 or so black boxes that have already been installed have two distinctly unsettling new habits. The first is that they don’t watch scheduled TV anymore. […] But that isn’t the worst news that TiVo and Replay have for the television networks. The worst news is that no one watches commercials anymore. Eighty-eight percent - 88 percent! - of the advertisements in the programs seen by viewers on their black boxes went unwatched. If no one watches commercials, then there is no commercial television.”
Diarrhea Britannica is the best name I’ve seen for a Web site in a long while.
eXtremeModeling.org is probably not what you think it is, unless you’re interested in “a synthesis of model-based processes and Extreme Programming (XP)”.
Finally. Finally. Finally. I’ve added a search capability to kottke.org. This feature is still in a beta phase as I tinker with how I want it to work, but at least it’s working. You’ll find the search over on the left-hand side of the screen. Comments are welcome.
The above search is courtesy of Atomz.com. I really cannot say enough about how easy and flexible their search service is. Very cool.
I’m toying with getting rid of the modify feature of kottke.org. There are a bunch of features that I want to add to the site to make it more usable for visitors (like the search mentioned above), but the currently available interfaces aren’t that flexible. So, at some point, I think those interfaces will have to go. I’ll probably keep the text-only interface (modified to add the new functionality), but that will be it. As much as we’d like it to be, the information and the design are sometimes inseparable.
Some interesting stuff in the Communication Arts Interactive Design Annual.
Darby and Kelly, a couple of my co-workers, kidnapped my Pets.com sock puppet and dressed it up as a woman. Yes, this is how we spend our workday here at B-Swing, playing dress-up with our dollies.
Well, my first foray into online banking isn’t going too smoothly. Last week, I opened a checking account with Wells Fargo. One account. So far, I’ve received two different account numbers, two ATM cards, two boxes of checks, but only one PIN.
HP has done some really great banner ads. The first in the series was this pong Java applet with the latest being an interactive 3-D wavy one. Mmmm…wavy.
“I waver between being depressed by the sheer stupidity of the masses and being pissed off that I can’t do more to change it. Someday, I’d like to be able to add “being bemused at the folly of mankind” to that dipole, but for now I still care too much.”
New parking space. New desk. New webcam view. Feels like a whole new job.
Cirque du Soleil was great, well worth the price of admission. If you’re in the Mpls area, I recommend checking it out before their engagement ends on September 24.
The Minnesota State Fair was actually pretty cool as well. I thought I’d had my fill of it last year, but I had a good time. The best parts were the mini donuts, the bonsai tree exhibit, and the seed art (you haven’t really lived until you’ve seen a picture of Elvis made entirely from seeds).
Avoid Whipped at all costs. Please take my word on this one. I wanted to leave three minutes into the movie and was upset that I didn’t listen to that intuition. Gorgeous was bad as well…I’m less and less a fan of Jackie Chan’s movies as time passes.
Inspired by the Minneapolis Sign Project, Patrick sent in this sign he found in Iowa. It reads:
“avoid fecal fingers. use lift-it. available here soon. worlds only germ-proof toilet seat handle.”
Germ-proof toilet seat handles. What an age we live in, my stars!
Pork is for everyone, even kids! Teach children about the value of pork by building a sandwich with four, count ‘em, four different pork products. It’s porktastic!
Also curious is using the pig character as an aid in getting kids to eat pork. “See that cute little pig there with his curly tail? We’re going to slaughter him by anal electrocution and then fry him up with some hash browns. Yummers!” It would seem that a natural extension to the farm tour would be the slaughterhouse tour, but maybe they don’t want to subject the kids to that much, um, reality. (link via Nichol)
Speaking of pork: pork the one you love.
Also speaking of pork: Armour Fresh Pork online postcards. Pork chops on the beach and in China! What could be better? via the nubbin.
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