Crap, it's a weblog

Seems To Be

2007-12-05T22:18:00.000-06:00

Occasionally, there is a shift in the significance of everything; during such periods of anomie, do not be alarmed. Momentously lost?

You can either swallow with a mouthful of (what might be) pills (or bugs), or you can spit, but you'll miss the benefit of a full mouth of medicine. Tote a lily stayed away all this year, I could've been in California, but I came back to man age my way through this.

Four fifty a six pack, joints, roaches, and rats chewed through all the wrapping paper she'd packed away. A blank, signed check for his fifty-forth birthday, the year she died. The week everyone died. Some day, a million years ago.

We have no time, no budget left, with which to be pretentious. Ask me anything. Anything you want to know. But you think, and there's nothing you'd want to know that certain. It's better to live as an imprint. Don't possess to impress.

What want wonts? Health, is my best guess. Sex a sin isn't exercise and I only know how to fall off of bikes, so I'll work on wait training. Patience, doctors. I have to see if I pass this drugged test.

Dakota Smith wants to set a cookie.

I Want To See That Podcast

2007-11-27T10:22:00.000-06:00

Ben and Katie were in Austin over the weekend, and they allowed me to interfere in the podcast for their new website I Want To See That!.

I like that name because it's really simple. I wrote a haiku about it:


I Want To See That
I W T S T
I Want To See That

2007-10-31T23:27:00.000-06:00

Let's get this over with. I'm drinking.

My first tab is Gmail. Do you use Gmail? JFC! Get with it.

(My first tab is always Gmail)

The next three we'll walk through some "related" wikipedia pages. Last night I started writing a song I want to call Rayok Onan Anon.

Third tab: Levirate marriage. Go figure.

3:50

Peter Falk LIVE CHAT ROOM

Most Popular Free Quality Fonts. Apparently.

This case is closed, thanks to Pearson Case Sealers.

Fuck this. Imma watch TV. Stiff. This is great.

"It is getting very late, you'll have to sleep here. With me."

This post is bought, ahem, I mean brought to you by Twitter. Go ahead and sign up, or something. I did.

2007-09-13T07:45:00.000-05:00

The good ones have sponsors.

Via my (new) favorite fertility community: an off-topic thread on removing dog urine odor from a couch, lead to reading about removing cat urine odor and about removing human urine odor. Now I'd recommend ExStink. I don't know if it works or not, because we pee in a toilet and Roxy pees outside.

Also, I find the baseball card style fertility stats each member has in her signature pretty scary.

Fancy Ketchup Shirt from Whataburger. Available in red.

> what are we going to be for halloween?

I was hoping we could be General Zod, Ursa, and Non.

4GB iPhones can be had for $299, but I lean more towards the 160GB iPod, since I hate talking on the phone.

Do you know which link paid to be included? A correct answer could win you an iPhone! (Or a Whataburger Shirt, or ExStink.) Leave your answer in the comments. All entrants receive a free General Zod for President shirt.

Comments for this post have been turned off

Prom Nite Live @ Flamingo Cantina

2007-08-30T22:02:00.000-05:00

YouTube video of Prom Nite from a few nights ago. See them tonight at The Mohawk.

Our Customers Are Satisfied

2007-08-25T10:59:00.000-05:00

Late night with Neil Nite follow up: recommendations from the local weeklies for Prom Nite's CD Release this Wednesday, August 29th.

Austin's four-man Prom Nite returns with a full-length that's even more worth of congratulatory remarks. Where Is It? There Is It! is nine solid songs of scattershot post-punk, the kind that makes you throw yourself against a wall.
— Austin Powell, The Austin Chronicle

While it may be too eager to please for the '77-heads and too pissed-off for the danceteria types, Prom Nite's new Where Is It? There Is It! offers plenty of arguments for meeting in the middle for a glorious, bloody scrum.
— The Onion, Austin

Scrimp Preteen-ed

2007-08-24T06:46:00.000-05:00

It was like deja vu all over a band.

We spent the afternoon, Prom Nite and I, printing their new CDs' cases; tediously completed one side of 100 cases, with the other side to be done today. After discarding the irregulars and mistakes, I hope we have 90 left.

We printed to (unfortunately glossy) cardboard gatefold CD sleeves, which I have yet to find locally. Afraid the ink will rub off, we're hoping baggies made of crappy plastic will protect them. Picked up the screen, emulsion, and ink at Asel Art Supply, made our transparencies at FedEx Kinko's for pennies, and anything else we needed was at Target or Lowe's.

It's labor intensive but they are nice to create personally, instead of the detached action of ordering poorly-designed Disc Makers CDs.

I'm sure it'll happen again.

Words A La D

2007-07-23T03:06:00.000-05:00

Everything that doesn't exist I miss. I'm a hundred places at once, except here. Accept her. Isn't it just? Delusions? It doesn't matter, it all is moving. It moves me, stops me up, and then I'll never start.

Some tait hurts. Some tait heals. For real, with a z, I'm the only place that exists in my mind. Now, I'd like to exit, but as fast as I can run past it, I'm still presented with this:

Stay in the groove long enough and you might end up in a rut. If you're in the trenches you shouldn't put posters up.

I hate my phone. I didn't eat alone today. I didn't eat it all.

I wish I could live life in one moment. Conjure it up and go, super nova. But for now I sit in stasis, stranded in paradise. An oasis playing bad music. Do you want sustenance, or a nuanced existence?

I have scores of journals filled with shit like this. I'd love to make it public, but I know they're still spying on me. Preemptively redacted.

Fits that if I could spell it all out, I'd school you on work. Work you through school. You'd quit your job, live with your parents and enjoy it. Hone your instincts.

Instincronize yourself you beast. You're just a monkey with words. You could be an artist if you'd learn to exist. Humbly have a hobby.

Want more word salad? I have more here, then I can eat alone.

Oh, I also put up pictures of the Peel tour on Flickr. So I haven't totally lost it, yet.

May 2007

2007-05-28T02:39:00.001-05:00

Next year, when the graduating class of 2008 walks across the stage, most of the graduates will have been born after 1990.

Y'know, except the fuck-ups.

It's been a month

2007-05-12T03:13:00.000-05:00

But old habits Die Hard. I'm just not used to posting. I thought about using PAYPERPOST as a TAAS-style writing prompt. It requires full disclosure anyway, so you'll know when I'm shilling.

Tonight, just now, Peel played a show with Ben Brown's brother (and my host-slash-roomate) Alex. He's really too good for us. After the show the band decided the one bit of advice we had to give Alex was: be less good.

We are waiting on a Wii

2007-04-09T02:22:00.000-05:00

Enjoy this joke in the mean time. Tell your friends, for fun and prophecy.

Worlds colliding

2007-03-18T11:31:00.000-06:00

2007-03-07T10:34:00.000-06:00

Katie wrote a piece for the signifier about TV theme songs called A Love Note To Theme Music. I thought the table of contents was particularly, if unintentionally, clever.

Katie S pens A Love Note To Theme Music

I don't know if they meant to put her full name, but I like that as much as Dakota's Myth.

Gmail productivity tips I already knew (you can learn to be really productive when you have time).

However, this was new to me:

Gmail query syntax is pretty flexible. You can rewrite
(from:alice@example.com OR from:bob@example.com OR from:carol@example.com)
as
from:(alice|bob|carol)@example.com

This seems clever, but too expensive. For 3 cents a page, those could have something already on them.

The Day After Thanksgiving, with Grandma and Grandpa

Ira Glass on story telling.

#1 - The one most viewed, but the least informative of the bunch. He refers to "video pods".

#2 - "Between a half and a third of everything that we try, we'll go out, we'll get the tape, and then we kill it."

"If you're not failing all the time, you're not creating a situation where you could get super lucky."

#3 - "We get into this because we have good taste ... but for the first couple of years you're making stuff, it's not that good ... but your taste is good enough that you can tell what you're making isn't good to you ... a lot of people don't get past that phase."

#4 - "The first time we get a camera we want to sound and act like people we see on TV... there's a real Ted Koppel on the same TV you're going to be on."

Hacking Knowledge article that was published on my birthday. I love any article that tells me to go to bed and eat breakfast. I always forget.

Csiksczentmihalyi.

You can bet 長井長吉 and 緒方章 were two of the hardest working guys you ever met.

Why are there less wires here?

2007-03-01T00:10:00.000-06:00

I was down in Corpus Christi this weekend, to visit my mom (my real mom, not my adoptive mother).

She had this giant intimidating desk, about seven feet tall, with cubbies and storage and a light. Made out of laminae covered particle board, I think it once was a NASA Simpit Simulator, used in training astronauts to see if they were ready to see if they were ready to handle the real thing.

Now, I love a good desk. Something that makes you want to sit down and work. I want to be invited to sit down and start something.

I suggested she use the antique writing desk. The transfer was simple, but when we were done, cables cascaded down from the desk on the wall, like some tropicable waterfall. I realized concealing cables had been done and over done already, with greater effort than I was willing to give.

(Here's my very first tiphaiku)

I put a poster
Underneath to hide cables
Problem f'n SOLVED!

Woah. I KNOW! This sort of ingenuity is why I am in business for myself.

What's that? Would you like to be in business for myself? Watching our recruiting (recruitment?) video? It may show you compelling reasons to apply yourself? I'm not sure about this paragraph?

Who cares? Who are we? We call our company
May2007 Enterprises - THE FUTURE FOR NOW!!!!!!

Check out MAY2007.COM for more information. Wait no, that's not right. SH!T Someone stole it out from under us. Nevermind the website. Having your actual business name as a URL is not important.

It doesn't matter. We are May 2007, literally the future. We are also a solution and a mixture). And as long as I'm here, could I crash on your couch for while? I don't wanna mooch or become a fixture, I'll be gone in a month.

I like the design of CNN International

2007-02-22T20:08:00.000-06:00

When The Neal Pollack Invasion made it all the way to Washington D.C., Neal thought it was the appropriate time to play some sort of weird elite, awkward, house party, book/cd selling event.

Peter Bergen was there; that guy up there was there. Neal even said, "CNN Terrorism Expert Peter Bergen is doing The Ostrich!" (I'll warn you, that link leads to a video of The Pseudo Neal Pollack Invasion playing The Ostrich at a reading for Neal's new book, Alternadad. It's the most authentic clip of the band, ever.

Even on a sunny day, we've got rainbows.

2007-02-21T19:54:00.000-06:00

So, not only do we fly kites on weekdays, when it isn't windy enough, we make rainbows in the backyard.

That guy is dressed like an asshole. I matched my hat and my shirt! I think that's the trick. I only wore the hat because I needed a haircut.

On April 17, 2007, I turn 10,000 days old.

Thanks trash can

2007-02-14T09:53:00.000-06:00

Sometimes even flying a kite is pretty intense. Happy VD.

So many parts of this website are built by robots

2007-02-07T04:43:00.000-06:00

WHAT?

Taking feeds (what is a web feed?) from Flickr, Del.icio.us, and YouTube, I was able to make the /recent/ section, thanks to a web-app called FeedDigest. Likewise, FeedDigest provides the most recent posts from my Blogger powered blog and Twitter on the front page.

WHO?

Flickr - The fantastic, Yahoo-owned photo sharing site. It lets you organize your photos with tags! If you have a digital camera and want to share pictures, the pro account is well worth the $25 they charge.

Just don't be Chinese. And if you take pictures of a Nintendo Wii, they will steal them and put them here.

YouTube - Google Video 2.0. Upload a video or record it right from within your browser window. Don't expect any of it to make sense.

del.icio.us - A web-based social bookmarking service. Allows bookmarks to be sorted with tags, which can make things less (or more) complicated than using folders.

You can also send links directly to friends, and see what your friends are linking to.

Blogger - I've been using Blogger for about 100 years. Easily the simplest setup, especially if you have no idea what you are doing and don't want to customize it too much.

Clearly that is not my problem.

I think Blogger is the best web publishing platform on the market. It was the start of my man crush on Ev.

Twitter - Lets you share a 160 word status with the world, or just your friends. Can be updated via IM or from your mobile phone.

Practically pointless, but I have a crush on Ev, who Obviously runs Twitter.

Odeo - Odeo is ... well, it WAS a podcast creation and sharing web-app, which even let you leave voicemails from your cell phone and later release them to the world. Now I use it to let people leave me a voice mail.

New users cannot even upload audio at the time of this writing. I've been a member of Odeo since it started, but I've never uploaded anything. Mostly joined out of obligation to my man-crush on Ev. Odeo is another Obvious product.

Feeddigest - Feed processor which no longer allows new user sign ups. Which is a shame since not only is it easy to use and understand, the support staff was terribly responsive, and even implemented a feature at my request.

HOW?

As they come in, each post is placed in a div; the div is given an id based on the name of the source. This allows me apply styles depending on the original source, and accommodate links as well as photographs or videos. To accomplish this with FeedDigest, I set the class using the name of the source of the post using the following template:


<div id="%SOURCENAME,3NODOTS%">

<div class="feedcontext">
%SOURCEURL%
</div>
<h3>%TITLE%</h3>
<div class="feedcontent">
<p>
<ifdescription><span class="itemcontent">%DESCRIPTION%</span><br /></ifdescription>
<span class="url"><a href="%URL%">%URL,45%</a></span></p></div>

</div>

Within FeedDigest, %SOURCENAME,3NODOTS% takes the name of the source and truncates it to three characters (see: TemplateTags). FeedDigest used to truncate and leave an ellipsis, showing the post had been truncated. The NODOTS option removes the ellipsis and gives each feed a unique id. That was the request the FeedDigest team so eagerly implemented. (Thanks Peter!)

For the front page, the FeedDigest template is simpler:


<div class="%SOURCENAME,3NODOTS%">
%DESCRIPTION,750NODOTS%
<span>...<br /><br /><a href=%URL%>More > > </a><br /><br /></span>
</DIV>

Each div can be styled and positioned on dakotasmith.org however I choose.

WHY?

I still haven't found exactly what I want, but this can come very close. I've tried using Reblog, and really loved it, but ultimately it was smarter than I am. I also tried to use Google Reader, and though it was easier to set up, also fell short of my full expectations.

FeedDigest's team really allowed me to take this tool and run with it, and while it still isn't as open ended as I would hope, it's obvious they are suffering under the weight of their own success. They have not been accepting new users for quite some time now.

CAVEATS

FeedDigest isn't perfect. It lacks the ability to just have 1 post from each feed. To get around this for the front page, I had to create three feeds: one of only the most recent Twitter status, one of only the most recent Blogger update, and one combining the two. Since user accounts are limited in number of feed digests you can create, this trick eats 3 digests, which wouldn't happen with a "limit 1 post per feed" option.

Updates from FeedDigest seem to have a lag of between 10 and 30 minutes. Which, I'm in no rush, but you might want your digests UPDATED NOW ALREADY!

FeedDigest does take a while to set up and modify, and unless you have a clear goal in mind, it could be rather confusing as to why you would want to use it. I've found some of their default templates are lacking as well, and have only been well-served using my own custom templates.

Likewise, since I cannot program, I have to use a Javascript include to put Feeddigest's output on an html page. This seems like overkill, since Javascript is slower to render than HTML. It also does not allow the text to be searched by the GOOG.

LOOKING AHEAD

There might be some utility in sharing a feed of starred items in Google Reader, favorited videos on YouTube, or favorited photos on Flickr. Unfortunately, neither Flickr nor YouTube provide feeds for their (your? my?) favorites. A greatest hits type page could be very interesting, though.

InstantFeed will instant message you as a feed is updated. With FeedDigest's delay, this is less reliable than I like. In situations where a fifteen-plus minute delay is acceptable, this could be very useful with combined feeds which require responses and attention, such as a Basecamp project and a collaborative Google notebook.

RSS2PDF seems nearly useless, too, but at the very least can give a feed a nice, unified look when printed.

CONCLUSION

What I've created is purely ephemeral. You cannot have an archive of /recent/ but I hope I am creating a window into all of the photos I take, movies I make, or links I save. The rate at which I add to it means if someone returns to find something, they will probably be forced to go to my bookmarks on del.icio.us or photos on Flickr.

This might be a problem if I had some interest in keeping people at my website, but I would rather they join Flickr and add me as a contact, or stalk me and try to steal my ideas from reading links posted to del.icio.us, or make their own crazy movies on YouTube and show them to me and the Internet at large.

As sign-ups are closed, I guess this is useless for anyone who hasn't already signed up for FeedDigest, but perhaps you can put your noodle to it, and use these as a springboard to your own solution. I hope someone buys FeedDigest soon, so they can have more horsepower and really cut loose. It seems like such an obvious move.

Hoax devices scare the shit out of me

2007-02-01T18:53:00.000-06:00

If I forgot and left this sitting around, I guess I could get in trouble. Especially once it has some Aqua Teen Hunger Force LED OH WAIT THIS JUST IN !!!

Boston went on high alert, closing bridges and roads, after 38 battery-powered devices were discovered around the city on Wednesday.
Source: Boston ad stunt scare duo charged, 1 February 2007.

Anyway, this was plastered all over CNN. Which made it really funny, when it turned out more Turner (Ted Turner) owned property. Seems like a round about way of advertising the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie.

The media continues to refer to them as hoax devices. What's a hoax device?

For the purposes of this section, the term “hoax device” shall mean any device that would cause a person reasonably to believe that such device is an infernal machine. For the purposes of this section, the term “infernal machine” shall mean any device for endangering life or doing unusual damage to property, or both, by fire or explosion, whether or not contrived to ignite or explode automatically. For the purposes of this section, the words “hoax substance” shall mean any substance that would cause a person reasonably to believe that such substance is a harmful chemical or biological agent, a poison, a harmful radioactive substance or any other substance for causing serious bodily injury, endangering life or doing unusual damage to property, or both.
Source: General Laws of Massachusetts,
Chapter 226. CRIMES AGAINST PROPERTY Section 102A1/2

The law goes on to make the point that, if convicted the defendant is liable for restitution to the government for any financial losses incurred in responding to the hoax. The city's overreaction and ignorance cost about five to seven minutes of Iraq war.

Cartoon Network issued an apology because their lawyers told them to. The youths charged gave a fantastic press conference, because their lawyer told them not to talk about the event (thanks, Andre).

These artists, made these things and put them up, and the Norms find them threatening and shut down a whole city. Recovered light boards are selling for up to $2000 on eBay (thanks, Andy) which is also presently awash in topical tshirts (none as good as the ATHF is the bomb shirt at Raplica. (thanks, Sean).

I have never wanted to be a performance artist more in my life!

Digg Answers's Delcious Bugg

2007-01-31T17:50:00.000-06:00

While looking up a word today, I noticed that Answers.com has a bit of a Digg slash Delicious spoonerism.

If you want to check it out yourself, look up a word using answers.com, then click either the Digg or Del.icio.us icons near the top of the page. The links and images are transposed! Oops.

Help them notice. Digg this!

Peelease buy our CD.

2007-01-29T14:48:00.000-06:00

I could be clever about this, try to make some jokes, but I'm too happy with what we made. The trick where GOOG gives you $10 bucks for buying the Peel CD was clever enough.

I'm really proud of what we were able to put together, and how quickly too. Everything fell into place quickly, like Lvl. 9 Tetris.

I will begin shipping CDs next week, when I return to Texas

It's just a game to you

2007-01-23T02:48:00.000-06:00

Oh, man. Cooking DS Ennui on Wii is so great. This is the part of the game after you shop at the Japanese grocery store in San Francisco!

Night Capt'n

2007-01-17T06:44:00.000-06:00

It's driving me nuts. The signs aren't as confusing as they were but I still can't make out what they mean.

I would try to sleep if the low pitched hum I hear when I'm here would go away. As it stands, I'm better off staying up. Someone has to steer this house and clean the ship.

If I think hard enough, it feels like I'm sleeping. This doesn't even make sense to me, don't worry. Granite, it's slate, arkose cherts for shale?

Asking for a cease-and-desist

2007-01-12T04:49:00.000-06:00

!!WARNING SOME LINKS ARE VIDEOS!! — also, I totally did not format these for the web. I mean, the file size isn't too bad, but they don't stream or anything. sorry —

I made a fake bump for the Cartoon Network; Adam and Ben were discussing the new metal Optimus Prime doll, and I would just yell out "IT'S LIKE THE BEATLES!" from time to time, since that's my sense of humor.

Also, the secret to funny voices is slowing down real voices, AND talking in funny voices. Or speeding them up. If that doesn't work, you probably need a better camera.

Mr. Squid Head is my boss, and he sends messages to me using my friends' Xbox Live accounts.

I wish Toilet Princess had more swimming with monkeys and sumo wrestling and less running into walls.

Where am I and why am I wearing the same shirt?

2007-01-09T21:40:00.000-06:00

Uncatalogued laundry, we're running repeats through out the holiday. We're wearing our favorite shirt since we got back a week ago.

SHARxk - Targeting the old, the young, the frail, the infirm. New track, just an Intro. What? It's not a song. Not even a minute long.