NOEXTEHO

I never thought I'd do a Christmas-themed post. And here I go with two in the same hour.
(UNRELATED: my roommate is laughing hysterically while sitting on the toilet.)

I don't care if I'm just reblogging this pic from Take ME to The APPLE. It's Christmas time. And there's snow outside my window.

Today I deleted all the random blogs I had ever formed. Except this one.

Evolution at work.

If you use Delicious.com, please please let me know your username or just link me directly to your page. Please?

1. This movie:

The Swimmer (because of this article, and originally because of this guy)

2. This song:
Who Made Who - Space For Rent (The Rapture/HushHush Remix) (because of this mix)

3. This picture:

Charles Sandison, Mapping Desire, 2005 (because of this post)

4. This YouTube clip:

Mazzy Star - Ghost Highway - live on MTV (because of this blog)

I don't care how quickly this video might spread around the internet. I have to make someone else watch this. I don't know why.

(Much like when Lin Swimmer fears he's alienating portions of his audience, I fear I may do the same with this post. But I spent a large chunk of my day thinking about these things, so I'm posting it anyway. I promise my next post will be mindless fun pictures/video.)

I'm a programmer. It's true. Or at least I'd like for it to be true. While I do spend a lot of time writing code, I'm not formally trained, nor am I all that good. But I do think I'm enough of a programmer to care strongly about my text editor. I'm not rich enough or willing enough to buy a text editor (or else I'd probably have TextMate), so all I have to choose from are the free ones. Today, I methodically checked out some of the best free ones for OSX, and here are the results, posted here for you if you're curious... and to remind me why I liked and didn't like certain ones.

Also, if you use any of these, please tell me all about it in the comments.

MacVim
Excluding Notepad++, this is totally my favorite. I want to learn everything about Vim.
(And no, I will not partake in any Emacs vs Vim talks yet. Not until I've learned Vim well enough to kill you in 4 keystrokes, which, I hear, is possible.)

• CON: Can feel a little too much like what it is: a command line program wrapped up for OSX (but it's still more OSX-y than the java-y programs on this list)
  
• PRO: Wicked snappy
• PRO: Wicked powerful
• CON: Takes some getting used to
• PRO: I like tabs
• PRO: C-tags!
• PRO: Lots of plugins and support and customization
  
• CON: No alt-click block selection (Although it might be possible with some key combo I have yet to master)
  

Xcode
Pretty good, for such a huge thing. Maybe I'll try using it as a more all-purpose text editor.

• PRO: Awesome code folding
• PRO: Good 'find' highlighting (like Smultron). Wish it were more like Safari, though.
  
• CON: No tabs, but a (very confusing to me) project tree-thing instead
• Huge. Can be sluggish.
  
• PRO: 'organizer' mode is sort of nice and interesting

Smultron
Remaining on my computer to fight another day. Should have a mutant baby with TextWrangler.

• CON: Doesn't strike me as being as powerful as Notepad++ or MacVim
• PRO: Looks pretty good (could use a better color scheme, though)
• CON: Syntax highlighting is not all that great, and sometimes really sucks.
  
• PRO: I like tabs
• PRO: Good 'find' highlighting (like Smultron). Wish it were more like Safari, though.

TextWrangler
Remaining on my computer to fight another day. Should have a mutant baby with Smultron.

• CON: no tabs, but a drawer instead
• PRO: Better syntax highlighting than Smultron
• PRO: Feels more powerful than Smultron
• CON: Feels less powerful than MacVIM

Notepad++
I dream of porting this program to OS X. I might learn how to program better just for this very purpose. Oh how I wish I didn't have to run this in CrossOver!

• FATAL CON: not osx/cocoa enough (duh! it's for Windows)
• PRO: I like tabs
• PRO: I love this program!!! No idea why, either.
  

jEdit
Deleted right before posting this. Will use MacVim and Smultron/TextWrangler instead.

• CON: Not osx/cocoa enough
• CON: Plugins are a good idea, but feel sort of not solid
• PRO: C-tags!
• CON: No tabs

Editra
Deleted right before posting this. Will use MacVim and Smultron/TextWrangler instead.

• CON: Not osx/cocoa enough
• CON: Feels slow (java-y?)
• PRO: Reminds me of notepad++ (not sure why)
  
• PRO: I like tabs

NetBeans or Eclipse
FATAL CON: I'm not installing such a huge program when it's almost certainly going to feel non-native and perhaps sluggish, especially when Xcode is such a wonderful 'big' text editor

Lately, I've been here:




In other news, I need a haircut.

1 - If you're curious...
2 - To make this blog more of a showcase, or start of a showcase...

...some if the Processing things I've been working on:

Yes, The Hardly Boys In Hardly Gold is one of my favorite movies ever. It was released on DVD this year, which unfortunately makes it lose a little bit of its beat-up, passed-around VHS charm, but oh well. It's for the better.

Anyways, Jesse recently posted some youtube clips from the movie after Jim made a post about it, so my interest was renewed. And of course, as Jim notes, everyone I know owes it to one Mr. Karl "bat-breaking big-top-raising" Voigtland for introducing (perhaps indirectly) them to this movie.

I found the best hip hop ever: www.educationalrap.com

So, in Amanda-style, I'm giving you a preview of my WHFR show for Sept. 10..... It's going to have some educational rap. Oh my god, if I had more money, I'd buy all the Rhythm, Rhyme, Results albums.... but alas, not enough money. I bought a few of my favs, which I will be (virtually -- where's the vinyl release, RRR?) spinning on my show, in honor of the world not ending. Huh? Listen to my show to find out.

But even if you don't care to listen to my show, check out some educational raps NOW, please.

As far as I can tell, it's The Utica Club Natural Carbonation Beer Drinking Song by the Utica Club Natural Carbonation Band, from Utica, NY. Check it out (with an extensive back-story) on The Devil's Music.

Now, if you have any candidates to outdo this song, let me know!

...but I would be if I had a run-in with this gentleman:

Although I haven't seen Dark Knight (YET), I definitely think Heath Ledger deserves the Oscar for this scene.

(from superdickery)

I like videos that make fun of me.

Today, a girl was looking for a couple of CDs which she couldn't find, and needed for a school project. She told me she would love me forever if I found them. With such an incentive, how could I resist this challenge? Deftly, but not without effort, I then found both CDs.

But, alas, her pledge to love me forever was a lie.

Here lie my del.icio.us tags, arranged pseudo-artistically. Apparently, I bookmark a lot of videos.

Have I mentioned lately just how much I love OSX?

I'm so enamored with OSX 10.5's Quick Look feature (the ability to hit space on just about anything and get a preview). Below is a picture of what it looks like if you select a bunch of images, Quick Look them, make it full screen, and then click the 'index' icon. It (very quickly) brings the thumbnails in randomly, to great effect, and leaves you in a nice interface to (smoothly) scroll and look at every thing. Click an image to see it on it's own, full screen.

The thumbnails come in so quick, it's hard to get a screencap of it in progress, but after some trying, I managed:

My one complaint (and plea to any who may be able to remedy it) is that there isn't a one-button method of getting into this mode. A couple keystrokes and a couple clicks isn't all that bad, but I'm lazy, and I think there should be an even quicker method of getting into this mode. Any help?

Slowly coming together. Listener logging is working, for the most part. This was a test of using Google's Charts API to graph a day's worth of listeners. I still need to make the program/script that will make the charts automatically, but I'm mostly pleased, I think.

Manbabies?

...a return to the utterly absurd nature that once filled this blog:

Because sometimes I can't stop thinking about how awesome Peep Show is...

Music video from Peep Show - This Is Outrageous:





The peep show guys (Mitchell and Webb) in their sketch show - Lager Beer:

As I was telling Amanda...
The latest infinite-repeat song that I've come across is by a band called Ubangi. And this is the song... The Little Cat And The Dirty Dog:

I dare you to try to tell me that this isn't your new favorite song.

There's a zany music video for the song as well, but I like the live version above better, I think. And, fortunately, there are more fun Ubangi videos on youtube, like Dance With Me Gino, Naked In The World, and the wonderfully-titled Where Have All The Good Sperms Gone.

All the while, I was thinking that maybe I've seen this (cute!) singer somewhere before... Lo and behold, Ubangi was fronted by a woman that Beavis And Butthead had first introduced me to, with this song:

Yes, Cia Berg/Soro of Whale. So great! More proof, see/hear this live video for Four Big Speakers.

And now, a plea:

So, right now, I need your help. Are you Swedish? Or do you have old Swedish pop from the 80s? Or are you a Cia Berg fanatic? I NEED to get my hands on Ubangi releases, without paying the huge amounts of money I've found Ubangi stuff for online. Please help me!

Now I do, and I'm happy.

I would like to think that you watched the TTC Telephone video over and over (like I did), and then went through the related videos and watched every TTC thing you could (like I did), but maybe you didn't. So I'd like to point out another excellent TTC song/video: Danse La Poutine. I liked this one right away, too, but not as much as Telephone. Over the course of one day and a few discussions with my Canadienne roommate about la poutine, I've decided that I like it just as much.

It is, after all, entirely about a dish whose closest American translation is fries with cheese and gravy, but better...

Some music videos are so awesome, I think to myself "Whoah. Did I make this?"

And then this video answered me back:

OK, OK, OK.... Here I am, straying from my proposed blog path yet again... But I think this is worth it:

Bear with me, please, as I'm going to post a banner ad that made me laugh (unintentionally?):
That dude... Yeah, the one on the right. That is almost the exact same face I accidentally make for photos when I'm drunk... the face that people always ask me not to make, because it looks horribly stupid. And here is a guy making it, while trying to sell me something. I swear, this ad is either a horrendously bad accident, or a brilliantly designed ad. I'm looking at the ad, aren't I? Hell, I'm telling friends and strangers about it, too!

More proof that whoever worked on this ad campaign could be my friend appears when you click through the banner ad to the website:

The double head shot! Do we really need the photo repeated like that? YES! I DO! Because I think it's hilarious!

On a more serious note, please don't buy anything from this company. Just roll with the hair loss. Let it go. And, in related hair advice, never grow a goatee, please.

...or maybe this site is expanding? I don't know. But check this out: my first post about a game!

The other day, I saw a post on Boing Boing again. This time the post was about a cool physics simulation "game" called Phun. Unfortunately for me and my MacBook, Phun is only available for Windows and Linux now (get it and tell me how it is, if you've got the right OS, please). Fortunately for me, though, the comments of the post provided me with plenty of diversion. Someone mentioned a game called Powder Game (Warning: it's a java game, so if your browser takes a massive slowdown with java, consider yourself warned. It works great for me). Whoah. Less of a physics sim, more of a fluid dynamics sim, and it has explosions! Yes! I immediately lost 3 hrs of time with this game yesterday.

So, in case you only read the last sentence: Go play Powder Game now, if you like blowing things up.

As much as I'd like to talk about Lindsay Lohan (mind the music on that link) and her nudity in a New York Magazine pictorial, I'm actually going to talk about the US's spy satellite that is going to be shot down.

OK, I'm not actually going to talk about that either, really. Instead, some commenter on Boing Boing related that story to an amazing movie trailer. The year the film was made: 1968. The associated countries: USA / Japan / Italy. Title: Green Slime. Without further ado:

Just as I was embracing writing more and providing context (or something) with my posts (after an informative, productive, and, uh.... lucrative? chat with Amanda), Cody sent me this, which I outright refuse to contextualize or expound upon:

Today, while setting up for today's broadcasts on whfr.org, I found a song on the whfr computer that one of the DJs (my guess: Josh) must have put there: Jim Kweskin Jug Band - When I Was A Cowboy. Now, I've heard some of Maria Muldaur's stuff before, but I didn't know that she was in this jug band. I'm glad that she is, though, as she seems a perfect fit.

So, I've listened to When I Was A Cowboy probably 15 times since finding it a few hours ago. I've also listened to lots of other stuff by Maria Muldaur and by Jim Kweskin Jug Band. It's all I've been doing today, in fact, aside from watching the first episode of the second season of Jericho (which was not disappointing at all, let me say).

So, unfortunately I couldn't find When I Was A Cowboy online anywhere for listen or watching, so here's another clip of the band which is still pretty awesome:

NOTE: Wikipedia says: Residente originally studied to be an accountant, and Visitante finished a computer science degree.

...lest you think that I'm only about this "Indie" stuff now.

Always a good starting point... Françoise Hardy - Tous les garçons et les filles:


Still French, but with some sweet dancing... Jenny Rock - Douliou Dou St-Tropez:


More sweet dancing... B-52's - Give me back my man:

Maybe I've got a thing for accents?

Prinzhorn Dance School - Crackjack Docker:


Bat For Lashes - Whats a Girl To Do:

For some reason, I like this girl waaaay more than Lil Kim (kind of NSFW):


And now for more funny-sexy, courtesy of Reznor, Nemoy and Shatner (the successors to Crosby, Stills and Nash?):

...it would be exactly like Yo! Gabba Gabba.

Reason #54:


Reason #138:

Do tell, gentle Reader... What is the proper etiquette when one runs into someone they only have read about on the internet? With each new local blog I add to my daily reading, the more I worry that I might run into one of these bloggers in public. I worry because it would definitely add a weird dynamic. One can not simply approach another and say Hello, I read your blog, can one? The reader would be pegged as a stalker, I assume, or at least rather stalker-like. But then, how to explain why the reader is staring so strangely at the blogger?

I suppose the reader would have to ignore the blogger. Or, perhaps better, not ignore the blogger him/herself, but ignore the fact that the reader has any idea who the blogger is. This could, if executed correctly, play out the best. The reader could even casually meet the blogger this way. But...

What if a friendship develops? At what point in the friendship could/should the reader admit to foreknowing the blogger? Is it at all possible for such a situation to not be awkward?

Finally, does this all lead to the conclusion that I can never become friends with the people who write the blogs that I read? If so, I should stop reading a lot of blogs.

Tonight, while browsing the New York Times website's front page (an activity I'm now vowing to do more regularly), I realized something: I like the NYT website. In addition to the news, I like how it looks. Sure, it's busier than I typically like, but for a news website that does not merely look like a blog, it looks pretty good.

So now I ask you, kind readers (yes, both of you): Are there any other news websites whose beauty matches or surpasses the New York Times?

(Also, this posts marks a change in my blog philosophy. I was trying to keep this blog to only video, music and image posts, but that is no more. I will post whatever I want. But it will still probably just be mostly video, music and image posts.)