The 3am-phone-call ad I'd like to see.

This 3am phone call business is out of hand. How about:

... It's 3pm in an auditorium on a college campus.
... A prospective presidential candidate is on stage during a Q&A session.
... Near the back of the auditorium, a student, under a pile of campus security guards and local police says, "Don't taze me, bro."
... The student is tazed and arrested.
... Which candidate is most prepared to throw their weight around from the stage to diffuse or reverse the situation?

I was interested in John Kerry until this incident. That he stood there and did nothing, and, furthermore, acted as if the whole scene wasn't happening and encouraged everyone to ignore it, showed he didn't "get it". For all of America to see. You lost me, John.

This whole 3am phone call business is similarly silly to me.

More than a year has gone by ...

... without an update. Lots is going on, lots to discuss, lots to be seen, lots to inspire. I am getting together some ideas for my next post and hopefully things will be more regular. Thanks for reading!

Kuler than you and me combined

Quite a cool tool from Adobe - Kuler!

Titanium Software - tools for Mac OS X. Great system maintenance tools.

More on search engine data. Here is Processing AOL - a blog.

I cannot believe how cool these photos are. Wow.

Chords, chords, chords. Scales and modes, too. This is a great web tool.

I've been listening to a lot of Leonard Cohen lately. Please visit cohenchords.com - lyrics and chords for every Leonard Cohen song arranged by album.

Currently listening to, Leonard Cohen - "Songs of Leonard Cohen".

New laptop, new post

Typing this from my brand new MacBook Pro; I'm very happy. Really nice machine, really easy to set up and migrate from my old, trusty TiBook. This makes me a firm believer in Apple. Nice one, guys! This thing's a beaut'!

Lots of interesting articles and things to consider lately. Here is a nice selection.

Open Type? Adobe? PDF? Font Management? All you need is a paintbrush. A great selection of Balinese typography (via PingMag); hand-painted. This is skill, people.

Hanayo, yes, that
Hanayo, having worked with Panacea, doing other stuff. How cool. (again, via PingMag)

For fans of Maeda's S I M P L I C I T Y, here is the Phillips Technology "Sense and Simplicity" PR Campaign. Some good stuff in here. I recently finished reading Maeda's "Laws of SIMPLICITY" book. I found it to be a good read, but I found it to be rather rough around the edges and had the feeling of being rushed to print. Nevertheless, it needs to exist, and does.

BibliOdyssey is something I could scroll through for days. Now you can, too. Amazing.

Real-time disaster tracking. This map has a view of incidents worldwide. This one has a map of the United States. When you click on an incident icon, you get a zoom-able Google Map of where the incident took place. Quite incredible. I noticed that they have had an incidence of Avian Flu in Montana recently, for instance.

Check out these amazing archival pictures of grain elevators! I cannot overstate how much I love things like this. (via Pruned)

And, in the, this is what Phil lusts for category: The Adobe Type Collection. Why the hell is this so expensive? It's probably worth it, but damn.

So, check this out. You can undo Adobe PDF password protection using the Mac OS ColorSync utility! (via MacOSXHints)

10:47pm, Seattle time. I just looked out the window to my left and noticed it was raining. Pleasant.

Currently listening to, Neurosis - "The Eye of Every Storm". I'm still not sold on this record, really. I guess they have two new ones coming out real soon.

I'm not busy. Justin K. Broadrick is. Man.

"I can't believe you're still using that screen saver," she said.

Whatever. I came upon these cool screen savers that plasq makes. (via Create Digital Motion)

There is (apparently, don't laugh - altho I get quite lonely, I can't know everything) a technology that ships with OS X Tiger called Quartz Composer, upon which these screen savers are based. Here is some more information on Quartz Composer (QC), via Apple, via Wikipedia, and via QuartzComps.

Plasq also makes this thing called Wormhole that looks toooooo cool.

And from the "You're not old skool" file comes this. That's right, wood and some other components.

Yes, I like John Frusciante. Check out this interview with him on effects, etc. Complete with close-up pictures of his live pedalboard!

The most excellent Gutterbreakz blog is offline for a redesign, but they've left us PLENTY to read and listen to. That Blogroll list down the left alone is awesome! Thanks!

26 years ago today, one of my heroes, John Bonham of Led Zeppelin died of an alcohol overdose. Go watch some videos of Bonham and some Bonham enthusiasts.

Speaking of music and heroes, there is a community developing around The Mahavishnu Orchestra. A new book about the band, some collectible artwork, musical analyses, etc. are all surfacing. Go here for more. Some looks quite wack, but some looks quite interesting for the nerdily inclined.

Why radio sucks (+ other stuff to distract you from that idea)

Here is a unique real-time Flash app that shows what songs are beginning to play in various U.S. markets east of the Mississippi River. Note that it looks like the playlist from every frat party or college bar you've ever attended. (Everyone has, at least once.)

More writing with water. (via Spherical Robots)

The Greylodge Podcasting Company carries great media links, including Podcasts and films downloadable via Bit Torrent.

Quite a good reading list! (via Speak Up) Speak Up also does an interesting thing called, Word It. I am a fan of the doom one, myself.

STEAL THIS FILM! (I'm still downloading, but I like the concept.)

Free audio books from ThoughtAudio.

May 16th of this year marked the 40th Anniversary of the release of The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album. A guy named Clayton Counts did a mashup album with pairwise track-by-track mixes of Pet Sounds and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. The mashups are pretty dope, especially if you are a fan of both albums and understand that Sgt. Pepper's woudn't exist if it weren't for Pet Sounds. The lush stuff with the strings is quite good in mashup form. You have to use Soulseek or something to get the whole album, because of an EMI Cease & Desist order around making this available on websites and blogs. I found it quickly on Soulseek.

Great quote (well, modified)

Original:

Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... To the future. To the horizon. Never his mind on where. He. Was. Hmm? What. He. Was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Feh. Excitement. Feh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless!

Modified:

Ready to get shit done, are you? What know you of getting shit done? For eight hundred years have I trained people who get shit done. My own counsel will I keep on who gets shit done. A person who gets shit done must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... To the future. To the horizon. Never his mind on where. He. Was. Hmm? What. He. Was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Feh. Excitement. Feh. A person who gets shit done craves not these things. You are reckless!

Made me think, anyway. Know anyone like this? I know you do.

And, from the "everything is as it should be" file,