This is the Garfield comic from yesterday. It was uncannily apropos. This pretty much sums up how I felt with my own occasionally incorrigible technology.
Summer Movie Guide 2010
May 16th, 2010 § 1
I don’t know how long they’ve been doing this, but the first one I noticed was last year. Apple releases a “Summer Movie Guide,” a list of movies and when they come out, with links to their trailers on the Apple website. If you like to keep track of what’s coming out and when, this thing is indispensable. In a word: awesome. You can check it out here online. Or, you can just check out the list here. Either way.
The ones I’m really excited about are Iron Man 2 (which I’ve seen), Robin Hood (also seen), MacGruber (yes, I know, but I think it could be funny), Get Him to the Greek, Knight and Day (b/c if Cruise is anywhere near as funny as he was in Tropic Thunder, it’s going to be hilarious), Toy Story 3, Despicable Me, and Inception. I’m curious about Shrek: The Final Chapter, Babies, and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. But, the film that I am most excited about this summer is, of course, Step Up 3D. That could be the best film of the next decade.
[click any image to enlarge]
Tweeting Calories
May 15th, 2010 § 0
Good to know..
TweetCalories.com
Figure out how many calories you burn whilst you tweet at TweetCalories.com.
EPIC Garage Sale Live-Tweet
May 15th, 2010 § 0
[UPDATE]
Bad news bears: the garage sale was an EPIC failure. You can see below the entrance to the neighborhood where the sale was going to be. And, honestly, that’s about all you need to see.
We walk up, seeing the signs and the balloons and the lemonade stand, and we think, “Oh, wow, okay, this could really be great.” We could not have been more wrong. Let me also start by saying that there were not 15 families. More like 15 people. Total.
First off, the stuff is actually crap. I joked before (below) that it was priceless crap. On the contrary: it’s worthless crap. A lot of it, anyway. There were a few boxes of books and a framed picture or two that weren’t crap. But that was it. Bertrand Russell and a framed picture of Dumbo. There was also an oversized Buzz Lightyear that I would argue was not crap, but that’s open to debate. So, printed word and Disney aside, it was mostly crap.
All in all, the stuff should probably have just been given to charity. Goodwill could use some of it, the crap notwithstanding. And even for the crap Goodwill can probably find some beneficial utilization. There were some notepads, golf clubs, and a TV stand. One man’s crap…
Actually, Ash thought that maybe they should have just given all of it to Goodwill to begin with, the main reason being that this neighborhood was really nice, and these people are probably not hurting for cash.
My response was that they may have done it for the sheer enjoyment and community of the event itself, and we honestly don’t know if they’re going to go ahead and give it all away at the end of the day, anyway. She agreed. #benefitofthedoubt (Yes, that’s a hashtag in a blog post.)
In the end, what can I say? I wanted Darth Vader, and I got a pile of used children’s clothes, some CD cases, and a box full of lightbulbs (not kidding). While not a complete waste of time, I didn’t bring home trillions of dollars worth of obelisks. Sad day. Maybe next time. Whenever that is..
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[ORIGINAL POST]
I don’t know what to expect, but I’m hoping for a whole lot of awesomesauce. There’s a garage sale down the street, and its supposed to include something like 15 houses. Fifteen different families are all selling their priceless crap, and I can’t wait. I hope I find a life-sized Darth Vader or an antique obelisk worth trillions of dollars. Seems like I have fairly reasonable expectations. Get ready. It’s going to be legendary.
Pics will follow below. I’ll start it off with the poster advertising the whole shabang.
Desktop May 2010
May 10th, 2010 § 0
I change my desktop around a lot – wallpapers, dock icons, folders, toolbar apps, etc. Inspired by @dremin, I’ve decided to post a screenshot of my current layout. If you wanna know what any of the apps/etc. are, lemme know. Some of ‘em are pretty sweet. Like the app for the little album art curl up thingy downstage right, which I also learned about via @dremin. My wallpaper changes a lot, but this is one of them from this month.
Without further adieu…
CLICK TO ENLARGE
Oikotropic
May 10th, 2010 § 0
In exactly two weeks, 14 days, a fortnight, Ashley and I will be moving from Chicago. We have lived here for two years now, the first two years of our marriage, and it will always have special meaning for us. We’re sad to move away, but we’re also moving on. We will be in Atlanta for the summer (June and July), then we will move again, probably in early August, to start graduate school. I’m pretty stoked.
I’m a nostalgic person. I feel the pull, the lure of old haunts, our street, our favorite restaurants, our friends that we have here. All of this contributes to my rather plaintive mood, but it’s more so the notion that Ash and I are closing a chapter in our life. I say ‘notion,’ and I should probably say ‘fact.’ We are moving on and away, and we are both very excited about it.
Excitement mixed with nostalgia makes for an interesting emotional cocktail. Whenever the final paragraphs in any chapter of my life are being written, I find myself, as probably many do, attempting to freeze time, to hold on to these last few moments in this scene. As it happens, packing up boxes and taking down pictures and covering china in bubble wrap intrude into my wistfulness. And so it goes.
What will I miss? Certainly, I’ll miss the romantic quality that the Big City offers, the lights and the life and the Lake. As much as I’ve grown to understand that I’m a car person, there are times when I’ll miss the train, the long trips at night from rehearsal, easing into a hard plastic seat, staring out at the passing cityscape, the speckled darkness. Odd though it may seem, I’ll even miss walking everywhere. And the snow. I’ll miss the snow.
What won’t I miss? The bone-chillingly cold nights. And the days, for that matter. Many of the things I will miss are, ironically, also things that I won’t miss. I won’t miss the train, because I’ll have my car – same goes for the constant ambulation, strictly speaking. I won’t miss the snow, because I’ll have the warm weather I’m so accustomed to. I won’t miss the Big City, because I’ll have the suburban life in which I grew up, in which I lived the first 22 years of my life.
This city has much that I will both pine for and comfortably wave goodbye to, much of it one and the same.
I’ve loved my experience here. I’ve loved having these two years to grow up a bit with Ash, to be married away from our families. I think it’s been good for us to have this time for ourselves. It has also allowed me to see aspects of myself that I might not have discovered otherwise, or, perhaps, at least not this soon. For that, I am very grateful.
So, here we are. Two weeks away from leaving Chicago, from driving out of Chitown the way we drove in, in a big yellow truck full of our belongings. I hope to be able to take advantage of this last fortnight in a city that will always have meaning for me. But, when it’s all said and done, I’m also very much ready to move away. And to move on.
10 Awesome Android Apps – Part I
May 9th, 2010 § 0
I got a Droid for my birthday, and it has changed everything. I previously owned a Blackberry, and this thing makes it look like Zack Morris’s oversized-grey-box-that-sometimes-made-phone-calls. I couldn’t be happier with it. And I imagine it will only improve with Froyo and beyond. Having now used it for a few weeks, I have compiled a list of twenty apps that I consider to be my favorites, of which this is part uno. Behold at my behest.
The Google Suite (x3)
Gmail, Google Voice, and Gtalk are all musts for anyone who uses Google apps, and it stands to reason that many (most?) people using an Android device probably use Google apps on a regular basis. It also stands to reason that if you do use an Android yet you aren’t using Google apps for everything, then…do. That’s all I have to say. Nothing else compares, in my opinion. I’ve used Yahoo!, Mobile Me, and a few other lesser-known sites’ suites, and Google is head-and-shoulders above them all. In my correct opinion.
Twidroid
If you use Twitter in any capacity, there is no Android substitute for Twidroid. It has all the gadgets and gizmos you need, and it comes in two sizes, FREE and
5 bucks. I personally use the free version, because I haven’t yet found the premium features worth the price; honestly, that’s a testament to how incredible the free version really is. Unless you need native bit.ly support or you use lists a lot, I don’t think you’ll need the premium version.
Evernote
If you want to talk about apps that truly can change your life, then Evernote needs to be
in the conversation. This app is intended to help you remember anything and everything that you want or need to remember. You can write a note, snap a picture, record an audio note, or upload a file to a note, and it syncs it with your online account, your phone, you computer, your iPod, iPad…. So, whenever you need to remember anything, you just type in some keywords, a tag or two, search in images of documents, or even just look at the geo-tags to see what notes you created near where you are, and it does the rest. This one also comes in two sizes, FREE and subscription (monthly/yearly). I cannot recommend this app enough. If you ever take notes for any purpose, be it in class or for the grocery store or to remember appointments, then you need this app.
Grooveshark
Because Spotify won’t get its crap together and come to the US, we have Grooveshark. For $3/month, you can listen to just about any song you want on
yourAndroid device. The online site is always FREE, but you do have to “Go VIP” in order to use the app on your phone. And, in case you’re wondering (which I was), about whether this is legal, let me calm your qualms: it is. Read all about it here.
eBuddy
Unfortunately, there is no chat client app for Android made by Google, nor can you use the GTalk app for other services, which would be fantastic, because that app is wonderful. Due to the preceding, there is eBuddy, a very simple app that allows you to chat on pretty much any chat service, from AIM to GTalk to Facebook and others. I’ve tried several others, and this one is much better in my opinion. The design is simpler and less clunky than its counterparts in the chat app realm.
Foursquare
For a while now, people have been touting Foursquare as the “next Twitter.” I was skeptical. I gave it a shot. I’m not as skeptical. I decided to give a week,
and, before the week was up, I was hooked. There’s something inherently appealing about keeping track of your own whereabouts. And, to keep your worries at bay, you can easily hide your posts from people, even your Foursquare Friends. Plain and simple. I should also mention that my fascination with this service is in no small part due to the very well designed app, clean, efficient, and very attractive. I also tried Gowalla, but it never worked, so that was an easy No. For some time I’ve been “checking-in” to cities with Brightkite, but I think I’ve quickly grown quite attached to Foursquare. If you’re skeptical as I was, I recommend that you give it a solid week. If you hate it, delete your account. But, I don’t think you’ll want to.
USA Today
This one is pretty straightforward. It takes all the great aspects of the newspaper and puts them on your Android. It has news, sports scores, the weather, pictures, and the now famous USA Today polls – quick, fun, and informative. It also boasts a convenient in-app browser for opening any native links, a very helpful addition to any news app.
NPR News
Like the aforementioned USA Today, this one is pretty straightforward. However, that being said, all the NPR podcasts are available here, in addition to every single radio station available nationwide. I listen to this app all the time, as it puts NPR, one of the best news and commentary sources of the day, right in your pocket, at all times. Highly recommended for any cultured Android user. Kidding. But seriously.
24!
May 4th, 2010 § 0
Today, I turn 24. Now, time for revelry. Fireworks. Planetariums. South Africa. And like such as. I’ve posted a picture up top of some wrapped presents from family, with more pics to follow.
I would like to take this sentence-paragraph and inform both of my readers that I am well aware that no one will care about this but me and my immediate family.
That being said, let my first ever birthday live blog commence! At this time, ideally, I would have Robin Williams do a bit with a large, mainly solitary, arboreal ape, with long reddish hair, long arms, and hooked hands and feet, native to Borneo and Sumatra. The mature male develops fleshy cheek pads and a throat pouch. At this point, however, the differences between the two may be negligible. Instead, I will just post pictures from the day at the top of this post.
P.S. I just listened to Jimmy Eat World’s song “23″, which seemed appropriate. Great song.
Early to Mid Twenties
May 3rd, 2010 § 0
My final day at 23, and my early twenties, is coming to a close. Tomorrow, I celebrate 24, enter my mid-twenties, and enjoy Star Wars Day! I was going to tweet this, but a short blog post seemed more apropos. And longer to boot. I plan to blog my birthday tomorrow, with events, eating, and presents. Not to mention the whole thing will be televised. Okay. That’s all for now. See you when I’m 24.