Heads I win
April 02, 2010 // Link
I saw a photo of me from junior high today:
Look at all that hair! It’s been so long since I opted out of the hair care industry entirely that I can barely even recall what it’s like to have to deal with brushes and haircuts and shampoo and matted motorcycle helmet hair.
Giving up on human topiary all those years ago was the best grooming decision I’ve ever made. I love my shaved head.
Only those of us who are fully shorn up top know the true joys a shower offers. De-light-ful. This is why I don’t need coffee in the morning.
Thought for the day:
I’m not bald; I’m a tabula rasta.
Also, I may start referring to my brain as my “skeptical receptical,” but only until my friends stop taking my calls. Darn you, call display, you ruin everything.
It seems my mind is on my head today. How postmodern.
Back in black
April 03, 2010 // Link
I’ve gone back to the older, simpler, and to my eye more lovely black and white design for my blog.
At the same time, I’ve also chucked any remaining Wordpress back-end stuff and reverted to hand-rolled code. This won’t matter to most of you (unless you’re trying to hack into my blog, in which case I say: bring it), but it’s a head’s up that you might find a few scattered broken links or wonky pages while I sort things out.
The boy in the belfry
April 04, 2010 // Link
I love my current digs, a tiny pad right in downtown Toronto that I’m gussying up in pop art style. Orange cubes for a coffee table? Check. Huge Warhol style print of Vespas? Check. White shag rug, chrome wire side chair, and mural silhouette of a coat rack acting as an actual coat rack? Check, check, and check. Nearby church bells going bonkers all morning? Che—
—hold on, that wasn’t in the plan.
The location of Casa del Carrington is fantastic—it’s vibrant and convenient and fun—but it’s also adjacent to a church. So: bells.
[aside]
Plus, if I went inside I’d probably burst into flames or something.
[end of aside]
Usually the bells are easy to ignore, and it’s actually quite pleasant to hear them chiming the hour. But today is Easter so the bells are a-ringin’ and a-ding-ding-dingin’ more than ever before. A jubilant cacophony, which I suppose is fitting for Easter if you’re more about crosses than bunnies.
I keep imagining a happy hunchback (because what kind of respectable church doesn’t have a hunchback?) swinging wildly at the base of the bell tower, leaping from rope to rope like some titillated Tarzan. Or a Donkey Kong Jr. cosplayer who really commits.
Anyway, it’s coming up on half an hour of this ding dong tumult that’s as tuneless as tap shoes in a dryer, but I do hope the boy in the belfry is having the time of his life.
Flash in the pan
April 12, 2010 // Link
Adobe has announced Create Suite 5, which might as well carry the slogan “The version you hope is the last you’ll ever have to buy.” Prices for the suite — or, rather, the suites — range from $1,300 to $2,600.
[aside]
Yeah, I know they’re a buck less than that. But Homey don’t play no ends-in-99 price games. Suck it, marketeers.
[end of aside]
The whole Adobe pricing matrix is the kind of mess that makes even Microsoft’s bevy of Windows SKUs look sensible.
There’s Design Standard, which is the only bundle that includes the basic version of Photoshop; for six hundred bucks more Design Premium has the “extended” version of Photoshop and a bunch of web tools including most (but not all) the web stuff from Web Premium. And two of the five suites only come in Premium versions even though there is no equivalent Standard version, so the Premium version is actually the standard version.
With me so far? Well, too bad because it just gets more confusing from there.
For instance, Production Premium comes with some of the design stuff (but not InDesign), and some of the Flash stuff (but not Flash Builder). Oh, and it’s the only suite that doesn’t come with Acrobat Pro. Why? Because fuck you, that’s why.
They even had to post an online pricing grid that contains 19 different prices in red, none of which includes the various upgrade options. The prices for 14 of the 19 individual software components are listed down the righthand side, the rest not counting toward the “value” of each suite.
Speaking of which, the suites listed along the top of the grid are ordered in terms of price as 4-1-3-2-5, but ordered in terms of “value” as 3-1-2-4-5. What the hell?
I think the real reason Apple has banned Flash on the iPhone is just that they can’t figure out how to buy to goddamn thing.
Song in the subway
April 18, 2010 // Link
The TED talks are terrific. I’ve lost count of how many times they’ve made me rethink an opinion, or form one in the first place. Such beautiful, wonderful people with such beautiful, wonderful things to say about technology, art, science, culture, design and world issues.
Every time I dive into the TED website I come away with my mouth agape and my mind awhistlin’. It feels less like learning and more like having ideas planted in me.
At this year’s TED talks (where I was, once again, as ever, somehow not present) Natalie Merchant sang 19th Century poetry set to music. So lovely.
I was in a subway station a couple of years ago wearing headphones and listening to Natalie Merchant sing “Noah’s Dove.” Soon I realized a busker on the opposite platform was playing the exact same song, but just a few beats off. A million in one chance and we got this close. That’s the kind of near-miss that stays with you.
This blog post has nothing to do with TED talks, and nothing to do with Natalie Merchant, and everything to do with music in that subway station.
Krafty
April 20, 2010 // Link
Me: Hmm.
Yuma: Is that a good “hmm,” or a bad “hmm”?
Me: It’s an “I can’t remember where I parked hmm.”
Yuma: You have the worst memory.
Me: Do not. Hell, I still remember all the lyrics to the Star Blazers theme song, and that was like a thousand years ago.
Yuma: You held on to that, but not the memory of where your car is?
Me: Priorities.
Yuma: And that’s why you’re single.
Me: Ha, I could have dates.
Yuma: Would you sing the Star Blazers song to them?
Me: No.
Yuma: But would you want to?
Me: ...
Yuma: Single, dude. Single like a cheese.