Well, that was unexpected: Vox actually listened and now does HTML translation in posts! Not quite what I was hoping for—but it'll do.
So long as the em dash I just inputted shows up.
10/05/2006
09/11/2006
Dear Vox,
It's over between us. It's clear to me now that you're just not mature enough for me. Sure, it's great when you ask me fun questions and really make me think about books I've read or fun times from my childhood. I really enjoy that side of you. But lately I've been getting angrier and angrier at you, and I couldn't figure out why.
Okay, that's a lie, Vox. I know exactly why I'm angry at you. You're slow, bloated, and childlike. And that's just not what I'm looking for in a social-network-slash-blog environment. I want a service whose Javascript code won't freak Firefox out and ask why you're taking so long to load my page. I want a service that'll trust me to input my own HTML, for fuck's sake. I'm not in grade school anymore, I'm not afraid of the HTML cooties.
And then there's the fact that my friends will never understand you. But that's just a generation thing, Vox. That has nothing to do with you. MSN feels pretty lonely sometimes, too. Some of my friends don't want to play with it either.
But that doesn't take anything away from your own faults, Vox. Maybe, in a year or two, when you've grown out of your difficult alpha phase and maybe reached the perpetual beta phase, we can be friends again. Maybe even some quick, furtive moblogging in public places--yes, I know you like it in the e-mail! But you have to earn it, Vox. I don't put out for just anyone.
Sadly but finally yours,
chrominance
08/28/2006
QotD: I'm reading (or about to read)...
What books are on your nightstand?
What I just finished reading:
What I'll probably read next:
Books on my virtual nightstand (as in I don't have them yet but hopefully will soon):
Don't look so sad, toilet woman!
Best thing I've seen today: How to Unblock a Toilet.
08/14/2006
QotD: Check the Mailbox!
What magazines do you subscribe to, and why?
None. Oh, but the magazines I would be subscribed to if I were rich...
1. Car. My dad has a giant stack of Road & Tracks (and a few Car & Drivers) dating back to at least 1986. This stack has magically appeared in his bathroom every time we've moved. Back when I was a kid, I'd hang out in my parents' bathroom while my dad was at work and read Road & Track all day. It was great. I especially liked the front matter, where they'd show all the crazy concept cars and spy photos of future designs and all that jazz--those pages and Popular Science are really the only bastions of naive, wide-eyed futurism left in magazines today.
But as I grew older, it became clear that the magazines... eh, weren't so hot. To this day I'm not sure why, but something seemed lacking in execution. When I picked up my first issue of Car I was astounded--the British know how to make an awesome car mag. It was a giant tome--three times as thick as Road & Track--and chock full of snark, especially in the capsule reviews of Ferraris and Fiat Pandas alike. More so than those at the American car mags, the writers at Car, Evo and Top Gear seemed to share the giddy excitement and enthusiasm for cars that I did when I was a kid. Whenever I hit a newsstand, I glance at the Road & Tracks for a split-second before I pick up the latest issue of Car, and I don't feel the slightest tinge of regret.
2. Print. I think I like this magazine less now that I've taken a bit of a break from design, but Print was the right combination of awesomely pretty pictures and interesting articles about the design world and design techniques for me. Aside from their annual reviews (which I never bought, being twice the price of the normal issues), Print mostly stays away from the kinds of boring post-mortems of corporate work you'd generally see in mags like Applied Art. They also stayed far away from the very technical Photoshop/Illustrator/After Effects tips packages of the computer mags like Digit (though admittedly I love reading those as well). Print is, first and foremost, a journal of graphic design. And while there are other mags that do the same think, like eye and CMYK, Print was the one I picked up first. And at $15 a pop, you can't really buy all three. So I'd probably get a subscription to Print.
3. The Atlantic Monthly. I've read some great articles in the Atlantic Monthly, articles that have shaped my vision of long-form journalism. One of my favourites is a story about the lobster hunt in Maine--one of those subjects you'd never bother to look into yourself, but an event that comes to life through the exploration of all the angles, every nook and cranny mined for narrative details and interesting factoids. The New Yorker does this sort of thing as well, and the Economist covers the political ground the Atlantic does and then some, but again, if I had to pick...
4. Punk Planet. The magazine doesn't seem to stick too closely to punk these days, which is a good thing for me; I don't know too much about the punk scenes and don't honestly care that much. Punk Planet's bread and butter is the long-form Q&A; most of the magazine is given over to thoughtful interviews with a varied slate of artists. Refreshingly lacking in the vague sort of pretension you'd get from other mags mining the same vein, and far weightier than the likes of Rolling Stone, Spin, Blender, NME, etc., etc., etc., Punk Planet is the only music magazine I'd ever think of getting a subscription to.
08/09/2006
Infrared = sexxxy
Boy oh boy do I want one of these. Yeah, I know you can hack normal DSLRs to do infrared, but the Fujifilm UV/IR system sounds so much more elegant.
08/02/2006
Europe, the continent of romance
So Euro. So cliche. So great. (It's actually called "Bellissimo," but the quality of this YouTube video was better than the one where the name was spelled properly. C'est la vie.)
08/01/2006
QotD: Can you hear me now?
What's your cell phone's ringtone? What made you pick it?
Currently, it's the intro to Beck's "The New Pollution"--not actually music, not incredibly obvious, easily repeatable, annoying as shit, and puts a smile on your face when you recognize it. It is the ringtone par excellence.
That said, I ususally have the phone on vibrate.
07/31/2006
But you don't know it!
The Pipettes - Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me
My new favourite thing.
07/28/2006
Litter fairies?
"PortlandFilter: Have you seen the ladies in tiaras picking up trash on the bus mall?"
This is brilliant. I need pictures of this. NOW.
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