So Far I Have Not Found The Science

My Zoidberg Jesus user picture has suddenly turned into Lorne from Angel. I am not responsible for this.

Haxx?

So, I have almost no idea who is planning to come over tonight. This is apparently why people do that whole RSVP thing. RSVP comments/tweets/emails/IM/carrier pigeons would be appreciated.

I never update this thing anymore, man.

I'm gonna be out of town for about the next week or so, some family stuff suddenly came up that needs to be done in Boston.

Everything is cool, but it will be cool in the bay state for a week, rather than Pittsburgh.

It occurs to me that, in my generally quite successful efforts over the past year to not be one of those guys who still hangs out weirdly at college events, I accidentally seem to have basically stopped hanging out with about half of my friends.

I think this year, now that the bathwater is largely a non-issue, I would like to retrieve the baby.

So, A few weeks ago, I saw that theembarassments.com was available as a domain, so I jumped on that.

I know that "The Embarassments" is a good name for something, but I am not fully sure what yet. I have a few ideas, but I'd like to see what you guys think.

Suggest away.

I got myself an XBox 360 for my birthday.

Now I need to get a less cruddy internet connection, or figure out how to jury rig it into my current wireless network without overpaying for the silly adapter.

EDIT: Airport as network extender also works as wireless/ethernet bridge, neat.

Gamertag is Relaxatorium.

I generally try not to double post to my el-jay and the blog I actually use now, but this is too good to not post to as many places as possible.

Prodigy is I think maybe the best blogger ever

It's been a while since I've gotten out to any shows, so its probably as good a time as any to get some tickets and get ready to rock out.

Because rocking out is better with people, I will post a whole bunch of the main candidates to get some feedback from folks.

Travis Morrison Hellfighters are coming to Garfield Artworks on 3/7. It's the solo project of the former frontman of The Dismemberment Plan, who probably make my five favorite bands ever list, so I am definitely going. Fuck the haters who crapped on his solo stuff, the new album is streaming from his website and is quality. If you guys don't know his stuff, make me send you some Dismemberment Plan. Also, for serious, it is only $8. That's a bargain.

Stars are coming to Mr. Smalls on 3/30. They're on Arts & Crafts, so of course at least some of them are Broken Social Scene members, and they play electronic-tinged Boy/Girl dual lead vocal pop.

On 4/12, There's an interesting double bill in Homestead of New Pornographers (who I love) and Okkervil River (who I've heard once or twice). I intend to be at this show.

4/13 brings Mike Doughty back to Mr. Smalls, where I saw him a few years ago touring his last album. Since I saw that show, I'm withholding judgement here until I see if anyone else would go and until I pick up his new album and see if I love it such that I am compelled to see the new songs live.

http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox/

Lightbox. Sometimes useful, but flow disrupting and kind of annoying javascipt image zoomer.

http://www.cabel.name/2008/02/fancyzoom-10.html

FancyZoom. Nicer looking, and preserves flow. Way to go, cabel.

Looking at the code, it looks like it always works on all images on a page, which makes it less flexible than Lightbox which goes image by image, but it is just a much better implementation from an aesthetic/HCI standpoint.

I have a twitter now, curious if that winds up useful in any way, or at least entertaining.

http://twitter.com/relaxatorium

Also re-found the faux Best of Blur cover thing that some nice British girl did for me. Icon'd!

Wow, that was a pheeeeeenominal game. A few basic points.

1. The Giants D played their balls off. Pushed around a great O-line like nothing.

2. Brady was definitely off with that ankle planting on deep throws, he made a few of those that came up short in a way he probably doesn't if the ankle's fully healthy. That's football though. If you want a sport where injuries don't happen, you root for pro bowlers.

3. The Pats could have ended that last drive three times, the sack that Manning weaseled his way out of and the picks that Samuel and Merriweather had slip through their fingers. You always remember those 'almost' plays.

4. Speaking of the Manning sack avoidance, wow, that's gotta be one of the all time top Superbowl plays now, right? Pretty much the defining play of this one.

5. 12 days until pitchers & catchers report.

I have friends who are big gadget guys, who can quote camera specs, know what 1080p is, all that stuff. I am normally not that big a gadget guy.

that said, daddy wants him a stylophone.

Watched the end of season 2 of Deadwood tonight, it was completely fucking badass.

It is finally the first day of the winter that is moustache freezingly cold.

As a reminder notice to those who might be interested in reading my other bloggy stuff, but don't have independent RSS readers setup (coughs significantly at mistergone), You can read my other blog (less personal stuff, more cultural stuff), at culturizer.

That is all for now.

By rights, this is the sort of thing I should be posting over at Culturizer, but I want to wait until I make some downloads and impulse purchases first to make a larger and more informative post and music filled post there about the genius that is Raymond Scott. for now, I just want to share this, which might be the best thing ever.

So, I am using CakePHP on a freelance project, and I was looking at their API, and it had google ads, and one of them was for Prantil's, advertising almond tortes.

I am suddenly wildly hungry.

Last night I dreamed that I was shot three times in the stomach.

I didn't die though.

Hot, hot Four Tet on Andrew Bird 'Imitosis' remix action.

Good shit.

Imitosis Remix

The reason that I am where I am now is that I have spent most of my life taking the path of least resistance.

If something does not come to me easy, I do not do what it takes to get that thing.

This is why my life never really changes, it just moves. It's pretty good, really (I am fucking lucky in so many ways), but fundamentally unsatisfying.

So, I have been trying to think of entertaining/crazy projects to throw some time into, and I think this is my favorite idea yet.

I came up with the idea when I saw that SourceForge has a Religion and Philosophy section, and then wondered why I always have to piss around on the web to find scattered plaintext versions of famous philosophical works.

They should really be packaged together in an easily downloadable, strongly and conveniently searchable form. My brain wants it to mostly be command line, but it should really be an API flexible enough that it could be done graphically as well. Scarily enough, the forces of philosophical knowledge are already far behind the Christians in this sort of endeavor.

Surely the grand pursuit of human knowledge deserves as much of a solid access/research API as the stupid Bible.