They’re not just pants. They’re space pants.

Wait, it gets better.

They’re not just space pants. They’re space monkey pants.

Mmmm… disturbing, intriguing. Viral marketing is to creativity as regular marketing is to projectile vomit.

Also, I just thought I’d let you know (on a totally different subject) that I’m the worst early adopter ever. I know about things long before they get huge, but I never try them out until after they’re huge. Witness Flickr and Del.icio.us, both of which are sweet, both of which I heard about eons ago and both of which I’m just now finally getting around to messing with. I’m a freak.

Observe my swarthy links and scintillating commentary!

• Occasionally I see links to things that are cool, but I could never own. Things like wireless 5.1 surround sound systems or 10-megapixel cameras, which I would totally buy if I happened to be rich. I’m not, of course, but I will say that even with being really cool and all, both of those products are fairly reasonably priced.
• Perhaps iTunes 5 isn’t quite as feature anemic as I originally thought. It still sounds kind of lame to me, though.
• Weird.
• A very useful table of how to get to an actual human operator, bypassing the annoying phone trees of a lot of big companies.
• Forgive me if I’m misunderstanding, unlike HB I’m no biker, but isn’t the problem less of hitting the console and more of hitting the pavement?
• You’ve no idea how excited I am for this.
• Bruce Schneier is wise, and should be given attention when he speaks truth.
• Movie rumor roundup: I hope the nasty rumors about Spiderman 3 are false. I’ve heard that Sam Raimi has expressed disdain for multiple villains and Venom. While I think Venom is an interesting foe, he needs to be done right and Topher Grace seems… not right. Also, is it just me or does the new Superman look like a wuss?
• Spoiler Alert!! If you haven’t read Harry Potter 6 yet, move on! Otherwise, read ESR’s take on what the events at the end of the book mean (which, aside from the Lily Potter angle is pretty much what I was thinking) and also check out the spoilerific but super sweet T-Shirts which would be cool but possibly subject the wearer to beat downs from slow readers.

As if to suggest that my days were not already completely packed with both things I want to do and things I am forced to do, skimming the Internets in an effort to cull the interesting, newsworthy and thought-provoking has become even more exasperating because people keep writing and linking to these really long-winded but worthy of note pieces that take the better part of two days to read. It’s not even the kind of thing in every case where I’m like, “Hey, I should share this with both ironSoap readers,” it’s more something I personally find intriguing and may perhaps pass to a few select individuals via IM.

Filtering information for people you know and communicate with via electronic means is an interesting task/skill/phenomenon that, if I hadn’t wasted so much time already today reading and thinking about I might have time to discuss. But the nutshell version (not even like a Brazil nut… more like a sunflower seed) is that I have a collection of information sources that I rely on to feed me stuff that is likely to be of interest. But as I consume this information, I’m constantly thinking, “Okay, this is something I need to post on ironSoap” or “Dr. Mac would be interested in this,” etc. Likewise I’ll be sitting here doing whatever and an IM will show up from Ryan with some random link or another or I’ll catch a passed link on IRC from someone and I know that those people are doing the same thing I am.

It just trips me out to think how much stuff is flying around, being posted, getting submitted, published, mulled over, debated and commented upon and all those things are leading to more postings, submissions, publications and so on through an endless network of communication. I sometimes wonder if all this extra communication is actually making us better at understanding or if we’re just getting better at talking.

Or whatever.

• Word of the day: Ameliorate. I don’t know why, I just like that word. And I didn’t know what it meant until today.
• What!? Of the day: Blatant and disturbingly intimate soccer foul gets… immortalized. Maybe not so much a “What!?” as a “Why?”
• “Meh” of the day: iTunes 5. Doesn’t sound like a full point revision update to me.
• Internal struggle of the day: This vs. this. I’ve been thinking strongly about a new phone lately and until now the heavy favorite was the V3 (preferably in black). But now this… I dunno. The cost is similar, but early reports aren’t too promising. As for the nano, it’s extremely hip but I don’t actually need anything like that. My shuffle is just fine for the reasons I got it (gym use) and otherwise my 20GB iPod isn’t even full yet. But dang those things are sweet. I mean, black? Forget about it.
• Nostalgia of the day: Side by side comparison of SMB3 in Japan and the US. Interestingly enough, SMB3 was the first game (and one of the very few overall) that I ever played the import version of. Dr. Mac and I rocked an import from a local video game shop for so long that by the time the game came out in the US we were three-quarters of the way done with it.

After almost a year and a half I’ve gotten tired of the old style so I whipped up a new, not quite completely different one. Feel free to offer your comments, but don’t expect much. It was kind of an ordeal.

I’ve also replaced some of the mismashed links and buttons with consistent badges, which is a minor revision but kind of nice, I think.

The one other meta-thought I’ve been having is I’m considering moving back to the old server (monolith) from the newer colocated one. On one hand it would be so much nicer to have root access on the server again (wherefore art thou, rsync?) and the archives would be back. On the other hand, that’s a lot of work and I’d be back to subject to occasional drop-offs whenever someone sneezed to loudly near the DSL line. So I dunno. But it was a thought I had. And I’m all about sharing thoughts, even the dumb ones.

Especially the dumb ones.

Obsessive Link Clickers Rejoice

• I’m so tempted to order this so I can make my own puppet shows. Of course, I don’t have a video camera of any kind so I guess it would be a big waste. But it’s still cool.
• It was nice to hear that Logitech is doing a real bluetooth mouse, but I was pretty grouchy when I couldn’t find anything like—oh, let’s see—a price listed anywhere. I can’t tell if that means the announcement is too recent or if it suggests “You really don’t want to know,” but I think if it is anywhere in the sub-$50 range I might have to pick one up. As intrigued as I am with the Mighty Mouse, it will probably be several months before a bluetooth model comes along and ever since I read how the MM click-sensors work I’ve been paying attention to how I right click and I’m positive that I don’t lift my left finger to do it. All accounts suggest this will confuse the Mighty Mouse and I’m sure I’m confused enough as it is without having my mouse be equally befuddled.
• Okay, here it is: TiVos are now $50 after rebate. If you look around there are even ways you can get one cheaper than that (occasionally you’ll end up earning money on the deal with rebates and such). The monthly fee is the biggest barrier to entry but $12.95 isn’t a bad deal and the $300 lifetime subscription pays for itself in two years. So here’s what I’m saying: Just get one. I know, I know, you don’t watch that much TV, you think it will be confusing, blah blah blah. Trust me on this one thing: I have never met anyone who had TiVo that didn’t like it and even if you don’t watch much TV (and I actually don’t watch that much myself so I sympathize), freeing yourself from the tyranny of scheduled programming is worth $13 a month right there. Think about it: that late show you like but always fall asleep before the end? No problem, watch it at 5:30 when you get home the next night. Those Friday-night sporting events you miss because of your standing date night with your SO? Covered. Catch it when you get home (oh, and you can fast-forward the commercials too, so you watch it in half the time). So here’s the deal: You buy a TiVo and end up spending a total of $50 or less, add me as the referrer when you sign up for the service and if you don’t like it by the time Christmas comes around, I’ll send you $50 to cover the up front cost. Worst case scenario you are out $40 on service fees, and have some nice eBay fodder.
• This. Is. So. Cool. Sadly, the site is down right now. But, I mean, dude. Two, please!

The plane banked slightly to the left, and the man with the wandering elbows sitting next to me shifted for what seemed like the ten thousandth time since we took off. I grumpily rearranged myself in my center seat and tried to turn my attention back to my book. Since the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince two months ago, I had been trying to push through the confusing opening chapters which referenced the previous installment constantly. Eventually I resigned myself to the fact that I had read the earlier book too long ago and too quickly to have retained enough of the detail; facing two lengthy traveling days, I decided I’d be better off re-reading it before starting on the new book.

As it turns out I was able to tear through The Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince between the two flights and was glad I’d decided to re-read the fifth book first. I lifted my eyes from the page and peered over Nik’s shoulder and out across the Midwestern landscape, noting the dimming afternoon light. Traveling west to east is always a strange proposition because the time changes make days feel brief, almost ethereal, like the time that passes in dreams. We’d left home early, around seven and had merely driven to the airport, boarded a plane, rushed from one terminal to another during a layover in Phoenix and now approached our destination, having only a couple of Diet Cokes and a handful of salty snacks to show for the trip.

Night had fallen completely by the time we rolled into our destination town, iPod cranking static-y tunes through the rental car’s miserable excuse for speakers and while the clock showed something after nine in the evening, it still felt like the day was young. We were greeted with expected enthusiasm by my family as we entered my parent’s home. Hugs and smiles and cries of welcome passed around, but it didn’t take long for the star of the show to absorb everyone’s attention. Joel is, if you haven’t been following Scott’s site, my nephew.

Ignoring the fact that he’s far cuter than any other child I’ve encountered for a moment, he is also a lot of fun. He’s wiggly, energetic and curious as he loves to stand (at only five months) with help, and dislikes hanging around in one place for too long. In fact, he gets downright grouchy if you try to just sit around with him as he is much more interested in observing things, touching stuff, practicing his grasping technique and promptly shoving everything he gets his little hands on into his mouth.

After Scott, Sara and Joel departed, Nik and I played a new game with my folks called Chrononauts which, aside from being a bit complex to start with, is pretty enjoyable. Being two hours behind the time indicated by the clocks in my parent’s house, I stayed up after everyone else had retired for the night. I read The Order of the Phoenix some more and reflected on the curious nature of home. I’ve never lived in Missouri, never stayed more than a few nights at my parent’s house there and they’ve even replaced most of the furniture and possessions we had when they were still back in California. Somehow, it still feels comfortable there… it’s like a curious familiarity that is undeserved except in the hands that put it together. Eventually I succumbed to the day’s travels and fell asleep myself.

Thursday my brother, my dad and I went out for some golf.

You must understand the significance this event had for me because I have been a staunch opponent of the game of golf for a long time. My problem with golf is not the game itself. Games are, as has been well established here, a sort of passion of mine. Considering that golf is less a game of skill (not unlike bowling, darts or pool which technically qualify as sports under Dr. Mac‘s Sporting Definition but are hardly among the more athletic examples of qualifying activities) it may seem odd that I have had to endure probably fifteen years of occasional raised eyebrows and up through outright badgering from other golf-afflicted friends and acquaintances. It’s probably not so odd then to hear that my problem is more with golfers than golf itself.

I’ve had this notion—perhaps deserved, perhaps not—of golfers and therefore golf itself as an arrogant, pretentious pastime that smacks of elitism, decadence and cronyism. The occasional cry of sexism or racism directed at clubs whose primary purpose is the pursuit of golf has done little to help. Yet I’ve been evaluating this notion for quite some time now, especially as I’ve renewed my interest in tabletop, board and role-playing gaming. Role-playing in particular has also suffered from a bad reputation perpetuated by ignorance of the actual mechanics and poor research into the actual execution of a game. A few bad apples have also poisoned the well, so to speak, for those who neither warrant nor deserve the scorn, prejudgment and occasional fear sparked by being branded a “role-player.”

I figured it was just as bad, if not worse, to perpetuate the same injustices toward something else, especially considering my firsthand experience on the other side of the fence. The fact of the matter in terms of games is simply this: They are what you make them. If one chooses to be an elitist golf jerk, wafting reeking racism, class-ism or sexist piggishness chances are one could just as easily do so with tennis or bridge or (ahem) iPod ownership. Golf is not the problem. People are the problem.

Anyway, there was little chance of me turning into a snooty prig considering our “Discount Golf” course of nine 3-par holes in which I scored a 66 (that’s 39 over par for the math-impaired) and the fact that I have a marked habit of tipping off the top of the ball and skipping it bouncing across the ground as though I were skipping a stone over a lake’s surface. In spite of my ineptitude, I found the game (and the driving of the golf carts, especially the manic power slides my brother and I practiced at each and every hole) quite enjoyable—to the extent that I would certainly like to go back and try playing some more, perhaps with a few trips to a driving range prior with someone who knows a thing or two and might teach me not to be an embarrassment. While there was little shame in a small course in a state I don’t reside in on a Thursday afternoon where the only witnesses were my close relatives, I would not care to subject myself to the shame of playing that way around people who are, no matter how you look at it, probably protective of their chosen hobby and essentially armed with blunt implements.

Friday Scott and Sara dropped Joel off with his grandparents and the four of us set out for a day together. I’ve met Sara on several occasions during her fairly lengthy courtship with Scott but it struck me later that this last week was probably the first time Nik and I have really gotten a chance to know her as a person rather than a sort of abstract concept (“My brother’s wife,” for example). I’m pleased to report that she is an exceptionally kind, funny and warm person which is not something that particularly surprises me—my brother may be a bit spacey at times (although I noted with some alarm that fatherhood has drastically enhanced his maturity level) but no one can reasonably accuse him of being dim nor a poor judge of character.

We went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant where, much later I realized, they served me something that was not remotely close to what I had ordered. I’m pretty positive that I ordered a chalupa and enchilada combination plate but what they served me was a tostada and a chicken quesadilla. Obviously since I didn’t notice until we were out of the state entirely, it wasn’t a big deal and the food was good in spite of the miscue, but it was a little odd. After lunch we went bowling where I broke 100 (105) in the first game and barely cleared my golf score in the second game.

Bowling, golf, pool and darts are all examples of games that I’m terrible at. I’ve even managed to pinpoint the cause which is that they all rely on a certain ability to adjust some mechanical motion and maintain consistency through that motion over repeated attempts. Consistent motion is not my strong suit. I never hit the cue ball the same way twice, I don’t throw a bowling ball with anything that resembles proper form even though I’ve been taught how to bowl “the right way” by at least a dozen people since I was rather young. Games that feature speed and reflexes are much more suited to my particular set of physical (cough) skills which is why I am better at ping-pong, volleyball and raquetball and the like than I’ll probably ever be at the others. It’s not really a complaint, just an observation.

For dinner Scott, Sara, Nik and I went to a restaurant located near the University of Missouri (Mizzou if you please) which features the most unique but delectable appetizer I’ve encountered in a very long time. Envision thinly sliced green bell peppers, lightly battered and fried with generous amounts of black pepper and piled on a plate. Then sprinkle powdered sugar over the rings and serve. Odd? Absolutely. Delicious? You’d better believe it.

I had an Ahi Tuna and Pesto sandwich which was also very tasty and afterward we retreated to Applebee’s for dessert where Nik and I shared one of my favorites, Apple Cheesecake Chimichangas. If you haven’t tried these, I urge to stop reading right now and go find your local Applebee’s restaurant and order one. Now. The remarkable thing is that Applebee’s doesn’t make much else that I particularly like, dessert or otherwise. This one dish almost makes up for the incredibly average rest of the menu. Almost.

On Saturday Scott and his family had to go up north for his weekend job leading worship service at a church up there. We met them at a country-style restaurant for breakfast (real mid-Western biscuits and gravy are something everyone should try at least once before they die) and some more time and pictures with Joel. We sadly said good-bye to them and headed back to my parent’s place. My dad and I lounged in front of a parade of college football games, including the amusingly pathetic loss by Oklahoma to Texas Christian University. We spent the afternoon remarking in a rather smarmy manner about various things including how lame it is for teams to play these gimme games (USC versus Hawaii? Cal versus Sacramento State? Come on now…) and why Florida International (which I could have sworn was an airport) was playing. I postulated that it might be the airline worker’s pickup league or something. Shock of all shocks, it wasn’t televised so we never got a chance to find out.

Later in the evening my aunt and uncle stopped by with my cousin’s baby boy who is slightly older than Joel. He’s a cute little guy and being somewhat older he is close to talking and walking and his activity is a little more focused on task accomplishment (versus Joel’s sort of spastic motor skill experimentation). As the night wore on and they packed little Levi up to go home, the typical air of resigned melancholy settled over the house. We played Tripoley for a few hours (a fine game that blends poker and rummy, by the way) but with a long day including church in the morning and the day o’ traveling approaching, one by one people drifted off to bed.

I stayed up a little later, as usual, reading distractedly and trying to find some comfort in a house that, while oddly familiar, is still not “home.” My sleeping issues are typically exacerbated by changes in environment so I lay on the couch and listened to the night. I thought about my brother’s lament that he sometimes finds it hard to connect with people he meets that are his age, wishing abstractly that Nik and I lived closer to where he and Sara were. It’s strange how when we were growing up we were constant playmates, spending endless hours setting up our toys, pretending to be space pirates or whatever, playing sports and getting on each other’s nerves. Yet there was a long period of time where that was just what happened because we were brothers but at least I never sat down and gave much thought to the idea that he might be one of my best friends, too. Despite being similar enough in disposition and personality to have a lot in common it was always an abstract concept that brotherhood is frequently equated with close bonds. As I stared at the ceiling and finally felt the weariness of the week weigh on me, pulling my eyes closed and drifting into that in-between state that isn’t quite sleep and isn’t quite waking, I decided that it was lamentable that we ended up living far away.

My dreams were odd and scattered, and I woke confused as Nikki was up very early, sick with unexpected cramps. I never quite got all the way back to sleep, and with a long day of travel ahead of us, I said my sad farewells to my parents in the parking lot after church. I often grouse that they complain about how little we see them considering they were the ones that all moved away. Somehow I felt this time that there was something else going on. Perhaps it feels again like change is on the way, and things aren’t going to be the same forever. Whatever it is, I think people just do what they feel they have to do, go where they feel led, and hope that somehow the end result is enough caring and supportive people surrounding them to make them feel human and connected. Sometimes you have to give up some things to gain others. It’s not ideal. It’s just… life.

A few hours later I stared again out the window of the plane at the tiny lights below making a patchwork of dots and lines against the black expanse of ground, invisible except for where the orange lights touched it in little pools unable to fully reveal the detail from this distance. I closed my book, now finished, and glanced over at Nik, who tried to nap with semi-success in the uncomfortable seats crammed tightly together for maximum profitability. Somewhere down there is home, I guess.

Whatever that means.

It is tempting to state, matter-of-factly, that I went to the mall this weekend. But I fear that my submission of such a statement might mislead you into envisioning me within the confines of a vast, space-saving building packed full of commerce and its associated enterprises. Let me clear up your preconceived notions by telling you that when I say mall, you can go ahead and fill in the finger-curling air quotes around that word and take it to mean “A sad, pathetic excuse for a shopping center which features perhaps three stores of any interest, our one movie theater, the World’s Smallest Food Court and 9,647 cell phone peddlers in kiosk locations whose sole purpose is apparently to verbally accost anyone entering the state lines, browbeating them into a variety of two- or three-year contracts, even if they already own several cellular phones.”

I’m not saying I hate our “mall,” I’m just saying if given the choice between having an amateur appendectomy and shopping there, I’d probably have to ask how long I could get out of work before making an informed decision.

At one point Nik turned to me and said, “They’re having a sale on jeans at Old Navy. Two pairs for forty bucks.”

“Isn’t it ‘two pair‘ for forty bucks?”

“That’s what I said,” she replied, curling her lip a bit the way she does when she thinks I’m being dumb. I see that look a lot. “Forty bucks.”

“No,” I said, “You said ‘two pairs‘. But ‘pair’ is already plural. You don’t need to add the ‘s’.”

In addition to the lip-curly thing, she also has this very blank expression with lowered eyelids and a slight tightening of the corners of her mouth. I means, “You are the biggest dork ever.” I get that look with alarming regularity.

“Nevermind,” I added hastily.

Here’s the thing about Old Navy: You can’t beat their prices. I mean, I guess you could go to a secondhand store and wear someone else’s pants, but typically I reserve that sort of thing for metaphorical realms. The problem, of course, is that you get what you pay for which, in this case, is $20 worth of sweatshop-produced poop carefully shaped by tiny, exhausted hands to look more or less like britches. The magic of this illusion is that right up until the moment you place these paragons of duplicity into the washing machine, or any body of water for that matter, they seem like the Best Deal Ever.

Of course, after that initial washing they dissolve not entirely unlike the Wicked Witch of the West did in The Wizard of Oz. If you listen carefully you can even hear them emit tiny, pained little shrieks of misery. “What a world! What a world!” Et cetera.

Yet I keep going back, hoping in vain that this time, what I purchase won’t dissolve upon contact with Earth’s atmosphere (I’m actually looking in to a theory I have which suggests that Old Navy stores emit a specialized kind of holographic ray, or possibly they pump hallucinogens into their air circulator which would suggest that Old Navy pants do not exist at all but are instead entirely fabricated as cruel jokes designed to drain your wallet. I’ll let you know what my investigation uncovers).

As I wandered the store, glaring bitterly at the signs posted everywhere declaring the profoundly reduced prices and already fighting my internal war between Mr. Cheapskate and Mr. I’m-Nobody’s-Fool. These two guys live inside me and they quarrel constantly. Like when I see a sale at the grocery store which says, “Buy 1, Get 1 Free.” Mr. Cheapskate instantly goes, “Yeah, we gotta get that.” Mr. INF waits until I’ve reached for the second item before piping up, “Uh, do we really need this? I mean, you’re not just going to buy this because it’s on sale, are you? Because that’s how the Man wants you to shop.”

Mr. Cheapskate is fairly proud, and hates when Mr. INF is right. But sometimes there will be a retort: “Yes, but we were going to buy this anyway, and now we get a second one, free!” Mr. INF calmly replies, “Were we planning on buying two?”

“No…” Mr. Cheapskate says, suspiciously.

“Well then why are we buying more than we need? Buy one, get one free is just another way of saying ‘50% Off,’ so we might as well just get the one at half price we were going to get and not buy something we’re just going to throw away because it sounded like it might be ‘free.'” Mr. INF is very sarcastic.

Usually, Mr. Cheapskate has to concede that paying half price is better than paying full price, even if you end up with less, but he typically isn’t too happy about it. In this case however, there were strict rules for the buying of pants, which detailed plainly that while two pair(s) of pants were $40, one pair of pants was $27.00. The indication of the signage seemed to make it abundantly clear that only a single-celled organism would ever consider not buying pants in even numbers.

And despite Mr. I’m-Nobody’s-Fool screaming in my head, I actually considered purchasing some Old Navy jeans. What eventually stopped me was that their jeans aren’t just of dubious quality, but they look bad, too. I mean, what’s up with this whole “dirty jeans” look they have going on? You know, where the blue has some dingy brown-grey color mixed in so they look like jeans that someone wore camping for a week? What is that? Listen, if I wanted to wear dirty jeans, I can just wear the jeans I already have. I’m a clumsy guy: I spill a lot. Also, I’m not that tidy of a person in general so (and this may be far more information than you ever wanted) there is roughly a one-in-three chance that any time you meet me, I’m wearing pants that could have—or maybe should have—been washed already, but haven’t been. What I certainly don’t need is to pay money for pants that I didn’t even get dirty myself.

So I grumbled and complained and griped until Nikki finally stalked out of the store, exasperated. “You hate everything!” she cried. “You just can’t stand shopping! Fine, then. Next time, just tell me your size and I’ll pick your stupid pants out!”

I considered this for a long moment. “Yeah, but I’m picky, too. You’d have to get pants that I’d like.”

If irritation were tangible, like sweat, it would have been gushing from her pores. “You… hate… everything,” she said, and her fingers clenched and twitched in a way that made me think she was imagining my throat between them. I backed away a few steps.

“Well, yeah. But if people just made normal pants that didn’t suck, it wouldn’t be such a problem,” I grumbled.

After a moment of uncomfortable glaring, her shoulders drooped, and she sighed, defeated. “Yeah. That’s the problem,” was all she said. I’m pretty sure it was smarter of me not to ask.

Apple Pie

• The New York Times reports that record labels are greedy (BugMeNot required). Shocking of a development as that is, what it means for Apple is that they’re starting to whinge about the flat $0.99 rate iTunes has rocked since the beginning. Instead they favor a more complicated staggered pricing scheme where popular stuff (like the latest Hillary Duff poo-bomb) would be more like $1.50 and older stuff might even drop below the $0.99 point.
  I’m kind of torn because while I really don’t see anything going below $0.99, if it did that would be killer, but I kinda don’t see that happening. And I’m really not that concerned if “popular” stuff gets expensive, because I don’t buy much/any of that as it is. (Well, I guess you could count stuff like Coldplay as popular, so maybe it would affect me…)
  But it’s easier to envision them just raising the prices all around so an album ends up costing $12-$14. If that happens my incentive for buying online decreases since I can grab used CDs for way less than that (about $8.00 on average) and even though they’re used, it’s worth it for about five bucks in savings. And that’s not too cool since I actually really like buying online; it’s easy, it’s cheap and it’s much more likely to have something I want than a used record store which may or may not have much of anything. Plus I can listen to clips of the songs, which helps immensely.
• This is kind of tangental, but I just have to point out that there is still a glaring flaw in iTunes which needs desperately to be fixed which is that if I purchase a single from an album (or more specifically several singles), then if I decide the whole album is then worth my money I shouldn’t have to purchase those same tracks again. I understand that this means all songs would have to have a “single price” and an “album price” but here’s what I’m thinking: What if the single price were flexible and based on an algorithm that measured popularity (number of purchases/downloads) to raise the price to a specific cap? The lowest possible price would be the album price ($x divided by y where x is the cost of the full album and y is the number of tracks for simplicity’s sake, or something more complex that also factors in popularity) and once the song was no longer being purchased like crazy due to popularity it would dip back down toward the album price.
  Eventually most catalog titles would be pretty cheap for one-offs, or you could simply buy albums piecemeal, without taking a hit for trying stuff out. People would be encouraged to find stuff that wasn’t mainstream (because it would be cheaper) and those who really just wanted to be part of the crowd would either have to fork over the single price (supply and demand, baby) or take the plunge on the whole album. I’m just saying.
• Afterglow comes up with an intriguing new idea for the Desktop/Finder and I think he’s on the right track. One problem I see is that he seems to be kind of relying on the Dock being at the bottom and I prefer to keep mine on the left. I find that it gets in the way less over there (at the bottom on my 14″ iBook it makes me scroll more, especially when I’m editing already-too-big image files in Fireworks or Illustrator and on the right it gets in the way of my scrollbar(s)). I’m also not sure about the Clipboard thing, that sounds more like a Widget to me. Having used the clipboard manager in XP (which makes me insane, by the way, since in theory it’s a good idea but it always pops up when I don’t want it to… almost like there needs to be a new copy or cut command like CTRL-SHFT-X/C that copies or cuts and saves) I can say that it’s sorta useful, but not so much so that it needs to be a highlighted feature unless there was an easy way to access the clipboard history through shortcuts. I really don’t usually care to see what’s on the clipboard, I just want to be able to get it.
• Drunkenbatman rants about GTalk in a way that makes a lot of sense. I mentioned before that the only surprising thing about GTalk was that it was completely lacking anything remarkable. But the article suggests that the other IM providers are taking GTalk very seriously and so much so that they may soon start taking drastic measures to prevent Google from running them out of town, even if the chances of that happening are significantly higher in their heads than in reality.
  I actually think the article downplays the extent to which the other IM guys bailing out support for older clients could be exactly what Google is hoping for: If everyone has to upgrade anyway and no one’s multi-protocol apps work anymore, why don’t we all just switch to GTalk and forget these other jokers? I myself honestly could care less which IM protocol ends up winning, and I’d certainly be happiest if it were something open (like Jabber), but I really just want something to step up and clear out some of this cruft. I’d be much happier using AIM/iChat all day, but I have too many people who use Yahoo! or MSN exclusively to just abandon them so I deal with the questionable interface and weird status states of Adium (for whatever reason the “Automatically Reconnect at Logon” option doesn’t seem to apply to dropped connections, just re-launching the app) for the sake of communication.
  On the other hand, if AIM, MSN and Yahoo! got together and created a protocol to compete with Jabber/GTalk and closed it off saying, “From now on you can use whichever app you want and you can talk to anyone from all three networks and we’ll just compete based on client featureset” they could effectively kill GTalk before it even takes off, make multi-protocol apps obsolete and render Jabber another one of those funky hacker-alts like Ogg Vorbis that exists for the freedom freaks but is so far below everyone else’s radar that it might as well not exist.
• I’m not really suggesting anything by this, but I found a P2P app for OS X that connects to multiple networks called Poisoned. And if you were to download something like this, I know you’d only use it legally and for the greater good of man. Right?

This. That. There is no ‘Other Thing’ Today, Though

• I found a blog by an Israeli woman who has some informed and interesting opinions about the ongoing struggles of the Jewish nation. You should read it. You might learn something.
• For the language dorks out there (and I know I’m not alone), there’s a nice series of articles covering some of the stranger nuances of the English language called the Language Corner. The newest entry covers the use of “that” versus “which.” I guess I write like a Brit since I tend to use “which” about every other word. Which reminds me…
• Has anyone read the book Wicked, or seen the musical? The premise sounds interesting, but I want to know if it’s worth it to check either out.

I’m lazy today, so I have nothing to offer except some more sassy commentary on crap I found surfing around the web today. I know you deserve better, but I’ll just have to make it up to you later.

• I don’t normally go for the whole “cute” thing, but this polar bear, while certainly qualifying as cute, is also just a good photograph and the appearance of sheer joy on the little guy’s face actually managed to permeate my carefully crafted shell of bitter grouchiness and made me smile. I figure that’s worth something.
• Then just as I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy, I read this (BugMeNot required) and realize that while furry animals may be sweet and endearing, people are still basically scum.
• Except Zach Vande Zande. That guy rules. In case you’re wondering, the translation is: “I am a Sea Cucumber. I am incapable of wearing pants.” I knew two years of suffering through Madame Gherke’s awful, awful hairstyle and incurable peppiness would come through for me eventually.
• This is good. This makes me happy.
• Sarcasm aside, I actually do approve of this DDR mod. Anything that shoots jets of flame at DDR players gets the a-okay from me.
• Websnark has changed since I first started reading it a year ago. I don’t really follow it daily as a result (the addition of White Wednesday altered the dynamic and I dunno… it wasn’t like I was looking for another personal blog or even a group weblog; I wanted to read about comics) but I did notice today’s post which ties into yesterday’s announcement that America is becoming a collective tub of lard and shows, with startling poignancy, one man’s struggle to buck the trend.
• You know what I love about Robert Cringely? He can take a reasoned argument and then take the most insane leap of speculative logic to come up with some seriously wack theory. And he makes it seem perfectly rational. I love that.
• Following up the GTalk brouhaha: Mac users call the whaaaambulance.

Yesterday’s manic buzzing and twittering all across the ‘net about Google’s new beta, Google Talk (or GTalk as it was quickly dubbed) didn’t really thrill me—although I did set up Adium to connect to it, despite having no one else I know to talk to. I mean, a new IM system/protocol/service? I’m inclined to just hit the snooze button and you can wake me up when something, you know… happens.

However, all the hubbub about GTalk did get people into a mood to discuss online communications in general. This led to people mentioning things like Gizmo, Vonage and Skype. Voice Over IP and voice chatting (audio IM? whatever) aren’t new by any stretch, but Google’s 750-pound gorilla getting in on the act has people speculating that they may be either angling to buy Skype or angling to trash their business, leaving VoIP providers and the few smaller projects like Gizmo floundering.

I personally don’t think Skype has much to worry about. Google’s incessant beta tests (seriously, Gmail is still in beta) and their lack of a “shake-up” feature (such as Gmail’s then-unheard-of massive disk space allotment) in GTalk doesn’t seem to have anything compelling to offer over Skype except the Google name. But this isn’t about Google vs. Skype or really about Google at all.

What got me thinking was Skype itself. I’d heard of Skype and Vonage and all that before, but I’d never really paid it much attention. For one thing, I don’t make a lot of really expensive calls. Some, sure, but not enough that I’m constantly working that angle to try and lower my phone bill. But like anyone else, if there was an acceptable way to reduce any bill I get, I’d be interested. What turned me off about Vonage was that it didn’t really fix my primary problem with phone conversations; that being the phone itself. Vonage converts your home phones into VoIP, which is nifty in a “gee, they can do that” kind of way but not really thrilling when your one and only phone is a crummy SBC model with a seven centimeter cord that just happens to be the only phone you’ve owned in the last six years that functions.

I’ve ranted about my trials and tribulations with telephones before, but the only pertinent rehash that needs to be done here is to remind you that since I became solely responsible for providing me and my household with telephone service I have burned through an estimated $400 or more on telephones, accessories, services and doctor’s bills in a vain effort to have something that works as a means to remotely communicate with friends and family members in a voice-to-voice format. Add in the expense for goods and services which (more or less) allowed me to achieve that goal and it’s been a lot of money with not a lot of return.

Given my detest for the phone system in general and contrasting that with my (likely obvious) fondness for other means of communication, I began to look at Skype in a different way yesterday. In essence it comes down to this: I use the telephone (I’m referring to the wired box in our bedroom that plugs into the wall and we pay for every month) to call maybe ten people. Of those people, perhaps four of them live far enough away that “long distance” calling becomes a factor to the extent where cell phones might be too expensive of an option should the conversations ever get too long. Everyone else I call I’m inclined to do so on my cell phone.

Pardon a quick digression but I feel I should explain my cell phone situation. I get my cell through work, who provides a (crummy, half broken, secondhand, 1998-model) phone and for $10 a month gives me personal use ability. However, the “personal use” is full of stipulations which restrict or outright prohibit expensive features like SMS (text messages), long distance, downloadable ringtones or anything that would add up to more than $10 per month in incurred charges. I’m not really complaining as it is a free phone after all. But what it comes down to is that I have the phone for emergencies at work and I’m really supposed to treat it as if I used it for emergencies at home, too. In protest for this I have never enabled voicemail on it and while I carry it around most places, I don’t really make a concerted effort to have it on me at all times.

All my other communication comes from IM, IRC, email, this site and in-person. Looking at these facts I realize that I “talk” to most people with my computer as it is. Those I don’t I probably talk to with mobile means anyway. So if I need a cell phone and would prefer to communicate via computer in all other cases, why do I still have a landline?

There are two stumbling blocks here: One is emergency services (911) and the other is bandwidth. Skype doesn’t allow emergency service calls (and you’d have to log in through your computer anyway which would probably defeat the purpose of the quick 911 phone call) so it would be fairly imperative to have the cell phone on, charged and nearby at all times. Also, since Skype uses the broadband connection and at least in our household we have a lot of connected stuff including two computers, the XBox and two TiVos, if we thrust the phone service in there, collisions and slowdowns might be a problem for our puny DSL line.

The 911-via-cell isn’t much of an issue at least looking from this side. If a cell phone is your primary calling tool, I’m guessing I’d just learn to have it with me. The bandwidth thing could actually be a blessing in disguise since as I understand it the cable company has come calling around lately looking for people to sign up with their internet service. I would love nothing more than to not just shut SBC phone service down but cancel my DSL account along the way. If nothing else it might be worth it to, considering the expanding uses we’re finding for our internet connection, invest in a more significant pipe anyway.

So what am I missing? Is there any compelling reason not to ditch traditional phone service, use Skype for at-home calling (even using their SkypeOut is cheaper for calling to regular phone lines than picking up my phone) and get a decent cell phone service plan for everything else?

I Have Thoughts. I Will Share. You Won’t Care.

• Scott Ott writes what he would say to Cindy Sheehan if he were the President. While eloquently written and initially persuasive, it neatly manages to avoid the crux of Ms. Sheehan’s query which is, “What the heck are we doing anyway?” The nobility of a death with purpose wasn’t ever, so far as I can tell, being called into question it was more a question of “Why was any of this necessary?” The hooey about “…the number of nations where such protest is possible has multiplied…” sounds all valiant until you remember that Iraq didn’t really ask to be “helped” and we (as Americans which includes the American soldiers) weren’t given the clearest picture about what the motivations were. The whole region hates what we’re doing and we may well have made the terrorist’s case for them, encouraging the exact kind of behavior were were ostensibly trying to interrupt and being the best recruiting propaganda tool they could have asked for. Ott writes, “Let’s, you and I, resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain,” but when Bush himself and his cabinet have had a hard time expressing what our plan is, what our rationale was (or should have been, considering their revisionist view of recent history) and what all of this means going forward that sounds incredibly hollow as an answer to the question posed. I mean, you can’t answer someone who asks, “Why did my son die in vain?” with “Buck up or else he will have died in vain.”
• At the same time, we can’t really believe what the administration is saying (even if we could decipher their doublespeak babble) nor can we be sure the information we’re getting is presented in a reasonable manner making the media hard to believe as well.
• In the wake of GTalk’s introduction, the New York Times runs an article talking about the “Do No Evil” company’s new mustache-twirling ways.
• Okay, so it’s not just me.
• Hey, America! You’re fat!
• Whoa, you mean those helpful emails I get several times a day that offer me low low prices on prescription drugs might be shady? I… I… can’t believe it! They seemed so… honest!
• Newsflash: Lots of movies suck. The oft-cited summer movie slump is, assuming it’s even real, commonly attributed to high ticket prices and/or crummy movies by movie goer pundits and piracy/DVD encroachment by studio honchos. The NY Times article suggests it’s probably more the former and definitely not so much the latter. They also suggest that high gas prices may have something to do with it. I know that as of this moment I’m officially sick of people blaming stuff on the high cost of gas… almost as sick as I am of gas being like $3.20/gallon. But back to the movies thing, I think the real problem is in the theater experience. When we saw Four Brothers last weekend, some jerk’s cell phone rang and he had the utter audacity to not just let it ring, but proceed to answer it and have a conversation. I almost flipped my lid trying to keep from getting up and punching the guy’s lights out. I mean hello? How sub-human do you have to be to answer your cellphone during a freaking movie?
  What I think we need are theaters who give us actual value for our dollars. Yes, movie tickets cost a lot. But I think if the cost seemed justified it wouldn’t be so bad. If my $9.00 got me a clean, comfortable seat in a theater with attendant ushers who got paid enough to care that the theater patrons had an enjoyable movie-watching experience and were present to notice if the sound/picture quality was suffering I would fork it over without reservation. I could even understand having the matinee shows forego the ushers; you get what you pay for. As it is I can’t fathom paying full price for an identically rotten experience. Food prices are ridiculous but smuggling in a handful of candy isn’t much trouble and if they offered human-sized portions I wouldn’t have as much trouble buying the inflated snacks. I mean, $3.00 is a lot of for popcorn, but it’s astronomical when you consider that the “small” you’re paying three bucks for could feed an entire third grade classroom at snacktime. When you throw away 70% of a bag you dropped that much money on, you can’t help but feel gypped. And getting free refills on a 64 ounce soda is so funny it almost makes the $4.50 worth the chuckle you get out of it, but not quite. Anyone who can down 128 ounces of soda in two hours without having their bladder rupture deserves to be on the 11 o’clock news. And if you think dudes answering their cell phones during the flick is annoying, try watching Bewitched with the paramedics cleaning up a splattered bladder from the front six rows.
• Haunting and occasionally beautiful artwork depicting the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests.
• One of the funnier, more disgusting posts my brother has made. I approve wholeheartedly.
• Rare it is that I take so long to compose a posting that I have time to retract something I haven’t even posted yet, but I mention above that GMail is still in beta, but I guess you can sign up without an invite… sorta. You have to text message from a mobile phone (something that Dare Obasanjo thinks is a horrible privacy invasion (note that Dare’s site is utter pants in Safari)), but I guess that’s sorta non-exclusive-beta-ish? Or something. Which reminds me, I still have 50 invites milling around if anyone in this planetary system doesn’t yet have a GMail account but wants one.

I mentioned briefly my efforts to set up GPG encryption with OS X’s Mail.app yesterday. There are extents I will go to in order to, say, procure a particular variety of sandwich or locate a specific item nestled within the labyrinthine confines of our computer room closet whose resulting outcome is of less importance than the color of underwear I choose to don in the morning. Yet when it comes to something that has actual significance—for example securing communications of a sensitive nature over untrusted networks in an insecure medium—my typical intensity level involves a lot of shrugging.

But being aware of this fact, I decided today that no amount of mental deficiency would stop me from achieving my goal. Thanks to the industrious folks at MacGPG the initial set-up of the software was pretty painless. The main GPG disk image was a straightforward install, and with the help of one Bruce McKenzie and a site called Zeitform.info I was able to get the initial key generated.

A couple of other utilities from my dawgs at MacGPG (whom, I presume, flow fresh from the nizzle for rizzle) helped get a few other things set up and then I was directed to the PGP plugin for Mail.app, Sen:te. This is where the asphalt and the steel-belted radials unite because my comprehension (and accompanying deficiencies) was not put to the test during the previous steps. It wasn’t until I was required to display some sort of critical analysis of the pertinent data and come up with a course of action that I kind of lost my way.

I don’t mean to disparage Sen:te, because it is a fine product that cleverly replaces $100 worth of software without cost, but the first few times I tried to send a signed message it crashed Mail.app. Crashing apps is an event/experience that I have as much familiarity with as the next guy—I doubt very much that more than a handful of us escaped from the treacherous clutches of Windows 95/98—but my iBook is typically not the cause of these types of circumstances.

A key problem with using or attempting to use new software, especially if its function is also new (as opposed to using a new email client or something where the interface and features may be foreign, but at least the fundamental purpose of the software is old hat), is that when things go wrong there is often a terrifying period where one senses a floating unease: Something is wrong and without any buoys to guide or markers to point the way to shore, the only hope is to pick a random direction and start swimming, trying as hard as possible not to think that you just may be paddling with all your might out into the depths of the ocean, away from land. In this case I deleted the original key and generated a new one with a different passphrase. I’m still not sure which of those elements contributed to the subsequent success, but that success was had at all seemed plenty sufficient for me.

Since I was sending these tests to myself using my myriad of email addresses, I then generated a new key for the recipient address and sent a final mail from that account, now not only signed but fully encrypted.

So I am now capable of sending and receiving GPG/PGP-encrypted email. My public key is even on my Contact page if you’re into that sort of thing. If not, I suspect you’re unmercifully bored at this point already. Makes you wonder why you’re still reading, doesn’t it?

An Abrupt Change of Subject

• They try to spin it like this is normal, a very common occurrence with first-round draft pick Quarterbacks, but I ain’t buying it. I still say they should have picked Aaron Rogers.
• The video game sites have been a-titter about what madness Nintendo has in store for their upcoming next-gen console. They are fond of making veiled references to a new paradigm in interaction with the system and then giving coy smiles and playing coquettishly with their skirts—er, I mean, suit jackets. The last time Nintendo said some stuff like that they dropped the DS on us which, by all accounts wasn’t exactly the herald of the coming apocalypse as we might have believed if we got all our information from gamer message boards (shudder the thought) and it certainly doesn’t make the DS a first-person shooter dynamo, even with the incredibly dorky-looking thumb nubbin, but it does have some interesting and clever uses. One suspects that this time around the Revolution controller is probably going to have some kind of similar effect where at first everyone says they don’t get it, then everyone says it is clear that Nintendo’s collective brains have leaked from their nasal passages and finally everyone agrees that it is interesting but not really that big of a deal. At any rate the speculation has been intense, in the way that nuclear fusion is “intense” but so far everyone seems to be trying to out-stupid each other. (Which, coincidentally, is pretty much what I think human beings do as a general rule all the time anyway.) But today I saw something that actually had—if not creedence—at least a modicum of plausibility about it: Centrifugal resistance.

  Yes, yes, the photo is a total sham, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is probably the most on-target suggestion I’ve seen yet (you really have to be a news-following gamer to comprehend the vast quantities of theories that have been postulated in the last few months about this; the extent to which people have no lives is staggering). Combining some type of tilt detection in a standard controller could help bridge the gap that I mentioned in my previous rant between the third dimension in gaming graphics and the input mechanisms we use to interact with that dimension. The article mentions that there is actually a precedent for this type of thing in the WarioWare game, which furthers the plausibility. Adding some resistance to that tilting control device could make for some interesting gameplay possibilities, so long as the entire library of games doesn’t disintegrate into a bunch of those marble-maze games where you had to roll the marble along a wooden platform and avoid the holes with two axis controllers.

I’m operating in full Short Attention Span Theater mode today. Sorry.

• Nik and I went and saw Four Brothers over the weekend. It was decent but probably a better rental. Definitely a matinee (as we did) at the most.
• I did note, observing the Coming Soon posters in the lobby and during the trailers, that I have a higher-than-usual number of films awaiting release that I’m anticipating: Serenity, The Chronicles of Narnia, Corpse Bride, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Wallace and Grommit, X-Men 3 (even though they’re not going with my idea—of course), Underworld: Evolution and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
• Some I’m skeptical about: Flightplan (Does this look like The Forgotten on a plane to anyone else?), King Kong (Really? King Kong? Uh… why?), and Aeon Flux (I had some friends in high school who liked the Liquid TV/MTV cartoon, but I couldn’t get into it. Stylistic, but—and coming from me this is saying something—too cultish in the writing department. Plus, Charlize Theron? Blugh.).
• Speaking of Harry Potter, like every good fan I pre-ordered my copy of The Half-Blood Prince weeks ago, but since then I’ve started and stopped reading it about twenty times. The reason is that I can’t remember what happened in book five to save my life. I keep hoping if I press through it will start to make some sense, but so far that is not happening. I read Order of the Phoenix like in the two days after it came out and that was so long ago… I know the events at the end of the book were important to the overall story being told, but I can only remember a few events/scenes. So this weekend I, with great reluctance, picked up my copy of Phoenix. Again. Curse my poor reading retention!
• I keep seeing this story about the iPod silhouette model who “can’t afford an iPod.” Um, okay. What bugs me about this is that every news service that picked up the story reports it exactly this way: “Iconic iPod model can’t afford to buy the product she’s shilling.” Which makes it sound like Apple didn’t pay her enough to even buy an iPod. But in fact they paid her $1,500 for three hours of modeling work (which is, as at least one of the stories pointed out, standard wage for such work). That this particular individual had other things to do with that money than buy an iPod is, in my opinion, only a passing curiosity not really a shocking development.
• Slashdot mentions today that RSS may have won over Atom in the Syndication protocol race. For once a Slashdot poster comes up with a reasoned comment stating that it is functionally irrelevant anyway since nearly all aggregators and parsers work equally well on the various RSS versions and Atom, plus many content management systems and blog software auto-generates both feed types. Besides, just because Microsoft is throwing their weight behind their embraced-and-extended RSS variant (known for now as “Web Feeds”) in the (cough) forthcoming Longhorn doesn’t mean RSS can do a victory lap just yet. In any case all I know is that when I have the option of Atom or RSS to put into NewsFire (my aggregator of choice) I always pick Atom because the feeds are usually cleaner, more complete and less prone to errors. This could be nothing more than coincidence or luck but there you go.
• I downloaded the new Corrosion of Conformity album from iTunes yesterday. COC, at least since Pepper Keenan came on board, has been solid from “Deliverance” to the stunningly brilliant “Wiseblood” and then the criminally underrated “America’s Volume Dealer.” I hoped that Keenan’s appearance at the Metallica bass player tryouts during Some Kind of Monster didn’t mean COC was over with. I guess not. The new album (“In the Arms of God”) is something of a departure from the bluesy, swaggering southern metal they nearly perfected on the previous two albums and channels Black Sabbath almost eerily at times. But that’s not really a bad thing and while some of the sheer beauty of their riff construction has been traded for a more punishing grind, I’m initially impressed with the new stuff. I saw the album at Rasputin’s on Friday coming home from working over at Eggsites on my day off from the City but it was used for $14.99 (what the heck?!) and they had no new copy so I gambled that iTunes would come through. They did and I felt better about legitimately supporting a band that I gather could use the support.
• I also picked up a few Guided by Voices tracks based off a dimly remembered tip from last year and was more or less pleasantly surprised with the quality. It’s dingy alt-punk/rock and I really know nothing about the band so maybe everyone else discovered them back in like 1987 and I’m so late to the party I’m sitting here thinking this is cool new stuff and it’s all retro chic or something. Whatever. Good tunes.
• I’ve had “Learn to encrypt email” sitting on my mental to-do list for like three years now and I started thinking today, “You know, everything else is really easy with OS X, why not public-key encryption in Mail.app?” Well, it’s not really that simple but it isn’t as bad as it had been when I tried back in my Linux-on-the-Desktop days so hopefully by the end of the day I should have me a nice new public GPG key and be ready to share trade secrets via email with the best of ’em. Not that anyone else I know uses encrypted email, but it’s nice to know that I could if the need arose.
• After my video game rant last week I decided to put (some of) my money where my mouth was and go try some games. My beloved locally-owned video store closed down a couple of weeks ago due to some leasing snafu and the insufferably high property values around here which really chaps my hide. My utter refusal to darken the doorway of a Blockbuster is well chronicled but without Home Video (a very original name, I know) to serve my impulse renting needs (Netflix is still my primary source of DVD rentals) I’m stuck with Hollywood Video. Hollywood at least tries to display something that resembles customer service but they’re a crummy mega-franchise so they have the same 16 movies at every store, no stock movies worth mentioning (“Oh look, twenty-four copies of Batman and Robin”) and their video games are about as far behind as I am. Anyway the only game I ended up being able to actually rent and then subsequently play was Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. The problem with that game is that it’s all about the exploration in Metroid and I don’t have that kind of time with a rental so I’ve been doing the GameFAQs Walkthrough routine which really cheapens the experience. I will say that I thought the Phazon suit from Prime was the coolest thing I’d seen in a long time, but the new Dark Suit in Echoes leaves the Phazon suit in the dust.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Usually I tell people that I’m not a big sweet tooth. I profess that desserts are for the most part not really my thing. Oh sure, I enjoy a bit of candy now and then and who doesn’t like a nice piece of pumpkin pie after Thanksgiving dinner? But I always operated on the assumption that given the choice between having a good dessert and having a good portion of seconds (assuming I liked the meal), I’d always take the seconds.

I’m starting to rethink this conclusion.

For the last three days I’ve been on a reduced carbohydrate diet. The purpose of this exercise is not to debate the relative merits of Atkins (which I’m not doing) or to get into the low-fat versus low-carb flamewar. As it happens I simply wanted to trim some body fat without compromising my protein intake so I could continue to build muscle but lose fat. I’m not even sure this is the best way to do it, but I heard that it was more efficient than a low-fat diet and I’m into efficiency so here we are.

Anyway, for the most part it’s been okay. Breakfast is lots of eggs and a small piece of fruit, I have a small bowl of oatmeal midmorning (like I said, reduced carbs instead of strict Atkins) so I have some energy for my workout, then a protein shake after the gym and some kind of light carb lunch (typically a wrap of some sort). Dinner has been fish or chicken with a few vegetables and then I’ve been having a late evening snack of either more eggs or tuna.

Aside from the first day where I didn’t add up the calories and I about starved myself, it’s been okay. In only three days I’m down 2 pounds with no noticeable loss of strength. I’m optimistic but still need to give it a few more days. By next week I should be able to tell if this is working or if I need to rethink.

Where I’m slowly going insane is that if you note from the menu above, assuming you like those types of foods, it’s a pretty decent selection of foods. So far everything that I’ve made or tried has been quite tasty and aside from some inevitable monotony, I don’t find myself missing the heavy carb diet. Except one thing.

Sugar. When I was planning out this week’s food items, I looked at the desserts and thought, “Man, these are all carbs. Okay, no sweat. I’ll cut these out and kill off half the carbs I’d normally consume right there.” What I mean by that is I had gotten to the point before this little adventure where I’d have one small cookie after each meal. Nothing huge or gluttonous, just something sweet to finish off the palate with a bit of a treat. Two cookies per day is roughly 120-200 calories which I made up for by eating generally low-calorie food and burning about twice that many calories during my workout. Maybe it is obvious now that wasn’t such a great idea.

The problem with trying to reduce carbs is that anything—anything—sweet is probably loaded with sugar, corn syrup and/or caffeine, all of which are either super-carbs or bad for people on high-protein diets. I tried to just do without, I really did. The first day I thought it was just the new diet that I needed to get used to. The second day I thought it must just have gotten to be a habit and I’d have to break it. Yesterday I decided I couldn’t take it and I went and got a low carb candy bar.

Because I haven’t been much of a dessert connoisseur in the past, I don’t spend a lot of time comparing the relative merits of chocolate treats. I’ll try anything once and if I like it, great, if not I’ll pass. The faux-peanut butter cup I consumed last night may actually have tasted like sawdust. I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that the sawdust had something that was vaguely like sugar mixed in with it and that was fine with me. I was quiet for a few moments after I ate it and I could hear, just faintly, the section of my tongue that processes sweet food screaming, “Thank you! Oh, bless you!”

Perhaps I need to redefine my stance on sweets in light of these insights. Obviously they are not the take-em-or-leave-em products I originally thought. So perhaps I’m just incredibly picky about dessert and I’ve applied that generalization to all desserts. For example, I’m not a huge cake fan. There are a select few cakes I really like, and none I could be said to love. Carrot cake, when done right, is pretty good. There’s this Molten Chocolate Lava cake at Chili’s that is right tasty. But your standard run of the mill birthday cake is just… meh. Yet when it comes to donuts, I’m there. I’m even the rare equal-opportunity donut consumer in that I don’t participate in the “classic” vs. “Krispy Kreme” debate. A nice hot KK or a stale Old Fashioned Glazed, I don’t care. Both are good for different reasons. I really like a few pies: The aforementioned pumpkin is a favorite, and my mom makes (cliched as it may sound) a really smokin’ apple pie. French silk pie, when you can actually get it done correctly (which is frustratingly rare) is almost an experience more than just a dessert. But your typical fruit pies (especially cherry) are among those foods that I’ll typically only eat when I feel like I need to in order to be polite.

So okay, I can’t say I’m “Not a Dessert Guy.” But I am a selective dessert guy.

Oh, and I never eat dessert first. That defeats the whole purpose.

Ryan‘s motto is that the Internet won’t surf itself. Strictly adhering to his creed he has once again unearthed link-y delight with this overview of the English subtitles on a Chinese pirated Star Wars Episode III DVD. Hilarious, although be warned: A couple of the translations feature foul language which is curious since the words there don’t even appear in the original dialogue. How they ended up in the double translation is beyond my capacity for understanding.

Which really isn’t saying much when you get right down to it.

There’s also another one with different (but fewer) scenes. Same cautionary notes apply here.

I forgot to mention earlier, but if you need to smile today (or any other day, really) you should check out Animals Have Problems, Too. It’s a silly webcomic that just… works. Start with #1: Shark with Poor Body Image and read ’em all. They’re one panel each, so it goes (too) quick.

Also, look out for my suggestion, coming… sometime. Zach is like, swamped with them but he assures me it will appear eventually. No, I won’t tell you what it was. That would so totally ruin the surprise. It would come up finally and you’d be all “I’ll never get my cumuppance!”

No one wants that.

No one.

I have tasty morsels of linking joy to deliver. Hot and fresh, just for you.

• In spite of a curious lack of pricing information, how freakin’ cool would this be?
• A curiously useful vacation planner for the wired vagabond in all of us.
• Sports fans are weird. In other news, I’m glad that Livan Hernandez is no longer a San Francisco Giant.
• There has been a lot of buzz today about Microsoft’s desire to rename RSS. The creator of RSS thinks otherwise, in a shocking development. I personally think that acronyms in general are horribly overused, especially in software and engineering (and government) but I tend to agree with Dave Winer that changing the name of something is a good way to just further the confusion. I don’t think the problem with adoption of RSS is directly tied to it having a dumb acronym as a name, but more that it is a little difficult to describe the benefits of syndicated content. It’s like trying to describe what the World Wide Web was ten years ago; once you got it it was really cool, but until then it was just too difficult of a concept for some people to grasp until it was obvious it was here to stay and people had to force themselves to understand.
• The XBox360 will cost $399. I don’t consider the stripped down version to be a real 360 model since it doesn’t have a hard drive and it has a lame wired controller. It is $100 cheaper, but I’d be happier if they just had the hard drive-capable model alone and set the standard price at $350. My rationale is that the hard drive will be basically ignored since developers can’t rely on it being available on all units which means that while the hard drive was one of the best features of the original XBox (aside from Live), it has been reduced to a really large built-in memory card. Dumb.
• Boston.com has a fascinating and surprisingly thorough article on the causes of homosexuality. The genetic predisposition argument (which is logically the most likely and unsurprisingly falls somewhere in the middle of the extreme spectrum ends of totally genetic or totally choice) is compellingly made despite what overall seems like a pretty fair and open-minded approach to the topic.
• The endlessly fascinating PVRBlog offers thoughts on TiVo Wishlisting. I’ve often found myself wanting finer-grained control of my Wishlist creation using some sort of (even primitive) boolean and other mathematical operators to weed out the stuff I want. TiVo has a better interface than any other PVR out there, but it sometimes seems to me like they’ve let it go kind of stale lately as they’ve instead scrambled to find some clever new way to make some actual money. I’m not really blaming them, but it would be nice if they tried a little harder to do the best they could with what they already have. I mean, eventually they’re not even going to have the bragging rights to the best interface (someone out there making competing products has got to realize eventually that their clunky UIs are keeping them from being really widely adopted). What will be left then? Half-supported PC interaction? Downloadable movies?
  Speaking of downloadable movies, a lot of people have been grumbling that the oft-rumored movies-on-demand feature that TiVo is slated to offer will be either crummy quality or require long download times. Let me tell you something: People are already waiting for long times to download movies. Right now. Don’t believe me? Go check any BitTorrent site or Grokster. There are hundreds of full length movies in high quality files available for download and people nab them all the time. Let me do it legally right to my TV and I’ll wait patiently, just please don’t give me picture quality that is total pants. The couple of hours I may save is totally not worth it.
• So I guess some guy who makes bad video game movies wants to do a Metal Gear Solid movie. I could care less about the director, but it reminds me that I tried yet again to play Metal Gear Solid 3 last night and I couldn’t do it. Hideo Kojima has wasted too much of my life already with his incessantly prattling/preaching characters hijacking my otherwise interesting games. So I give up. You win, Hideo. Make all the jibber jabber you want; I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to play games that don’t feign intellectualism with sheer quantities of dialogue and, should a movie ever be made, count me out. I’m not that much of a masochist.