::tuesday, december 25::

Movie Crit: LOTR; Black Hawk, Ali -- David Denby at the New Yorker

Not only am I a little put off by Denby's callous dismissal of LOTR, I'm also curious to see if this "printable version" of the story will work as a kind of "permalink" -- since the NY'er doesn't archive its older stuff in the same way as other magazines. Usually it's read it this week or lose it, which is just dumb. Denby is a mixed bag; he called "Fight Club" an exercise in neo-fascist fantasy, completely missing the point (which wasn't so much a point as a story). And he obviously has little patience for Tolkienesque type stuff; he's too grown up and academically enhanced for such nonsense, of course. Prig.

::monday, december 17::

Mint Audio: Skins

Nothing is ever settled is it? I thought I was happy with iTunes. But it slows my computer way down every time I use it. Then I thought I'd be happy with Audion, but the bloated skins are a drag for my compact PowerBookness. So now I'm trying this Mint thing again. And it turns out that one of my favorite pixel pushers, Etherbrian, has made a ton of skins for it.

? ?¡BONGO11.COM?¡? 

One day when everything is rendered in smooth vector graphics, I'm going to miss stuff like this.

::friday, december 14::

Google Search: achint01

OK. You can ignore the ones below, this is the earliest post I could find by yours truly on usenet in Google's uber-archive. October 1993. I didn't even finish my sentence before hitting "send" it seems. Thing is, I know for a fact I posted earlier than that, but it could be the archive doesn't have my stuff from earlier? No telling. Still, feels like ancient history now. What was I doing? Trying to get hold of a 14.4 modem for cheap (I was in grad school), and the $99 ones had just come out. I wanted to plug one into my Mac LC III (I would soon move to the PC universe). I ended up selling a gorgeous Vox semi-hollowbody electric guitar (with funky early-70's embedded electronics) for about a hundred bucks to buy this modem. Symbolic, and maybe even a little sad. But I'm making a much better living on computer networks than I ever would have as a musician. So maybe it's ok after all.

My wife's bunny cage crisis in 1993.

Even more proof than the one below... this one was a message from my wife asking about building our own house-rabbit cages. You can tell we didn't have a kid yet. September 1993.

Google usenet archive, featuring a younger me.

Proof that I was indeed a 'net geek as early as 1994.

ECVA | Icons and Prayer : Suzanne Schleck

Impressive, beautiful collection of iconography and Christian art at this site "Encouraging the Visual Arts in the Life of the Episcopal Church." This exhibit is just one of many.

::wednesday, december 12::

NoJobBob

The Onion had a story about a laid-off web designer who designed a site about being a laid-off web designer, and said the URL was NoJobBob.com. Sure enough, it's a live site. It's funnier than the original story.

All Seven Deadly Sins Committed at Church Bake Sale

Among the other winners in this week's Onion:
"401K Enrollment Form Sits At Bottom Of Desk Drawer For 22 Years"
"Ferret Mailed"

::monday, december 10::

DVD Menu Design (guest column by Don Norman, Alertbox Dec. 2001)

Don Norman got a DVD player, with predictable results. They drive me crazy too, but not for all the same reasons.

::sunday, december 9::

MINORITY REPORT

Ok, it's a big trailer. Requires Quicktime. But I'm just happy to see Philip K. Dick getting more serious attention, and Spielberg continuing to do more hard, gutsy scifi.

my favorite sin

Online performance art. I grabbed this link long ago and forgot all about it. Great example of art/web for art/web's sake (which is a kind of guilty pleasure in itself, eh?)

::thursday, december 6::

Barnes & Noble Creates Stripper/Prostitute Memoir Section

New Onion enlightens us. Other news:
Gun Purchaser Won't Be Needing Bag With That
and my favorite:
Ringo Next