Geolocated on a Friday.
Friday, February 6th, 2004
I’ve had one of those moments where I zoom back—from my own body and space—and have a good look in me in my environs. Feet up, warmed by the fans of my turned-around-G5, fancy new pianoesque keyboard to my left, cup of Starbucks to my right (brewed fresh this morning on my back porch), Sennheiser headphones for the moment sitting on the piano keys, and a lamp on in the corner compensating for the grey dampness outside. Yes, I have some sense of where I am, here on earth, and that’s even before Sammy and I get a fancy new GPS unit to show us the way. Sam spent a chunk of this morning surfing for GPS information, and I have to admit, I’m getting the purchasing jones, although it doesn’t take much research around here to reveal that my purchasing jones gets going way too often for way too much—or so it seems to me at this particular moment.
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Maybe I’m just set up for a Friday afternoon rant-ette: And what’s the damn deal with my hair? Even after dropping twenty bucks on a fancy Ansley Mall haircut, I still look like I just rolled out of bed. It’s almost as if when a certain side of my brain starts working harder than the rest, the static electricity generated clumps all the remaining strands atop my head into a little off-center thicket of thinking. It’s not pretty.
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I think when I get in this frame of mind, my energies are best spent spinning out some internet tidbits for youall, separated, of course, by five asterisks.
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The best Usenet newsreader I’ve ever seen is, fortunately for us Mac users, a new one made just for OS X. It’s called Unison. Why does that make me think of Steve Wozniak’s attempt to teach us all to sing in perfect harmony?
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Don’t design on spec. It’s not just a good idea, it’s—well, it’s not the law, but it ought to be, and Mr. Zeldman makes the case well here. As budgets tighten, designers get…well, okay, desperate…and they make bargains with various representatives of satan disguised as potential sources of revenue. It’s (in my experience) never worth it. My sister’s site (beautifully re-crafted into CSS-y goodness by my brother), has some more words of wisdom for freelancers. She’s focusing on photographers, but writers and designers would do well to pay heed.
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Did you know Todd Rundgren recorded samba-ultralounge versions of some of his big hits? Well, I didn’t, but I find them oddly…hypnotically…listenable..and..
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(slap!)
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Oh, sorry. Sometimes my taste in music does kinda betray a life spent around too much white bread, or, at the very least, a pair of ears that have survived more than four decades of music.
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Hmm. Todd Rundgren? Maybe I’m spinning this stuff out just to avoid commenting on the real watercooler fodder of American life this week or to get too let down by the decline and subsidence of one candidate I’d feel really good voting for. I’m going to refill my coffee cup, get the mail (just plopped in our living room), and try to get some perspective on my perspective.
