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{ Category Archives } Minutiae

What Your Band Photo Says About You

Pretty entertaining video from the NY Times, even if it is from the Freakonomics blog.

We’re definitely guilty of some of those pretensions. Band photos are hard!

2008 01 26 matt Comments (3)

Let’s see…

Can I post to my blog from my new iPhone? Yup!

2007 12 11 matt Comments (6)

Validation

Carrie Brownstein doesn’t like Radiohead, or White Noise.

2007 12 05 matt Comments (1)

Ugh

Gift-shopping is hard. I’m pretty well-stumped on good gift ideas for Rachel (hi, honey!) but I should know better than to look at “gift guides” from online stores. She told me she found Amazon’s “wife/girlfriend” guide particularly infuriating, but I didn’t realize how bad it was until I looked in more detail.

No, Amazon, I’m not getting her diamond jewelry, a “fashion watch,” or Wonder Woman lingerie.

Or a subscription to Marie Claire. The hell?

2007 11 28 matt Comments (1)

Balls

Rachel just painted our bedroom on her day off work. It looks quite nice; I imagine her Flickr stream will have before/after pictures before too long.

I’m sorry to say, however, that no matter how nice our bedroom looks (and it’s much better than it used to be!) it has nothing on this.

2007 11 19 matt Comments (3)

Seems A Little Low To Me

R.I. home to 200 same-sex couples?

2007 09 28 matt Comments (1)

Screw You, Friendster

So, I get that ad-driven services have a legitimate business need to drive traffic to their site. Every time I don’t click through to www.friendster.com, they’ve lost a chance to put an ad on the screen that I’ll completely ignore except to the extent that it makes the page load more slowly.

But.

I just got a “Friendster Birthday Alert” letting me know that I have a friend with a birthday coming up. It says, “Kate’s birthday is almost here!” And then there’s a button labeled, “See When.”

“See When”? Are you kidding me? Just freaking tell me, Ass-ster.

2007 09 25 matt Comments (3)

Surprisingly Vehement

You never know who you’re going to offend when you start a blog, but you can generally be confident that you’ll offend someone. In this case, I seem to have run afoul of the Mendocino Fudge Boosters Association, or something. Witness this astonishing comment on a two-year old post:

I don[’]t even know who you people are, but I already hate your guts. Anyone who talks shit about [M]endo[cino] should be taken out back and beaten with a[n] ugly stick. You didn’t like the fudge because you[’]r[e] so used to packing each other[’]s fudge. If [I] ever see you around [M]endo[cino] you better run for your dear life.

(I’ve taken the liberty of correcting some of the grammatical and spelling errors.)

It’s certainly fair to say that it’s a rather innovative take on why we might not have enjoyed the fudge we bought in Mendocino. Although I’m not willing to go into too much detail here on my sex life, I’m pretty confident that it’s not related to my confectionery preferences. Who knows; I could be wrong.

As for who I am: I’m Matt! Nice to meet you. I’m sorry we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here; had I known just how sensitive an issue fudge was for the good people of Mendocino (after all, I did call the town itself both quaint and cute) I might have phrased my review more delicately. Let me try to make it right:

People of Mendocino! In particular, purveyors of fudge in Mendocino! If I have besmirched your good name, please accept my humblest apologies. If I ever find myself in your fair town again, I pledge to give your fudge another try… assuming I’m not running for my dear life.

2007 09 10 matt Comments (8)

Creepy!

On our drive up to New Hampshire this weekend, Rachel and I found ourselves on Rt. 3 driving behind a car with the vanity plate TOTNKOPF. For a while I considered the possibility that it meant something else: maybe the driver had a young kid and was a police officer with a wacky sense of humor whose last name began with “F.” Then we pulled along side and saw the red SS decal on the driver’s side door. Creepy! (And of course, the car was a Volkswagen.)

2007 09 02 matt Comments (3)

iTunes Changes?

I got the latest iTunes upgrade, even though I don’t have an iPhone, and it seems like they’ve changed the alphabetization rules. I tend to have my library sorted by artist, and the very first song used to be ‘N Sync’s “Pop” (shut up) followed by a whole bunch of 10,000 Maniacs.

After the update, ‘N Sync seems to be sorted under “N” (rather than the apostrophe) and 10,000 Maniacs seems to be at the very end — numbers now are apparently sorted after letters and initial punctuation is now ignored. All in all, a much smarter scheme than the previous ASCII-based sort.

Anyway, I’m pleasantly surprised to find that the first thing to come up in Cover Flow is now the much hipper A.C. Newman.

2007 07 07 matt Comments (2)

Mustache Conteste

We did a mustache conteste at work and I’m afraid I let all of you down. I think I was penalized for the fact that although my hair is brown, my mustache is mostly red. Also, I think the judging should have been done in person instead of from a photograph, as my mustache does look marginally better in the photograph posted here than the photograph posted there. This clearly depicts a flaw in the system as it seems to be all about lighting for me. Either way, I’m keeping it for a while. I like looking in the mirror and seeing myself in disguise.

Hot Stache

As an aside, what do people who actually have a mustache think about all of the people that have mustache contests? For people who know me, if they were to see me they’d say, “Oh, you have a mustache.” People who don’t know me, however, wouldn’t notice anything different. As far as they’re concerned, I always have a mustache. Anyone with a mustache care to comment?

2007 06 20 ac Blog Comments (1)

Xocolatl

One of the most delicious chocolate bars I have ever tasted is Dagoba’s Xocolatl. 74% cacao with chiles and nibs.

Chiles and nibs! Freakin’ delicious.

2007 04 09 matt Comments (4)

First Reference to thetoddtime.com?

Here’s an interview with Robert Maschio, the actor who plays Todd on Scrubs. In the second question he mentions www.thetoddtime.com. This interview seems to be from January, 2007, so clearly thetoddtime.com has been in the works for a while. You care about this stuff, right? Right?

2007 02 16 ac Comments (0)

Tonight on Scrubs…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. TV Shows: When you feature a URL on your TV Show, spend the extra $6.99 a year and make that URL link to your TV Show’s website. ESPECIALLY when the website is actually brought up and spoken in a line. I give you the latest: www.thetoddtime.com. Don’t make this so easy.

**UPDATE**
It seems that www.thetoddtime.com does link to something Scrubs related. But in many attempts last night and this morning, I still haven’t gotten the page to load. I change my criticism from Scrubs not actually creating the page to Scrubs not doing a good job making sure people would be able to view it as soon as it aired.

2007 02 15 ac Comments (8)

Audible

The hour drive to and from work means that I’ve recently become very interested in audio books. It’s nice to have something to listen to on a long drive, and my Audible membership has served me well. I just finished The Omnivore’s Dilemma (about which more later) and decided that for my next book I’d listen to something fluffy. Something classically fluffy. Something like The Sword of Shannara. Don’t you judge me!

Yes, I’ve read it before, but it was years ago, and I can’t find my copy, and I want to see, with the perspective of adulthood, if Terry Brooks is any good.

There are two interesting things about this audio book. Firstly, the narrator pronounces it “SHAN-arra,” whereas in my head it was always “sha-NAR-ra.” Have I always had this wrong?

Secondly, it turns out that the book is read by Scott Brick, who also read The Omnivore’s Dilemma. It’s very odd to hear the same voice that was telling me about the evils of industrial food describing the evils of the Warlock Lord. Scott Brick: the official voice of my commute.

2007 02 02 matt Comments (2)