I like the way this guy narrates a funny, angry tutorial, called “You Sucjk at Photoshop.” Obviously, he must have done this for a paycheck previously. Thanks to my friend, K.F., for the lead.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_X5uR7VC4M&rel=1]
Monthly Archives: January 2008
Seed.
I really, really wanted to attend the Seed Conference in Chicago a few weeks ago but a few things such as insanely priced airplane fares from Winnipeg to Chicago and my daughter’s birthday kept me from going. This, despite the fact that I would have loved to have seen a few good friends in Chicago and I could use the business-starting shot-in-the-arm and kick-in-the-arse that the conferenced promised.
In the end (n.p.i.), I’m glad I didn’t go. It would have set my pocketbook, work, and family life back by a month, though it would have been good, clean fun. I read a few reviews of the conference, and Bud Caddell‘s was the best. Here’s an excerpt that I found useful:
Small decisions are the way to go. Jason Fried of 37 Signals talked a lot about how his team focuses on breaking any task into tiny decisions to make their work more manageable and also to remain agile. That beats my method, turn your back until the decision is the size of Godzilla and work to create some kind of mecha-godzilla or Mothra solution to combat it — which usually leaves Tokyo destroyed.
And here’s an even better one:
Be blunt up-front. Carlos talked a good deal about always telling the absolute truth to your client, especially in the initial stages of the relationship. “Tell the truth when you’re still friends. An enemy is just a friend that you told the truth to too late.” If you know me personally, you know blunt honesty isn’t something I lack — this presentation just supported my stance.
President.
I just watched, out of the corner of my eye, the President of the United States, give an address to Congress. Supposedly, it was a “State of the Union” but I didn’t hear any statesmanship. Instead, the President made references to his accomplishments; it was a sordid attempt to ensure his historical place, despite everything. Here are some questions:
1. Why is Mr. Bush signing autographs to members of Congress on his way out the door? Can’t Congresspeople get signatures from the President pretty much any day of the week? Is his signature worth much on eBay these days?
2. Why do Republicans like Mitt Romney need to praise the current President? Has he really done anything for them in terms of assisting their political strategy, helping their candidacy, or lending legitimacy to the party?
3. Is the economy really okay? It’s so hard to tell who is telling the truth, who is speaking lies, who knows nothing but looks knowledgeable, and who knows lots but needs votes.
Bushed again.
With George Bush’s constantly self-proclaimed presidency (e.g. “I’m the President,” “I”m the Decider,” “The Commander-in-Chief must…”) comes an ironic one as well. A new movie is coming out about the guy and, now, the famous painting in Bush’s office gets an airing in a recent issue of Harper’s. It turns out that the rider, who has a striking resemblance to Mr. Bush, is not a heroic figure charging up Lordly Mountain but a lowly thief, “fleeing his captors.”
F11.
It took a little while to figure this out. But thanks to iSlayer, I’ve learned that, with the new aluminum keyboards for Macs, using Command+F3 will clear away your application windows to show the desktop. It’s awesome and relatively intuitive, what with the icon of F3 showing Expose as it may be. I like this feature of OS X and I’m glad it wasn’t eliminated from the new keyboard structure; essentially, it allows me to see everything on my increasingly uncluttered desktop with a bush of two, magic buttons.
Cloverfield.
Holy cow. I saw Cloverfield on Sunday night with a my friend, D.C. Basically, it scared the hell out of me. I realize that the director was using all of the Blair Witch and You Tube tropes available to him: handheld camera, first-person narrative, minor sightings of major monsters, screams and hysteria, and lots of good, all-purpose suspense, plus a little true romance to drive the story forward. It had all of those things in spades.
But what really scared me was its ability to tap deep into my primitive consciousness, pushing around memories of my experiences of 9/11 in lower Manhattan and mixing the imagery up with modern nightmares. At a certain point, perhaps 20 minutes in, I couldn’t quite breathe and I had a minor epiphany along the lines of “Andy needs to take better care of himself. Going to a replay of 9/11, even if fictive, is not a good mental health break.”
What more? Well, another friend, V.S., has started a fantastic new blog with his friend A.D. dedicated to the cinema and, well, movies and films and reviews of films. It’s called Cineblog and I urge you to give it a read. You might start with the review of Cloverfield.
Mountaintop.
It’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the US and I had the honor of listening to his entire I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech, delivered one day before he was murdered in 1968. King was prescient in almost every way: around race, democracy, American political structures and imperialism, global Marxism, gender, religion in the US, and, not least, his own death. His brilliance and challenge to all of us shines powerfully, 40 years late and later.
Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
Putting things off.
Continuing my line of thought that other people have more time on their hands to write about productivity, here’s one of the best list of ways to beat procrastination I’ve seen. If these things don’t work, I guess you can pretty much decide there’s no hope for you in the procrastination department. Seriously, these are great and pithy “ways.” I better get back to work.
Cruisin.
I don’t understand a word of Tom Cruise’s weird, suppressed interview that is now making the rounds. The video is no longer available on YouTube, bastards, but Gawker has said that they “will not be removing it.”
Sorry I haven’t written in a while. There are too many people out there right now saying more interesting things than me.
When you’re a Scientologist, and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you’re the only one who can really help. We are the authorities on getting people off drugs. We are the authorities on the mind…. We are the way to happiness. We can bring peace and unite cultures. Now is the time. Being a Scientologist. People are turning to you. If you are a Scientologist, you see things the way they are, in all their glory, in all their complexity… It’s rough and tumble. It’s wild and woolly. It’s a blast. It really is. It is fun. Because damn it, there is nothing better than going out there and fighting the fight, and suddenly you see — boom! — things are better. I want to know that I’ve done everything I can do, every day… I do what I can. And I do it the way I do everything.
Network Solusucks.
A pretty big story hit the tech world yesterday that Network Solutions, which provides some of the worst network solutions in the industry, is squatting on domain names after you search for them. In this way, you have the purchase the domain name from them instead of going to another, cheaper, or better registrar.
I tested it out to see it first hand. First, I went to Network Solutions, and I looked up the domain name “cropdusternewsworld.com” – the site gave me a “Congratulations!” and then I opened up a new tab in my browser. I then went to Register.com (a large competitor to Network Solutions) and typed in the domain “cropdusternewsworld.com” and, guess what? It’s taken! Amazing, no?
Just to be sure, I looked up “tributenewsitems.com” on Register.com first. Available! Cool! Then, I typed in “tributenewsitems.com” at Network Solutions. More “Congratulations!” I went to Dotster, a smaller competitor and looked up “tributenewsitems.com” and, guess what? It’s taken. And I can “make an offer” on the domain.