October, 17, 2005 archives

jakob nielsen’s list of the top ten design mistakes in weblog usability are generally reasonable advice, but i think it is funny that cory at boing boing decided to call out the one i probably pay the least heed to: #3, nondescript posting titles.

it’s not that my titles are nondescript so much as non-sequitors, or inside jokes so inside that i’m the only one who could possibly understand them. some recent highlights:

• “mostly the truth” came about because i noticed i had several strategic uses of the weasel-word mostly in this entry. and now i’ve applied it to the whole thing.
• “not bursting into tears” is a reference to the fact that there were numerous times during the day where i was literally on the verge of bursting into tears. (mostly because of my back, which appears to be fine now. knock on wood.)
• “don’t get the wrong idea” is the antidote to the content, which is really deliberately crafted to feed various people’s suspicions that shannon and i are involved.
• “let’s all go to the lobby” is a pop culture reference, of course, to the classic movie theatre advertisement.
• “mmm, rabbits,” besides being a part of the quote i was calling attention to, is sort of an implied simpsons reference.
• “solid gold” is what the students in the film say the professor is made of, because he is so pure.
• “i say hello” is about as obscure as i can get — i originally wrote a bit about how my back pain had flared up to the oh-my-god-where’s-the-vicodin level, and this is a line from a song called “vicodin” by the trainables, a band you’ve never heard of (unless you’re marcus, who was in it).
• “tax that fellow behind the tree” is a fragment of a quote from russell long: “tax reform means “don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree.’”
• “the soul of this man is in his clothes” is a quote from william shakespeare.
• “more on me and friends” is actually a bit of a play on words — say it out loud, and it is “moron me and friends.”
• “she sets the summer sun on fire” is a line from “i want candy” by good charlotte.
• “looking minnesota, feeling california” is a reversal of a line from “outshined” by soundgarden.
• “flat denial” is one of those titles that i look back on and don’t understand. as i said there, it was in reference to what i started writing about, but i don’t remember what that was any more.

and then there are all the entries i don’t even title.

at the end of the day, i’m (mostly) writing for me, so i like to think that gives me license to flaunt jakob’s list.

it looks like we’re going to be in for another wet winter here in los angeles, if the last day or two is any indication. just as i made my way back from shopping during lunch, the rain really started coming down (again). i also saw some lightning off towards the east side. we’ve gotten almost an inch of rain in the last 24 hours.

i know you know but you don’t talk
you let it all go by
you won’t kiss so you won’t get hurt
here on the other side
you turn away and won’t look, like you’d rather be alone

i bet you wish that you were made of stone
i bet you wish that you were made of stone
i will, you won’t cause you don’t try
i wonder what you see
looking out your window dreamin’
dreamin’ what could be
it’s hard to find a soul here, in this crowd of skin and bone

i’m something to believe in
let me take you far away
never stop your dreamin’
cause dreams are what the world is made of

someday you’re gonna wake up
and you won’t be there alone
and you won’t wish that you were made of stone
you’ll never wish that you were made of
never never wish that you were made of
you’ll never wish that you were made of stone

— “made of stone,” by susanna hoffs, from when you’re a boy one of the things i like about putting my whole music collection on shuffle is how songs that i wouldn’t otherwise seek out can just pop out at me. i guess that means i’m opening a little bit of a window to my subconscious when i post the lyrics that do that.

o is a modern take on william shakespeare’s othello. while it is apparently quite faithful to the plot, the setting has been shifted to high school with basketball as the backdrop. it’s quite good, although it isn’t nearly as aggressive as baz luhrmann’s romeo + juliet.

i actually own a copy of the complete works of shakespeare, of which i have embarrassingly read very little. i’ve certainly seen more films based on shakespeare’s plays than i’ve seen as plays. but i would still put myself down as someone who likes shakespeare. go figure.

i suspect my fascination with questions like this one on ask metafilter is like some people’s love of horror films. there can be something strangely pleasurable about having your stomach turned into knots.

i signed up for match.com once, a little over a year ago. i had a picture-less profile up for about a week, got sent one email that i never actually received because it got rejected by my spam filtering, and then came to my senses and cancelled the account.

this line from the question is a pretty potent sentiment: “I finally feel like I’m getting to a place in my life where it’d be better with someone than without.”

heartbreakers is a film that somehow didn’t get purged from my netflix queue when i cleaned it up, and then happened to bubble up to the top of the list due to poor queue management. i’m not sure that the film has much of a reason to exist outside of showcasing jennifer love hewitt’s breasts. okay, that’s harsh. it a pretty harmless, if somewhat bland, comedy.

i actually had another charity in mind for this month, but will be postponing to that until next month while i wait for some information from them. instead, i’m bumping up what would have been next month’s contribution to the los angeles regional foodbank.

i like the payoff of the little dust-up between penny arcade and an anti-games moralizer who had his bluff called.

oh, i’m not doing the tax-refund-charity thing this year. instead, i decided back in february to just increase the amount i gave each month. i do still have another donation to make from the yahoo money.

i wrote this in the fifth grade (1983-84). i cleaned up a few of the more egregious grammar mistakes as i retyped it. (it was hand-written, in cursive!) the teacher’s comment was: “your paragraphing is excellent. you obviously take pride in a job well done. don’t ever lose that.”

eleven year old joey bringham and his twin sister, lisa, received a letter in the mail. the letter read:

dear joey and lisa,

please join me in mazatlán, mexico and come with me on an archeological dig. i have received information about ancient artifacts in that region. please contact by friday at 989-2589.

sincerely,
professor adner

before lisa could finish reading the letter, joey took it out of her hands and rushed to the kitchen to tell his mom. he handed the letter to his mom and said, “can we go?”

“i’ll have to talk it over with dad,” she replied.

“okay,” joey said.

when joey went bank outside, lisa asked, “what did she say?”

“she said she would talk to dad.”

“is that all?”

“yep.”

later that eventing, when their dad came home, their mother and father discussed the issue over dinner.

after dinner, their dad said that they could go if they paid for part of it.

but joey said, “why do we have to pay for part of it?”

“it isn’t very cheap to fly to mexico, so you should at least pay for your meals.”

“okay,” joey and lisa chorused.

on friday, joey and lisa left for mexico. on their way there they talked with the professor about what they were going to do.

when they arrived, they met their guide picos and quickly left for the hotel to rest after their long journey.

the next day, joey, the professor, and lisa left for the digging site at nine o’clock.

when they arrived at the site, they found that some of the professor’s associates had already set up camp for them, so they only had to unpack their gear.

within an hour joey, the professor, and lisa had finished setting up the equipment. the professor started to teach joey and lisa how to dig for artifacts properly.

after they had been digging for a couple of hours, joey had found a couple of coins, a comb or two, and a hot wheels car. lisa found a tupperware container and a couple of plastic cups, and the professor had only found his car keys that he had lost about an hour after they had gotten there.

all of a sudden joey hit hard rock. he thought it was just a slab of concrete, so he just started to clear around it. after he got it cleared off, he started trying to dig it out. after a long time of digging, he asked some of the professor’s associates to help him dig it out. but they hit more rock after about another five feet, so they started clearing it off. meanwhile, the professor also hit rock so he started it clearing it off after checking on joey and lisa. while the professor was checking on lisa, she hit hard rock, too, so she started brushing it off.

after a couple of hours, all of them seemed to be clearing out steps. so the professor got suspicious. he tested the age of the stone by using his geiger counter. after analyzing the information, he concluded that it was hundreds of years old!

during the week they found some pottery and other artifacts on the structure’s steps.

after a couple of hours, they kept digging and digging, so they decided that they had finished digging out the building.

after they dug themselves out of the enormous pit they had created, the professor measured the building while joey and lisa at lunch with picos.

after joey and lisa finished lunch, the professor asked “do you want to go with me to the mexican government buildings?”

“sure,” joey replied.

“okay,” lisa said.

“then let’s go,” said the professor.

so the professor and friends started off to the central market where the government buildings were.

on the way there, joey and lisa stopped to do some bargaining and got separated from the professor and picos, so they headed back to their hotel called the el cid, which is one of the beachside resorts in mazatlán.

when they got there they decided to go and watch the spectacular sunset.

after watching the sunset, joey and lisa went back to the professor’s room (1066) to see if he was back yet.

when they found the professor’s room unoccupied, they went next door to their room and called room service for dinner, which was delicious except for the chocolate mousse.

the next day, joey and lisa received a phone call from mac’s building co.

they gut on the phone said “we’ve got the professor. leave 1.5 billion pesos at the diver’s point or bye-bye professor.”

after the agent hung up, joey and lisa called the mexican government and told them about what had happened and said that they might be able to sabotage the company’s computer system if they were able to use a computer at the govnerment building. the person in charge said okay, so they called a golf cart taxi to go to the government building.

when they got there the officer they had talked to on the phone was expecting them, so he led them to a large computer room and gave them the company’s number and they had the computer call the other computer located at the company’s headquarters.

when they got through all the codes and passwords, they called up the directory of programs in the computer’s memory banks and it had the following files on it: building locations, income, payroll, and other info.

joey loaded the building locations file and erased the location where the temple was. he also erased the president of the company from the payroll file and changed the codes and passwords.

when joey and lisa finished working on the computer, they asked the officer if he knew where the building company’s headquarters were, so they could screw up the company’s building machines so they would fall apart when they started to drive them. the officer told them where it was and called a taxi for them.

when they got there the whole outside area was empty because they were having a full staff meeting about what had happened to the computer.

so joey and lisa started working on the bulldozers.

they made it so the bulldozers’ wheels fell off and the dumptrucks’ batteries fell out.

when joey finished on a bulldozer he heard yelling from one of the shacks nearby so joey and lisa checked it out.

in the shack was the professor, who quickly called a cab and they returned to the government building where he quickly told the officer what happened and they planned to destroy the temple and construct a housing development and the people from the building are quickly apprehended by the mexican police.

after lisa and joey had been in the states a couple of weeks, they found out the temple contained the secret of where the aztec treasure was hidden, and the secret of the crystal skull.