Archive for 2005

Xiu Xiu: La Forêt

Thursday, October 20th, 2005

When I heard these guys’ gear was stolen, I thought to myself “What, you can’t go out and buy some more pots and pans?” The first time I saw Xiu Xiu was at More Than Music in 2001, and their erm, percussionist, had a rack with pots and pans strung from it. Yeah, […]

Heyyyyy You Guuuuuuuuuuuys is it just me…

Tuesday, October 18th, 2005

…or were Sloth and the guy from Modest Mouse separated at birth?

Apple I Hate You or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mac

Tuesday, October 18th, 2005

››Your computers are ridiculously overpriced, anyone beyond your power users are paying for an accessory they saw in Vice that might look cute next to their Vespa.
››People that swear by you cannot give me one good reason why I should use a Mac instead of a PC, and yes I know the reasons, but […]

Cat Power: Oberlin College, Chan manages to frighten even a school full of hippies.

Thursday, October 13th, 2005

Scores of shaggy haired students packed Oberlin’s Dionysus club, while patchouli scented lines of the ticketless overflowed out the doors. An hour late, a glassy eyed Chan Marshall plops herself down onstage, and proceeds to stare into space for the greater part of five minutes. She lazily instructs the crowd to sit […]

Poor Design: Oberlin College

Wednesday, October 12th, 2005

What is the objective of a college or university website? Is it to get applicants, is it to get alumni money, or is it simply to tell people about the school? With Oberlin’s site, I’m not really sure, which can only mean they aren’t either.
I wasn’t visiting Oberlin’s site for academic […]

Two Sites that suck but shouldn’t

Monday, October 10th, 2005

1. Last week Google launched it’s own feed reader. The reader is integrated with gmail, so I was really excited to be able to check all my feeds from any computer, in Google’s no-clutter format. Unfortunately, I can’t get the damn thing to work. I’ve tried adding feeds several different ways, […]

Keep your big fat mouth shut

Friday, October 7th, 2005

Does anyone even watch The Apprentice before auditioning for the show? All signs point to no, as Shawn got a boot this week she could’ve easily avoided. She declared she would willingly go home if her team lost the task.

Yeah, I bet you regret that one now Shawn. Is this […]

iTunes + Amazon Affiliates + Wordpress

Wednesday, October 5th, 2005

Someone please make a plugin that takes whatever I’m currently listening to in iTunes (or even Audioscrobbler), and displays an album thumbnail with my Amazon Affiliate link, without me having to go to Amazon and generate the URL myself. I know this must be possible, however I don’t have enough PHP under my belt […]

CMS

Tuesday, October 4th, 2005

Can anyone refer me to a CMS that allows you to create templates or stylesheets for the admin area? (Besides Wordpress.) I tried to email Mambo about it, but got an automated reply saying they don’t answer support questions via email and to try the forums. You have to register to post […]

My dog ruins everything.

Wednesday, September 28th, 2005

We got a new stereo for the bedroom on Sunday, and yesterday I came home to find the remote obliterated. I had this thing for one day. One day! I’m beginning to think Rowan has the power to levitate objects, because that, along with many other since eaten belongings, was up […]

Practical customer experience

Tuesday, September 27th, 2005

Remember the days when you had to wait through a half hour of Muzak renderings of Margaritaville before you could talk to anybody from the electric company/gas company/bank? Things aren’t much better now, having to go through 10 automated menus to find out you can only talk to a real person at 3:27am on […]

Opportunity may not be green, but it’s still profit.

Friday, September 23rd, 2005

Scanning the New York Times Online today I came across an article called “Is the World Suffering From Too Much Martha?” Since when has media oversaturation ever hurt any celebrity’s pocketbook? There’s no such thing as bad publicity to Martha Stewart. The woman parlayed a prison sentence into two television […]

“You just don’t fit in.”

Thursday, September 22nd, 2005

No Martha, you don’t fit in the billionaire’s boys club anymore. None of them could turn a prison sentence into a bold career move, with enough publicity to launch two new highly anticipated shows.

Last night was the series premiere of The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. The contestants definitely have a different feel to […]

This is definitely going to smell-

Tuesday, September 20th, 2005

-and decompose. Some italians decided they want a giant pink bunny on their mountainside for 20 years.

Jeff Koons meets Christo?

Indie rock cellphone

Monday, September 19th, 2005

The good folks of Pitchfork posted an article today about a company calling themselves the Digital Rights Agency releasing “indie” ringtones. I guess the ladies of Le Tigre aren’t the only ones with dollar signs in their eyes. The fat cash also now goes to most of Barsuk, the K Records lineup, and […]

Is there no middle ground for customer service?

Saturday, September 17th, 2005

I started shopping around last week for a new printer. I visited a few websites, and some variation of the Canon PIXMA inkjet series appeared to suit my needs. So off to Best Buy I went, rewards card in hand. To my surprise there was actually an employee in the printer aisle, […]