This will most likely be my last post of 2008 and for the immediate future until I finish v3.0 of my site, which is under way at the moment. It could take longer than anticipated as I’m making the leap to Expression Engine. I’m hoping for a late January release. In the mean time, enjoy. As per usual the mix includes all tracks, an iTunes song list, as well as 150×150 and 300×300 versions of the art.

1. Fucked Up - Son the Father
2. Johnny Foreigner - The End and Everything After
3. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - You Could Write a Book
4. Women - Cameras
5. Land of Talk - Got a Call
6. Dead Meadow - I’m Gone
7. Blind Pilot - The Bitter End
8. Frightened Rabbit - Old Old Fashioned
9. A Weather - Small Potatoes
10. Jason Anderson - This Will Never Be Our Town
11. Bound Stems - Winston
12. Kaki King - Montreal
13. Forest City Lovers - Orphans
14. Arms - John Escalator
15. Mount Eerie - Log in the Waves
16. Cat Power - Dark End of the Street

Download December 2008 Mix (87.1mb)

I recently bought a new car. I love it more than anything else I’ve ever bought, except for education. When I decided I was ready for a new car I had already secured a car loan, so I had few limitations. I try to buy local as much as possible, so it made sense to get an American car. I’ve only ever owned American; a Chevy Camaro, a Ford Taurus and a Ford Focus. I never had trouble with any of them, they all lasted a long time. The Focus was the only one I wasn’t thrilled about in the snow. My brother-in-law works for GM and every other day I read about plant closings in the news.

I was pretty shocked by what I found. Not only were there not any American cars that looked particularly appealing, most of them weren’t priced all that differently from their foreign counterparts, and in some cases were only a couple thousand dollars difference from a luxury brand.

The prices shown reflect similar options and trim levels. These cars were basically the same, except the Volkswagen beat most of them on mileage and horsepower. If money were no object I’d want a BMW 328i or an Audi A4. So which of the cars pictured above looks the most like those two? And which of them had the most standard features comparable to those two?

Ding ding ding. If you said the Volkswagen Jetta you answered correctly. Most of the other cars more closely resembled Buicks. Now did I really buy the car because it looked like an Audi? No, but I did pick the car I thought looked the most elegant and stylish out of the bunch and was the most bang for my buck.

I opted for the limited edition Wolfsburg which had similar standard features to the Audi and BMW; a turbo engine, premium sound system, heated seats, defrosting side mirrors, auto-adjusting windshield wipers etc. Additionally Volkswagen offers 30,000 miles of free maintenance, something else BMW, Audi and Lexus are doing.

American companies are serving up Kmart when customers want Banana Republic. Their cars aren’t priced to compete. The design both exterior and interior are dull, and their brands are lackluster.* Mileage is a joke when GMC can call their Cadillac Escalde Hybrid “fuel efficient” at 18mpg. None of the American companies offer free maintenance. No wonder the industry is failing, it’s not because they don’t have enough money, it’s because they’re selling an inferior product. Maybe the car companies should hire Steve Jobs instead of begging the government for welfare.

*The possible interior exception would be cars including SYNC technology, which would be a whole lot more appealing were it not from Microsoft. I was a little sad how Volkswagen was lacking in the bluetooth and voice recognition department. Their navigation system was pretty archaic too.

Granted not all people needing to enlarge browser text are older users, but I’ve often wondered if someone like my grandma would know how to resize text, let alone be comfortably recall a keyboard shortcut.

Losing one of your parents makes you feel like half your childhood has been erased, so this is my last ditch effort to save it. I am posting them all to Flickr, after looking at this one I realized I have her smile, and this one is my favorite picture of her and my dad.

• Bears - Who Knows 7″
• Bound Stems - The Family Afloat 12″
• Neko Case - Blacklisted
• Patsy Cline - Country Greats 12″
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - The Concert 12″
• Dear Nora - Curt & Molly Split 7″
• Dear Nora - Dreaming Out Loud 7″
• Dear Nora - New Year 12″ (Screened cover)
• Dear Nora - We’ll Have a Time 12″ (this is a double if anyone wants it)
• Deep Purple - Made in Japan 12″
• Erase Errata - Tomlab Alphabet Singles Series 7″
• Glove Puppet Zine 01 7″
• Ladytron - Velocifero 2×12″ (White marble)
• Lloyd Cole & the Commotions - Easy Pieces 12″
• Lloyd Cole & the Commotions - Rattlesnakes 12″
• Samara Lubelski - Parallel Suns 12″
• Mamas & the Papas - People Like Us 12″
• Midnight - Slay the Spits 7″
• Mirah - Advisory Committee 12″ (Finally repressed!)
• Nachtmystium - Instinct: Decay 12″
• Neutral Milk Hotel - On Avery Island 12″
• No Age - Nouns 12″
• Pelican - City of Echoes 2×12″ (Silver)
• Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville 12″ (180g reissue w/bonus 7″)
• Red Sparowes - Every Red Heart… 12″ (Greenish brown marble)
• Sleep - Sleep’s Holy Mountain 12″
• The Softies - Loveseat 7″
• Marnie Stern - In Advance of the Broken Arm 12″
• Supremes - Baby Love 12″
• Valkyrie - Valkyrie 12″

The essence of this video:
Watch what’s happening and how it happens, don’t make assumptions about what people are actually doing. Ask questions, you won’t see everything. Then enhance the experience naturally.

This is how every UX project should be approached. Help people do what they want them to do, don’t force them down the path you want, or you think they want. Interview all stakeholders, not just the obvious users. It’s all about observing and listening, we are just the user’s humble servants.

1.1.2. If a user does not have the correct plug-in to access the enhanced content, or cannot easily access the content because they are using assistive technologies (such as screen readers) or Betsie to view the site, this should not detract from the user accessing the core content of the website.