Buses on Screen

There is some strange stuff out there on the Internet.

Quite randomly, while searching for some typeface identification, I stumbled across this site, which catalogues the appearances of buses in film and television.

Let me say that again: it's a website dedicated to listing what buses appear in specific scenes in movies and TV shows.

Awesome.

Somewhere out there, a thesis student is excitedly comparing bus models across some subset or genre, and getting a degree as a result. Kind of reminds me of this scene from P.C.U.

Ahhh, college, film school, and Wesleyan.

Re: Coins

From E.B. via iChat:

coins am stupid. Why sombody would need coines if they were a smart. dumb coin is for dumb londons.

check out these coins http://tinyurl.com/2lrx46

That's right, he Rickrolled me.

Lesson of the day: beware the TinyURL!

Heyyyyyyyyyy...

Looking at the newest Jake and Amir video, it looks like Jake might have gone to Wesleyan. His Tumblr bio says he grew up in Connecticut...

Or not, as his College Humor bio says he went to Hunter College.

Well, at least he has good taste in shirts.

Safari Keyboard Shortcuts

I like Apple's Safari web browser quite a bit. I like the built in RSS reader (although, as I subscribe to more feeds, I start to understand why people use stand-alone applications). I love the bookmark system, and enjoy the simple feel of the program, and couldn't live without tabs.

That being said, I have found myself annoyed when trying to get around it using only the keyboard.

One of my longtime favorite tricks has been navigating between tabs using Command-Shift-Left or -Right. Very useful, although if the "focus" is paid to a text field in a page, it won't work.

Holding down the Command key when hitting "Return" or "Enter" after filling in any text box, be it a web form, or the Address Bar or Search field, opens the resulting page in a new tab; very useful.

But I always wanted to be able to jump to the Address Bar (where the URL is) and the Google Search bar easily; hitting tab until I ended up there takes too long and is unpredictable, depending on the complexity of the site you're currently on.

So I was pretty excited when I discovered that Command-L takes you to the Address Bar, while Command-Option-F brings the focus to the search field. As a bonus, that search shortcut works in most applications with a search field: The Finder, iTunes, Mail, and others.

But my favorite discovery isn't a shortcut... but a fairly comprehensive list of shortcuts. For those so inclined, copy this link and paste it into the Address Bar, hit enter, and feast your eyes on a master guide to Safari shortcuts.

We're #1!

Good morning, all.

For it is indeed a good morning.

In doing a little internet research, I found myself performing Google searches on a friend of mine. And that made me think hey, I haven't googled myself in a while.

So I did, and lo and behold, wickedgoodblog.blogspot.com was search result number one! In past searches, my IMDb page had been the top hit. (Aside: Also interesting is that my IMDb page is hit three, right after my NYTimes.com bio page. As exciting as it is to be listed on the New York Times, there is zero information there, whereas my IMDb page has lots.)

Next, I decided to search for "wicked good blog" (with the quotation marks); past searches with the words ungrouped had placed my humble blog at hit three, and I wanted to feel better than three. Results: this site makes it to the first hit!

At this point, I was feeling a little excited, and did the same search again, sans quotation marks. The two sites to beat me in the past were "Our Wicked Good Blog," by a store in Salem, MA called "Wicked Goodz," at number two, with number one being a real estate website that had purchased a domain name that I wanted, "wickedgoodblog.com." I ended up with "thewickedgoodblog.com/.net," they stopped updating in January of last year, and now...

The Wicked Good Blog is the number one result!

I don't claim to know how the Google algorithms work; I know it boils down to page ranking, which is based on how many people link to a given site, and that those links are valued higher if they come from a site with a high page rank itself. So it looks like the thanks should go to... you.

To all of my regular readers, I thank you, first and foremost, for your attention and time—I'm writing this to be read, and you're reading it, so you give this site purpose. That being said, the nice links you seem to be adding are a pleasant bonus.

And for all of you new readers, these are the people you get to live up to...

Search rank is not a measure of success; but as I consider The Wicked Good Blog to be my digital home, I'm glad it comes up as the primary place to find me.

YouTube, We Have A Problem [Updated]

At the time of this writing, it looks like YouTube is down for the count. Google Video, which owns YouTube, is up, but when a search there returns results from YouTube, they report the same "Invalid URL" error as YouTube.com itself does.

I wonder what has happened, and how long it'll be until it's fixed. Maybe this is the year the internet breaks down...


[Update - In the time it took me to verify and write this entry, YouTube came back. Good for them. Did anyone else notice a problem, or was it just me?]

Web 2.0 On The Menu

This is a pretty funny story.

Any other ideas? Google Salad, Almond-Crusted Mahalo, with a Triple-Layered MySpace Tiramisu for dessert?

None of that rolls off the tongue nearly as well as "Stir-fried Wikipedia."

I Love The Daily Show... & Its Writers

Brilliant.


(courtesy of Daring Fireball.)

Twitter

I never "got" Twitter until this morning, when I was doing what I do every day: bemoaning my inability to get any regular posts up to TWGB these days.

I had two or three short things to throw on the blog, but they didn't seem to warrant full posts. Combining them into one didn't feel right— when I'm not going through three weeks of backlogs, I like things to be somewhat separated. So what to do?

Well, I guess, Twitter.

I'm not saying that I'm about to rush and make myself an account; I really do like the idea of having my internet presence being centralized, in respect to this blog. But the impulse that leads to Twittering (or is it tweeting?) makes a lot of sense.

What the solution is, I don't know. The "Linked List" approach that John Gruber uses over at Daring Fireball is a great model for what I'm thinking of; his longer posts have a different style and layout from his daily collection of links. So maybe, as I move to a fully Hutson-designed layout (someday!), I just need to implement something along those lines.

For now, though, I'll probably just end up being inconsistent about it, I'm sorry to say. I'll try and just make posts with my short thoughts/links/whatever; we'll just have to see.

Doh!

Courtesy of Fake Steve Jobs, check out these stills from "The Bionic Woman." To add to iJustine's comments about the iPhone being upside down, I'd also like to point out that the screen is on, which doesn't happen during talk as the iPhone has "proximity sensors" or somesuch that kill the screen when it's against your cheek, to save on battery life.

Whoops!

Any "Bionic Woman" fans out there who can tell me if these pictures are of "Leoban" from "Battlestar Galactica?"

No Way!

I feel like I must have known this before, but I was happily surprised to discover whose birthday is today:

Happy Birthday PJ! The only present you need is for New Line Cinema to relax.

Best of the Web: indexed

I've stumbled upon her site numerous times, and I'm at a point where I must post about it: Jessica Hagy's "indexed" is one of my favorite websites. Now added to the sidebar.

Ever.

Great wit and understanding, and the best charts and diagrams this site of Algebra II.

Visit this site every day, and buy me a T-Shirt.

Jeff Bezos Has Been Busy

...Or at least his web designers have been.

Hot on the heels of the IMDb "Twin Peaks" DVD site look, it turns out Amazon.com has been remodeled. *

They really are going for a minimized header; a lot of old icons and pop-up lists are now in the sidebar, which is almost exclusively text. Images, in general, are much more sparingly used— predominantly only with product links. I applaud the simplification of the site; but I think there are quite a few problems.

To my old eyes, the "Search" bar is way too invisible; the pale grays and vertical layout just make it disappear. Considering the Amazon.com search bar was essentially the only way I interacted with the homepage, this bugs me.

Also, the look of the new graphics is... questionable. The rounded corners everywhere look like an ugly copy of the Apple "Aqua" look from two years ago; the light gray color scheme with white "cut-out" text and icons are hard to read and discern; the new orange is too distracting and attracts my eye away from what I want; the way every freakin' clickable highlights or responds when you mouse over (especially the "Amazon" logo if you're not on the main page!) drives me absolutely bonkers.

Contrast the new look with this snapshot of the page from July (courtesy of the Wayback Machine), and you'll see the difference. I find the old one, while certainly due for an update, had a distinct look that made me feel I was at a designed site; the new look is as crowded and generic as your average poorly-designed storefront. Too much clutter, not enough personality.

Not all bad, but far from great. Give 'er a Round 2, Bezos.


- - -

* I love that this page has no "Title" setting— the web broswer literally just displays the web address in the title bar. Classy. [⇪]

IMDb Sells Out

Yesterday, I checked out the IMDb for the first time in a week, and was greeted with this:

Over the last few years, I've felt like the IMDb has been commercializing itself progressively more and more; be it promoting bit-player actresses on it's front page to drive traffic, hawking the weeks newest DVD releases, or using stick-on ads. But this seems to be the biggest step yet even if only for a day.*

I can't recall the IMDb ever going this far with any other releases... this is a pretty major push for the "Twin Peaks" Box Set. And, for the record, I am a *huge* Twin Peaks fan. I just get cynical about blatant corporate synergy.

What's that you say? You were unaware that the IMDb is a fully owned subsidiary of Amazon.com? Take a look at the very bottom of the IMDb home page— you learn something new every day.

This is not much different from the New York times being an ad-based online magazine, or any other site that shows ads. Remember, nothing is free; we pay for "free" sites one way or another, and usually through commercials. You may not think of internet ads as true commercials, as they usually don't interrupt your regularly scheduled program temporally (i.e., stopping the chronological progression of your television show), but they do interrupt the linear progression of what you're reading. You have to skip your eyes past them to continue. Yes, that does have a temporal equivalent, but it isn't a temporal interruption. But is a spacial interruption better or worse? Hmmmm...

What worries me in this case, though, is that the premiere online resource for film is owned completely by the premiere online online retailer. Sure, I do most of my shopping on Amazon, so the links provided are convenient, but what happens when a movie comes out that is critical of Amazon.com? Or when trivia starts getting inserted to help promote sales? Or something more heinous that I can think of right now?

I don't mean to say that things are shady now, though yesterday's site look felt a little fishy. It's just that the potential for shadiness is particularly high, and if our history is any indication, what people can do, they often do.

* As of today, the ad look is already gone. [⇪]

Goddamn HTML

Pardon the brief rant, but sometimes HTML and Web Browsers piss me off.

CSS allows me to do so many beautiful things... modern browsing can really be a well-designed experience. Think of how many pages you visit that look quite nice.*

But then, you look at the browser's title bar to see the name, and you get only a literal character representation of the code.

Bullshit.

Follow the jump, and take a look at the title of this post in your broswer bar. The page renders it as "Goddamn HTML." And that's what you should see. But the browser renders— no, it displays the code as "<i><b>Goddamn HTML</b></i>." Wrong!

But there's nothing I know to fix. I'd noticed it on several sites in the past, and thought it was bad coding... but getting into myself, I just don't know what to do. One of these days, we'll get a next-gen browser that'll render full HTML and CSS in the title display; until then, get used to my little friends “ < ” and “ > ”.

[* Even this site looks pretty good. Although it'll look much better when I've redesigned it from scratch... someday...]

Thank You, Dad!

My father was always incredibly good at correcting my grammar as a kid. I mean it-- by age 14, I knew more about who/whom, lie/lay, effect/affect, objects/subjects, etc. than many teachers. I got Strunk & White's The Elements of Style as a birthday gift, and still consider it a necessary favorite.*

So you should find it to be no surprise that I am now, as I become an adult myself, exactly the same. Not that I have perfect grammar, or that I don't make mistakes; just that I tend to notice things when they're wrong.

And, being the same, I found the two following sites to be hilarious.

Apostrophe Abuse and The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks both post pictures of various signs, websites, letters, and other print media that break some pretty basic rules.

And often to comedic results.

I laughed out loud numerous times browsing these blogs; I highly recommend them.



[* This book is incredible, especially for anyone who writes. If you don't own it, go buy it right now. I mean it. Now.]

MirrorSpace

Wow.

For the record, I do have a MySpace page.

And I hate MySpace.

It's no so much the idea behind the "social networking" site; really, my issues are with A) the stupid, stupid, stupid default look and customization options, and B) It's trendy and totally overrated. Pretty much every site looks (and functions!) like garbage. Yes, I appreciate an easy way to reconnect with old friends, post your pictures and have friends comment on them, and share yourself with the world. I understand those desires, dear reader, and even share them!

That's why I keep a blog.

I have a Flickr account where I post pictures (though I've maybe only posted one; I intend to get better about this soon) and a blog where I post updates & thoughts, in a much cleaner format, for anyone to read/comment. Best of all, you don't even have to get an account to read this, or respond.

But a lot of people, my friends, love MySpace. And I respect that. And so I have a page... with one photo, that links directly to this blog. Because my goal (however short of the mark I fall) is for this blog to be my digital representation on the internet. So I use MySpace as a redirect; anyone who finds it, will find me here.

That being said... there comes a time where everything's purpose is revealed. Today Adam left me a MySpace comment with a link to... I'll let the page speak to myself. [WARNING: mute your computer before clicking through!]

I can't put it any better than Adam...

Everyone, meet Tyler, The Bizzaro Hutson.

What Happens In Nippon...

Agent: Brad, buddy, I got a couple'a commercial guys beggin' to score a few hours of face time.

Brad: Hey man, I can't let my audience think I'm a sell out! I need to protect my principles!

Agent: Baby, I hear you! Who do you think I am? These are Japanese commercials!

Brad: Really?

Agent: And we're talking millions!

Brad: Let me get this straight. For a free trip to the Orient, and a fat paycheck, all I've got to do is show up and act goofy? Count me in!


Ladies and gentlemen, behold: what your favorite stars work so very hard to hide from you.

My favorites: Nic Cage, Ah-nold, and Harrison Ford.

CSS & Templates

This is one of the things I hate about using web templates, and Blogger specifically.

I wanted to use a blockquote in the previous post, so I used the blockquote tag. But the Blogger templates are broken; all text after the blockquote tag had improper leading between the lines, resulting in ugly compressed text after this quote.

I had noticed this problem on other Blogger default blogs; "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs" suffers from this broken code, for example.*

This kind of issue is why default templates get so much crap. They tend to be barebones in their technical execution, and excessively overdesigned in their appearance. Like an inbred peacock, you get a messy and defective genotype, with a gaudy and excessive phenotype.

You can tell I was a geek in school, right?

I mean, I don't love this template. At this point, it's a stopgap until I can design my own CSS/PHP template to use instead; I just need time to do that. It has a lot of graphics that have nothing to do with me or my blog (aside from the fact that there are lighthouses in Maine). And since I didn't make it, it isn't personal.

That's not to say that templates are a bad thing; they are what let 90% of web users/bloggers get started, myself included. Coding is hard and time consuming to learn to do and execute, or expensive to pay for. Templates allow the Everyman to access the web as a producer of content, not just a consumer.

But dammit it's frustrating when the templates aren't that good.

Anyway, I dug into the code and gave this site a quick blockquote fix. I like the look; not the most original or beautiful, but functional, individually coded, and not broken.

Hallelujah.


[*This is a fantastic website, and deserves to be read early and often. Wonderfully commentary not just on Apple, but the whole tech industry. Hilarious and insightful, a rare combination.]

Wesleyana Musica

I heard about the following song twice today... schoolmate (and current LA friend/co-worker) Leanne mentioned it to me this morning, and my good friend (and college housemate) Kevin actually e-mailed me the song... seems a few Wesleyan University students (Past? Present? Future?) figured they could rock out a few beats in GarageBand and have some laughs.

See? This is why computers, and the interwebs, are particularly awesome.

I have no idea who wrote/performed this. I wish I did, because I would love to attribute this correctly, and help contribute to this person's (people's?) 15 minutes of fame.

Now, it may not be the best music you've ever heard*, but I tell you what: to a former Wesleyan student, this is pretty damned hilarious. Especially as I myself lived on Fountain Ave with Mike Kevin, and Ryan, with Tracy, Patti, Bryn, and Kristen living two doors down.

Ah college.

Definitely recommended for anyone who spent time on our campus, here is "Party On Fountain."


[*Though it does remind me of "The Lonely Island, specifically "Just 2 Guyz."]