The whole thing is going pretty well. Tired but in a good way, San Francisco has been hospitable. Meeting many people, places, things. I will post more when I am able.

In the meantime, my twitter stream is a pretty fun representation of stuff I’m up to.

I just can’t get this song out of my head, and I don’t care one whit, not one jot.

Chemical Brothers, Let Forever Be

Hey-o:

Leah and I are going to BlogHer this weekend, now I, not being a woman, and wanting to relax anyway, am going to be chilling in San Francisco Friday and Saturday (Thursday night and Sunday morning too, but to a much lesser extent obviously, since we’re driving from and to Moorpark those days). So I’m speculating on stuff to do in San Francisco. I’ve made a map with some possibilities. Do you have other suggestions? I made this list based on San Francisco Bay Guardian’s Best of the Bay 2007. Please note: I have been to the Embarcadero, I’ve been to Alcatraz, and I’ve been on the cable cars before. I may do them again, but I think what I want is to get the feel for how the city lives more than anything else. Suggestions, comments, and maybe offers of lunch (Hi Al and Ingrid!) are welcome.

If this map works, I’ll be pleased.

View Larger Map

This post is inspirational for me as a programmer: Call Me Fishmeal.: Pimp My Code, Part 15: The Greatest Bug of All

Software is written by humans. Humans get tired. Humans become discouraged. They aren’t perfect beings. As developers, we want to pretend this isn’t so, that our software springs from our head whole and immaculate like the goddess Athena. Customers don’t want to hear us admit that we fail.

The measure of a man cannot be whether he ever makes mistakes, because he will make mistakes. Its what he does in response to his mistakes. The same is true of companies.

We have to apologize, we have to fix the problem, and we have to learn from our mistakes.

via Waxy.org

Maybe I should get up earlier more often.

Man, It’s So Loud In Here

Baby, check this out. I’ve got something to say.

Man, it’s so loud in here.
When they stop the drum machine
and I can think again,
I’ll remember what it was.

And also, James K. Polk:

in four short years he met his every goal
he seized the whole southwest from Mexico
made sure the tariffs fell
and made the English sell
the Oregon territory
he built an independent treasury
having done all this
he sought no second term!

Matt & Beth Lee are now parents. I’m so happy for them. I expect this was an amazing 3 day weekend for them.

So I went almost a week without blogging, then the 4th of July happened, and now it’s the weekend. Now I can catch up with some blogreading, and perhaps I’ll share some of the things I find with you. Perhaps I’ll even share some of my own thoughts about this past week. Let’s start, shall we?

Cliff Chiang is an illustrator and comics artist whose style I like very much. His style is an interesting mix of subtle realistic touches and interesting graphic touches. Take a look at some his commissioned sketches from Heroes Con.

Also in comics and fine art is the flickr stream DECONSTRUCTING ROY LICHTENSTEIN. I am a big fan of Roy Lichtenstein, and have been since I was a teenager, and this is the kind of wonderful resource that the internet enables.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about how the internet inherently changes things like scarce information or difficult connection. Jason Scott has a thoughtful, deeply personal post about his own fanhood, obsession, appreciation for The Art of Noise. His description of always seeking Art of Noise product at every record store he went to resonates with me. That means I DID THAT TOO. Not for The Art of Noise, but for Talking Heads, New Order+Joy Division, They Might Be Giants, and the like. The last bands I did this over were Christina Aguilera and Frank Zappa. Of course now Tower Records went defunct, and record stores mean almost nothing. It’s an entirely different world of music and fandom. My the media I consumed in my teen years and early twenties would have been entirely different had I had ready access to the utilities and fansites and retail venues on the internet. Once again I’m reminded that we live in this future.

Audrey Kawasaki has a new print called Okimiyage, and in her post about it she includes some closeups and photos of the process of getting it made. Check out this post about the printing process as well.

Comics blog “The Beat” notes that Kansas City Barbeque, in downtown San Diego, burned. Big bummer! The post on the KCBBQ website is pretty heartbreaking.

Another post on The Beat is R Stevens goes back to sticks with the web, about Diesel Sweeties moving away from print after moving toward it. Sounds like being a webcomic can be an end unto itself.

More art and process: go visit PUMML: Artblog of Drake Brodahl. He is doing some wonderful work, and I intended to mention his own post on process some time ago. So now I am.

I’m not vegan, but I like the idea of a Vegan joint map of Los Angeles.

I had no idea that the Boys & Girls Club Gym here in Moorpark was damaged beyond use, but I’m glad it was repaired: Club gym opens after 6 months of repair . I’m also happy to see that the Moorpark Acorn moved to color photos on the web. I still don’t read the print version.

This vintage ad for Brylcream is awesome.

Cubecraft has paper models you can print and assemble into many cool characters. I like MODOK, Dr.Zoidberg, Dr. Manhattan, Mario, and The Prince from Katamari Damacy.

Did you notice that after a long hiatus, Leah blogged? Nice to have her post again, if only for a minute.

Doc Searls, a person who I look up to as a blogger, has been blogging about the Gap Fire. He’s also twittering the gapfire at twitter.com/dsearls. The sunset when viewed from Thousand Oaks last night was very pretty—I think partially because of particulates from that fire.

When Jason Calacanis criticizes Nick Denton, that’s noteworthy to me. Background: At one time, I thought I wanted to be one or both of these men. Now I don’t. I’m no blog impresario. Unlike Charles Foster Kane, I don’t think it would be fun to run a newspaper.

I also think Rachel Maddow is super-awesome.

The other day I got a comment via email about Evil GIFs: Partial Same Origin Bypass with Hybrid Files is a taste of the nastiness that’s available. via Simon Willison.

Interesting comparison of shots in Raising Arizona and No Country for Old Men. via John Gruber

That’s enough for today.

I underestimated Camper Van Beethoven when I was younger. Yes, I loved this song, and also Good Guys and Bad Guys, but I missed how interesting they were, probably because their sound is so organic and folky. But I’ve rectified this by picking up their new “best of” collection called Popular Songs Of Great Enduring Strength And Beauty. It’s been an extraordinarily busy week this week at the dayjob, and for several of those days I enjoyed some major CVB.

Cracker, which is a follow-on group from CVB, is a song I’ve enjoyed for one song, the long, cynical, sad, wonderful song Euro-Trash Girl.

With that prep, I invite you to watch and listen to the wonderful Take The Skinheads Bowling: