I just wrote a long post about how annoyed I am with small-minded clients, but I’m going to leave that one as a draft and not publish it. Suffice it to say, I’ve had my fill of parties who don’t listen to good advice.
Ouch. Pitchfork didn’t much like Shadow’s new album. It hasn’t shown up on iTunes yet, so I haven’t heard much beyond the first singles.
Apparently, on the PC, to set a correct apostrophe, use the NumLock key, and type alt+0146. It doesn’t look like it works in Flash MX though. Use this link and the popup instead. I wish I had MX on my Mac, which is smart enough to do this automatically.
This marks the second week of working 14-hour days here at Idiot Central. Actually, it could be the third, as I was working double-time up until I left for SF, but I don’t remember that far back.
I did decide, however, that my previous conclusion about a new Mac was faulty—after spending time traveling with a balky ThinkPad and an anemic iBook, I’m going to save my shekels for a MacBook (and maybe a MacBook Pro, if I can swing it) for several reasons: Being able to run a separate monitor for presentations, portability, and power. I just wish the RAM wasn’t so damned expensive.
DJ Shadow, You Made It. I first heard this two weeks ago, and I can’t get it out of my head.
I saw a ton of Kawasaki KLRs in San Francisco when I was out there, and remembered that a friend recommended it. I like the idea of a 60-MPG bike that works well on and off road, with lower insurance rates. An old aircooled BMW would look cool, but this is a practical ride.
I didn’t mention much about our trip to Sonoma last week, but I’ll give a brief synopsis here: After reading a confusing map and crossing the same bridge three times, we explored the sunny hills of Sonoma, Napa’s more spread-out and less traveled neighbor. Our first stop was the beautiful Schug vineyard, where Jen and I actually bought a delicious, dry sauvigon blanc (a white?!) and we got our first buzz on.
From there we tried Cline, where they offered a sample of fresh grapes from the vine and a selection of rich, full-bodied reds. (Cline also features the actual Red Truck from the label you may have seen.) After some more obfuscation, we found Ravenswood on a sloping hill outside town, climbed some stairs and sampled a variety of wines not offered outside the vineyard, of which we bought two.
Our final stop, after trying to find Gundlach Bundschu (it’s somewhere outside of town, but all signs led to nowhere) was the Castle tasting room in town, where a wonderful lady led us through all fifteen or so wines offered. From Castle we walked around the square and found an Italian restaurant, paid a $15 corkage fee, and enjoyed a hearty dinner.
To Do list for this week: A handy script to yank the RSS feed from an Audioscrobbler account and drop it in a MovableType blog. Also handy: Audioscrobbler’s web services listing.
California—well, the whole west coast in general—is a neon lover’s paradise. In Santa Cruz, there were about ten motels within spitting distance of the beach (naturally), each with its own excellent signage. This kind of signage exists over here in precious few places, so whenever I see it I shoot it.
RJD2 “Ditches Hip-Hop”, or whatever that means. Sounds to me like he just wants to make music. I’d guess it’ll sound a little less patched-together and a little more polished. In related news, the new DJ Shadow album comes out on Monday. I heard the new single while driving the 101 in San Francisco, and I loved it.