Month: April 2004

Pathetic GMail Begging

I rarely do this. I’m usually not the type of person who asks for things. But, this is different. I know you tend to covet things that are unattainable, but this will eventually be easy as pie to get. It’s just that I want it RIGHT NOW. I can’t even really articulate why I can’t wait. Mostly it has to do with frustrations I have with my (yes, I know, free) yahoo e-mail account. But, other than that, I just plain want one.

I want a gmail account.

The number of posts I’ve read on other blogs over the past 3 weeks saying this exact same thing are astronomical. Everyone wants one. I eventually turn dark green with envy when I later read about these same people getting one. Ugh.

I’m not unique. I’m not special. There is really no reason why I deserve a gmail account more than any other guy out there. But, if you or someone you know is an employee of google, please consider giving me a gmail account. I will be eternally grateful.

I’ve been thinking of what I could offer in return. I know that right now I could go bid on the ones for sale on eBay. Well, I’m not paying for a gmail account. That’s just pathetic.

So, since I’m not willing to offer money for an account, I’m offering the only thing that I think somebody out there might possibly want. Music. I play drums in a band called Magnapop. Maybe you’re a fan. If you are and you happen to work for Google, than I think this could be a match made in heaven.

Magnapop will be recording a new album in May. So, here’s my proposal. I can offer you an advance copy of the album as soon as we are done mixing it. See any parallels here? I do.

So, that’s my offer. A chance to get something before anyone else does. Kind of like a gmail account. So, just send your gmail invite to tim at this web site dot com and I’ll send you a copy of the new Magnapop album, hot off the mixing board.

Oh yeah, this offer also stands for anyone who can get me some google IPO stock. A guy can dream, can’t he?

Merge

I really, really, really want to go to the Merge Records 15th Anniversary Festival.

Here’s the lineup:

7/29 – Thursday (Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, NC):

SUPERCHUNK
M. WARD
THE ESSEX GREEN
RICHARD BUCKNER
THE ROSEBUDS

7/30 – Friday (Cats Cradle, Carrboro NC):

CROOKED FINGERS
CAMERA OBSCURA
VERSUS
RADAR BROTHERS
PORTASTATIC
DOUBLE DYNAMITE

7/31 – Saturday (Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, NC):

SPOON
DESTROYER
THE LADYBUG TRANSISTOR
MATT SUGGS & THE HIGHER BURNING FIRE
SHARK QUEST

8/1 – Sunday (Carolina Theatre – Durham, NC):

LAMBCHOP (full-on Lambchop, w/string section accompaniment)
THE CLIENTELE
DAVID KILGOUR

Damn!

Fun with Froogle

Ever since I wrote the Froogle script, I’ve been wondering. Why did I write the Froogle script?

Well, first off, I did it as an exercise in writing PHP functions. And I’m a big fat geek. Other than that, I guess it’s occasionally kinda funny to see what people are looking to buy on the internet.

Today, I realized a fun game to play with the Froogle script. Take, for example, the items that came up right now as I loaded themuy’s home page:

  • huggies diapers
  • nose hair clipper
  • freezers
  • fight club dvd
  • febreze

And now, imagine if someone went into a store and those are the items on his/her shopping list. According to this person’s list, it’s going to be a fun night.

Pretty funny, huh?

Okay, I gotta go outside and get some fresh air. I’m obviously losing my mind.

5o Foot Wave

Tonight is the first show of a 6 week tour for Kristin Hersh’s new band, 50 Foot Wave. This new project from the Throwing Muses singer is a hard-rocking beast, or as they say on their web site, “harder, faster, more intense and built from the ground up to be a band to see live”. This is an interesting approach for Hersh—as her most recent efforts have been mostly acoustic. I think it’s a great idea to go in this direction and look forward to seeing them live if they come through Atlanta (their tour schedule is still being tweaked).

This band is most definitely rocking. I heard some rough mixes of their new ep when I was in LA last year visiting my sister (she works for Kristin’s family), and it kicks mucho ass. I don’t know where they found the drummer, Rob Ahlers, but he is insanely good. L’~ (as the cool kids have already started using as a shortcut) will pummel you into submission as Kristin’s vocals reverberate from that otherworldy place that only she inhabits. Oh yeah, and they’re a three piece! The return of the power trio at last!

Good luck Kristin (and family). May you rock the good people from coast to coast. I’m going to go buy your ep right now.

Buy the 50 Foot Wave ep

Those Damn Freedom Haters

I need to point you to this brilliant analysis of the “current situation” by Joshua Marshall.

Joshua has perfectly articulated the feeling I have every time I hear the president speak. When he distills the President’s speech from the other night down to its essence, it reads like the babbling nonsense it is:

“Why are things spinning out of control in Iraq? Why are we losing the struggle for hearts and minds in the country? Because we stand for freedom. And the terrorists hate freedom. And they’re attacking us because we’re bringing freedom to Iraq. And terrorists hate freedom. Therefore they hate us. And since they hate us so much of course they fight us.”

As Mr. Marshall aptly points out, this would be funny if not for the fact that “this…inane mumbojumbo…will — perhaps literally — get us all killed.”

Of course he says it all much better than me, so please read it.

Where’s the Content?

Take a look at this page and mentally seperate the content from the ads (don’t forget to scroll all the way down).

I wonder who thinks that the ads on that page do anything good for anybody. Certainly not the user, and I can’t imagine how the client thinks that their ad is going to have any amount of click through from that page.

Note to pcmag.com: this doesn’t work.

Note to anyone else working in the web industry right now: if you ever get to the point where you have anything to do with a web page that looks like this, either raise hell to get it fixed or quit.

(Found on Veen’s site)

Froogle Monitor

I spent about a half hour today creating a php script that checks the front page of froogle for the most recently searched items. It will live over there in the right nav until I get tired of it. If you want the code for your own site (requires php 4 compiled with cURL) just let me know.

Update: So far this is the best search I’ve seen: kung fu hamster

Congratulations, Erin!

I know it’s hard to believe, but my wife is both beautiful and talented. She and I recently went to New York so that she could try to give her jewelry business a kickstart and find some new accounts. We had a great time running around the city and she was lucky enough to find some very enthusiastic people who loved her jewelry.

I’ve refrained from linking to her web site from themuy because, frankly, I still haven’t completed her web site, but I’m excited to say that she has popped up on another site that I have no trouble linking to: Giving Tree Gallery!

Congratulations, honey! You deserve it.