I like candy
Candybar -- Making my Mac desktop even sweeter.
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This is an old page from Rod Begbie's blog.
It only exists in an attempt to prevent linkrot. No new content will be added to this site, and links and images are liable to be broken. Check out begbie.com to find where I'm posting stuff these days.
My copy of Super Mario Sunshine arrived today. An hour and a half ago, I said to myself “I’ll play for half an hour.” I just finished. Damn, those Nintendo guys are good.
In a wise, wise marketing move, the trailer for the new documentary about Jerry Seinfeld doesn’t feature Jerry Seinfeld.
OMG! I’m sure I just walked past Ellen Feiss. Does anyone know if her essay managed to get her into Harvard?
It’s not quite there yet, but very soon, you’ll be able to see The Greatest Auto Dealer Commercial of All Time.
Curse Dan! If it wasn’t for him, I would be unaware that Super Monkey Ball 2 was on the horizon, so would have been unlikely to spend the last hour playing with the flash demos on the official site.
Sadly unnoticed by many, Jaguar proves to be the end of the line for Apple’s beloved “Happy Mac” icon. Mourn his passing by browsing some of Susan Kare’s other designs.
This evening, I sat in a room while a man described his Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble. It was painful listening to him talk and not think of Jazz Club. Nice.
If fantasizing about Betty Rubble is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
Hurrah! A Windows version of the best French car-driving-based card game ever.
Quite frankly, anyone who manages to create a high-speed car chase in downtown Boston at 11am on a weekday deserves our admiration and respect.
Hurrah for the blogging community! I just found a blog for American Idol fans to bitch!
Take the Google Quiz and see if you can find stuff. I mean, really find stuff.
Hrmph. I was all excited that I’d found a download of the Um Bongo commercial, but the video clip is only 15 seconds, not the full 30 second masterpiece. Curses. Foiled again.
This is a very odd feeling.
Last night, I managed to get 9 solid hours of quality sleep. This is unusual for me, as I am decidedly insomniacesque. Then this morning, I had my usual large Dunkin Donuts coffee. But since I was awake to begin with, I’m now buzzed beyond belief.
So, by not being tired, I am able to think through problems carefully. But because of the caffeine, I can’t concentrate on anything for more than thirty seconds. For example, since starting to compose this post, I’ve checked my email three times.
I’ve gotta try and balance this out sometime.
Hurrah for technology. I’ve spent the last week playing around with various bits & pieces, and have been getting cyberwarmandfuzzies left, right and center. Non-programmer-types can probably skip this post, but if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to gush.
First up, a hearty hug and a handshake to Mac OS X. My Blue&White G3 (purchased cheap from a company who, following several rounds of layoffs, now had more PCs than employees) has been sat under my desk for 6 months now—Occassionally prodded or played with, but never really used. But after installing Jaguar, I’ve spent some time learning to love it, and I have to admit, it’s ace. The lovely whoop-de-do UI, combined with the underlying Unix is just a stunning combination. Being able to SSH to my Mac and install all the usual Gnu goodies just sets my nerd-heart a flutter.
Next up, Omnicore CodeGuide. Now this is what an IDE should be like. I’ve used it for a couple of revisions, and have gone on and on to my friends about how much time I’ve saved with it’s real-time MS Word-like error-highlighter, but the new version just made my jaw drop—Being able to edit code in a running app and have it execute without recompiling is a dream come true for this programmer. If you ever program in Java, then get this IDE on your desktop forthwith.
Finally, I giggled like a schoolgirl whilst playing with Apache Axis—The open-source group’s Java implementation of SOAP. While I thought that Microsoft had done a great job with .NET in making it easy to deploy a web service, Axis blew me away with how easy they made it:
OK, here's step 1 : copy the above .java file into your webapp directory, and rename it "Calculator.jws".Now for step 2… hm, wait a minute. You’re done!
Axis developers, I salute you.
OK, enough blethering about computers—back to the funny links…
Clearing out some old emails, I re-found a very helpful guide on how to dance properly.
Just what my belly doesn’t need: a one-click service to order British chocolate online.
<FX: rOD scrambles for his credit cards>I’ve been having fun with Lost in Translation—An exercise in using computer-based language translation to mess up text. For example, I’m sure that Human League knew what they were doing when they wrote:
They had worked like waiter in a team of the employees of coctel, when I came they to make contact with enemy with. I have preseleziona you to the external part, beat alongside advanced and I have returns around he they. He in new turned somebody.
I believe this is what the kids at NTK would refer to as “Anti-News”: The RIAA is wrong.
According to a new report, Napster, Audiogalaxy et al were not responsible for any loss of record sales. The economic downturn and increasing popularity of DVDs and Video Games were.
My favourite statistics from the report:
31% of consumers download music and burn CDs often. These frequent digital music users buy 36% of all CDs.
If only this would help resuscitate AG. Gawd, I miss it.
Throwing some Googlejuice Manic’s way: Can Weblogs Reach Ronald Scelson?
Hmmm… maybe Mr Scelson would like to join a CD club… He seems like a Ricky Martin sort of guy.
My morals-free piracy challenge of the moment: Can I download a copy of Mac OS X Jaguar before its official release date of the 24th? Signs point to yes.
Yay! I’m all excited today, cause I’ve booked my first vacation in bleedin’ ages: a cruise from Seattle to Alaska. The ship even has an on-board webcam, so I’ll make sure and wave!
Deliciously tacky & tasteless spamvertised treat: Get your Free $2001 President Bush Bill
Gah! 12:20am, and I’m wide awake due to too much Pepsi Blue consumption. What better way to pass my insomniac hours, than with a swift bout of midget tossing?
PoppedClogs reminded me of the grand old tradition of the uk.misc obituary—A screed of cross-posted misinformation celebrating everything but the achievements of the recently snuffed-it.
For example, who knew that Derek Nimmo’s brother went on to appear in Star Trek? Or that Roy Rogers was responsible for Oklahoma?
I even turned up one that I’d forgotten writing.
Ah, happy days. (Make sure you click “View Thread” to then watch people arguing with—or contributing to—the disinformation. S’very jolly)
From the “Dear God, that’s so simple. Why didn’t I think of it?” file: spamgourmet. James Cridland mentioned it on UKNM, so I’ll just use his description:
Let's say I enter a competition on British Gas's website. When it asks me for my e-mail address, I don't write my "real" one in - I write in britishgas.5.jamescridland@spamgourmet.comThis then bounces THE FIRST FIVE messages from them to my e-mail address (amending the header to say how many are left). , and eats the rest. If I like what I’m getting from British Gas, I can let them send me more messages, too, if I like. If they sell my e-mail address to someone else, I’ll be able to tell, too.
And the best bit? It’s free.
Since MTV is now perfectly happy to never show a music video ever again, thank goodness for videos.antville.org, which blogs links to top pop videos from across the net.
The lovely, lovely chaps at The Friday Thing launch a new, and sure-to-cause-offence, service: Popped Clogs. Taking the piss out of newly-deceased celebs.
Went with a friend last night to see Signs.
It is one of the worst films I have ever endured in my life.Not just “Oh my, that was a waste of $9” bad (like I found The Grinch and Death To Smoochy to be). More “I cannot believe that anyone in their worst, most deluded, crack-addled moments would think this had the merest potential of being a good movie.” bad.
Fairly dull throughout, but the ending had me & me partner slack-jawed with incredularity, as master storyteller M. Night Shamalamadingdong cunningly weaves together a handful of dull badly-signposted non-sequiters from throughout the movie, deftly driving a mack truck through a handful of plotholes, to form an offensive-to-anyone-with-an-IQ-above-70 finale.
Sweet fucking Jesus, it was bad.
I’m a fairly easy going person. I can watch brain-dead and/or bad movies, and enjoy them. (After Signs, my chum & I decanted back to my place to enjoy Gremlins, which, while cheesy as all hell, at least wears its cheesiness with pride). But Signs was so contrived in its foulness—so smug in it’s “Ahhhh. You weren’t expecting that, were you?” attitude— it left me wanting to phone telephone numbers at random and tell complete strangers “Don’t go!”
It was that fucking bad.
Consider yerselves warned.
From B3ta, a very important Public Service Accouncement regarding motorcycles.
In response to Ben Brown’s Robotic Spam Poetry, I offer (courtesy of Danny O’Brien’s found haiku script) some of my own. (All spelling and punctuation is spammer’s own)
New Software Lets You Find Out Almost ANYTHING about ANYONE...Or maybe you want
a fake diploma to hang
on your bedroom wall.Making over half
million dollars every
two months from your home.This is the letter
you have been hearing about
on the news lately.Save this on a disk
as well just in case if you
loose any data.Stealth Eyes installs and
remains TOTALLY hidden
on a computer.NATIONAL Asset
Background Searches. hour OR
LESS Turn Around Time.Shipping, and Billing.
Secure Online Ordering,
Fast Delivery.Life Insurance! Get
your FREE instant quotes. Compare
the lowest prices.Hottest & Youngest
Bitches Getting F*cked in
everyhole LIVE.
As threatened the other day, I’ve now got my TiVo wirelessly updating, with the added bonus that there’s now a box to the right of this page showing you the last thing it recorded.
Deliciously useless.
This is an archive of groovmother.com, the old blog run by Rod Begbie — A Scottish geek who lives in San Francisco, CA.
I'm the co-founder of Sōsh, your handy-dandy guide for things to do in San Francisco this weekend.
