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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.

Entries for January 2008

January 31, 2008

Craig Ferguson Takes Citizenship Test

A fellow Scotsman takes the US citizenship test.

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Windows Vista Help: Opening the Windows Vista box

Official Microsoft documentation on how to open the Vista packaging. Because it *needs* documentation.

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ThinkGeek :: 8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirt

“Proximity Based Geek Lovin’” Amazing! Might get these for me & Joy for valentines day.

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January 29, 2008

What font says 'Change'? - The Boston Globe

Type designers decode the presidential candidates.

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January 28, 2008

Democracy in America | Economist.com

The Economist has an outstanding US Politics blog. In depth, funny and required reading.

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All this online sharing has to stop | Technology | guardian.co.uk

A Modest Proposal supporting the music industry’s calls for ISPs to block filesharing.

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January 27, 2008

Canon EOS Beginners' FAQ

Lots of the questions I have about SLR photography answered.

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Booksthatmakeyoudumb

Comparing SAT scores with colleges’ most popular books according to Facebook. Guess where the Bible ends up on that scale…

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Fuel Economy

US Gov’t fuel economy site, which lets you upload your information and compare MPGs with others. My 2001 Civic’s giving me 30 MPG, and that seems to be pretty reasonable.

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favotter

Collator of favourited Twitters. It’s a bit wonky (it only gathers together favourites by certain users), but there’s some fun stuff in there.

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Michel Gondry Re-creates His Own Trailer For "Be Kind Rewind"

Michel Gondry’s next film involved Jack Black and Mos Def recreating movies amateurishly. Here, Michel Gondry recreates that film’s trailer amateurishly. Genius!

“Enough already!”

“Enough already!”

Clyde imploring me to stop taking photos of him. (Since my class yesterday, I've fired off over 100 shots of him -- these were the only two worth sharing!)

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Regal Clyde

Regal Clyde

Clyde hamming it up for the camera.

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You Suck at Photoshop

Excellently silly melodrama under the guise of photoshop tutorials. Ace!

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January 26, 2008

A President Like My Father - New York Times

Caroline Kennedy endorses Obama. “I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.”

Copilot is now free on weekends

Perfect timing, since I’m helping my mum set up iTunes and podcasts on her PC on Sunday afternoon!

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January 25, 2008

Hey Venus!

CD Purchase: Super Furry Animals - Hey Venus!

Boston Sports Propaganda

Fantastic limited-edition screen prints celebrating the Sox and the Pats. I’m trying to convince Joy that some of these would be dashing on our living room walls.

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Mondrianum

OS X system-wide plugin that adds color palletes from Adobe’s kuler community to the ColorPicker widget.

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January 24, 2008

Jukebox

CD Purchase: Cat Power - Jukebox

Woman With Tattoo From Homemade Gun Got Sick

From the “News article opening lines which blow your mind” file: “Some women in Springfield, MO are regretting their decision last week to get a tattoo from a door-to-door tattoo salesman.”

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January 22, 2008

January 21, 2008

hudson: an extensible continuous integration engine

This looks worth investigating — Continuous integration server that can also monitor other jobs (eg. cron jobs or backups), then serves the results at RSS, email or IM alerts.

January 19, 2008

Move Over, "Meerkat Manor" | Newsweek

Bizarre tale of a plagiarised nature article appearing as dialogue in a trashy paperback romance.

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January 18, 2008

Distortion

CD Purchase: Magnetic Fields - Distortion

A Bit of Fry and Laurie - "Mystery" song

Classic bit of early Hugh Laurie musical brilliance. (Also worth seeking out on YouTube: his version of Hey Jude)

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AOL adopting XMPP aka Jabber

You can now log into your AIM or ICQ account using Jabber. They’re not yet doing server-to-server, but it’s surely just a matter of time.

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January 17, 2008

BBC - Press Office - Ashes To Ashes

Ashes to Ashes (the 80’s Life on Mars follow-up) is starting the first week of February, and everything about it sounds bloody AMAZING.

“What’s been your favourite scene to film?” “That would have to be when we were on a speed boat going under Tower Bridge carrying machine guns. Say no more.”

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DeBeers Settlement

If you bought any diamond jewellery between January 1994 and April 2006, you can become part of the class action and apply for a share of De Beers’s settlement. Depending on what you bought (and the number of people who apply for their share), you could get around 30% of the purchase price back!

Yahoo! OpenID

Yahoo embraces OpenID, acting as a identity provider for now, and promising consumption to come. Unfortunately, it uses the new OpenID 2.0 spec, so I don’t know of a single site where you can use it yet, but hey! It’s a start.

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Occam's RazR > An Ounce of Prevention

Avoid being Rickroll’d with this anti-rickrolling firefox plugin. A great example of Firefox’s extensions making the internet a safer place to be.

January 16, 2008

forre.st | storage

Graph of storage per dollar, based upon hard drive prices scraped hourly from NewEgg. 500Gb drives are the sweet spot currently, at $0.18/GB

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Design Police | Bring bad design to justice.

“Please do not use Word Art™” Should make a set of these for code reviews. “Use spaces, not tabs”

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Exclusive: The Cruise Indoctrination Video Scientology Tried To Suppress

Hard to watch without remembering his interview scenes in Magnolia. “When you’re a Scientologist, and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you’re the only one who can really help…”

SimpleDbIntro - boto - Google Code

My SimpleDB account got enabled yesterday, so I’m looking forward to getting stuck into it. This looks like a handy Python library for accessing it (and the other Amazon Web Services)

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DCU: PC Deposit – Deposit Checks from Home

Awesome upcoming feature from my credit union: Pay in checks by scanning them on my home PC. Hooray for banking becoming less paper-driven.

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My Friend Flickr: A Match Made in Photo Heaven (Library of Congress)

US Library of Congress + Flickr == FTW! LoC uploads photos from their collection to Flickr, sharing them with the world, then Flickr users can update the metadata, improving their usefulness. Everyone’s a winner.

January 15, 2008

Juno

CD Purchase: Original Soundtrack - Juno

January 14, 2008

Shelf - jerakeen.org

Cool prototype application by Tom Insam which monitors your foreground application in OS X, and tries to provide you some context by matching it to someone in your Address Book. It’s early days yet, but decidedly cool (and written in Python)

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BusySync 2.0

BusySync 2 will synchronize between Google Calendar and iCal in both directions. Unless Apple announce this exact feature at Macworld, I’ll be buying a copy forthwith.

ROFLCon

Conference/celebration of internet memery, being put on at the Berkman Center in Cambridge in April. I love the fact that registering to discuss webcomics and LOLCats has resulted in my first ever charge of my credit card by Harvard University.

The Raw Story | US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web search

Been putting off joining the EFF? Now might be a bloody good time to break out your chequebook. Anyone know of a link to the original New Yorker article on which this scare-story is based?

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Jellyvision: The Jack Principles

“The Jack Principles is the first set of comprehensive guidelines for designing, writing and performing for an interactive conversation.” Great reading if you’re developing software for humans.

Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES

Dicking around at CES? Fine. Slightly amusing, even. But dressing it up as “journalistic integrity” or “civil disobedience”?! Horseshit.

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Happy Birthday, Sheriff George!

Another social software village I’m a member of: Basset hound owners on Flickr. There’s a great community forming of basset owners commenting on each others’ photos, and here, celebrating the birthday of another Flickrer’s dog!

Pistachio: Twitter is my Village

Great post by Laura “@Pistachio” Fitton. Exactly sums up why Twitter is so lovely: “For a contrived, weird and techy way to communicate, Twitter’s “passive conversation” fosters very natural, gradual relationship-building.”

Amazon.com: HD DVD will still win

Fantastic reading: HD-DVD fanboys in denial on Amazon discussion boards.

Amazon.com: Toshiba HD-A3 HD DVD Player

Desperation play on Toshiba’s part? They’ve dropped the price of their entry-level HD-DVD player to $130, which includes two movies, and a rebate form for five more. Even knowing the format is doomed, this is tempting me.

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xkcd : ROBOT9000 and #xkcd-signal: Attacking Noise in Chat

An interesting way to moderate IRC chat: Only allow unique new sentences to be spoken.

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January 13, 2008

Techdirt: Hasbro Sues Scrabulous For Being Too Scrabble-ish

This could be interesting to watch — In my social network, Scrabulous is *the* killer Facebook app. If it were to disappear, would it hurt Facebook?

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2007's Worst Wii Games

Thankfully, I was completely unaware that any of these games existed — I had to do a quick search to make sure they were real, and not created purely for the purposes of this article!

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I Got What America Needs Right Here | The Onion

Jimmy Carter op-ed piece from The Onion. “You better get down on your hands and knees and kiss Jimmy Carter’s rosy-red Georgia-peach-picking ass and beg me to run your fucking country again, because there’s no way I’m ever gonna come to you fuck-knobs and politely ask you if I might please be a presidential candidate in your precious fuckin’ election.”

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DTerm

Interesting looking tool which is a cross between Quicksilver and Terminal.

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X

CD Purchase: Kylie Minogue - X

Late Night Tales

CD Purchase: Fatboy Slim - Late Night Tales

January 11, 2008

Easy Acid

Large collection of loungecore covers. Hugo Montenegro’s version of “Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)” is my favourite so far.

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Confessions: The Meanest Thing Gizmodo Did at CES

Posted without comment: Conference with lots of TVs + geeks with TV-B-Gone remotes = …

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January 10, 2008

Squeezebox Duet Network Music System

The new Squeezebox hardware was one of the best things I saw at CES. The remote is pretty nice, but the best thing is that, like their SlimServer software, the firmware is open-source and Lua-based, so “the community” can write plugins and features for the remote. I predict this’ll be huge.

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How Frozen Peas Started A Movement | The Washington Post

The Frozen Pea Fund gets a write-up in the Washington Post.

January 9, 2008

Macworld 2008 Keynote Brown Bag Gathering at Betahouse

Boston get-together to hit refresh on Gizmodo/Engadget/MacWorld and watch the news of next week’s Stevenote flow in.

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ABC Ferrets Out a New 'Mole' - Zap2it

Woot! “The Mole” is coming back in a non-celebrity edition. This makes me: happy!

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Be jealous

Be jealous

I won a raffle at the blogger party. Amongst the prizes were $300 in cash and free return flights on Virgin America.

My prize? An Intel flight suit. Apparently, Intel was sponsoring one of those Zero-G parabolic flights, and had some custom flight suits made. Do I get a flight on the vomit comet? Do I bollocks. Just the suit.

Not pictured is the huge Intel logo on the back. Discussions soon turned to the idea of wearing it, heading to the Intel booth on the show floor, and pretending to be booth staff. "Our new processor is smaller than an ant, but can do multiplication almost three times faster than even the most skilled ant."

Oh, and when I was carrying the suit, I felt something papery in one of the pockets. Of course, my first assumption was that there was a crisp $100 bill in there. Nope. Sick bag!

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January 8, 2008

Sexxpresso

Sexxpresso

Spotted opposite the Atomic Testing Museum. No idea what makes their coffee "sexy", and frankly scared to find out.

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Rolly

Rolly

The closest thing to an innovation at the Sony stand -- breakdancing robot MP3 players.

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The Internet’s Famous Scoble

The Internet’s Famous Scoble

Getting ready for an interview at the NBC News stand

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Me & Amanda Beard

Me & Amanda Beard

Signing at the Go Daddy tent. There were only five or six people in the line, so I figured what the hey.

As a few of us were discussing in the line, Photoshop has been good to her.

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Crocs O-Dial

Crocs O-Dial

Crocs for your phone. Who else thinks they came up with the name first, then created the product to go with it?

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This one goes to MP5

This one goes to MP5

"You're on MP4 here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on MP4 on your player. Where can you go from there? Where?"

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Ars gets its hands on the Optimus Maximus, begins payment plan

I got to play with the Optimus keyboard at CES yesterday, and it is incredibly cool looking, but didn’t feel like a terribly usable keyboard. But pretty? Boy howdy!

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Completely random prediction that I just want to jot down here so that I can point to it if it turns out to come true

This year’s Beijing olympic games will have the highest TV viewing figures in the US for, let’s say, 10 years, since it’ll be the first summer games shown in high-definition.

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BBC NEWS | Clarkson stung after bank prank

Hah! Jeremy Clarkson blusters in his usual ignorantly twattish style that identity theft isn’t a big deal, and to prove his point, lists his bank account details in his newspaper column. Someone took the details and created a direct debit to a charity! `

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Blinged-out Namebadge

Blinged-out Namebadge

After nabbing some samples from the Rhinestone It! booth, I now have the most blinged-out namebadge in Vegas

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January 7, 2008

“More Beneficial Than Smoking”

“More Beneficial Than Smoking”

Bizarre battery-powered cartridge-based contraption that allows you to "smoke" "cigarettes" without technically smoking.

(Rather splendidly, a google search reveals that "NJoy" is also the name of a brand of "personal massagers", so make sure not to get them confused. You might get a funny look if you put a "NJoy Personal Wand" between your lips in public)

www.njoy.com/

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Plen

Plen

I was excited to see Plen, since he's a true celebrity -- Last night on The Amazing Race, one of the choices on the detour involved controlling Plens with cellphones and trying to score goals.

plen.jp/

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Bling!

Bling!

Another common theme at the Sands today: Stickers to decorate devices. Ranging from artistic skins for your laptop, to "bling" stickers, resulting in lovely devices like these at the "Rhinestone It!" stand.

www.cosam.biz/

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Versus Scoreboard

Versus Scoreboard

Portable boombox-type-thing with remote-controlled score displays, a countdown timer, etc.

It sounds a bit gimmicky and crappy, but it's something I desperately wanted a few years back when doing improv. I could definitely see Theatersports or Comedysportz troupes using it for away gigs.

www.versusscoreboard.com/

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Don’t piss in the soup

Don’t piss in the soup

I ate at Sensi this evening, which has its kitchen in the center of the restaurant, surrounded by walls of glass.

I was treated to the view of the steamer. Anyone who was squeamish about seeing live wriggling lobsters going in, and pink delicious ones coming out would not have had fun.

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January 6, 2008

Quick braindump from CES (Day 0)

Greetings from Vegas, or more specifically, Bloghaus.

  • I’m already stunned by the scale of CES. I just went to collect my badge, and caught a glimpse of the smaller show floor. S’gonna be huge.
  • Biggest discussion point so far: Exactly how fucked is HD-DVD?
  • The Las Vegas monorail is $5 for one ride, $9 for a one-day ticket, and $40 for a three-day ticket. Even for Vegas, that’s some perverse mathematics.
  • I’m refusing to wear my badge’s lanyard, cause it’s sponsored by Nero, and they’ve fucked up my Windows installs too many times in the past.
  • The Microsoft keynote was staggeringly weak. I mean, I was expecting it to be; I knew it wasn’t going to be comparable to a Stevenote. But man, there was nothing there. Nothing announced, nothing shared, just horrible public speaking and “Hey, look at this thing we’ve made this year (and please ignore that it’s identical to something you’ve seen elsewhere that’s better)”
  • Also, billg’s keynote section was spectacular in its vapidness. He could have said “We think the internet’s going to be big!”, and it would have been more insightful.
  • As I walk past the guys handing out hooker cards, I’m tempted to respond the same way you respond to a Big Issue seller in the UK: “Already got one.” Although this thought then led me down the semantic worry that I was announcing “I already have a whore”, rather than “I’ve already got a card.”
  • Wondering if my employer has a specific policy against taking your meals per diem, slapping it in the penny slots, and eating with whatever your winnings turn out to be.

OK, going to go take over the Bloghaus TV and watch American Gladiators. Laters!

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My beverages at Bloghaus

My beverages at Bloghaus

I apparently subconsciously like drinks that come in green bottles with red stars on the labels.

An Audience with billg

An Audience with billg

The crowd behind me at the Bill Gates keynote. I was about 1/3 of the way back from the stage, having chosen to ignore the people holding signs, and sitting in the "Press / VIP" area.

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Cracked Camera

Cracked Camera

Bugger! The LCD screen on the back of my camera is shattered, so I have no clue how any of my photos look, and no way to control features like the flash. It might as well be film!

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January 5, 2008

A Users Manual to Seat 21C

Too true to be funny. (I was particularly pissy that on my flight earlier, the tray table was covered with a huge advertising sticker. I promptly peeled it off. Fucked if I’m going to let someone steal my attention when I’m trapped in a confined space)

Election 2008: Presidential, Senate and House Races Updated Daily

electoral-vote.com is back up and running, and tracking polls prior to the primaries. I’m now following it with approximately the intensity I was tracking the AL East in September!

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That Famous Vegas Strip View

That Famous Vegas Strip View

My hotel room window faces onto this glorious sight.

Noise “Cancellation”

Noise “Cancellation”

Thoroughly unwelcome advertisement found on the tray table on my flight.

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January 4, 2008

Remember That I Love You

CD Purchase: Kimya Dawson - Remember That I Love You

69 Love Songs

CD Purchase: Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs

The Valve Store

Some rather splendid new Portal T’s.

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January 3, 2008

Cursor*10 (nekogames)

Fun flash game where how you play now defines how well you do on subsequent rounds.

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Hofbrauhaus Catastrophe on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Fantastic photo. Described in Reddit comments as “Beerkakke”

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January 2, 2008

Reason Magazine - Secrets of Weight Loss Revealed!

Further fuel for my belief that diets are a shitty way to lose weight, and sensible long-term life changes are the only way to do it correctly. (Not for nothing have I gained 30lbs since starting driving to work each day, instead of having to walk a mile to the T stop)

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January 1, 2008

Bob and David: "Allllllviiiiin!"

David Cross explains why he did the “Alvin & the Chipmunks” movie that looks so crappy. “I asked the owner if he’d take some of my credibility as payment. He looked at me as if I was an alien with A.I.D.S. speaking some intergalactic gobbledy-goo. I had to patiently explain to this country bumpkin about my indie hipster cred, and I would now like to cash it in.”

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A Series of Letters to the First Girl I Ever Fingered | Cracked.com

by Michael Ian Black (The State, Stella, etc). “Hi! How are you? I hope this letter finds you well. I don’t know if you remember me or not, but I’m the guy who fingered you at sleepaway camp.”

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Dave Gorman: Problem Solving.

The calendar, and all its complexity and intricacies, are sorted-out by Dave Gorman. About time too.

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Best of Bootie 2007 CD

Hooray! A new Best of Bootie CD for the new year!

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About This Site

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.