Exercise in Futility.

I want a small Applescript or Automator function to do one thing, very simply. I want to be able to drop a folder full of images on a workflow and have it generate one page of HTML per image, each one linking to the next, all in the same folder. Easy peasy. I don’t want to have to run a fucking shell script or remember how to program in Perl; this is 2012 and I should be able to use the tools supplied to build my own standalone app.

I spent about three hours this afternoon looking for a script I could hack apart, an automator function I could repurpose, or a forum explanation that I could start with. I had no success. Apple seems to have deprecated their support for Automator and Applescript (go look for it on their site right now; I’ll wait) to the point where all I can find are 4-year-old third party sites focused on scripting iTunes playlists.

God, I hate it when I can’t figure something like this out.

How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet.

I don’t usually read Gizmodo, because, well, it sucks. But this article is very good: How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet.

“That is the reason we bought Flickr—not the community. We didn’t give a shit about that. The theory behind buying Flickr was not to increase social connections, it was to monetize the image index. It was totally not about social communities or social networking. It was certainly nothing to do with the users.”

That right there is the telling quote. I still use Flickr as a CDN for all my photos, but I’ve considered moving them all in-house (something I’m, frankly, dreading) just in case they decide to pull the plug one day.

Update: Equally interesting is the response in this comment thread on Metafilter. As a community who identifies strongly with the old-school internet, the pro/con mixture seems split roughly down the middle.

CAKE!

Nature girl

Maurice Sendak

Quick ride.

Don’t tell the fuzz!

Illustration: Dave Grohl

10 Concerts.

This list was something I was thinking about the other day while chopping the stumps out of the front flowerbed, listening to the radio on the Scout and thinking about live music. What are the best ten shows I’ve been to see, when was it, and why? So, here goes.

1. The Scofflaws – 8×10 (1999 or so): This one bookended a huge part of my life in a lot of ways. At some point early in my junior year, a friend of mine from the design department and I were in the computer lab, and he offered me his Walkman to listen to a song: a ska version of the Pee-Wee Herman theme. We got to talking, made some plans for the weekend, and he later became one of my best friends and roommates. Fast forwarding to 1999, on the eve of his departure to San Francisco, we were out celebrating in Federal Hill. Splitting up early and on our way back to our cars, he heard the sounds of ska coming from the 8×10 and ran over to investigate. Running after us (we were almost in the car), he told us the Scofflaws were playing THAT VERY MINUTE. We all bought tickets and caught the end of the show.

2. Soul Coughing – 8×10 (Irresistable Bliss tour): I remember this being on a Sunday evening, tickets being around $15, and having an absolutely incredible time. the 8×10 holds about 175 on a crowded evening, and there were about 100 tops, so we were right up on the stage. The band played a fantastic set.
(Interestingly, the Soul Coughing Underground site has no mention of this show; they do list the Bohagers show I saw in 1997, however).

3. Lungfish – West Side Firehouse (unknown date): My memory of this is a little hazy. It was held on the top floor of a studio doubling as a performance space. The stage was set up at the back wall, and people sat on the floor and mingled before the show started. The guitarist quietly plugged in, tuned up, and then started noodling a repetitive, hypnotic riff. The bassist followed him, and built on the riff. The drummer came on next, and joined in, and finally Daniel Higgs came onstage. By this time we were all standing, swaying in time with the music. They built to a thundering crescendo and then he started singing; we were hooked. The cops came after about an hour to shut the show down, and he calmly walked over and talked them into letting the band finish three more songs. THAT is showmanship.

4. Billy Joel – Madison Square Garden (1986, The Bridge tour): Hate all you want; he put on a fantastic show. This was the first big arena show my parents let me go see, with two of my sister’s good friends from high school. I remember standing on the seats singing along to just about every song he played, and both encores.

5. The Sundays – JHU (1992, Blind tour): What can I say; I’ve always loved Harriet Wheeler’s voice. The band was tight and the sound was beautiful.

6. Unnamed Blues Band – Danbury (1995?): This was the best cover band I’ve ever seen, hands down. Probably fifteen members–an R&B rhythm section, five horns, keys, percussion, three backup singers and a short frontman in a three-piece suit who was able to channel Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, and Wilson Pickett at the drop of a hat. I kept returning to our table to do shots so that I could return to the floor and keep dancing.

7. Smashing Pumpkins – WUST Music Hall (Mellon Collie tour): Before Billy got really really annoying, and before the album had exploded the way it did. Their set was loud and fast and tight and he blessedly kept his annoying stage banter to a minimum.

8. Fugazi – Steelworkers Hall (1992): My knowledge of Fugazi at this point was minimal, but the set was good and tight and the energy was high. I caught a boot to the nose in the pit and had to head to the bathroom until it stopped bleeding. On my way back to the floor, the clot fell onto the back of my tongue, so I spit it out into a garbage can next to two goth chicks sharing a cigarette, who screamed and ran away.

9. Almighty Senators – MICA (1989): The school put on a show at some point my freshman year in the big studio at the back of the Main Building. They came prepared. They had a projectionist showing art-films, live dancers, and a good sound system. It was like nothing I’d ever seen or heard before, and it opened up my eyes to the possibilities of what you could do vs. what everyone else was doing.

10. Buddy Guy – Philly Jazz Fest (1995?): The band was on stage, waiting. In the center sat a chair, a guitar, and a highball glass filled with brown liquor over ice. He shuffled out, sat down, sipped on the drink. His band tensed, waiting. He picked up the guitar, strummed some chords, and launched into “Boom Boom Boom”. What followed was a master class in the blues, accented with the scent of marijuana smoke wafting out of the audience.

Weekend work.

I feel like an army of midgets have been hitting me with baseball bats, but the first stump is gone and all the sidewalk is broken up.

I don’t know how we packed all of that action into two days, but we did. Early Saturday morning I rented an electric jackhammer and went to work on the left-hand stump next to the front door, which has been sitting in a 1-foot deep crater since last weekend. I excavated another foot all the way around the base, then used a combination of jackhammer, sawzall, and axe to hack away at the root structure that I could see. The bush had been planted far enough back that it was hard to swing at the rear of the root ball without hitting the house, but I learned to work lefty quite well by the end of the day. During a break, I broke up the sidewalk on the right side of the house and gathered it all into a pile. By about 3:30 or so the stump was moving slightly when kicked, so I threw a chain on it, put the truck in 4-low and pulled it out with a minimum of fuss.

Our old friends R&K arrived from Easton at 6, and we introduced them and their son to our babysitter. She and the two kids got along like old friends (it’s gratifying to have Finn run up and give our babysitter a hug when she walks in the door). Then, dressed in our going-to-town clothes, we drove to Petit Louis for reservations at 7. Cocktails were poured, laughter ensued, and we all had a fantastic meal in the absence of our children. We were all able to COMPLETE ENTIRE SENTENCES! WITH EACH OTHER! It was incredible. The food was better than we hoped (and remembered) it would be, and the sommelier paired it all with a fantastic bottle of red.

After dinner, we dropped off R., who was fading after having worked overtime that morning, and went out to the Pure Wine Cafe in Ellicott City for after-dinner drinks. We were surprised to find we were still there—and awake— at 1:30 in the morning.

Sunday morning I had a slight hangover. We adjourned to brunch for tall Bloody Marys and wheelbarrows full of food to soak up all the wine in our systems, then wandered back home to clean up and nap. On the way to the car in the parking lot, my glasses slipped off my head and landed directly in the path of Finn’s shoe, where the right arm came to grief. Sigh. To be fair, they were getting scratchy, and the arms were in desperate need of adjustment, but I wasn’t planning on buying an entirely new pair.

I hit the front yard to begin excavating the second stump and got about halfway down before pausing to run to the mall to have new glasses made. By the time I made it back the sun was low in the sky, so I aimed the jackhammer at the other sidewalk and worked my way down to the driveway. By the time I’d finished I had blisters at the tops of both palms and I could barely lift the hammer up onto the Scout.

Updates and Additions.

Last night I had Finn help me transfer a batch of American Wheat Ale from the primary fermenter into a secondary. She was awesome, and I couldn’t have asked for a better helper. I had her stand on her stool at the sink as I explained each piece of equipment, showed her how I wash and sanitize it, then put it all together and siphoned from the first tank into the second. Then we took a gravity reading and I showed her how to find the numbers (it’s going to be right around 4.1% ABV) before cleaning up all the parts and putting everything away. She was fascinated by the siphon, and I was able to hold her attention span all the way up until the end.

This batch was my first blowout. On the second day of fermentation it was at about 69° and foaming heavily; sometime between midnight and 7AM on the third morning the airlock blew off and I got foam down the sides. I was worried it had gotten infected, because the krauzen never really receded (it mainly dried on the upper portion of the fermenter) but a taste test last night proved my fears wrong. It starts out smooth and flavorful, like a heavier domestic but finishes brittle and sharp to my taste. I’m hoping a few weeks’ conditioning in the fermenter will smooth it out before I keg it.

* * *

About a year ago I set up an eBay search for 6×9″ speaker covers for the Scout, and I’ve gotten notifications in my inbox since then. The backstory is that the speakers I got for Christmas didn’t come with covers, so they’ve been installed without any protection for a year. Having shoved three loads of very sharp and brittle brush into the back of the truck this last week, I decided I couldn’t put off purchasing something any longer, so I pulled the trigger on a pair of Alpine covers for $12 with free shipping (about $12 cheaper than the average listing). Here’s to hoping they’ll fit.

* * *

Jen had the cable guy out the other day to check on our wiring, because after a few follow-up moves the set-top box wasn’t pulling a signal at all. He futzed around with it for a while and said something about the barrel connector in back; whatever the case it’s functional again, and that room is shaping up nicely.