Shut-In Sees Shadow, Runs Back Inside

Wow, four weeks straight behind this desk, with maybe two or three days off in total. I haven’t been this productive in years. I’m kind of afraid to venture out of the house, though. That would be a funny thing to film for the local news, wouldn’t it? I’d be like that guy they have to winch out of his apartment with a crane: “LOCAL MORLOCK DRAGGED FROM HOME.” I’m sure I’d just get out the door, stumble around like a drunk and fall down in the street, which wouldn’t be very smart, or newsworthy—or maybe it would? “LOCAL MORLOCK RUN OVER BY BUS.”

There’s more stuff coming, too, which doesn’t bode well for seeing sunlight in October. I may just have to set up a bucket on a pulley with a long rope and dump candy on kids’ heads when they ring the doorbell on the 31st. I don’t have any idea of what’s happening in the Real World other than some asshole shooting up a school in Colorado, my government passing some kind of fascist bill in an effort to make people forget about Iraq, and that it’s week two of football season.

My beautiful bride is caught in this vortex of pain with me; between the two of us, we’ve averaged about eight hours of sleep collectively each night and gone through untold amounts of vodka to make it through crunch time. Mmmmm, delicious vodka. I now have empirical evidence which proves that I can sketch and code just as well at 1 AM with a vodka tonic than I can at 9 AM with a mug of coffee.

In happier news, I got a Big Fat Check on Thursday, which means we can afford the mortgage and they won’t repossess our kitchen appliances. Unfortunately, I have lots of other things that need attending as well, so I’m estimating a balance of about $3.42 left in my account on Monday when I’m done paying the Man. Rock and roll. We have a saying here at the Lockardugan Design Collective: “If I Could Just Get Paid.” This prefaces or follows pretty much anything else we say these days. e.g.:

“We wouldn’t have to hide in the basement from the bill collectors, if I could just get paid.”

“I’d go to the doctor and get this itch cleared up, if I could just get paid.”

“I could rationalize buying that extra bottle of wine so that we could drink ourselves into a stupor, if I could just get paid.”

“I’d win the War On Terror, if I could just get paid.”

“I could have kept Anna Nicole Smith’s kid alive, if I could just get paid.”

Seriously, our letter carrier, a nice, middle-aged woman who greets us with a smile but insists on putting the mail in the box even when we’re out standing on the front lawn in our underwear, is getting scared of the bloodshot freaks who scrabble at the box when she turns up the front walk. She’s probably seen Morlocks before, but I think we give her that spooky shop-teacher vibe—you know the one, who was really friendly but always smelled funny, looked weird and talked to his tools? Lord only knows what she tells the folks back at the Post Office about the shut-in cat people with the unmowed lawn.

Well, at least our house doesn’t smell like litterbox.

Long-Term Capital Management.

I love Wikipedia. Doing a Google search on an unrelated topic, I found this article, and I think I almost understand it.

Fabulous Gay Men.

Why, oh why, haven’t we found Project Rungay before? Fabulous gay men writing bitchy, catty commentary on each episode of Project Runway. What’s not to like? We blew a half-hour this morning reading the first page of the site.

If you haven’t already guessed, we’re excited for the big show this evening. I’m going to grab some wine and we’re going to drink each time Uli says “Miami Party Dress”, Michael quietly says something hilarious (Captain Save-A-Ho was our favorite), Jeffrey complains about somebody else, or Laura says anything remotely bitchy.

OS X Time Tracking/Invoicing

I’ve been using a nice little app called On The Job for the past couple of weeks, and it makes keeping track of work much easier. Daring Fireball mentioned Billable this morning, and after I watched the demo, I’m considering a switch—plaintext exporting, editable HTML for the generated invoice and Address Book integration are three things which have me very interested.

Local Courts of NY State

NY Times article on the local courts of New York State. I wonder what my uncle would think of this article-he’s a village judge, and handles the type of cases the story describes.

The Post Wherein Nothing Actually Happens.

That’s right. There’s not really anything new to report this week, other than working my ass off. The weekend was productive in areas other than the office, though—our yard, which was resembling the craggy face of a man who’s lived in a dumpster for five years, got a shave and a shine, so it looks now like people actually live here. The back lawn got its first mow in four weeks (shrugs shoulders) and the garden got some long-needed attention. I also busted out the arbor saw and trimmed the oak tree back some more, so that the green stuff on the ground that resembles grass actually gets some sunlight and has a chance to grow.

In other unrelated news, we joined a phalanx of geekdom on Saturday morning to line up outside a mall and visit the grand opening of the Columbia Apple Store, which, by MapQuest’s figuring, is only 9.24 miles from our house. Living in a major metropolitan area has its privileges. Dave joined us for the wait, and we entered the store to applause (?!?) and joined the masses filing around looking at pretty hardware. Jen fell in love immediately with the 30″ Cinema display—and who wouldn’t, really—while I peeped the MacBooks for the first time and also got an eyeful of the new 24″ iMac. After some quality ogling time and a brief discussion, we collected our free T-shirts and headed out. On the ride home, I considered the idea of a second job, but Jen reminded me that I don’t have enough time to finish my own work, let alone work retail hours. Still, the idea is strangely appealing….

Brand logos in EPS format

Brand logos in downloadable EPS format. This might save a little time down the road (it just saved me an hour or so.)

Morning Glories

Jen planted a morning glory vine under our dining room window. It’s going absolutely insane this week.

the triplets below are new buds.

Vintage Campers

I wish some of the money I’m owed would come in so I could buy this trailer. Or one like it.

CMS resources

CMS Matrix is a handy feature search and comparison tool for CMS systems. Open Source CMS rates each one and offers a test drive for those who like to get under the hood before they buy. Looks like I might be going with Drupal.

Grumble

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.

The Outsider Review.

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.

Apostrophe information

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.

Bantam

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.

Heavy Rotation

DJ Shadow, You Made It. I first heard this two weeks ago, and I can’t get it out of my head.

Motorcycle Research

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.

Wine Tasting in Sonoma

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.

Last.FM

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.

View Lodge Motel

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

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.