vanderwal’s Neighborhood

Maxwell, "Simply Beautiful"

Anil
3 days ago
1 comment

Duringi the Al Green tribute on this year's BET Awards, one of my favorite singers performed one of my favorite songs.

Maxwell covers "Simply Beautiful"

As with when he covered Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work", Maxwell's got the chops to actually best an artist while covering their work. And, as I was explaining the other day, I basically only use MySpace as a dedicated Maxwell blog-reading service. Hooray!

they don't run these ads in the U.S.

Anil
6 days ago
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yahoo mail mj ad

As ever, Yahoo's latest efforts are baffling, inexplicable, but still somehow charming. It's like the place is run by an overeager six year old who has no ability but lots of enthusiasm. Anyway, Yahoo Mail's latest brilliant marketing move is "hey, remember Rocketmail? No? Well, good news -- it's back! Also, YMail! or Y!Mail. Which is nothing like Gmail, except that it's exactly like Gmail!"

The campaign, in Canada at least, features shoddy, third-rate Michael Jackson and Madonna lookalikes explaining that they, respectively, want the "Jacko" and "Madge" Yahoo Mail addresses under the new domains. Even if you could get past the idea that you're supposed to identify with people who want to adopt the identity of insane 50-year-old pop stars, the worst part is that both "Jacko" and "Madge" are names bestowed upon the singers by the British tabloids, and both epithets are detested by the singers they've been applied to.

It's a win all around, really.

Culture QotW: Cheers!

btrott
Jun 25, 2008
5 comments

Salma Hayek recommends Campari

Share a recipe for your favorite summer drink.

I can answer this one!

Lately, I've been enjoying a nightly Americano, made with equal parts Campari and sweet vermouth (I really like Vya), along with a splash of club soda and an optional slice of orange.

It's refreshing, but with a distinct bitterness, which I find I appreciate more and more nowadays.

discardia time

Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui

Karen Kingston

It's Discardia time again - we've been busy getting things out of the house and weeds and whatnot out of the garden.

There's nothing more amazing than giving a 7 year old a hoe and a patch full of Japanese Knotweed and telling him to go at it; fortunately, the city has new! rolling! compost carts so you can fill 64 gallons of debris and not wrench out your back even once.

Discardia, and collecting, its counterpoint, were the subject of a2b3 today - a link to my post on that:

http://vielmetti.typepad.com/vacuum/2008/06/discardia-20-ju.html

tyrannosaurus dash

Anil
Jun 18, 2008
1 comment

My wife has me doing the holy shit 100 pushups thing, which basically ends every other day with doing pushups until you collapse. as a result, my arms are now useless and vestigial, like a tyrannosaurus, and my giant head has only a walnut-sized brain with which to understand why the heck we're doing this.

However, join our Vox group, and then some day soon a pile of us nerds will show up in a park, set aside our smartphones for a few minutes, and then drop and throw down 100 pushups. And that will be awesome. :)

about:robots

allaboutgeorge
Jun 17, 2008
8 comments

About_robots

George Kelly

2 comments

(We have come to visit you in peace and with goodwill!)

About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots

I downloaded Firefox 3
because all of the people I obsessively read
were doing it too, not doing-it doing it
'cause that would mean taking their hands off their mice

Dday_badge_fox

I downloaded Firefox 3
because I heard they want a world record
for most-downloaded browser as if a browser
is the right tool for keeping up with fights between Scoble and Eric Rice

And then I learned about:robots, about about:robots
About:robots (the one with the colon in between)
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots (the one with the colon in between)
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots

I downloaded Firefox 3
because I wanted to see how well it performed on my PC
Then I saw it really was a mess,
kinda slow, really not a success (all right, I'm kidding)

I downloaded Firefox 3
because I didn't want to be left behind with an unpopular browser
The kind you use to access the Net
in my cubicle when I'm learning

About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots
The one with the colon in between
The one with the colon in between
Put it in your browser, see what I mean
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots
The one with the colon in between
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots

Robots may not injure a human being
or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Robots have seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Robots are Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With.
Robots have shiny metal posteriors which should not be bitten.

Step one: open up a Firefox 3 browser
Step two: Type the word "about" and then a colon
Step three: Type the word "robots"
Step four: Hit return, and learn!

Shout out to all Bay Area nerdcore crew
Doctor Popular
MC Slutsky
I see you
I'm'a see you
And we have a plan.
Seen!

can we build it? yes we can

A Pattern Language : Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)

Christopher Alexander

good news: the city lets you pull a permit the same day, if it's uncomplicated enough to pass the building department the same day. Go in on tuesday after lunch and emerge with the right to build.

bad news: it took 2.5 hrs of waiting, waiting, waiting in a lobby with no wifi to get there.

interesting crowd there, lots of junior builders doing their turn waiting at city hall for their bosses. I talked to one guy, he said it's all pretty straightforward if you know the routine and submit plans that are up to code, but based on the hassles I saw part of that routine is waiting and the other part is dealing with the issues when either you or the city are unclear about process.

kitchen remodel to emerge from this process.

day one, week one, pushups down.

mathowie
Jun 16, 2008
2 comments

2,2,2,2,then 5. I'm starting from an initial test of only two, and I didn't think I'd even be able to do 13 today already.

walking in a memory garden

Caroline, dau. of J & L Carpenter, died 1842 aged 3 years

There's a little cemetery near where we went strawberry picking the other day where some of my ancestors are buried.

There's something very sobering about seeing this stone and then watching my 3 y/o wander around the place.

Strawberry picking was excellent, as was pea picking - the kids are excellent pea pickers, and I think next time we'll aim for two pecks instead of just one. It was hot, though!