It's Raining

It's raining in southern California today - why else would I be blogging?

So in honor of the rain, I thought anyone who accidentaly came to the site might enjoy watching this very clever remix of a famous 'Singing in the Rain' scene.

Click on the image over yonder and the video will load. It's a bit large, but worth the wait.

The Great Hillbones Escape

Check out what ole' Hillbones is up to when he's not mudwhistlin'.

He's been running a little experiment over the last month to see what his life would be like without movies or TV. And let's just say that he was a junkie at best going into the experiment. Some really interesting reading there. He's starting to sound like another famous American we all know and love.

On that sort of a note, I came across this journal a few days ago called the New Atlantis. There is, fittingly, an article over there on what the author calls egocasting which is what ole Hillbones is trying to do without.

The chicken is pre-meditated

The subservient chicken was the distraction of choice in the newsroom late last week. It's really pretty fun if you get creative with it. One of my favorites was, "Build a fort." Give it a try.

Folks were wondering if it was a live web cam, and who that crazy man with too much time on his hands was? When I first saw it earlier last week I didn't notice that it was branded by Burger King. I think it wasn't branded at all when they launched it. Over the week, if my memory serves me correctly the branding increased - now it's pretty obvious.

As for the live webcam - that was doubtful. Today's USA Today confirms that one. The online version of the story doesn't go into details, but the printed version has an inset about the chicken which says it is indeed a database driven list of pre-recorded actions.

USA Today mentions that the chicken was an experiment to try and reach the "illusive" younger male audience. Judging from the chortling young chaps I saw glued to the monitors last week - it worked.

SNIZZAPP!!!!

I've been totally had! I just fell, and I mean fell fell, for a great April fools day gag.

Check out my post below about Doug Bowman and his new redesign. Doug (Stopdesign) and another web design guru Dave Shea (MezzoBlue) totally switched out their homepages and totally messed me up - along with a bunch of other people.

They even added a little clever text about how shameful it was that folks where stealing their designs.

Blast those clever little devils!!! I'm gonna be laughing all day.

Doug does it again

Douglas Bowman unveiled a new design on his site today - another oasis for the eyes. Over the years he has brought us many beautiful things to look at on the web. There's the Wired site and Adaptive Path redesign or my personal favorite, his entry at the CSS Zen Garden called the Golden Mean.

Doug is also super helpful and if you are trying to learn CSS design or thinking about how hard it is to design beautiful things using the language contstraints of web programming, I would suggest reading some of his articles.

I remember sitting in a fine local establishment in Columbus and talking with Doug while he tweaked his website and took joy in the little details. That's inspiring to me - someone who takes joy in the little details.

Alblum of the year

I've been listening to Over the Rhine's new alblum Ohio for a few months now. It's getting my pick for alblum of the year, I just send my nomination to the Grammy people.

This music makes me wish I grew up in southern Ohio instead of central Ohio. Just go ahead and listen to it. It will make you want to be the son/daughter of a coalminer who lost four fingers and his job and how that and appalachian religion gave you an unshakably complicated demeanor and inability to understand New Yorkers.

A nifty little video

I'm a little bit behind when it comes to the latest and greatest in music and theatre (or picture show, as the jackhammer prefers). So today I saw a music video by Radiohead which is a year or so old, but it was the first time I'd heard it.

This is an interesting band. They've got some thoughtful stuff going on. The song made me think about how complicated things get and how hard it is to know what's what sometimes. The video is really clever and it makes you think about what looks good and real and how it may not actually be that way all the time. It captures that feeling of being a bit player in a big game, but being held responsible for stuff you don;t know anyway.

You can see it at on MTV's site, it's about half way down the page on the left. The song is called There There.

In pitch dark I go walking in your landscape
Broken branches trip me as I speak
Just cos you feel it doesn't mean it's there
Just cos you feel it doesn't mean it's there
There's always a siren singing you to shipwreck (don't reach out, don't reach out [x2])
Stay away from these rocks we'd be a walking disaster (don't reach out, don't reach out [x2])
Just cos you feel it doesn't mean it's there (there's someone on your shoulder [x2])
Just coz you feel it doesn't mean it's there (there's someone on your shoulder [x2])
Feel it
Why so green
And lonely [x3]
Heaven sent you
To me [x3]
We are accidents waiting
Waiting to happen
We are accidents waiting
Waiting to happen