- Book of Kelis
Managing my bookmarks
Ready for a boring tech post? Tonight I got pissed off at Delicious, the social bookmarking website. For the past year or so, I’ve used their service to organize my browser bookmarks using private tags and the Delicious Bookmarks add-on for Firefox.
It’s a really good service, but it’s never been perfect. The Firefox add-on doesn’t like to hold on to favicons so I wind up with blank-looking bookmarks half the time. And when they suggested I merge my Delicious account with my Yahoo account, they added an extra click to the log in process, which is super annoying. But overall, the minor annoyances haven’t been dealbreakers. In fact until now, Google Chrome’s lack of similar Delicious extensions has been a dealbreaker in my switching to Chrome full-time. Well, not anymore.
The latest update of the Delicious Bookmarks add-on has introduced a feature that deletes bookmarks with private tags from your local browser’s cache when you log out. That means I now have to log in to Delicious (through that extra layer of Yahoo bullshit) first thing every time I restart my browser so my bookmarks will sync. This will not do. Not at all.
So I’ve spent the last couple of hours moving all my browser bookmarks over to Google Bookmarks (didn’t know Google had such a thing, did you?). In Firefox, I’ve added the Google Toolbar and deleted Delicious Bookmarks. And in Chrome, Google Bookmarks are baked-in, and all I had to do was select the Google Toolbar option from the Import Bookmarks dialog.
This switch away from Delicious — which, if we’re honest, hasn’t really been doing a great job of innovating and keeping up with the crazy-fast changes in the social media landscape lately — has let me finally switch to Chrome, too. So I guess thanks are in order. Thank you Delicious for finally breaking your service enough that it forces me to abandon it and thus lets me use the browser of my choice. Thanks a bunch.
Update: apparently Google Bookmarks and Google Chrome bookmarks don’t actively sync. This seems like a missed opportunity that will hopefully be rectified. Let go of the silos, Google!
I played this tonight for longer than I should have. It’s very fun.
Ten bucks to download on the Playstation Network, and worth every bit. Get it!
Also, I’m aware that I’m failing at BEDA, but I’m not sweating it. Just doing my best.
Nothing’s coming
Can’t think of anything much interesting to say tonight. So I’m not going to try and force it. I will say I’ve had an emotionally exhausting week, and I’m looking forward to sleeping crazy late tomorrow. I can say that.
Stay in Love [iPhone demo] - Rob Lindsey
I wrote you a sentimental letter
but I tore it up.
Keep hoping my emotions know better
but they’ve never known enough
to stay in love
to stay in love
Now I’m rocking my head to the music
that stumbles down my radio.
Some pretty pop princess cupid
singing “Boy, just take it slow,
and stay in love.”
yeah yeah, stay in love
Cause if you don’t hold on now,
you will die alone and gray.
Wishing on the stars and the clouds
that you’d stayed in love
In my dreams my seasick sweetheart
rides out my confused blues.
She navigates straight through the hard parts
and the ruckus of my moods.
And we stay in love.
We stay in love.
I wrote you a sentimental letter,
but I tore it up.
Missed yesterday’s BEDA. Proper blog later to make up for it.
Trashcan guitar
A little over a month ago, I found a guitar in the trashcan behind my building. I think my upstairs neighbor must have thrown it out when he moved at the end of June. There was a skateboard in there, too, but that was less interesting.
I learned how to play guitar about 20 years ago, and man it feels weird to see that in print. I’m getting old. Anyway, I’ve been playing for a long time, and I’ve been writing songs in one form or another for almost as long.
Until recently, I’ve had a pretty long bout of writer’s block, but when I found the trashcan guitar, the block lifted. I’ve written two songs since then after over six months of nothing, and the ideas keep coming. It’s been pretty awesome.
So I just want to thank the universe for putting this guitar in my path. It’s not a great guitar. It doesn’t sound awesome, and it’s got a pretty big dent on the bottom. But it’s damn fun to play, and it’s gotten my creativity flowing again.
Here’s where I should say “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” but I totally won’t stoop to clichés.
Washing Machine Self Distruct Remix
The original is here. The Internet is so creative and awesome.
Proposition 8 overturned
A federal judge in California has overturned the voter-enacted amendment to the California constitution that banned same-sex marriage and has ruled the amendment unconstitutional. It’s a victory for civil rights in the U.S. and a ground-breaking ruling that should have lasting effects on similar cases across the country.
Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision (embedded below) is a paean of Constitutional common sense and is worth a read for anyone who gives these matters any thought. If you don’t want to read all 136 pages, there are some highlights in the Huffington Post article about the ruling.
It’s about damn time we got some good news in the midst of oil spills and recession and crippling unemployment. At least for the moment, the good guys—buoyed by common sense, human kindness, and Constitutional precedent—won.
I Got Mine - James Mathus & His Knockdown Society
I’m in the midst of ripping all my CDs into my computer for the first time ever. It seems like a futile thing to do with these all-you-can-eat streaming music services getting better and more ubiquitous by the day, but it passes the time. In the course of going back through 20 years worth of CD collecting, I’ve come across some gems I’d forgotten about.
Case in point, Play Songs for Rosetta by James Mathus (of Squirrel Nut Zippers [remember them?] fame)* & His Knockdown Society. I had a Zippers phase back in college, and I bought this record because of that association. It’s a different style than most of the Zippers’ stuff: more acoustic blues and jug band than big band swing. A mix of traditional songs and Mathus originals, Rosetta is a solid album all the way through, but the music itself is only half the story.
According to allmusic.com, Rosetta is the daughter of bluesman Charlie Patton and is someone who was instrumental in Mathus’ upbringing. Proceeds from the record went to help pay Rosetta’s living expenses as she sees no money from the sale of her father’s music.
Quite a story, and quite a connection. And a pretty damn good record, too! Hope you enjoy.
SIDE NOTE: A few of the people I follow around on the Internet are trying to “B(V)log Every Day in August (B[V]EDA)*, and I think I’m going to give it a shot. I realize I’ve missed a couple days, but I’ll try to make it up.
*Double parentheticals!
A Song for You - Donny Hathaway
One of the best love songs of all time.
