google reader… kicking more and more ass…

I was going to write this post about how I tried out iPhonify, and got google reader working on my iphone… but after cracking open Safari 3 for the first time, syncing my iPhone and verifying that yes, I did have iphonify in my bookmarks now, I opened up google.com/reader, and low and behold, I didn’t need iPhonify. Google reader has a sweet and simple iPhone skin already! God damn it was sweet. It was a bit on the simple side for my tastes thus far, but it was super fast, and super nice. I think the only “real” feature I missed was that I noticed it didn’t show my “read” posts at all… they just didn’t show up at all. On the real google reader they just get grayed out after you read em, which works for me, because I often want to go back to them after I’ve read them. Anyway, I was amazed. Google has read my mind again. Now I sound like a google fanatic. Google forever!

Ok, I probably shouldn’t really quit without saying that the wedding is LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AWAY NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS. Yes, I know that last probably made some of you uncomfortable, but tough nuts. I just woke up.

Yeah, so I also finished Thirteen weeks ago, and have since read Crooked Little Vein, (just finished it last night) all five of the Spiderwick Chronicles, Bridge to Terabithia (it made me cry, but didn’t have a damn bit of magic in it, lying movie trailers!!!), and No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July. That last was abso-fucking-lutely brilliant. She spins a damn twisted yarn, I tell ya.

Jason and I are going to attend this weekend’s podcamp, and try to get a comic book podcast started (probably after Florence and I get back from the honeymoon). That’s about it in terms of news. Ooooh, and Pete is blogging again over at Hanashimasen, in preparation for his impending sojourn to Japan. He’s my favorite writer-I-know. Yay!

first iPhone post

I’m writing this from my new iPhone. Florence got me a way-super-early birthday gift, presumably because she wanted me to have some time to play with it before the wedding… And then the almost two weeks we’ll be out of the country… Wouldn’t get to use it then either. Antway, it’s exciting. I literally have the internet at my fingertips.

word press tee-shirts, other spending

I would totally buy one of the new WP tee-shirts if they came in… you guessed it, black. The tee-shirts are simple and appealing, but only come in red. Yes, that’s right, one style, one color. Totally lame.

I’ve also been meaning to buy one of those cool greyscale firefox shirts.

On the other hand, Florence and I have been trying to save money for the wedding. It’s going to cost quite a bit more than we’d expected it to, but in spite of that, I splurged $25 this morning at amazon, buying the new Jasper Fforde novel, (and Phillip K. Dick’s Ubik because I’ve been meaning to read it, and it got me to free shipping).

I absolutely adore all of Fflorde’s novels, and hadn’t known this new one was out.

Last Friday at Midnight, Florence, Nate and I went down to Barnes & Noble for the big Harry Potter release night. Standing in line (or sitting in line) for over an hour wasn’t all that fun, but it gave me a chance to read the first of the Spiderwick Chronicles. (Nate read it too, we’d just watched the preview earlier that day.) I have to remember to request the rest of them from the library before the movie comes out. (Which reminds me I should really read the bridge to tarabithia someday… and then watch the movie.)

Anyway, I finished the final Harry Potter yesterday at lunch. It was the best of the bunch, as far as I remember. I teared up at the end. I was sitting on the stoop outside work, balancing a quesadilla on one knee, and the massive 759 page novel on the other. I can’t say enough about how good it was. J. K. Rowling (or her editors) did such a great job of making it fast paced and readable. It felt like she brought back nearly every character for at least a brief cameo (especially at the end), and tied up seemingly every loose end. It was a brilliant roller coaster of pure joy to read.

For someone who claims to like science fiction way better than fantasy, I’ve sure been on a fantasy kick lately. But it feels kind of wrong to go from Harry Potter straight into what I was going to read next… that Thirteen novel by Richard Morgan. I haven’t decided whether that’s ok.

LazyWeb wish: XML based auto ERD (in flash?)

I’d like to create my xml document, with generic items, and create some magical relationship attributes (or tree descendants), that specify where the relationships go. Seems like there should be stuff like this out there already… bonus points if it’s in flash and looks pretty. Even more bonus points if I can also specify an item’s date attribute and display the whole thing sorted by it.

Here’s the type of xml I’m currently imagining:


<item name="item 1" date="20070521">
    <relationship id="abc" />
</item>
<item name="item 2" date="20060211">
    <relationship id="abc" />
    <relationship id="123" />
</item>
<item name="item 3" date="19850101">
    <relationship id="123" />
</item>

playing with google sitemaps

Playing with google sitemaps today, I discovered it keeps track of your top five search queries, but it also keeps track of the “Top search query clicks”. So here they are:

1. wordsex
2. but im a cheerleader soundtrack
3. relationship blog
4. poems about december
5. trivial questions and answers

I think these are more interesting because they are “the top queries to Google that directed traffic to your site”. Anyway, the #1 slot is the same in both lists. (I’ve been meaning to write a blog entry about how one of my favorite phrases, “sexsweat” appeared in the recent Iain M. Banks novel.)

Two of the five results link to blog entries that heavily involve Laura. It’s a little weird reading them now. Especially the 96 question/answers, only because I had thought it was a sort of “timeless” quiz when I wrote it, but clearly it was not. Makes me want to do another one that actually gets more at my history than stupid trivial crap. Anyone know a good one?