//nedward.org is the personal weblog of John Niedermeyer, an Editorial Designer at NYTimes.com, living in Brooklyn.
I wish I had some sort of Resolution I could tell you about, but this year there is only one thing on my mind. Getting a job. Getting a Web or IT job.
Oh, and to prove it, we’re going down to new york for New Years… it may sound incongruous, but it’s all part of my plan.
Happy New Year Everyone!
An update on the new Daily Bookmarks feature on Suckahs… Tonite I was browsing around the net, not looking for anything in particular… When i noticed something on Dawn’s site: a link that opened content in the IE Sidebar.
Cool, right? However, before you start jumping up and down, this only works in IE 5+ only… Netscape 6+ has sidebars too, but the code used is completely different.
SO, I started working on the Javascript to sniff out the browser, (either IE or Netscape), and then to display the link to the relevant Sidebar.
· If you’re using IE, it gives you this.
· and this if you’ve got Netscape 6+.
Another Blogger Blog bites the dust… I switched suckahs.org to movable type, and boy are my arms tired.
Now, only if I could recoup my $35 investment in Blogger PRO. That never quite paid for itself… wow! the ability to add a title to posts! Big fucking deal.
I decided to revamp my daily bookmarks (see right), to be accessible from the home page. I guess I was inspired by Anil, who regularly has interesting links.
Review: A
I enjoyed reading Tbone’s review of the Wilco movie, I am Trying to Break Your Heart, and I’m glad to see someone else writing reviews on Suckahs.
It’s odd that a band like Wilco can generate so much buzz in the industry and among critics, yet remain a band with a small (but very dedicated) following. Despite some video rotation and buzz in 1994 on MTV, who sold Wilco in 1994 as an alternative-country act, they never really broke out. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is, in every measurable way, an extraordinary album. Yet, why can’t I stand to listen to it?
I think I have one thing in common with frontman Jeff Tweedy in that I enjoy intellectualizing music – of course, I do so with my big mouth and keyboard, and he actually does it. The most striking thing to me in the film, however, was hearing Wilco play some of the Foxtrot stuff live. How strange – On the album you’ve got these spare arrangements with tons of work put into tape loops, sound design and just plain NOISE. He articulates a desire, in making the album, to take completed songs, and turn them inside-out and deconstruct them. But, when playing live, the songs are reconstructed into more coherent compositions.
It might be tempting to suggest that the album is more a reflection of Tweedy’s work, while the live stuff is the result of the whole band. But having seen the film, it’s clear that every member of Wilco was integral to it’s recording, including Jay Bennett, who later gets kicked out of the band for basically being a pain in the ass. As a character, he’s both obnoxious and sympathetic.
I suppose when you take any experimental album on the road, (with the exception of maybe Kid A), you can’t capture it the same way in a live setting. And, to be honest, I am happy for it. I loved what I saw in the film’s performances, and I can’t wait to see them play live.
Here’s a story, since I don’t have much to say today:
I applied to a job at a department at Tufts. Heard nothing.
A freelance client of mine forwarded me an email from a developer at the Tufts department that I applied to, in which he points out a security hole in my client’s site. No wonder I never heard… I guess they weren’t impressed.
There are two ways of dealing with this, learning some new php coding, like how to flatten dynamic pages… OR, convert the entire site to make use of MySQL, free of charge.
Days of work, or days of work. You choose.
go to bed Ned
This weekend was spent in a drunken reverie, and some point friday, Tbone mentioned that he wanted a website to write on. So we started brainstorming ideas, and since Tbone can quote any movie he has ever seen, we decided to try to parody a movie poster.
The result is Tbone Suckahs’ The Boning. You might recognize the reference. Make sure to click on some of the credits… they are favorites of Tbone, with a few random things added in for nonsensical measure.
Try as I might, I can’t fix the bug that started when the calendar flipped to December. On the monthly archive page, all i wanted was to display every post that wasn’t categorized as a ‘link’… and somehow, it only works for Dec. Nov is all fucked.
I guess I’ll have to figure it out somehow.
Presley brought back her turntable from Buffalo, and suddenly I find myself rediscovering the joy of records. I forgot to bring back all my Clash, U2 and other LPs I had when growing up, but she has plenty of aural goodness to stick a needle into.
And today, I bought two of my favorite LPs from MoJo Records:
· The Cure, Faith
· The Smiths, Strangeways, Here We Come
There seemed to be a real lack of used 90s indie things like stereolab, belle and sebastian, pavement and the pixies… but then again, maybe people are still too young to part with them. I hate to pay full price for Vinyl…
//nedward.org is the personal weblog of John Niedermeyer, an Editorial Designer at NYTimes.com, living in Brooklyn.
