Friday, July 29, 2005
OK, I've totally fallen in love with widgets. Actually, mostly just one... and it's not even part of Mac OSX's Dashboard! The best part is
all you PC PEOPLE can use it, too! huzzah!
What is it?
Konfabulator's
iTunes Companion. It is so awesome! If you use iTunes, and have ventured down the path of trying to grab artwork for your CD's either using
Fetch or something similar, then you know how time consuming it can be. Well, Konfabulator's iTunes Companion is not only this cool little interface that allows you to play/pause/etc - but it actually goes out, grabs the artwork & downloads it and copies it into your iTunes for you!!! uhh... RAD!
So because I'm a big geek, here's some screenshots for you to check it out for yourself. You can choose to have this side/info window open or not, but personally I think it's awesome that while shuffling randomly through your massive collection, you can 1.) Quickly see all the other songs on that album 2.) View all the other albums you have by that artist 3.) Get to your entire library & 4.) Playlists! (numbers & detail reference to the thumbnails below, showing the buttons highlighted. The 5th one is his donate button)
FYI, you can actually choose to turn pretty much anything that you see here (control panel, progress bar, track info) on & off... or have it only appear when you roll over the cd cover. pretty sweet!
I use the medium size (above), but you can also have it small like this:
Or really large, like this:
And if it can't find the artwork - you can either use a custom image (my custom image is one I pulled from
Threadless artist Gary Gao), have it be a blank CD jacket (not shown here), or a Not Available message - which as you can see, at any time the cd jacket can be clicked to instantly search google images if you want to find the artwork yourself!
Keep in mind it's not perfect, but it's pretty damn close. I find myself wanting to use it like the power user that I am, but it's doing quite a bit of work so you can't pound on it too hard - and be patient if it doesn't update right away, etc. The developer (Knut August Johansen from Norway!) has no doubt worked on it for hundreds of unpaid hours (I donated to him because I love it so much). But, it's definitely kick ass & if you're patient with it and/or are willing to kick him some money - I have no doubt it's only going to get better & better. Oh - big tip: Read the document that comes with the app, you'll learn a lot (go figure).
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For Mac
Dashboard users - I highly recommend you check out a little app called
Amnesty to accompany your widgets/dashboard. It's actually similar to Konfabulator in the way that you can use just one widget at a time. When I first found this it was a godsend, because one of my RAM slots died & my computer had been chugging. To update you, the other day I got a new 1GB stick of RAM to put in the one slot that still works so I'm a bit better now, but for awhile there hitting F12 just made me wait for it to update all the widgets for a couple seconds - when usually I am only going there for one thing anyway! So Amnesty is awesome for that reason... check it out! Oh, and just in case you want a look see of the rest of them - I found out about Amnesty from this fun list of "
widgets of the week".
Other widgets I use and/or have tried:
tiny url,
evite,
googlemaps, weather (standard),
craigslist,
sprint minutes, and I even downloaded this
all recipes one - even though I never cook things fancy enough to need a recipe! Thought it might inspire me. ;)
There WAS a cheap gas widget on apple's site, but now it's disappeared. So here's a link to Konfabulator's
Cheap Gas widget. However, when I was looking around at the different options for finding (widgets &
google mashup websites, etc) I actually found that cheap gas widget wasn't as accurate (?) or up-to-date as this site:
SanFranGasPrices.com. The night I checked all those out I was going somewhere & successfully followed the tip-off to a place that was 2.48/gallon vs most of the ones around me I was seeing that were 2.58+ so I saved .10/gallon! woohoo!
Oh - there's a few
BART schedule widgets, too, for those of you who take it. Now, tell me what your favorite widget is!
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
The Cribs opened up & they were pretty good, but I sort of tired of their set near the end in my anticipation for Brendan Benson's set. They reminded me a lot of the Libertines though, and overall I like their sound. I'd be into getting their CD.
Brendan Benson was way more mellow than I would have liked... and he didn't do much to connect w/ the audience, which was kind of a bummer... but you can tell they're all very solid musicians - and I like his voice & his lyrics, so overall it was cool to see him play.
I think I would have enjoyed him more in a smaller venue. I have been loving his CD, and in comparison it's great (due to the powers of studio production) because you can really hear how beautiful his voice is. Lastnight the bass was drowning it out a little too much for me... but it was still pretty good. Highlight: the drummer was totally entertaining to watch! Gotta love drummers & their funny faces, eh? :)
Kaiser Chiefs (I probably have & will continue to spell that Cheifs, so tell me if you catch it wrong somewhere :) were AWESOME!!! As you may
recall, I had seen them play at BFD and was blown away at how fun they were live. Same deal lastnight.
Ricky (lead singer extraordinaire) is SO fun to watch, he gets the crowd absolutely wrapped around his finger! As far as I'm concerned every single song of theirs is an absolute hit & I have SO much fun dancing and watching them perform.
Ali & I both found ourselves dazing out to his dreaminess. ha!
I got some GREAT shots lastnight, but sadly the worst of em are the Kaiser Chiefs - mostly because the Fillmore floor was doing that thing where you're sure it's going to fall out from under you it's moving so much - so it was pretty hard to keep the camera still. That & Ricky is quite the moving target, because he doesn't stop once the entire time! I should have taken a video to get one of his cute "jumps a la butt crack". ha!
If you have a chance to go see them, you absolutely must. They're so fun!
Here's all
my photos from the night. (Complete w/ a photo of
Misty & Ted and
Ali & I, too! I'm trying to get better at at least snapping one shot of US at the shows!) Read Misty's review (and rant about leprechaun hats) of the show,
here.
I do not know what high & mighty thoughts go through pharmacists heads that they think they have ANY right to tell a woman she's not entitled to birth control... but things like this sure as hell make me glad I live in California!!
It's INSANE to me that our "government" is clearly BLIND to the millions of teenage pregnancies and babies spawned from rape and the hoards of (most just as "innocent" as you & I) irresponsible humans having unprotected sex, that they think it's somehow doing the general public a favor by yanking away our rights to prescription contraception! WHAT IDIOTS!!!!!!!!!!
Please sign
this petition and get involved with the great work NARAL
Generation Pro-Choice is doing, and Planned Parenthood's
SaveRoe/War on Choice programs. May God (or some sensible Democrat) Help Us All!!!!
On the subject of overpopulation, I highly recommend you check out
Nina Paley's cartoon,
The Stork (Quicktime movie).
- My housecleaner. I went & worked out this morning and came back to a spotless house. yay!
- Eating at home. I'm so glad I get to work at home, and make myself breakfast, lunch & dinner here. I am not THAT good in the kitchen, but I made myself a yummy scramble this morning with fresh veggies and it was yummy. Speaking of cooking, my neighbor came over & taught me how to make this really easy Shrimp Diablo dish! It is SO yummy. I have never even cooked shrimp at home... and today I bought fresh garlic for the first time in YEARS. :) It's also worth noting I bought a 6-pack of Bass beer to go with it. mmm.
- Sunny SF
- Friends who love going to shows as much as me! I have finally found a really solid set of show goin peeps. And the best part is that most shows I go to, I know at least 5 people there - and sometimes up to 10-15! awesome!!!
- I love that I'm not as insanely busy today, as I have been at points in the last couple months. It's ramping up again, but last week & so far this week have been really nice. I actually have had time to clean my car, take the weekends off and run the errands that sorely get put off when I'm too busy. it feels good!
::::
Lastnight
Ali & I ate dinner at
La Mediterranee before heading down to the Fillmore for a show. While we were sitting at the bar waiting for our table, I felt someone tickling my exposed waste (aka lovehandle), and turned around to find
Misty &
Ted sitting at a table there, too! AWESOME! So after dinner we all walked down to the Fillmore together for the show: Kaiser Chiefs w/ Brendan Benson & Cribs.
photos & write up coming soon.
::::
Sunday night Chris & I met Dan & Sarah out for drinks at Thee Parkside, and then went over to the LAC (my fav bar) for a few more. It was great to hang w/ Sarah again... and we ran into this friend of theirs (who's name I forgot, sorry!) who said she knew that I knew Steve of
the Sneeze somehow, so that was fun - and she's in this photo!
me, chris, sarah, janette? and dan
there's a few more of us @ thee parkside, they start here.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
My friend Matt came over this morning & made me a delicious
pancake breakfast!! We hung out w/ Kazoo, swapped some music & then we went for a hike up Bernal Hill! A beautiful day and so nice to see my good friend.
::::
Holy cow, I'm all caught up! :)
Well, his new (and darling) roomate tried her best to surprise him... but apparently he wouldn't budge to get out of the house when we were all supposed to sneak in. :) So Lyne & I arrived to him admitting this, but welcoming us into his new home - which has the best view! WOW!!!
As you may
recall,
Eric had been living in Woodside, which is this beautiful area down south, nestled deep in the woods. However, just recently he moved up to the city - and his new place could not be better. He has got a great view, a super sweet new roomate (who's totally into meditating & stuff like him), and he's close by! yay!
Ozlem made yummy vegetarian tacos, and we all munched on tasty chips w/ guac & salsa. And, those of us inclined, sipped on some tasty margaritas, too. :)
I love all of Eric's friends. These guys remind me how much I want to be with a guy who makes me laugh. They're all so geekilyfantastic and are so fun to talk to. It was great to see
Mai, and talk craft w/ her - apparently she's going to be in a
show w/
Loobylu! So cool, Mai!
Ali even showed up a bit later & hooked me up with the new
Brendan Benson. It's SO GOOD!!
The highlight of the evening though, had to be Ozlem's amazing cake she created for the birthday boy! It was decorated w/ Eric, his mac & his doggie Jerry even! :) So great! Check out
all the photos from Eric's Party.
Happy Birthday, Eric!!!
Lucia, the grand social gathering queen bee that she is, rounded a bunch of people together for a big day on
Angel Island!
The weather could not have been more PERFECT, as I think it was probably at least 85 all day (hotter in the blazing sun) and really clear skies. BEAUTIFUL!
I was the shuttle to the ferry early Saturday morning, picking up
Lulu first, then Mat &
Hez, and driving us all down to Fisherman's Wharf. The ferry ride alone is so fun. Being able to be on the water, in the sun with a cool breeze while motoring away from the San Francisco (and therein getting a great view of it!), past Alcatraz and finally to this huge island in the middle of the bay.
We had met Lucia, Kristin, Larry & a few others on board, and by the time we got to the island we had our full crew & were ready to hike! So, about 15 of us took off on the Perimiter Road and enjoyed many views on the bay as we hiked for almost 2 hours (?) before stopping off at Quarry Cove for a picnic on the beach.
The beach was hot, and some took a brave swim in the cold water, while others just waded knee deep. It was the most amazing day that we were all just energized by the gorgeous weather. I was THRILLED I was there, playing and hanging out w/ friends when it could have been so possible to find myself (like most weekends) pent up in my house, behind my computer working! So I was feeling very grateful all day :)
On the way back, I got to see Sabra & Brian, who Lucia had invited but I didn't know - so when Sabra called my cell phone, and asked if I was on the island, I was like "whoa, how did you know!?" hahaa. I had forgotten I had introduced her to Lucia & that was how the connection had been made, but for a second there I was totally blown away.
After dropping everyone off, Lulu & I went & got a
Mitchell's Ice Cream! YUM!!! I had been craving their Grasshopper Pie flavor (mint chocolate chip with oreo cookie & fudge - holy cow!) and was THRILLED she was into joining me. :)
I dropped her off, took a Trader Joe's run, flew back here, put them away, showered & went & picked up Lyne for Eric's Suprise Bday party! Which I will post about later... but for now -
here's the photos of our Angel Island excursion.
I haven't named them all yet, because they're still uploading UPLOADED & NAMED! But I wanted to at least post this & a link to em before running out the door! Bye!
UPDATE: Here's
Hez's Photos &
Write-up,
Lulu's (where I am proudly in one of her strips for a 2nd time - woohoo! Here's
the 1st one for the record) and lovely
Lucia's... anyone else's blog/photos I'm missing, Lucia?
Last Wednesday I picked up Mat & his friend Ted and we hit the Go! Team at Bimbo's. Tussle opened so I got to see my drum teacher Warren, which was cool because he's been on tour so it had been awhile. Warren is awesome!
We met up with Dan and had drinks w/ him & his friends, and I even ran into
Lulu &
Jem, too!
The Go! Team was fun to watch - but it wasn't the best show ever. Mat said it best when he said he felt like he was watching a High School Talent Show. haha! Totally!
The lead singer chic was really spazzy and kinda dorky - which I was OK w/ - but I wasn't that into some of her freestyling. I also had been hoping they'd have a real horns section for what you hear on their CD, but turned out it was all mixed. Anyway - cool to see em, and as always it's fun to run into so many friends at a show!
Mat, me, Dan & Mat's friend, Ted
We were way in the back, so my photos are pretty crappy - but if you want to see them, they're all
here!
I upgraded to Tiger & I love it!! The dashboard is SO cool & Mail is way better than I thought it was going to be. woohooo!!
Sucky news is one of my RAM slots in my Powerbook seems to have died. So it's been painful to work on 512MB of RAM (I had 1GB), as for the work I do I need all the RAM I can get! Even worse is I'm afraid I can't let go of it for the week it would take to fix... but I'm going to have to at some point. In the meantime, I'll buy 2 sticks of 1GB RAM so that at least right now I can get back up to 1GB - and then as soon as I can send it off, I'll have 2GB's upon it's return! aww yaaaa!!
By the way, I forgot to mention all that happened 2 Friday's ago (7/15)! As you may recall I had been on a work streak of about 9 days straight & so come that Friday I had finally wrapped a big project and actually had time to do fun things for myself! yay!
First up for the day was lunch w/ my friend
Matt. He offered to take me out to lunch as thanks for a client I'd referred to him and even recommended we go down to the
Market Bar Restaurant in the Ferry Building (on the Embarcadero), so we did! It was a gorgeous day and we sat outside and ate a DELICIOUS lunch for a leisurely 2 hours. SO GREAT!!!
After our fun in the sun (which left me with a little red nose, because I mistakenly spaced wearing sunscreen!) I dropped Matt off, and came home to take care of a few things before heading out to a 5:30 movie. And not just any movie - I went & saw Charlie & The Chocolate Factory! My friend
Jason's whole firm went, actually - so he IM'd me and talked me into hitting the 5:30 show on opening night w/ all of them... and I'm glad he did!
I thought the movie was good. Totally different than the first one, so really you can't even compare them. I have to say, though, I missed the old Oompa Loompas the most. I suppose overall it was hard to get used to new characters playing these classic roles, but trying to see it as a whole new unique portrayal on the story - I thought it was well done.
Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka is odd to say the least. His character is obtusely odd as a matter of fact, but besides his annoying laugh, I actually thought his quirkyness was just flat out entertaining as can be.
The movie had me doing everything from shaking my head like "that is ODD", to laughing out loud! So by the end I just felt filled with a feeling of "that was So FUN!" and I totally wanted to clap when the credits rolled. And the best thing happened - EVERYONE in the theatre clapped! yay!!! hahaa... so fuN!
::::
Later that night
Jem & I went to see
Tullycraft at Hotel Utah. It actually worked out crazy smooth because I got out of the movie at 7:45, and had to meet her at 8... so I literally pulled out of the 5th & Mission garage, drove 4 blocks, parked and voila! I was at my destination, right on time!
Tullycraft was great fun - and so was our dinner at the bar beforehand... but I have to go now & don't feel like writing about the rest - so go read
Jem's review/write-up of our night. :)
Friday, July 22, 2005
Last week I had emailed my brother about going down to hang out w/ him & Samara on Saturday, at their place in Santa Cruz. However, as plans fell into place I found out Chris was going down there on Saturday, too! So after a few phone calls we decided just to go ahead & drive down together and make a weekend of it. woohooo!
We first met up w/ Max & Samara at their cute little apartment (that I hadn't seen yet) and then walked downtown to stop by Max's office & his
Om Gallery store. We started the afternoon at Ideal's by the beach, for drinks & apps with their friends Christopher & Courtney. It was fun to sit in the sun and Samara got her bloody mary she'd been craving. :)
Max (my brother!) and his awesome girlfriend, Samara.
Chris & I enjoying the sun!
After that, we picked up Scout (max's sweet doggie), some cold beers & headed to the beach. We played frisbee (one of my favorite sports! :) but didn't take any photos. However, Max shot a video, so I grabbed some stills from that. It was pretty foggy on the beach by that time, but it wasn't really that cold!
After that we got Samara & Courtney yummy Chai teas (which I ended up sharing because it was so delicious!) and then went back to Max & Samara's to chill and let Samara get ready. Max played us some silly songs on his guitar, and a beautiful rendition of Pink Cow/Purple Elephant was played. (Pink cow is Scout's stuffed animal toy - ha!)
After that we all walked down to the Red Room and had a few drinks. I had been there once before on a
crazy evening out w/ my brother & Kyle a year or so ago - but completely didn't remember the place except for that it was really red - ha!
The few shots taken at the Red Room were the last of the night for some reason, but after that I think we went & grabbed a slice somewhere (yummy) and then went to some other bar where Max proceeded to buy us one too many Irish Car Bombs. (
Sarah, you would have been proud :) It was a super fun night!
Sunday we pretty much kicked off the morning with mimosas at breakfast, which led us to pickin up more champagne & orange juice and making a day of it! Chris & I didn't have to get back, so Max & Samara drove us out to
Natural Bridges State Park where we went & checked out the Monarch Butterfly Natural Preserve. The butterflies are all gone now, but it's this cool place where you walk along this long wood deck path into the woods! Really amazing and serene. It was so nice to be outside, in the sun just chillin out w/ friends!
After cruisin around for a bit, it dawned on me we were probably really close to
The Mystery Spot and we were! I actually didn't realize *how* close it was, but I was so stoked because I'd been wanting to go there forever (again, another California local I haven't been to in the 9 years I've lived here!) So we headed over, but couldn't get on a tour for about an hour - but it turned out to be the best thing ever, because we all just hung out playing frisbee in the parking lot, and listening to Max play the guitar. So fun!
The Mystery Spot was cool... and worth checking out once in your life. I didn't get any good shots of the before & after demonstrations they were doing (even though I snapped a ton of photos while we were in there! ha!), but it was pretty cool and I actually wish I would have participated more to see some of the cool things with myself and someone else, but either way - it was a neat little tour!
Chris & I drove home with big smiles on our faces from such a fun weekend. Him & my brother got along awesome and we all had a fantastic time!
Here's all the photos from the trip!
Yet another long overdue update.. A week ago Thursday (7/14),
Hez,
Misty,
Ted,
Jem & I all hit the Birdmonster/Willowz/Swayback show at 12 Galaxies.
Big Bad Crush!
Misty & Ted had seen Birdmonster twice already & raved about them, so I was looking forward to it! I had initially put this show on my calendar to see the Willowz... but they were the least favorite band of the night for me!
Birdmonster *is* fantastic, and apparently it wasn't even one of their better nights (even though I still thought it was great!) - so I can't wait to see them again! Every member is so fun to watch, the drummer (Zach, who I'd met at Cafe Du Nord the prior Sunday) is excellent, and it's so funny to watch him & the bass player connect while they rock out. The bass player and the lead singer (all of them really!) have SUCH great energy, that it's infectious. Their songs are great, and even more amazing live. I love them!
I have had
The Willowz CD, and liked it - but live I am amazed I even made it through their set. All of them were just too long hair eww for me... and I didn't think their songs sounded anything like what I'd heard on their CD... so I wasn't into em at all! Plus, they have some big thing w/ Minnie & Mickey mouse that just wasn't doin it for me at all. Who wants to think about Disney while you're at a rock show? Not me! (sidenote: Jem liked em! Read
her review of the show!)
Luckily I stuck it out though, because the reward was watching the closing band,
Swayback. Apparently Swayback are from Colorado (my home state!) and have been nominated a couple years in the row for being one of the best bands there. No suprise, because they were really good!
I was thinking I should have been more prepared with some
Bagel Radio Street Team gear, and maybe I could have scored us a free CD! :)
Misty & Ted had taken off earlier, and Hez didn't last long into Swayback, but Jem & I stuck it out to the end. Aww yaaa, unemployed friends! It's good to have peeps who can also sleep in till 10 if they want. :)
View all the photos from this night.
I'm so truly, madly, deeply in love with the city I live in.
A week ago Tuesday (7/12) I went to this Golden Gate lookout spot for the first time, and I cannot believe it's taken me 9 years to get there!!! As you drive up there, there's many places you can pull over... but if you go all the way up to the top you can park & then take a little hike up even further. It's amazing, too, because just when you think it couldn't get any more beautiful, it just gets more & more BREATHTAKING!!
So I took lots of photos, videos & messed around with the settings on my camera (which is why a few of them came out too dark, it was on the sunny/daylight setting - obviously not necessary!). Regardless, it was a GORGEOUS day and I got some really amazing shots of the clear, beautiful San Francisco Bay. I am seriously so in love with this city!!!!
These photos and more can be seen in my
Golden Gate Bridge Album.
A week ago Saturday (7/9)
Ali & I went & checked out the Brazilian Girls show:
I didn't get very many good shots, but suffice to say the lead singer's outfit was fantastic. A sparkly one piece jumpsuit that followed every contour of her hott brazilian body. A matching sparkly eye mask, and her bangs gel'd up like a poindexter unicorn spike.
Both Ali & I weren't in prime show going form, as I was sorta zapped & stressed from working my arse off, and she was sorta headachey and chill... so we were mellow, but the crowd was having a blast. I was supposed to go to
Jenny's 30th Birthday bash that night, but I ended up feeling so beat, that I dropped Ali off & was in bed by 11:45!
::::
My
kitty does this cute thing on the couch where he rolls over so that his belly is stretched out along the back... and it's soooooo dreamy.
These photos & a few other random ones can be found in my
July 2005 album.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
so I got all delete happy the other day trying to get a Quicktime plugin deal to work, and now I've completely screwed up my mac's ability to render images in several different programs. great, willo!
so tonite I'm upgrading to Tiger (finally) and crossing my fingers it fixes it.
I have a number of photos since saturday that i have yet to upload, but my iView Media pro can't even display the thumbnails. hopefully tonite does the trick & then I can look at them, sort & post!
:::
It's been a pretty insane week. I have been working straight for the last 8 days... maybe only 3 nights of the 8 I wasn't up till midnight, 1 or 2am working. But today I should be wrapping one of the rush projects I've been on, so that'll be good. I'm pretty ready for the weekend!
Monday, July 11, 2005
OK, I'm crazy busy today but here's a quick wrapup:
Thursday night I had a girls night out that I put together with a bunch of old friends. You know, the friends who you adore, but somehow only see twice a year? Ya, those girls. Well, except my sweet
Lucia :) who I wonderfully see several times a month these days.
Here's me with Renee, Sabra & Lucia.
I know Renee from a crazy girls camping weekend a few years back. (Girls weekend to the tone of 28 girls! Yes, it was SO fun and I came away with a few new girlfriends, Renee being one of them). Sabra is an old roomate of mine from about 5 years ago. We lived together in S. Pacific Heights & had the best place. She was a great roomie and now, after being married & buying a house way out in Dublin, we still keep in touch (a couple times a year anyway).
So, we all met at
Park Chow for dinner, which was SO YUMMY. I had just been to
Chow the Friday before for
Sarah's bday, so I'd just had favorite meal there: Ahi (or whatever their fresh fish is, ideally salmon... yummm) w/ Mashed Potatoes & greens. So I switched it up! I got this AMAZING yellow curry noodle dish with chicken & shrimp instead and *wow* was it good!
We all had a couple glasses of yummy wine, caught up, and then headed over to
Canvas Cafe for an art opening that Jen had told us about. Jen (along with a couple other girls who couldn't make it all together) missed dinner, but her friend had curated the Canvas Cafe show, so it prompted me to change up our initial girls night out in the Mission & head out there... and I'm glad we did!
Jen is an artist, and actually the sister of a old friend of mine, Alison. So when she moved to town, Alison recommended we meet. That was about 10 months ago, though! It's taken us forever to meet - but I'm so excited we finally did. Here's
a pic of us. She's so beautiful, just like her sister! I also met
her boyfriend, too - who is in the
Heavyweight Dub Champions (their sight seems down right now).
The Herms played the Canvas that night, too - but we didn't watch much of their set. The art show was fantastic, though & inspired some great "girl talk" that any man would love to be a fly on the wall for. ;)
::::
Friday night
Hez,
Darren and I went to
Me & You & Everyone We Know and it was SO GOOD. I want to expound more on how much I loved it, but I will just say this - I loved how she threaded our need for connection through young & old. And how she made light of that we're all searching for that, as much as a lot of us aren't even willing to admit it. Beautiful movie... go see it!
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OK - I'll have to write about the rest of the weekend later, but in the meantime - here's my fuzzy pants, Kazoobie, making himself right at home in a bunch of packaging I got in a box of goodies from
Uncommon Goods last week:
Friday, July 08, 2005
just in case anyone else was noticing my comments were being wonky (not displaying how many there REALLY were) I finally fixed that. I'd needed to update my haloscan code for some time now & had been avoiding it - but turns out it just took a second & now it's displaying correctly.
Maybe this will fix the whole problem I've been having of not getting notifications of every new comment. Usually I get every one, but oddly it seems to skip a few here & there. The only saving grace being that I can log-in to haloscan & see a complete list, but still!
OK, back to work.
p.s. I sure hope you're listening to the
Bagel Radio Live Show today! ;)
Thursday, July 07, 2005
San Francisco burrito lovers, share your love for the oozing cheese, guac, black bean'd goodness at
Burritophile!
Dan is just getting it started & needs burrito lovin reviewers to hop on his mission to create a kick ass resource for the best burrito place(s) in town!
Damn, this is so making me want a tasty burrito!
I love the tagline, "It's all in your hands" hahaa. If you don't live here and don't know - SF seriously has some of the best burrito joints across the US. When I was in New York visiting
Sarah, she pointed out a burrito place in the Lower East Side that made em "almost as good as San Francisco". hhahaa... we rule.
p.s. why hasn't anyone made a burrito stand yet? You know, so that you can put it down w/o it all falling out? (I know many of you are like, "why would you want to put it down?" hahaa
p.s.s. searching for 'burrito stand', I just found
this hilarious book. With a title like that, I might just have to order that one.
First of all, I forgot to give a shout out to my pretty Mommacita, whose birthday is full of fireworks every year! Happy Birthday, Mom!! xoxo
:::
So I actually managed to go to 3 BBQ's on Monday - which honestly, due to my raucous night before, I'm surprised I made it! :) But after getting to the first one with a ginger ale in hand, I started feeling much better & was glad I made it out to see everyone!
The first one was Jason's Annual
Grill Your Pants Off BBQ (he has links to more photos there). It was great to see this whole crew again and finally meet
Eric's new dog,
Jerry!
Me w/ Natalie (Eric's sister) & Jerry (Aaron is in the background)
After Goldman's BBQ I hit
Lulu's, who lives right over the hill from my house. I met a few cool peeps there, enjoyed Lulu's tasty homemade BBQ foody creations (my fav was the potato salad), and then headed back over to my little street where my neighbors were having a BBQ.
That pretty much took it out of me and I was ready for movie night!! So we only hung out at the neighbors for a bit and then Chris came over & we watched a bad movie I had layin around... which actually turned out to be not sooo bad. I was just glad to be chillin out after such a rockin weekend! :)
View all my
4th of July BBQ photos here.
note to self: go to this
attaboy art sale this weekend
Yesterday I plunked down the $ for my ticket to Nashville to see my long-time friend Justyn get married! (so crazy!) I'm taking a short (literally less than 24 hours) stop in Denver on my way there to see my Mom, and hopefully stop by to meet Michelle & Aaron's new baby boy!
So the whole reason why I'm telling you this is that I am officially sold on using
Travelzoo's
SuperSearch. No, they're not paying me to say this - although funnily enough they actually called me to design it when they were first putting it together. However, it was one of those 'design something for us first & then we'll see if we want to hire you' things and fortunately I have plenty of business & don't need to do contest type bidding like that. The actual search functionality doesn't look that much different than what they had sent, but I do like the little logo someone designed for them.
Aaaanyway - seriously - this search widget is cool! First of all - instead of you having to go to all the sites & enter your dates in separately - once you've put it in their SuperSearch form, it pulls up the travel sites (the best ones for the cities you're traveling to) with the results of your search on that site! It's pretty awesome really - check it out!
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
So, as I mentioned in my last post - Last Friday Hez, Misty & I hit a free show downtown (put on by KFOG at some fancyshpants hotel), starring the #1 pop sensation in Australia (yes, that's right - beating out Coldplay *gasp!*)...
Ben Lee!!! (the crowd goes wild)
It was great! We snuck in just in time and got right up front & then went & chatted with him afterwards. I'm officially on Team
Bagel Radio now because I not only sacrificed my bagel radio 1" button right off my own jacket, but I recorded a station ID from him. woohooo! :p
Here's cutie Ben wearing said given button - I love this photo:
I also *love* this photo - how cute are my awesome show ho girlfriends?! SO AWESOME! xoxo
Hez, Misty, Ben & me! :) Aww yaa, fan girls! hahaa..
Ben is a very charming performer and I have been really enjoying his new album,
Awake is the New Sleep. You should pick it up if you don't have it already.
Oh &
here's the rest of the photos. It was cool to be outside & have palm trees & the Bay Bridge right behind him! Albeit it made for some harsh backlight to all our photos, but they didn't come out so bad.
And - even though I posted it before, here's a link to
hez's post & photos and
misty's post & photos from the event.
::::
So I quickly raced home, changed & then met Sarah, Shannon & friends at Chow for dinner. And afterwards we went for drinks at the Argus! Here's me w/ Miss
Sarah Hatter (the birthday girl!):
More photos from that night are posted
here - and Sarah's (addicted to her camera phone & instant posting abilities) are
here!
p.s. Sarah Hatter is THE fastest text messenger on the PLANET!
::::
Lastly, for those of you pictured, I've snuck a few more into the
Random June pics album (scroll to the bottom).
Harry & I @ the Noc Noc,
Jem and her beautiful painting (from when I went over to her house after BAM for a mini craft night catch up), and a few of
Chris & I (looking admittedly a little tipsy) at 12 Galaxies last Thursday night. :)
Ya... June was fun... but July is already proving to be pretty kick ass. I love summertime!
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
I actually have quite a bit to catch up on here - including photos to upload, which will have to come later - but here's a Reader Digest wrap-up:
Thursday night I went out & saw Gris Gris @ 12 Galaxies w/ Lyne, her cousin Brookes (?), Jim and Chris - and even ran into Scott's roomate, Heidi! Gris Gris was awesome live & I'm stoked to get their stuff & see them again! Everyone else in our crew had taken off by then, but Chris & I had a *great* time! :)
Friday day I luckily had no deadlines or work hangin over my head (so rare! woohoo!) and helped
Lucia move into her fabulous new place. Congrats Lucia! Then Friday afternoon I came home, showered & headed out with
Hez &
Misty to some fancy hotel on the Embarcadero where Ben Lee was playing a free show. (
see hez's post with photos here - including that dorky fay photo of me - and
misty's post with photos here - mine are coming soon!).
After hugging and rubbin elbows with cutie Ben, and enjoying a tasty, expensive mojito with the girls I raced home, changed & met
Sarah Hatter & friends at Chow for her birthday dinner! Chow is so yumm! Afterwards, I dragged them all out to the Argus, since my friend Jim was spinning there - and Scott & Heidi were there, too! (
Sarah's camera phone pic of us) Oh & I met this cool Aussie girl,
George, who's new to town & works at Flickr!
The rest of the weekend I shopped till I dropped, which was SO nice & relaxing. Plus, yay for new clothes! Which finally brings me to Sunday night:
Hijack the Disco, Midnight Serenade & Diamond Nights @ Cafe du NordI picked up Hez & met Lucia, Chris & Jeff (Chris' friend who's visiting from Ohio) at Lucky 13 for a pre-drink. Lyne was supposed to show, but got there late & joined us at du Nord for a bit with her sister, brother & cousin.
Sadly, I had brought my camera (of course!), but realized when I went to take it out to snap some of the Hijack boys playing, I forgot to load the fully charged battery back into it! arg!! Luckily, my girls are on it! Here's
Hez's photos and
her post about the night - and here's
Misty's post, and she took this awesome shot below. Thanks girls - you documented the evening well! :)
Ted will probably have his posted some time today, too.
Here's Kelly, me, Trevor (Hijack's KICK ASS drummer) and the beautiful Hezcatt
And Hez & I with cutie Mike (Hijack's bass/vox) who we've all declared needs to become small
enough to fit in our pockets so we can take him wherever we go!
Hez, Lucia & I, makin trouble:
Chris, me, Jeff & Lucia:
Don't forget to look at
the rest of Hez's photos - there's some good ones!
Show review? OK, so
Hijack the Disco were GREAT, as always! They put on an awesome show, and I'm in love with all of them! I loved hearing some of their new songs, too. Gawd, they are SO good!!! I'm so proud! :) *beaming*
I was chatting w/ friends in the bar for most of
Midnight Serenade's set... but the one song I did go in for sounded fun - very new wave/80's-ish... worth checking out again!
Diamond Nights were AWESOME!!! Post-show discussions included heavy debates on similarities to Rick Springfield, Thin Lizzie & Billy Idol - which is fitting considering that's what's listed on
allmusic! Lead singer, Morgan, had the hott lip curl action happening and they put on a great show that left us all with big smiles on our faces!! And the guys from the band were super cool... which is always a plus!
We all hung out afterwards, considering the DJ was none other than our kick ass friend
Bagel Ted, and had more drinks until we closed the bar. Aaand we even had a little after party at my place - which is the best!! I love after parties!! :)
wow, after 7 long months, I'm finally ready to date again. phew!!! It feels good and already I'm having a great time ;) but you probably wouldn't have expected anything less, right?
aawww yaaaa... let the making out begin!!! :)
Speaking of making out - how frickin CRAZY is this (
Kat, this is for you!!): Remember that
crazy Friday night in NYC? Well, lots of the true debaucheries get left out on my PG-13 blog... but I will tell you all now, that night was a total make-out-fest. I don't know if somethin was in the water or what - but everyone was kissin everyone and it was a night Kat & I won't soon forget!! Read: SO FUN. :)
So, crazily enough one random boy I met that night ended up coming through town last week &
we went out for drinks... which is wild, considering after such a short meeting in a random bar on a long trip that (like several others I met) we could have never spoken again - but instead apparently I gave him my card, and since then we've become "internet friends" and we have a ton in common about music, etc! So that was cool to see him again (admittedly a tad more sober than the first time :) but GET THIS!!! Sunday night - which was so fun & I'll fill you in on the next post - I see this guy at Cafe du Nord that looks a lot like another guy I'd met that same night in that same bar, and was like - whoa!? what are the odds?
SO I hemmed & hawed about it but I kept thinking I just have to ask - and finally I did. I walked up to him & said, "this is going to be a random question - but were you in New York about a month or so ago?" And he said, yes, that he lived there! ah ha!! So then I procede to remind him who I am - that he might recall I think he kissed me & my friend Kat (hahhahaa - oy, yes, there's a peak into my party life for you all!). So turns out "Eric" (
photo of him & Kat at the Orchard Bar) was in town visiting family because he's actually originally from here - and that he was only there because his family knows the Diamond Nights family who were all there seeing their boy rock out (which he totally did, post to come)... so how random is that!?!? Eric gave me his number and I blabbed about inviting him to a BBQ yesterday, but then never called cuz I was a tad hungover ;) - but he also revelled in re-meeting someone he randomly kissed over a month ago and decided to give me a kiss for "old times sake". hahaa The best part was
when I told Morgan, the lead singer, he laughed because apparently Eric's girlfriend was there, too. HAHHAA! oh man... too funny.
My Sunday night was SO FUN! I'll post about that in a bit... man, I'm getting no work done today!
When I first got my Powerbook, I started looking for a way to go from Yahoo! Calendar to iCal and there was just no quick & easy solution at all! As iCalendar (.ics) users know, there's a big push for calendars to start streamlining their data fields for easier synching... and this is totally the problem going from yahoo to ical.
Last week
Ted & I were IMing about his trying to get his Yahoo! address book into Apple's Address Book -
and we took care of that*, but since I'd already searched endlessly for a solution on moving over the Calendar, I pretty much gave him a "sorry, buddy - it's just not possible" type of answer.
*If you have access to Outlook, I think that would also be a possible solution here for moving the Calendar & the Address book, because I think it'll import .txt or .csv & export to .ics or vcal - but anyway, the common mac user won't have access to that - so I had to find a different solution.
Long story short, I got a wild hair to find a solution for Ted, because I was SURE it was possible somehow... and so this is what is documented below.
Keep in mind, this isn't a perfect solution. I found once it was all said & done, iCal has a few blank entries (one of the days in my calendar is full of crazy blanks, which I'd imagine is because I had events with a bunch of notes with commas or something) & for some reason there are a few various events that happened last year that are showing up this year (but seems to be specifically vacation type events where they lasted 4 days & stuff - odd) - alas - if you're desperate, it's a great start!!
- Save out your Yahoo Calendar as a .csv (which is under Options, Export - Export to Outlook)
- Then, open the .csv using Excel (if you don't have it, ask someone with a PC to do it for you - it doesn't take but a second) and change the column names from:
Subject,Start Date,Start Time,End Date,End Time,All day event,Description - to:
Title,Date (Start),Start Time,End Date,End Time,Category 1,Category 2,Private
(come to think of it, this is probably where the All Day Event thing gets wonky & why they're now showing up a year later - stupid Yahoo Calendar not following a good format!)
- Then save it out as a .txt file
- Download/Install Palm Desktop, which is free! I know it sucks to have to install something - but I had to find a calendar program that would import cvs or txt & then export to an .ics or vcal file.
- Once installed - open up Palm Desktop & the datebook should already be open... if not, hit Date Book.
- File / Import your .txt file
It will then prompt you to "Specify Field Order for Input"
Choose Fields: Date Book
Delimiters: Tab & Return
Then you'll see all your dates in there - but keep going....
- Hit File / Export
Module: Date Book
Items: All Datebook Items
Format: vCal
- Open iCal and import the vCal file!! phew!!!
Again - it's just a bummer that some of the events are somehow marked to repeat every year - I'm sure with more fiddling around I could figure out how to search & replace that or something.... but I already spent so many hours on this! haha.
It's neat to see my iCal all full of dates - but personally I'm still set on using Yahoo. :)
