NSLog();

Sail is something that goes on a boat, but sometimes people "sail" through life (it's a verb of course). Today I didn't quite "sail" through my test, and it wasn't a "breeze" either. I got a question or two more than I needed correct to pass, though the ones I didn't get right were all things I'll simply learn by doing - not a big deal. Many don't pass this test the first time. The next two weeks may sail, but I'm looking forward to them.

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I like people with a sense of humor:

Unfortunately, that's one plugin I won't be installing…

Question: What was your favorite "old" Mac OS extension or control panel?

My Answer: Easily the Oscar the Grouch extension, man! "I love it, becauuuuse, it's trash!" and "I loooooooooove trash" were my anthems. Well, they were cute, anyway, and I still find myself singing the notes when I empty trash from my current Macs.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

As I do some reading today, two things strike me as amazing:

1. How much I knew about Mac OS 7/8/9 at one point in time.
2. How much of that knowledge has been shoved out the window by Mac OS X knowledge.

I haven't had "Classic" installed on my computers since shortly after Mac OS X 10.0 shipped. I've used Mac OS X as my "boot" operating system since Public Beta. It's just over two years old, yet my memories of Mac OS 9 feel soooooo dusty.

Father Time and Mother Nature must really be getting it on today. Well, that or she saw me take a bath last night and can't get the image out of her head, because she's orgasming like crazy in southern Florida today. Rain so thick you can barely see 100 feet has been coming down for the better part of an hour or two now, and it's been raining heavily all day.

I love the rain. I really do. I think my mind is capable of learning more when it's raining, making such days a great day to stay in, curl up, and teach myself a new programming language (or study this material I've got to know for tomorrow's certification).

I watched Adaptation last night with Dave (store Dave, not young Dave). It was, shall I say, very interesting. I'm a big fan of those "movie in a movie in a movie" type of movies. Perhaps the IMDB description says it best:

Charlie Kaufman writes the way he lives… With Great Difficulty. His Twin Brother Donald Lives the way he writes… with foolish abandon. Susan writes about life… But can't live it. John's life is a book… Waiting to be adapted. One story… Four Lives… A million ways it can end.

Not much really happened. The things at the end (I'm not trying to spoil it) were interesting and unexpected, and yet, I'm not sure what other way things could end. To find out that the author of the book and screenplay really were named Susan Orlean and Charlie Kaufman was certainly interesting.

I was on a mailing list and the topic of AppleScript came up. I forget why, but I posted one of my "Terminal AppleScripts" (usig osascript) like those I mentioned in iTunes Remote via SSH. The end result? A better script. See the full entry for the source.

Kudos to Lu Lewis Butler for cobbling together the more impressive script. You can see it below or here.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 658); »

I read an older Bruce Tognazzini article in which he says this:

• Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing.
• The stopwatch consistently proves mousing is faster than keyboarding.

He later postulates that mousing is faster because the user, when going to enter a keyboard shortcut, has to pause and switch contexts or modes. In other words, they have to stop thinking about the sentence they're working on and instead wonder "what's the keyboard shortcut for bold?"

The thing is, I don't. I'm in the rare breed of "power users" who doesn't have to think about things. It's natural, it's muscle memory, and so on. I've got ten buttons or so on my mouse, and in some apps some of the buttons delete and in others they do other things, and even then I'm capable of keeping things straight. I pay the price for "learning" these keyboard shortcuts (including non-standard, app-specific ones) with much greater productivity down the line.

I try to use the keyboard for as much as possible, but I've got a ten-button mouse so that when I do need the mouse, I can remain using the mouse for as long as possible. It's the context-switching that kills you!

I've been busy this week, so I haven't been able to write (or watch) American Idol. I think a friend is going to come over later and I'll do it then. Not sure. I already know the , though, as I read Nick's take on the results. I won't say who won or lost between Ruben or Clay so as to not spoil it for someone, but I did want to link to my post of many months ago, titled "Go Clay."

You can beg for a lot of things. Forgiveness springs to mind. You can't beg for love, though, it just makes you sound pathetic. Unless you're a Charles Dickens character, and they don't every literally beg (ha ha, get it?), but they still beg. They tug at your little strings. But in the real world? Nah. That just makes you look pathetic. If love is going to happen, it's gonna happen. Begging only exposes the traits we don't like in anyone, let alone those we want to love.

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I'm not interested in TypePad for myself or my friends - they'll continue to use my server for their blogs, I imagine - but it is interesting to note that their screenshos are all Mac OS X. I've always thought that MovableType was one of the most well-designed "quasi-open source" software around - my friends don't have any trouble picking it up - and that Mena, Ben, and Anil's taste for design includes Mac OS X is a nice thumbs up.

Question: If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be (and why)?

My Answer: Jamie prompted this one by reminding me of one of my favorite questions. My answer has always been "myself." I'd like to see how I look, how I act, how I might be perceived by others. How my voice sounds, how I gesture, how I look when I'm thinking or chewing. I also wonder how long it'd take before I got into an argument with myself. 🙂

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Sketches are drawings, and as I was never very good at drawing, I rarely sketched. I always thought that if I walked around with a sketchbook though that people would find me artistic, even if they had no proof. After all, artists are mysterious and very personal, so I would be excused from having to show my work to anyone, right? I think that'd work. Maybe I could trace things and show those off if a cute girl really, really wanted to see my work. 🙂

This 60-second entry was brought to you by today's word from OneWord™.

I did my own little form of meditation tonight (I know what I mean, I don't care that you don't). I'm about as relaxed as I've ever been. I'm drinking a really, really cold Coke. I'm typing really well, very languid, very fluid. And then my dog shoves a slobbered-on toy in my lap, and it doesn't bother me. Well, not as much as normally. You'd think sometimes a dog could take a hint, wouldn't you? 🙂

Proving that sometimes you can laugh at things without endorsing them in any way, I present this simple joke:

Q: What's the only thing worse than a male chauvinist?
A: A woman that doesn't do what she's told.

Hee hee hee. 🙂 No, this is not evidence of some deep-rooted subconscious chauvinistic tendencies, though I guess if it was, I couldn't really say it wasn't given that it's subconscious…