NSLog();

When I was about eight, and was still in the "gifted" program (before it was renamed the "Challenge" program, designed to indicate that educators wished to give us a challenge "regular" classes did not provide but instead seeming to indicate that, in fact, we were challenged), my mom bought me a book called Where the Sidewalk Ends. It was recommended by someone who was speaking at a conference or a Saturday seminar about gifted children, and we went right out and bought it.

The book held a unique fascination for me. The poems were witty, had a nice rhythm, and many times very funny. I read and re-read poems in that book several times, and I think it may be the only book in which my mom wrote anything (in the front cover). It's at home now, resting with some of my other childhood books, not for lack of wanting, but lack of room in my current apartment.

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One of my biggest pet peeves in current automotive design is the lack of an audio-in port (either the red/white or the stereo mini-jack variety). How much would it cost auto manufacturers to add this to every car? Ten cents?

As I look for the arrival of my 30 GB iPod soon (replacing my 20, which is replacing my 5 - hey, employees get good discounts!), I am reminded of how dissatisfied I am with the quality of my current solution, the "fake cassette tape with a mini-jack plug" solution. My Aztek has a 10-speaker Pioneer system for a reason, dammit!

I like my car's stereo. I like the button layout, etc. But I'd really like an audio-in port. I'd give up the cassette tape thing to have it. Does anyone, anyone, know of a solution? Or a place that'll do it. Where do I begin looking?

Update: Please don't suggest an FM transmitter. The quality on those suck too, especially when you live near a large city that uses 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, and 88.7 for real radio stations.

Holy freaking cow man. Ruben in the bottom two? Josh safe entirely? As Nick said W T F ??? Josh was so clearly the suckiest last week that I can't understand. Nick says apathy - people think Ruben is safe so they don't vote. It's toll-free people! Trenyce was bottom two, yes, but Josh was bottom one by about a million miles. Wow. Ruben was nearly the Tamyra Gray of this year, and Josh, as Nick mentions, seems to be the Nikki of last season.

I don't have to hear next week's songs to be able to give America one piece of advice: don't call Josh's number. He doesn't deserve a single vote at this stage. Ruben, Clay, and Kimberley must be top three.

Anyone else think it's interesting that the iTunes 4 icon features green notes? Green is the "color of money" (in the US). Apple gives us some green and expects users will give some back. The original iTunes icon - someone correct me if I'm wrong - had blue, pink, and purple icons. iTunes 2 had blue notes, iTunes 3 had purple notes. Prior to seeing the iTunes 4 icon I was expecting pink notes. Instead: green.

Veeeeerrrryyy inteeeeresting.

A lot of people's near-instantaneous reaction to the iTunes Music Store may be somewhat negative - a list of things they want, should be improved, etc. Give people something awesome and within five minutes you can be convinced it's shit. Not many really think that - the iTunes Music Store is effectively a 1.0 release, and it will improve with time (and customer feedback). Anyway, in an effort to appreciate the positive, here are a list of the "little things" the iTunes Music Store does right:

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From the "What Is This World Coming To?" File:

No, I don't think it's real.

Question: If you had to staple any one part of your body to another part, which two would you choose?

My Answer: I would staple my tongue to the top of my mouth. This would prevent me from saying stupid things, or at least thwart my efforts to do so. Beyond that, and I suppose if it was not painful, I'd permanently attach "guy parts" (the pair, not the solitary part) so that they didn't shift around so damn much.

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

I read some thing on Nick's blog (impromissum or something) about how people's voices change when they're talking to their significant other. Annie once told me she could tell every time Crystal called because I was talking to her differently than I do to anyone else. I suppose that's kind of funny, because aside from naked weekend, Crystal is just a friend, and one not much higher in the "friend" food scale than Annie. Hmmm. Whatever.

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

Jon Rentzsh has an idea on how Apple may be handling all of those $0.99 minipayments. Personally, I'm quite surprised that there's no way to "bankroll" or establish "credit." I'd gladly give Apple, oh, $50 to spend in the next, oh, year or so. This would act as a governor to my own sp, and so I understand why Apple may not want to do this, but in the future, in fact, they may if they find people buying single tracks far apart.

Of course, Apple may have also negotiated a special deal with the major creditors to allow minipayments, too. Do I work in Apple Finance? No. Is Fred Anderson my boss? No sir. So don't ask me. 🙂

American Idol is down to five contestants. Prior to having watched the show, I'm going to say this: Josh should be the one voted off this week. Then Trenyce. And then things get interesting. But I've got an hour to kill, so let's see how this whole thing goes, shall we?

The folks will be singing two songs this week, and the guest judge is Neil Sedaka. Never heard of him - I was hoping for Neil Diamond when Ryan said "Neil…" A household name since 1960? Not in my household I guess, though I know Calendar Girl and Breaking Up is Hard to Do. Oh well, hopefully he can be critical. I'm sick of fluff judges.

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You know what would be awesome? An RSS feed for the iTunes Music Store that would list new additions. You could create one for each genre: Pop, Rock, R&B, Blues, Classica, Spoken, Exclusives, etc. I'd subscribe to a number of the feeds. Apple could include those "itms://" links to take me right to the store and boom! There I would be, previewing new tracks minutes and buying albums minutes after they're added.

If the ITMS is largely about the impulse, "look, I can go buy that CD now! It's on the store!" seems like an impulse worth capitalizing on, doesn't it?

I have the same boss as I have now at the new place I'll be working, but we still don't know who his boss will be. The nice thing about my position is that I'm kind of above a lot of people, though I have no people "under" me, just people that are really supposed to help me out. I'm no longer the person that has to do all of the helping. Really, though, everyone helps each other, regardless of "who's the boss" (Tony Danza!) and all of the politics.

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

From a MacInTouch post comes this:

Another major shortcoming is that there is no affiliate program for the iTunes store -- I haven't found it yet, if there should be one at all... Many web sites are created using Macs and if there would be an easy (Mac) way for webmasters to tap into the iTunes store catalog, many sites could offer music shopping much like Amazon. This could provide a big branding effect and also generate revenues for webmasters and Apple alike.

Of course, it's not as simple as that. I'd purchase all of my music through my own affiliate link, instantly getting money (or credit) back.

From the "Shut Up Already" file comes this tale of whining. Yes, this is the same prick who broke his 17" PowerBook screen and flew into a tirade when Apple wouldn't replace it under warranty. Broken screens have never been covered as codepoet mentions here.

I'm not in favor of "only speaking good of Apple." I'm not in favor of silencing those with problems. However, I'm very much against incessant bitching and whining, and this Manzione character has that nailed. He chose to make this public, and now he's whining about his "private" information being made "public."

To Manzione, I have all of two things to say: 1) Shut up and 2) Never again will I knowingly visit MacNet or any other site owned or operated by Manzione.

I've made some changes to the way Comments and PermaLinks work on the main index here at NSLog();. They It no longer opens popup windows, instead directing you to the #comments section of the individual article. Why? Mostly because I dislike popups, and partly because I didn't like getting email notifying me that someone posted to "mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=672" or something.

Then, to help things along, I replaced my Comment Listing template in MovableType with this:

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL=<MTEntryPermalink>#comments">
</head>
</html>

Easy enough. We'll see how this goes. I may revert, I don't know… we'll see.