Vampire Weekend

Just saw this new video over on Kitsune Noir.


Its uncanny how much the lead singer looks like Roger Federer, and I would swear that the race car drivers are a nod to the Stig, although I doubt it's Shumacher.

Early Spring

It has been beautiful round these parts. The good news is that I was finally able to get out into the yard and start prepping for the coming garden season, which means killing more lawn.


I put down some compost nutrients, a couple bags of compost, some newspaper, a layer of cardboard, and topped it off with a layer of burlap coffee sacks. I should have done this before the start of winter so that the lawn completely broke down... but here we are at the end of Feb. Hopefully it will at least kill the lawn and start breaking down the root system so that I can pull it up in May. It will triple the size of the garden to about 120sf.

The bad news is that I spent a lot of time sitting on the porch reading, or walking around in the sunshine, and very little time studying for my upcoming exams. I'm definitely going to have a hard time come summer. I'm going to have to be pretty disciplined about studying during the week, because I know weekends will be hard to stay indoors.

Calendar Art

I finally got around to putting all of my new calendars up on the wall. They make for a nice art installation. I got them all from Etsy. If I do it again next year I'll start looking earlier. I only bought hand pulled, limited run prints, so several of the ones I was looking at sold out.


January
February

Google Buzz

I have turned off Google Buzz. I should not have had to do this, because I never turned it on in the first place. I turned it off because I don't approve of Google automatically setting me up in a new social networking system, and automatically setting me up to start following people.

I've read Google's statements about how they wanted to make it easy for everyone to get up and running with the Buzz, but it my mind that does not justify what they did. In effect, it's like if Facebook started sending out friend requests on your behalf. Not just suggestions mind you...I could care less if Google suggested people I could follow with Buzz. I would just ignore them. However it automatically started following them, and listing them as someone I follow, and showing everyone that looks at my page that I am following those other people.

Google being what it is, I'm sure that Buzz will eventually have all sorts of features and gadgets that will make life even more wonderful-augmented realityish, and perhaps at some point I will sign up again. I can just picture it, I'm walking downtown and my phone buzzes, telling me that I'm about to walk past a restaurant that my friend went to last week, and that my friend posted a positive review on yelp, and that I'm just in time for happy hour and it knows that I like happy hour based on the fact that it has cross referenced my movement over the last couple weeks with my debit card purchases.... Oh and by the way the friend that was at the restaurant last week was there with my girlfriend, at the same time that she emailed me to say she was working late. Oh Google, you are making my life so much more exciting!

(note: we all know that at least one bit of the above is not possible at present)

I know its naive to think that electronic communications are truly private, but I am offended that Google essentially started broadcasting my email address book. Stay out of my private shit Google.
You are beginning to worry me. I don't know if I can trust you anymore.