The Fragile Army

My copy of The Polyphonic Spree's latest album, "The Fragile Army" (and a stunning signed poster), arrived safely from Good Records last week.

The previous two albums have been SO close to fucking perfect, but I can't help myself skipping over "Middle of the Day" and "Ensure Your Reservation". I haven't found any track yet on "Fragile Army" that I'm not almost always in the mood to hear. For the first time I can remember, I've bought an album without a single duff track!

The album slides in with a nostalgic snip of "Together We're Heavy" from the previous album of the same name, then kicks into the deliciously bouncy ("I feel so excited and delighted today, 'cause you decide to be in my life...") "Running Away".

The track "The Fragile Army" goes a little slower and deeper, and jumps into beautiful abstractism about a third in. With months, I know (1) I'll be singing the backing vocals without realising it and (2) I'll wake up one morning around 3am and suddenly realise what it's all about. I love it.

"Guaranteed Nightlite" is a very, VERY close second to "Mental Cabaret" for the top spot on the album. "Mental Cabaret" is right up there with "Light and Day", "Hanging Around The Day (Part 2)", "Hold Me Now" and "Two Thousand Places" to make my top5 Polyphonic tracks of all time. It's got such an incredible range in the sound, catchy lyrics and a great beat. "Guaranteed Nightlite", much more than other tracks, really shows off these guys' vocal talents and makes me wanna sing along.

In a word, "Light to Follow" is "otherworldly", with an unusual synth feel and wonderfully ambient repeating lyrics.

The rest of the tracks are just... awesome. Just awesome. If you like The Polyphonic Spree then you'll definitely love this, and if you're looking for an introduction to their world then this CD would be a great first in your collection.

Tom Waits did it

OMG LIKE "Come On Up To The House" is one of my favourite songs EVAR.

Running with my Nike+

Back in 2005, my new year's resolution was to take up running. Today, I finally got around to it.

I got Nike+ Air Max shoes and sensor kit, iPod nano, shirt, shorts and socks, and I felt pretty good until I got home and tried them on.

I'd never seen a spiky red-headed fag in Nike sportsgear before. I felt like a walking oxymoron. I guess that's why the JJB Sports staff were laughing at me. Cunts.

But hey, I setup my Nike+ account, plugged myself in for a basic workout, and went for it. I started with a walk to warm up, but the music was distracting so I pulled my headphones out and stuffed them down my shirt.

Unfortunately, when I eventually found the confidence to pick up speed, it lasted only a couple of minutes until my legs gave up. So I was back to walking until they woke up some more for a quick jog... then back to walking. And again, and again. About 20 minutes in, I sat down. I hadn't been so embarrassed since the wankers at JJB Sports pissed me off.

Walking isn't a problem for me. A couple of weeks ago I walked and camped on Dartmoor and it felt incredible, but as soon as I hit anything like a run, I lose my endurance.

But anyway, the run-walk thing was repeated until I got home, about an hour after I left. That's an hour more than I usually move on a weekend, and I felt pretty good. I grabbed some orange juice and went back up to my bedroom to sync up the nano and get my stats.

My first worry was the large patch of blood soaked into the back of the left shoe, where it had rubbed through my heel. Note to self: TCP stings like holy fuckery.

My second worry was when I pushed "menu" on the nano to end the workout, I heard a little voice say "resuming workout". Uhhhh...?

Then I saw the stats, which told me I'd just run a little over a mile in 23 minutes. But I knew I'd been out closer to an hour, and Google Earth tells me the the route is a little over 2 miles. Uhhhh...?

THE REALISATION! When I took that break about 20 minutes in, the sensor noticed and paused the workout. But because I took the headphones out, I didn't hear the prompt. OH MAN!

THE UPSHOT! My Nike+ records make me look like a bigger pussy than I actually am. Next week, I gotta kick some ass.

LESSONS LEARNED!
1. Don't use that fucking nano armband again. You look ridiculous. Get some kind of clip and stick it on your shirt where you can see the screen.
2. Keep an eye on those stats, and make sure you resume the workout after taking a break.
3. Get thicker running socks. And a water bottle.
4. Piss on JJB Sports.

Reggae Reggae Sauce

Reggae Reggae Sauce makes the great foods!

A bottle lasts 5 days... each meal uses a fifth of the bottle... coincidence?

THERES A REGGAE CONSPIRACY IN MY FOOD AND YOU'RE ALL INVITED.

Prosoft Engineering Data Rescue II

Here is my review of Prosoft Engineering Data Rescue II.

It's ace!

My housemate's PowerBook's harddisk fucked itself sideways. We pulled it out, stuck it in a USB chassis, and restored his home directory onto my MacBook Pro.

He bought the chassis and replacement harddisk from Computerbase. He had the hardware checked over by Stormfront.

Data was rescued. Fun was had. Cookies for all!

King of Shaves

In the beginning, Jon used Nivea For Men Shaving Foam Sensitive with a Wilkinson Sword Quattro Titanium blade, and the world was okay.

Then he tried King of Shaves AlphaOil and was disappointed. Then he tried AlphaOil and foam together, and the world was better.

Then he got a Gillette Fusion Power blade, and he smiled.

Then he tried King of Shaves MagnaGlide ARB Shaving Gel. He has no razor burn. He's just had the closest shave in this life. He will never buy any other shaving gel ever again.

He is very happy.

NetNewsWire vs. FeedGhost

Fact 1. At work, I read RSS feeds in FeedGhost.
Fact 2. At home, I use NetNewsWire.
Fact 3. I'm mad for the software user experience.
Fact 4. I haven't eaten for 10 hours.

Battle!

NetNewsWire looks like a MacOS X application ought to. It uses standard controls, has a Spotlight field, and doesn't throw up any surprises.

FeedGhost, on the other hand, is built with some very custom controls. The default theme looks damned good, but it doesn't feel like a traditional Windows application. Grids, for example, don't quite work the way they should.

Say I want to change the article list so the oldest article is at the top rather than the bottom. I click on the "Date" column header, and... the oldest from today, not the oldest in the grid, moves to the top. Then I notice that the articles are grouped by "Today", "This Week", etc., and "Today" is still at the top. I can see a mysterious "Date" box in the grid header, but I don't know what will happen when I click it. I thought that clicking the column heading would sort it, but it only did half a job. What chance do I stand with a button I don't recognise at all?

The NetNewsWire toolbar is totally configurable, and can be shown/hidden with a single click. FeedGhost uses the new "ribbon bar"-style control, which packs in a lot of functionality but isn't configurable. Seriously, I've setup my pane layout -- I don't need those buttons anymore.






If you want a consistent but bland interface, NetNewsWire wins. If you want a gorgeous interface which trips you up occasionally, FeedGhost wins.

User Interface: Abstain.

Both of the applications can open web pages in tabs. FeedGhost uses the Internet Explorer engine, which works great and keeps me logged into my websites. NetNewsWire doesn't keep me logged in, so I have to open some articles manually in Safari. There's an "Open in Browser" toolbar button, but it doesn't do what you might think.

Web Handling: FeedGhost.

They both offer the ability to synchronise subscriptions and read articles between multiple installations of the product. NetNewsWire takes around 20 seconds on my Mac to sync and shutdown when I quit the application, while FeedGhost... I don't know when it syncs, but it does it, quickly and without fanfare. NetNewsWire makes me wait, and FeedGhost does what it's told.

Synchronisation: FeedGhost.

FeedGhost allows you to tag articles with keywords. I love tagging my content! Gmail, Blogger, Flickr, iPhoto, del.icio.us let me do it, and my RSS reader must give me the same.

Except NetNewsWire doesn't. Bummer.

Organisation: FeedGhost.

FeedGhost.com hosts RSS feeds of articles with tags I choose to make public. I can send tagged articles automatically to FeedGhost community feeds. NetNewsWire lets me send articles to del.icio.us or my own weblog -- but for fuck's sake, please can I have a del.icio.us toolbar button? You have no idea how irritating it is to have to context-click every damn article when I've got so much toolbar space begging to be used.

NetNewsWire wins for hooking into an established social bookmarking service, which makes sharing easier and increases my feeds' audience. FeedGhost does share well (and makes it much easier than NetNewsWire), but I want to publish all of my feeds in one place.

Sharing: NetNewsWire.

FeedGhost's support is right up there with the best. E-mails are answered quickly by human beings, and feedback is welcomed. The FeedGhost team keep personal and corporate blogs, which are in the default subscription list. Hell, there's a "Feedback" button right up there in the toolbar. Enough said?

I've never written to the NetNewsWire team. I don't know if they keep blogs or if my opinions are wanted. That's very traditional and there's nothing wrong with it, but FeedGhost goes above and beyond.

Personal Touch: FeedGhost.

Now, let me tell you what seriously bugs the shit out of me. I have two RSS readers which can synchronise with themselves, but not between each other. Fuck, wouldn't it be great if I could tag a C# article at home to show the guys at work? Or flag an article in the cybercafe to show to my friends later on my mobile device du-jour?

My RSS feeds are more important to me than web browsing. As nice as it would be to keep all my bookmarks synchronised, I can live without it. But now that all of my mail is synchronised (across webmail, Mail.app and Mozilla Thunderbird), it's too bloody painful to keep all my feeds in sync manually. Bloglines and Google Reader have turned me off web-based readers, so my hopes are resting on some feed synchronisation standards and services appearing soon.

In conclusion, things I want to see in NetNewsWire:

• Tagging.
• A toolbar button to send an article to del.icio.us.

In conclusion, things I want to see in FeedGhost:

• Sending articles to del.icio.us.
• The patience to configure the article list, and the willpower to not click around and fuck it up.

In conclusion: both the products offer great user experiences, and there's very little feedback I can offer to improve them. RSS readers in general are reaching beyond "good enough". What we need now is more innovation in RSS services.

Next week, I'll be comparing and contrasting the new "Battlestar Galactica" TV show and Jane Austen's novel, "Pride and Prejudice".

The Bug

The most important thing to note about The Bug is that the alarm doesn't work every day.

Then you'll end up setting the alarm on your phone to wake you up.

Then you'll wonder why you spend so much damned money on something that doesn't work.

Then you'll end up bitter and resentful.

Then you lose sleep; partly from the building anger, but mostly from the paranoia of being late for work because THE FUCKING ALARM DOESN'T WORK.

Overall rating: suck.

Novation Remote LE 25

My Novation ReMOTE LE 25 MIDI keyboard arrived today.

* All the photos I saw of it had the joystick centred, but mine sticks to the bottom-centre. It isn't broken; the photos are just wrong. And I haven't figured out yet what the trackpad does.

* My Mac loves it. GarageBand loves it. My inflatable dinosaur loves it.

In conclusion, A+++.

Oral-B Triumph ProfessionalCare 9500

I've been using the Oral-B Triumph ProfessionalCare 9500 for about a week now.

You can configure it to stutter every 30 seconds and/or after 2 minutes, but you can't turn the stutter off completely.

But still, it makes me happy.