The Ghoul!

An ancient curse is about to be released. I'm celebrating Halloween my favorite way: Amazon.com: DVD: The Ghoul (1933): "After finishing Frankenstein and The Mummy, Boris Karloff would return for a time to his native England to do films and theatre. On of the films he did, his first in England was this 1933 horror, The Ghoul. The film was lost for decades an only recently was found in the past 25 years." Wine, dinner, and Karloff—that's Halloween!

Luxo, Pixar Animation Blog

"Luxo is an online blog dedicated to the greatest animation studio today, Pixar." An online blog. Nice.

Halloween Costume Ideas

Check out some of these lazy-ass Halloween Costume Ideas. "Nudist on Strike: Just dress in normal clothes, and carry a sign that says 'Nudist on Strike.'" Good for people who don't like to dress up or if you need a costume fast.

Dogster Schwag

Dogster Store: "Dogster products are bark-a-licious and help keep your favorite virtual dog park up and running. Doggie handshakes and licks to those that love the site and support it!"

Sox Win, Again!

Maps on iPod Photo

It would be cool if services like Mapquest started offering "save to my ipod" buttons next to maps. Maps on your iPod Photo! Neat. Or better yet, if you could just load your new iPod Photo up with a bunch of maps that you might need. There are so many cool things you could do with iPod Photo. I want one!

House, Make Me Some Soup!

Craigalog: "I can send IM messages to my house, and it’ll take actions based on what I tell it to do."

There Really Were Hobbits?

"Hobbit" Discovered: Tiny Human Ancestor Found in Asia: "Scientists have found fossil skeletons of a hobbit-like species of human that grew no larger than a three-year-old modern child (See pictures). The tiny humans, who had skulls about the size of grapefruits, lived with pygmy elephants and Komodo dragons on a remote island in Indonesia as recently as 13,000 years ago."

Part Two

Blogging Your Novel: The Sequel! In which you learn how to make your Blogger template work more like a book and other fun stuff.

Blog Us

Delicious Library has a "Blog Us" button at the bottom of their page so I clicked it and and that's why you're reading this right now. Also, their product looks super great and I want it.

Free NaNoWriMo Charts

NaNoWriMo Utilities: "Some of the people I know are participating in NaNoWriMo and I thought I would lend my 'cheerleading' talents to their cause by creating some utilities to keep track of the novel writing progress. In fact, these tools open a portal for a cloud of invisible guilt monkeys to make sure things get finished (to quote one participant)."

Are You A Flick Nut?

FlickNut featuring the movie-review stylings of Mai and Goldtoe is a good read.

You're Safe Now

Martha's in jail: "For months, I had worried that in the middle of some cold, dark night, I would awaken and find Stewart standing over me with a threatening flower arrangement."

Evhead Vol. 1 Issue 1

Adventures in Leisure: "How Not to Think About Your Next Venture."

The First of Four Planks

On which they will build a platform to take over the world. The Flickr Family has just made some wicked innovative updates. In-place editing lets you edit text on a page—without going to a new page. Nice. And tag relatedness algorithmically groups similar photos together like right here in this example:

sky: clouds, blue, sunset

As Mr. Butterfield says, "It's pretty amazing to see what emerges when you put together the individual decisions of thousands of people." Agreed.

Me And Joi Never Had A Thing

Um, Shellen? Could you maybe take this photo down when you get back? I don't want anyone confusing me with Joi Ito's secret houseboy lover. Not that Joi Ito has secret houseboy lover. Or that there would be anything wrong with that if he did. I'm just saying. Wow. Maybe I need a goatee like Jenson. Something. Okay, where's that draft button. Oh, there it is. Nice.

NaNoWriMo Progress Meter

Attention NaNoWriMo'ers who are participating in NaNoBlogMo. You might want to check out NaNoWriMoProMe. Its a NaNoWriMo Progress Meter you can put in your sidebar.

Good Work Ethic

I just finished watching a documentary about Andy Goldsworthy: "I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material in itself, it is an opening into the processes of life within and around it. When I leave it, these processes continue." I like the way that guy works. He just keeps truckin' on and doesn't really see the beauty until it's gone.

Un-Furl-ed

I'm trying to make a complete switch from Safari to Firefox and the only thing that seems to be holding me back right now is my Furl It bookmarklet from LookSmart's Furl. Damn! I tried to Furl like six things today and was thwarted each time. Gotta figure this out. (It's not the popup blocker because I don't use that. It's just a blank window.)

Officially Unofficial

We're doing an officially unofficial thing with NaNoWriMo over at Blogger. Blogger Knowledge: Blogging Your Novel Part One is the kickoff. I thought I already posted about this. I must be out of my vulcan mind. Update: cue the X-Files music and order me up some mental floss. Here's that post (it was set on draft).

The Sox

Boston.com: "The greatest comeback in sports history. Period."

No Fingerprints

I checked out the cover for my (almost ready) new book and it's got a matte finish. Nice! That means you can eat chips and hold my book. That's high quality and high class my friends.

No Blog? No Problem!

Chris Baty, founder of National Novel Writing Month was kind enough to send a few copies of his new book No Plot? No Problem! over to Blogger HQ and suddenly we have Blogging Your Novel Part One. In which we encourage you to self-publish your novel in 30 days using Blogger.

Rediscovering The Web

I've just been setting up my hand-me-down powerbook and I think the smartest thing I just did was remove Safari from the dock and just leave Firefox floating in there like a foxy little blue and orange matzoh ball. I'm really used to Safari and I like the way it looks. So why would I ditch Safari for Firefox? Because stuff works when I use Firefox.

Blogs and Books

GalleyCat is a blog about books and publishing over at MediaBistro. Cool.

Even Evil Need Some Salad

This was one of many storm troopers roaming the Javits Center last weekend during the Digital Life expo. Sadly, none of them wanted a demo of Blogger. Maybe they have a custom blogging application.

Solar Panels

Someone calling in to a show on NPR this morning had a good idea for a business: importing manufactured solar panels from China. Nice.

Biking Through Mist

Mist! on Flickr. That looks fun.

I'm Back

Just got back from New York City and I am now safe and sound in good old San Francisco. It's raining here which is weird. I showed Blogger to fifty-five thousand people this weekend. One at a time. Good times. Except for a 2AM evacuation of my hotel this morning, the trip was cool.

Day Three

My dogs are gonna be barkin'. I'm at day three of DigitalLife where the Blogger demonstrations never stop. Yesterday there were lots of folks coming by the booth asking about blogger. When I asked them if they already had a blog, the response was very often, "No. But I have a Xanga." Nice.

Hullo?

I'm standing on a giant lego in the Javits Center. Just making sure this deal works.

Blog v. Blog

I'm on the road this week traveling to undisclosed locations. Tomorrow I will be arriving in the Large Apple (as those in the know call it). Nevertheless, I would like to direct your attention to: Blog v. Blog "May the best blog win."

Vote John Kerry Song

Dominic Sagolla:

Let's talk about November,
I'll tell you somethin y'all best remember:
You gotta vote for John Kerry, John Edwards, and their Democrat friends.

Catchy.

Evan Williams Today

USA Today: "Evan Williams the co-founder and chief executive of Pyra Labs, which created the Web self-publishing tool Blogger and was acquired by Google early last year on Monday announced his departure on his own blog, www.evhead.com." It seems weird that I still have to give presentations with the subject: "What is a blog?"

Blogger Answer #999

Blogger Hack: New Post Link. This hack shows you how to make a "Create New Post" link that you can put on your blog (and what to do so only you can see it.)

Google SMS

How to use Google SMS:

1. Enter your query as a text message.
2. Send the message to 46645 (GOOGL).
3. Receive a message with your results.

Nice. Now I need a phone with SMS.

Olaf Unleashed

Olaf Unleashed: "The theater has always been my first love after money and power, but it might be time to reconsider." Nice.

Google Print Search

If the Earl of Gloucester were alive today, he'd totally be doing an ego search on Google Print. Google Print Search: Earl of Gloucester. That guy thinks he's so damn fancy.

My iPod Is Hungry

I downloaded iPodderX today. It's supposed to feed my iPod with indie audio from the web. What a simple and clean OSX app! I'm really excited to use it with my iPod but right now the poor little guy is starving. Here's the thing: I'd like to be able to subscribe to any flavor of feed I discover. If there's an mp3 in there somewhere, it should end up in my iTunes which will sync up with my iPod. That would rock Natick. Update: A list of podcasts.

Funky Profile Message

Jaron from Observations from Oblivion mixed up a new, wacky version of my audio clip for my Blogger Profile. Neat! Thanks, Jaron.

BlingBling: A Directory of Wonderful Ads

I visit BoingBoing every day and it seems like there's more and more ads. So I had a little Tuesday afternoon Photoshop fun at their expense. But seriously, do you see how I am right about that?

Here's To Your Future Self

Even though I've known he was going to move on pretty much since I took my job almost a year ago, this announcement still feels big and I'll miss barging in to Ev's cube with insightful questions like, "So, what are you doing? Typing something? Looks like you're typing something. You blogging something? Nice!" Nevertheless, with the blogfather out of the picture, we can finally go legit. Thanks for laying the groundwork Ev, we'll take it from here!

The Schwartz Is Strong

Spaceballs Will Return: "It's been 17 years since 'Spaceballs' took aim at 'Star Wars,' but the Schwartz is still strong with writer/director Mel Brooks. Strong enough, in fact, that Brooks is penning a 'Spaceballs' sequel."

Blogger Knowledge: Kottke for President!

I just republished Jason Kottke's voter information guide with some color. Read Kottke for President! Then, when the time comes, go vote! I'm registered to vote this year and I'm going to do it in a futon factory.

Catch the Cure

For areas of the world where certain diseases are rampant, someone should invent a medicine that spreads like a virus. Then sick people could "catch the cure." That would be good stuff. At the very least, it would be great for a scifi story.

Holy Features Batman!

Amazon Light is an alternative interface to Amazon. It's been around for years but the newest release has some really cool features. For starters, these are the buttons next to every product listing:

• Buy This
• Add To Wishlist
• Gmail This
• Dropcash This
• Blog This (With Blogger!)
• Del.icio.us
• Library Lookup

Then, along the left column you can perform the same search instantly at Froogle, Ebay, Yahoo Stores, and MySimon. Plus, there's news headlines that relate to the product you're viewing and Google search results right under that. I don't love the look but with those kind of innovative features, who cares!

Bush Is Short and Crabby

Reuters: "Tom Shales of the Washington Post added that despite efforts to even out the heights of the two men through camera angles, Kerry appeared 'tall and statesmanlike' compared to Bush, who seemed 'shorter' and 'ill at ease' in the split screens."

National Novel Writing Month

NaNoWriMo has a new web site. For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo is "a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30." Go! See also: NaNoBlogMo.