Jarrett House NorthNow with 80% less politics!

I was all set to do a rant about how I was so stupid as to sign up for a one-year contract with eMusic, so I couldn’t cancel immediately now that they’re in their new business model. But I found the coolest Halloween song ever there today, and since I’m still paying for the service [...]

I was thrilled when UserLand rolled out the Spam-Free Mailto feature for Manila, which removed email addresses from my weblog’s UI and replaced them with a simple contact form. Should prevent spammers from finding me via my blog, right?
Well, except for really really dedicated spammers. I got the following mail this morning. Note the spam-free [...]

…I got slammed today. Between the company meeting and the work I need to get done before I leave tomorrow, and trying to get the leaves up off the ground before I disappear for a weekend… I’m finally getting things done, just in time to get to bed and hop on the merry go round [...]

Ross Mayfield nails how I feel about autumn in Seattle, describing the effect of being in northern latitudes after the equinox:
In Estonia, where I lived once, its compounded by the fact that coming winter solstice the sun barely skirts the horizon and its basically dark except mid-day. A strange and wonderful cycle ensues. From summer [...]

George has had some bad luck with Indian dining. I have higher hopes for the Italian place we’ll be visiting with them on Friday in North Beach (details afterwards; I don’t know ’em).
Meanwhile, we’re discovering the joys of cheap Asian food. Our latest foray was a Vietnamese place in the local shopping center that [...]

I have a question to the folks in the room at the PDC Blogger BOF session: I’m as .NET platform centric as the next guy, but in what universe are Das Blog and .Text the “dominant engines” for blogging? Perhaps there’s some context missing, but I have the funny feeling that the guys in the [...]

Interesting little story: In his press conference today ,President Bush now disclaimed responsibility for the “Mission Accomplished” banner that greeted him when he landed on the USS Lincoln. He says now that it was the sailors on the Lincoln who put out that banner. But the New York Times, following the landing in May, said [...]

The US Copyright Office has posted four classes of exemptions to the DMCA on its official website. The classes include:

Compilations of lists of Internet sites blocked by filtering software (not including those blocked by systems that “operate exclusively to protect against damage to a computer or computer network” or “prevent receipt of email” (examples?);
Computer programs [...]

Weblogs.com hit another new high water mark last Thursday. The big peak we hit back in August has raised the bar for new high water marks, so the graph looks a little funky. From here there are two possible outcomes: stable growth resulting in infrequent high water marks that continue the apparent trend started in [...]

The rain started a day early, dashing
hopes of keeping ahead of the falling
leaves. While the moving ahead of clocks
should bring more sleep it brings no more
daylight; the days are shrinking fast.

Urgh. I should know better than to try poetry, even free verse, out in public after a long hiatus…
Apropos of nothing, I’m starting to think [...]

Glimpsed on Off On A Tangent, courtesy the BloggerCon Feedster group blog: Harpoon is now doing a limited series of “one-of-a-kind creations”—specialty brews in 100-barrel lots. The current one is Wit, and an Abbey version has been spotted. Um, waaah.

Rolling Stone says that Beck, Beth Orton, Grandaddy, and Conor Oberst from Bright Eyes are confirmed for a memorial concert for Elliott Smith on November 3rd in LA (assuming the city is still standing at that point).
Update: Beck and his band posted remembrances of Elliott on his official site.

First Panther note: some of my scripts don’t seem to work under Mac OS X 10.3. Specifically, Look Up Current Track in iTunes doesn’t work and iTunes2Manila fails because it can’t connect to the Internet. Wonder if Apple changed how SOAP calls work…
Update: Changed or more precisely broke, it looks like, based on evidence from [...]

Looks like everyone’s favorite underattended Seattle rock and roll museum will be joined in June by another Experience…the Experience Science Fiction museum, to be “co-located” with EMP in the Geary building. Guesses as to which galleries it will displace in the EMP?
Impressive advisory board, too: Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Ray Bradbury, David Brin, Octavia Butler, [...]

Got a sore back and a sore arm from mulching the leaves in our side yard this afternoon. But it’s all good; I think the neighbor’s maple tree only has one more good yard-blanketing left for the season.
We spent much of the rest of the weekend working on other projects around the house. I’m finally [...]