Tumbling down

We’re going to be doing something interesting very soon with Tumblr.

Jennifer Preston, social media editor for The New York Times, during an interview with MediaShift. I’m curious about this.

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Life’s too short to drink bad coffee or read bad blogs.

Marco Ament, reminding us to remind ourselves what’s important in life (thanks to Merlin Mann).

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GPOYW, Ironed Shirt Edition. I guess it doesn’t look so ironed after living in it a full day.

The Classic™

So, I bought a new iron the other day, after what seemed years of avoidance. Technically, I bought my first iron, as I’ve never owned one before. This must have been covered in one of those chapters of Time to Grow Up and Be an Adult. (I skimmed.) So I spent part of my Sunday in Kmart, losing faith in humanity and hunting home appliances with a little tip from Put This On¹.

In Kmart, I’m debating between irons, trying to understand what the late 2009 equivalent of these 2006 models Slate reviewed would be, but mainly thinking how irons have become some of the ugliest objects ever. Whatever happened to the simple beauty of the utilitarian iron? Modern irons look like the sloppy cousins of the blueberry iMac².

I end up torn between two: the T-Fal Ultraglide Easycord, which sounds more like a pleasure toy than an iron, and the Black & Decker The Classic™. The former is on the list because it’s the descendent of the third-place iron in Slate’s writeup.

And the Black & Decker? Well it’s on my list because It Looks Like A Fucking Iron. So after some hemming and hawing, and the obligatory Amazon reviews trawl, I think you know where I’m going with this.

Let me tell you what, it’s A Beautiful Fucking Iron.

Now, I know, metal irons get hot, and they don’t cool off for a long time³. But I’m okay with that. My thought is, if you’re going to do something, take the time to make it right. (People notice when you make an effort.) Otherwise, why not get out the wrinkle release spray? Sure, you’ll smell like chemicals, but it’s easy, right?

Maybe it’s not the best iron in the world, and I probably need to work on my technique, but damned if I don’t have an iron that I like.

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World Building in a Crazy World

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[I]t looks like Obama’s Presidency faces a serious threat from media rounding.

Squashed: The Obama slide in New Jersey and Virginia 

(Thanks Jim)

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GPOYW: Baseball, Beer and Hot Dogs Edition.

Apple TV and a new UI

Quick, I’m going to go on a short font and UI rant, so I guess you should look for that unfollow button.

The choice to switch to Helvetica Neue¹ for the interface is a little confusing. They’re using it in a regular weight, which lacks the heft Lucida Grande had. This is most striking on the Now Playing screen, where the type looks so fragile.

What would improve the Now Playing screen, ever so slightly, would be to use a bold weight, which I thought I’d spied in one of the browse screens, more. It can bring a little prominence to the song title, or section headers, which will detract from how awkward Helvetica Neue looks at that size. Here’s a rough sample of my idea:

Another problem exists with the main navigation bar and the features above it. In the home screen, the main navigation is non-selectable, but uses the same blue glow used for selections elsewhere. I’m unsure what would be better (a spotlight, perhaps), but it’s distracting at times.

The new menu setup improves movement across sections, but the Remote application feels even less precise than before, and selecting “My Movies” or “My Music” at the top of sections is nigh-impossible; you end up accidentally selecting the features area.

I’ve finally become acclimated to seeing Helvetica Neue instead of Lucida Grande, and the new software is a good improvement on the large part. But there still seem to be rough edges to the software, as if it was rushed ahead of important hardware improvements. My hope is for an Apple TV that can actually do 1080p or 720p at 30fps (or 60, but I’m not holding my breath), and there’s a lot of potential in that largely-empty Internet menu.

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My friend’s Halloween costume, also known as the first piece of modern art to grace our apartment walls.

“Beer Pong Table”
2009
Andrew Lovell
Mixed media on foamboard

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In true Joe Buck statistical speak, I’m batting 1.000 when playing people who aren’t my brother.

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