The World According to Josh

What did you do yesterday? Yeah? Cool. Oh, me? Nothing. Except I maybe launched a podcast with 2 friends from opposite corners of the earth: John Worthington of Brisbane, Australia and Mark Wilson of London, Ontario, Canada. Yeah.

I have neglected this blog sorely, yes. But now I’m here, so zip it!

I have been over at FriendFeed for the past 6 months or so. It’s more fun. It’s way easier to post stuff and you get to actually have people read what you write for a change, and they write you back. It’s amazing stuff.

So we created a podcast to get into the various aspects of FriendFeed and what makes it tick and why we love it and how to get the most out of it. I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

Josh

As if it couldn’t get any more manic, FriendFeed launched realtime usage today. (I believe it was today) At least, today is when Robert Scoble posted about it and the rest of the community was swarming around the topic.

Looking at the main stream in realtime proved to be headache and vomit inducing to most, but now I know how to filter it out. You can create lists and rooms (which have been features of FriendFeed for a while already), then activate them in realtime.

Rooms, specifically can also be embedded in webpages as active, realtime iframe widgets, as shown below.

Here’s an embedded real-time look at one of my fave rooms, the Random Lyrics room:

Tonight this room is very active:

I imagine the next 24 hours will yield many other great ideas for how to use this new feature. Looking forward to them all.

OK, that is all. Please feed responsibly.

Josh

…and she’s only just beginning middle school.

It was only a year or so ago that my daughter was singing High School Musical as loud as she can, knowing every word and all of the harmonies. I used to endure it in the car just for her, knowing that I was doing something special for her.

Tonight, I put it on for old time’s sake and she completely wigged out. She cupped her ears and ran screaming. Apparently one week of middle school changes a girl.

It’s pretty scary raising our first 11 year old - going on 19. She is all of a sudden too cool for us parents. The transformation is real and it happens very quickly. Enjoy the time you have with your kids while you have them. They will not always want to hang out with you and may even be completely embarrassed by your mere presence in any public setting.

<Sigh>

Oh well, I still have thee more to try to brainwash before they get too cool for their ol’ Dad.

For the record, I actually think this soundtrack is pretty good. The songwriting is rather appropriate and better than I would have expected for something like this nowadays.

As far as Zac and Vannessa’s behavior off screen…ugh. But really, they have very little to do with the “music” part of this, so I can easily let them fade out of the picture when I enjoy the songs for what they are.

I wonder what next week’s drama will be. :p

Uh…OK.

Earthquake in LA today.

Here’s how I found out about the earthquake in less than 30 mins, and that’s only because I wasn’t really paying attention to twitter at the time. So far reports are that no damage/injuries are known. I hope it stays that way. Just about everyone knows somebody in LA so make sure you call your loved ones to find out if they are OK.

Click for full size. Warning: cuss words used, but then, can you blame them, really?

Zoe’s First Apple Tasting from Josh Haley on Vimeo.

And vimeo is pretty cool, too.

Have you ever seen the intro to that cable tv show “Weeds”? It’s not exactly the best content, to be sure, but the intro to the show with the theme song is pathetically hilarious in its parody of suburbia. Here are the lyrics (written by Malvina Reynolds, copyright, etc, don’t sue me):

Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

2. And the people in the houses
All go to the university,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
And there’s doctors and there’s lawyers
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same

There are 2 more verses, but that’s all they use in the intro for the show.

So, tonight, waiting in line at the drive-thru of my local Taco Bell for my evening’s meal, I looked around and saw many other cars doing the same thing. There were 5 cars ahead of me in line. Then I looked to my right and saw a bunch of cars in line at KFC. Then I looked to my left and saw all the people waiting in line at Wendy’s drive thru. “Six-thirty-seven, drive forward please”

Then making my way home I notice the full parking lots at Chilis, Panera Bread, Panda Express, and on and on. Does anyone freaken’ cook in this town? I mean, I cook, but tonight I was eating alone and it was late, so I had an excuse.

And it all seemed so production line, too. Yeah, I understand that these establishments need to be as efficient as possible, but it’s getting a little too robotic. I say get out of the car every now and then, at least, to go INTO the restaurant, even if you’re going to be taking out. I mean, you should have seen all of the futless people when the hurricane hit. No power = no fast food = pandemonium! Man connot live on bread alone. He must also have his double-decker taco and double-cheese fries as well.

OK, convenience is leading to apathy, which will then lead to us being taken over by machines. I mean, come on people! Don’t you read the Dune books or watch the Matrix? And the more you look around, the more you see everyone doing the same thing.

Every other SUV has the “soccer mom” vinyl sticker on the back, touting the mediocre “accomplishments” of the drivers’ kids. OK, maybe that’s not globally deserved, but still…I bet in most cases, it’s just a miracle they got their kid out of the house and onto a soccer field.

Why not have “honesty” stickers for the back of our cars?  For example, “My kid does whatever the heck he wants, because I don’t have the stones to discipline him” or “My kid pretty much finishes his homework most of the time after his TV shows are done” Let’s celebrate mediocrity!

Then there’s the escapist types: “My son put down his Gamecube controller for 30 minutes today!” or “My kid can 0Wn your kid in World of Warcraft!”, or “My kid eats N00bs!”

God help us all. But as soon as I get that vinyl cutter and relevant supplies…Come on soccer moms and ticky-tacky people! Get your custom stickers right here! 2 for $10!

Alrighty then.

Josh
(Reposted from earlier last year on my old myspace blog. It was time.)