Jason Clarke

The second season of HBO’s Entourage has been can’t-miss. The show has really evolved and come into its own as one of the best programs on TV right now. It’s following a trend of shows that appear to be one thing on the surface- in this case, a dumb buddy show- but are actually something much more interesting underneath.

As much as I can’t stand HBO’s outrageously over-hyped self-promotion and some of its biggest name shows (Six Feet Under, Deadwood, and The Sopranos both rub me the wrong way; The Comeback is just awful); I am really looking forward to this fall on HBO. On Sunday nights, they’re putting Rome (looks great) up, followed by the 5th season of Curb Your Enthusiasn (let’s hope it picks up after last year’s slump), and then a rerun of Ricky Gervais’ (of the BBC series The Office) latest show, Extras.

Just remembered another HBO show I miss: Unscripted. The show got slammed by critics, but I loved the pacing, the distance the cameras kept from the characters, and the great blend of reality/drama. Not to mention the best use of natural light ever.

I’ve been enjoying John Hiatt’s new album, Master of Disaster, lately. In particular, the title track, “Master of Disaster,” is classic Hiatt- great lyrics and and an unmistakable sound.

Hiatt’s personal site is here (though its painfully Flash-ishized).

If you want to check it out, Amazon is offering a free download of the song “When My Love Crosses Over” from the album.

Excellent article in Slate today by Bryan Curtis (why does that name sound so familar?) about the rise and fall of TV Guide, one of my favorite magazines from my geeky entertainment-obsessed pre-driving period (age 11-16ish?).

Side note: I’ll have to check the Archive on this later, but I have a feeling that Slate’s basic design- the middle column for the article, in 13pt Verdana- hasn’t changed since I began reading it back in 1999. That can be comforting sometimes, don’t you think?

Sorry, but Technorati SUCKS. I used them many times per hour for several months last summer- probably about 20 times a day, six days a week- and the service was invaluable to me. It was my #1 web service of the year for 2004.

But for the past several months, Technorati’s response time has been unforgivably abysmal. They’re horrendously slow, and for the last four weeks, I have been ZERO-FOR-10 in searches. That means the last ten times I’ve searched the site, I’ve gotten this message:

Sorry, we couldn’t complete your search because we’re experiencing a high volume of requests right now. Please try again in a minute or add this search to your watchlist to track conversation.

That is unacceptable by any standard.

Can I keep going? Sorry again, but I do not like the new website. If you’re going to shift your strategy towards mainstream, make sure you’re hardware/infastructure is 110% FIRST. But that new design? Too green, too round, and tooooo frickin’ busy.

Please, Technorati, don’t try to be Yahoo: don’t be the public service of the living web.

Just deliver results.

I recently built a free website for my friend and neighbor Andrew Clifford, an excellent musician, producer, and drum instructor. Visit Andrew’s site (he’s got some tracks for sale!), or read more about the project here.

You can get news of my latest projects delivered to your RSS reader of choice via this feed.

The other day I noticed this article on Coudal Partners. The article concerns a classic brain teaser that may or may not have been created by Albert Einstein. Here’s the gist:

There are five houses in a row in different colors. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The five owners drink a different drink, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet, one of which is a Walleye Pike.

The question is– who owns the fish?

So I decided to whip up this quick little grid to help me work through the questions’ hints. It seemed to be an easier way than trying to keep track of things on paper or in a text file. It doesn’t have any cool actions to it (it won’t tell you if you’re right; fields won’t highlight or anything), but it’s 100% free to use/remix so if anybody out there can improve on it, go ahead.

Update: Thanks to Coudal for linking to it!

‘Who Owns the Fish?’ Helper

I accidentally deleted every comment ever made to this blog. No, seriously, I am a bad person and an idiot.

So please, let this serve as official notice that I am not a censorship-loving opressor- I’m just a dolt.

The worst part? Now when I brag at parties that Mark Glaser commented here, I have no way to prove it.

My friend Marion is participating in the MDA (Muscular Distrophy Association) “Lock-Up” fundraiser, where a volunteer is taken to a local jail and then “bailed out” via donations from friends and family members.

If you’d like to “bail out” Marion and support a worthy cause at the same time, you can donate online right here.