Yahoo acquires Flickr

God, oh, no.

One more reason to like Haruki Murakami

An excerpt from The Paris Review, No. 170

Interviewer: Did you think that book [Norwegian Wood] as an exercise in style, or did you have a specific story to tell that was best told realistically?

[Haruki] Murakami: I could have been a cult writer if I'd kept writing surrealistic novels. But I wanted to break into the mainstream, so I had to prove that I coulde write a realistic book. That's why I wrote that book. It was a bestseller in Japan, and I expected that result.

Interview: So it was actually a strategic choice.

Murakami: That's right. Norwegian Wood is very easy to read and easy to understand. Many people liked that book. They might then be interested in my other work; so it helps a lot.

Daft Punk, fuck yeah!

Fuck yeah! 

Soon, we'll be assualted by furious storms of poo

The geese are back
Originally uploaded by gloom.

They are back.

How to get your own Audioscrobbler sidebar running

After contemplating Dave's rather bizarre offer of forgiveness, I have decided to release the code I used to generate the Audioscrobbler sidebar.

So here it is:



The above piece of code will generate JavaScript file that you can link from your blog by putting the following lines of HTML in your Blogger template.




The PHP script uses Magpie RSS Parser, which you should be able to get from here. You should read the Magpie FAQ on caching. (For this, all you need to do is create a directory named 'cache' in the directory where you put the PHP script.)

U of W's Computer Science, Mathematics, and Engineering undergraduate web servers are PHP-enabled, so you should be able to run the script from your web space. As for Artsies, ESers, and AHSers, I don't know if you can run PHP scripts.

"What I am listening to now" sidebar

As you might have already noticed, I now have the "What I am listening to now" sidebar.

For those of you who are technically inclined, it's powered by Audioscrobbler RSS feed and Magpie RSS Parser.

If you aren't already using Audioscrobbler, you really should. I mean, how else would you find out you have 50% musical taste match with a really skanky Finnish man?

Thanks to Dave, from whose blog entry I discovered Audioscrobbler.

Beck LP release date announced

Beck's new LP, titled Guero, will finally hit stores on March 29!

The first single, E-Pro, will be released next month (that's February).

Yay!

Another year

Another year, another term, a shit load of homework.

Gah, it's only the second week of lecture!

Mr. Pong's Satanic Panda

Mr. Pong's Satanic Panda close-up
Originally uploaded by gloom.

Satanic pandas are so kewl.

iTunes Canada: WTF?

Apple's Canadian iTunes Store does not carry tracks released by Sub Pop, Beggars Group (XL Recordings, Matador, 4AD, etc.), Emperor Norton, Rough Trade, ANTI-, or V2. Only label I found available on iTunes Canada was Nonesuch. This means you can't get The Shins, Peaches, Belle & Sebastian, Dizzee Rascal, Hot Hot Heat, Ratatat, Call and Response, or The White Stripes. Gaahh!

Please, please make indie labels available. If you don't, I can't promise you that I won't kidnap Steve Jobs and make him watch a continous loop of footages from Con Air.