Recently…

December 4th, 2006 1:04 AM

I went to The Brickskeller on Friday, enjoying their ludicrously large beer selection. Supposedly the world’s largest beer menu (they claim over one thousand), but after several successive failures to order a beer on the menu that they actually had on hand, I’m somewhat skeptical. Still an excellent experience. (Don’t visit their website unless you’re prepared for a 2000+ pixel wide monstrosity that will make your eyes bleed.)

I got to play games on a Wii, and it’s remarkably compelling. The wireless remotes are cool, the built-in game-agnostic avatar management is neat, and the bowling game is awesome. Much more physically involving than I imagined.

For the first time in probably a year, I’ve cleared out NetNewsWire, and have no unread items and no open tabs. What a massive undertaking that was.

And the occasional long-overdue-update-post wouldn’t be complete without some links. Here are some things I’ve come across recently that strike me as link-worthy (sorry, it’s Macintosh heavy):

  • MsgFiler lets you file messages in Mail.app quickly with just the keyboard. Until finding this, I’d been viewing email in Mail.app and then filing messages into folders with mutt. It was cumbersome and a pain. I still love mutt, but MsgFiler makes me think it’s possible to become proficient in managing email with just Mail.app.
  • If you use a Mac, check out John Gruber on Auto-Completion With the Esc Key. Gone are the days of typing “(sp?)” into an email or IM (you know who you are). Just hit the escape key half-way into a word, and it’ll pop up a menu of possibilities. You don’t even have to use the built-in Dictionary application!
  • Ambrosia Software’s new SketchFighter 4000 game for the Mac is a lot of fun. And the entire game was drawn by hand with everyone’s favorite pen, a Pilot Precise V5.
  • Kettle Chips is selling a five-bag set of potato chips in “limited edition flavors.” It’s a beta test of potato chips. And one of the flavors is “Aztec Chocolate”. Chili and Chocolate! I’ve already made it known to someone that I would be very happy to receive this pack for Christmas, but can we agree that this is an awesome idea?
  • Finally, I stumbled upon a Google Video version of Das Rad, one of my favorite shorts from The Animation Show. Go watch it.