Sometimes you’re up late, browsing around on the web, and something hits you. You get immediate inspiration– you’re not sure how you can achieve what you’ve just thought of, it might be impossible, and it might not be worth your time, but it’s too late: you’re going to spend the next 6 hours trying to figure it out.

This is what happened to me last night, after I read a very simple and straightforward tweet from my good friend Clint:

Shit. There goes my time.

Kopp’s Frozen Custard is, if you don’t know already, a frozen custard & burger place whose home resides in Wisconsin. Their food is pretty incredible albeit probably pretty terrible for you, but hey– it’s Wisconsin. I love it so much that I made an extremely dorky YouTube video about it.

Anyway, it was time to create a twitter account for the frozen custard restaurant.

Continue reading I Has A Flavor… Feed: Bringing Kopps’ Flavor of the Day onto Twitter »

This post was supposed to be about the omnichord I want to get so badly, but instead it’s going to be about a plugin I tried quite hard to find.

It all started when I decided to update Wordpress. I backed up my theme and upgraded– thank god I backed up. Everything I had got deleted, so when I uploaded my theme back up, the plugins I had installed were missing. A quick Google search reinstated my twitter plugin, but the WP Audioscrobbler plugin wasn’t so easy. This one came up with the message from the original coder’s (Marc Hodges) website:

“You’re probabaly looking for a WP plugin or some other code.
Please note that all development and support of any code no longer happens. In other words it isn’t here.
The reason being that I’d written the code for myself and decided it to be nice enough to share but people kept asking for help or whatever and it was too much bother than it was worth.
Sorry to disappoint you.”

So, it then proved near impossible to find the plugin.

I’m not sure what I think of Marc’s decision to wipe it off the internets due to the questions he was getting about the plugin. I understand that it probably was quite annoying to get endless questions about something he just wanted to make and let go, but it seems a little mean to just remove it altogether with no ability to download it again.

Anyway, I found the plugin and I’ve uploaded it to my website for downloading. Of course, all credit goes to the amazing Marc Hodges for writing it– I don’t have such abilities (hence the downloading and installation of said plugin). If anybody (see: Marc) has any issue with this, let me know and I will take it down.

I have a feeling, however, that he won’t mind it being offered somewhere else.

Download WP Audioscrobbler (6 KB)
To install: Just drag into your /wp-content/plugins folder. Activate and customize as needed.

Thanks, Marc. Where ever you are.

I’ve been full of stuff to do (read: trying to direct a short film), so I thought I’d break away from the stress and create a little “digital mixtape”– one big MP3 full of a few songs– to make me think ahead towards summer. It’s a little experiment to see how something like this would work out. Of course, you should tell me what you think of it (the music and its medium).

I’ve flanked both the beginning and end with Vampire Weekend, a band my friend John (right) just introduced me to. Supposedly you can’t mention their name in Brooklyn lest a thousand hipsters attack you, proclaiming that “it’s so last summer when it was a pirate pre-release download. It’s nothing since it’s hit the blogosphere!” Also inside is a little bit of George Brassens, a crazy French artist whom I love and reminds me of my good friend Michele. I’ve tossed a couple of other randoms in there that I hope you’ll enjoy.

As far as my personal summer is concerned, I’m hoping to be in NYC interning at some production company. I’m really excited for that.

So, here’s your mixtape:

[audio:summer2008mixtape.mp3]

Download (MP3, 37.6MB): Summer 2008 Mixtape

Here’s the song list, in order:

Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows - Lesley Gore
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa - Vampire Weekend
J’ai rendez-vous avec vous - Georges Brassens
Hi - Psapp
15 Step - Radiohead
La première fille - George Brassens
My Rollercoaster - Kimya Dawson
Franny Glass - Will Stratton
Voices - Jon Brion
Nantes - Beirut
Let Me Tell You About My Boat - Mark Mothersbaugh
Oh! You Pretty Things - David Bowie
Oxford Comma - Vampire Weekend

What I thought to be kind of a fun way to spice up the home screen on the iPhone thanks to the recent iPhone 1.1.3 Firmware Update.

View a little more information on the Flickr page.

If you’re wondering what you need to get that special Brian Moore out there, then I have the answer for you.

That’s right. It’s a mini doughnut maker. Yes, it will make me fat. Yes, it’s unhealthy. But by buying it for me, you would most likely get a constant supply of doughnuts as well, as I think I’d love you so much that I’d do such a thing.

Meanwhile, a more substantial post will come in the near future once I get a little more unbusy.

After getting request upon request upon request to add Facebook applications, I finally found one that has proved to be interesting. It’s called the Compare People app, and it does just that: compares people. Basically, anytime you go to the application, you get 50 matches of two of your friends on Facebook, and you tell them which one is, for example:

• more likely to win in a fight
• has a better taste in music
• more fashionable
• hotter
• someone you’d rather kiss

And the list goes on and on. The ratings all get tallied up, and in the end, you are awarded certain placement within your group of friends (and, privately, with your entire networks).

I just discovered this interesting application, so I had yet to see where my fellows on Facebook had placed me. When I looked, I was understanding, surprised, startled, and humbled. Here are some of the best:

The ones I assumed/hoped I could win

I spent a good deal of time perfecting profile pictures. It’s a hobby, right?

The ones I assumed I would lose

Yes. They’re all 0%— for a reason!

The ones I was greatly flattered by

I was actually told this first one the other day, and I don’t really get it, but I’m flattered nonetheless. However, some of these make absolutely no sense. Am I friends with four deaf people? Four odd-taste people? And who in their right mind called me cuddly? Have you seen how bony I am?

Finally, the ones that were out of the blue

The first one is just kind of odd. As far as the second one is concerned, I didn’t think that pre-schoolers could join Facebook, add this application, and get compared as such to me. And the last two– how the hell didn’t I win those? Huh?

This application really makes you think. Hard. About why you’d be such a great father, and how you can become crazier to clench the award.

I leave you with the following. Clearly I am the best father figure in all of Apple, Inc:

I just don’t get it…

Back in the day, me and my buds used to spend almost every summer afternoon playing a little-known game: Half-Life. A first-person shooter, HL was awesome not only because it had quick and interesting gameplay with little need for an amazing computer, but because it was so moddable. What that meant was that people could take the original came and build upon it to essentially make an entirely separate game that was equally as fun.

One of those mods was Team Fortress. In this game, you got to run around as one of (I believe) eight different types of characters, doing things such as building sentry guns, dropping mines, using rocket launchers, and disguising yourself as the opposite team so you could sneak in, grab their flag, and bring it back to your base.

Now, almost 10 years later, Team Fortress 2 is being released, and boy does it look like fun. It’s styled not unlike a redneck comic book, and what I’ve seen from the videos, it looks absolutely hysterically fun. For their advertising campaign, they’ve decided to do something called “Meet the ______,” where they take the different classes of characters (the ones I explained earlier) and give them a little backstory to keep you interested. Check them out. It’s worth it:

Continue reading A Video Game I’m Actually Excited For: Team Fortress II »

If you were to peer into my brain during normal working hours, this is probably what you’d see:

Alternatively, this is why I would like to visit London.

Charity

My good buddy Daniel left for China about a month ago, and asked me to design him a site so he could easily share his photos with his friends and family. Daniel and I go back to my year at UPS, when we were in photo services together (we took photos for the school paper). He had told me how much he liked my photos and wished he could get the same kind of look as mine. He had a Canon, and soon decided to scrap it for a Nikon D80.

The thing I don’t think he realized was that he’s an incredible photographer.

Anyway, I designed him a website as a very simplistic portal to his photographic adventure in Asia. So far, his photos have been nothing less than outstanding. What’s so incredible about them is they almost all look as though Daniel had sat there, waiting for the perfect opportunity to arise, and took them. Some of them are gorgeously colorful and vibrant, and others are perfectly neutral. Some have incredible detail, and some are wildly abstract.

Whatever the case is, take a look. You’ll be happy you checked him out.

Daniel Adler @ Adlerography