3 Stations East

Grey's Housewives Lost

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 08:44:59 -0600

Desperate Housewives is kicking all kinds of booty this season (except perhaps the Gabby/Carlos storyline and Julie's thing with shirtless annoying Abercrombie suburban stereotype... hm, maybe it's kicking some kinds of booty). It's tight, and unwrapping itself very slowly - a total contrast to last season. Remember the Applewhites? Yeah, snoozefest. Last night dropped another bomb and that was after a surprise shooting. Nice writing happening there.

Contrast that to Lost. Lost is my favorite TV show at the moment but even I will admit that the first six episodes (the "pod" - it's on hiatus till February) were a little thin. There were moments, brief moments, but too many things were picked up and then put on the shelf again. Interestingly there was a recent Slate or Salon or Something article noting that shows like Lost will have a hard time keeping viewers because the central mystery can't be revealed. (WTF is up with that island?)

The Others are boring. The season opener showed that they had potential but since then they've appeared to be Just Some Bumbling Folks - not the ones who kidnapped kids, walked barefoot on the island, and generally scared the crap out of everyone. So far there's no explanation for it, and hell, they don't even appear to be evil outside of Juliet and Ben! For crying out loud.

That all said, I'll still watch the show. I can understand the fatigue that others (heh) are experiencing.

Grey's Anatomy is also a bit better this season but, to be honest, I don't think of this show on the same level as the aforementioned. It feels fluffier and the central problem with the show for me is that I really don't care about Meredith, the title character. She might sleep with one of two guys. Who cares? I'm more interested in the new Bailey/Yang dynamic, and if Callie and George will ever mesh (I'm guessing maybe.) The Derek storyline is played out.

All right. Back to reality.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Dogs to Ducks

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:55:34 -0500

Fetch, Cyberduck

Update: Be sure to read this entry too, which is making me reconsider my use of Cyberduck.

When you work on web sites, there are a few tools you get to become buddy-buddy with. Your text editor. Your photo editor. Your browsers. Your FTP program.

Of course, your FTP program. Where would you be without it? You'd be up a creek without a paddle, that's where you'd be!

When I switched to the Mac six years ago, I first used InterArchy. It worked, but not too pleasantly for my tastes. I then switched to Fetch, whose website looks the same as it did in 2000. Fetch did everything I needed it to do, and did it without complaint. In time I became a beta tester for the 5.0 release and thought it was a solid improvement.

But no relationship is without its idiosyncracies, and the little Fetch dog occasionally made me growl. Like, for instance, when I was editing a file on the server with TextWrangler. Let's say I edit a file, and in the Fetch window navigate to another folder. I then go do something (gee, upload a file?) and head back to TextWrangler. I hit save. But wait! I navigated to another folder, right? Fetch took care of that. It helpfully navigated to where the open file was saved, and saved it.

Then when I needed to upload another file to that folder I navigated to earlier, I'd just drag it onto Fetch's window. But... you guessed it... the window had been pointing to where the TextWrangler file lived. Meaning I just uploaded it to the wrong folder, because Fetch "forgot" where I was. Oops.

I am a creature of habit, as are you, but I still toyed with the idea of switching FTP clients - particularly, Transmit. Transmit is, in a word, fantastic. It's beautiful (much prettier than Fetch if you ask me), it's useful, it is tightly integrated with TextWrangler or whatever text editor you'd like to use, and it costs money. $30, to be specific.

$30 is not a lot of money for an FTP program. But you know, I'd rather buy a pair of shoes for that $30.

I recall trying out an open-source FTP program called Cyberduck a year or so ago and thinking it really sucked. It did. It was awful. The interface sucked, the everything sucked. The icon? Well, I'm not a fan of too much cutesy-ness in my Dock. But a duck? Okay. Whatever. Say hi to Adium.

(I don't really use Adium; I don't really IM on the Mac.)

I totally forgot about InterArchy until Gruber mentioned it, and I will admit the interface looks absolutely fantastic. Its ability to look just like Finder has been a strength - or weakness - since its early days. But InterArchy, too, costs the money.

Something got in my noggin about 3 weeks ago, however, and Cyberduck was referenced in some forum or blog I was reading. I thought, "Why not give it a shot?" So for the past three weeks, the dog and the duck have been sitting side by side in my dock. (Fetch is to the left, so he can't see the Cyberduck; he's just fetching the floppy disk to the giant TextWrangler logo in front of him.)

I plunged into Cyberduck the same way I did RSS: wholeheartedly. I set up shortcuts for the FTP sites I used the most and saved them so I could use QuickSilver to access them. But a thought: "Gee, that display is fugly." I really thought that: "fugly". Vertical lines. No alternating row lines. No horizontal lines. Egads, it's 1987.

But wait! A preference? Yes! A preference for it. So I can make Cyberduck have pretty alternating row columns and no stupid horizontal or vertical lines, the way I like it. Great!

And I can make a double-click equal "Edit in TextWrangler" instead of "Put the file on the desktop" like Fetch - one of the most annoying things ever? Yes!

And it has a Transfers window! And a drawer for Bookmarks! Swell! Lovely!

And somehow, I got sold on this once ugly duckling. The little Fetch dog has been without his companion, Running Triangle, underneath him. He's been kind of nonresponsive, just sitting there mid-jump with his floppy.

There is one flaw with the Duck, though: I can't rename files like I do in Finder, by clicking the filename once. The first time I encountered this, I actually said, "Ooooooh," in a bad way. Instead I have to open an info window and edit it there. No preference for that, at least none I've found. (Note: after R'ingTFM I learned that I could click a filename and then press Return and then edit it. Lame.) The plus side is that I was able to submit a ticket for this, which is great.

Is it a deal-breaker? Time will tell. But my instinct says no. I'll trade the awkward renaming mechanism for the multiple little problems I had with Fetch, which all added up to a dull headache.

I will admit I'm pleased there are more than a couple of great FTP clients out there for the Mac. All I've mentioned in this post are great in their own ways but, for me, the Cyberduck wins.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Our Date With My Date With Drew

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 09:03:54 -0500

My Date with Drew

Last night we were in the mood for something lightweight to entertain us, and we had My Date with Drew on TiVo. We didn't have high expectations when we asked TiVo to record it a month or so ago but, you know, it was really good.

The whole plot revolves around this fellow Brian and his unhealthy obsession with Drew Barrymore. He wants to get a date with her - has all his life - and when $1100 falls into his lap from winning a game show, he is determined to make it happen. He gives himself 30 days to do it.

We get to see all of the phone calls, the facials, the critiques, the trial date with a faux Drew... all of it. And we get to see what happens in the end, too. I can't spoil it either way, but I can safely say that the ending is somewhat unexpected.

It's a great little movie, though, and we both found it much more engaging than we thought we would.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

So Cool, They're Hot

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 13:08:22 -0500

Wow, these shoes are hideous.

On the other hand, I've found some damn snazzy shoes which I may purchase today. Is today a shoe buying day? I think it is.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend