YSearchBlog

.

Taking a PR cue from GoogleBlog, Yahoo launches YSearchBlog. Their sidebar links the GoogleBlog, too, although the YSearchBlog itself runs on Movable Type 2.661.

I remain fairly annoyed at Yahoo for allowing their search engine to be overrun with links to machine-generated prank pages, most of which have disappeared, though a stray “wasarrested” or “isshitty” URL seems to float to the top every now and then for some reason.

Guess who’s doing it even worse now: Ask Jeeves and Teoma.

Update: Emailed Zawodny about a security oversight, and dropped in a link to my problems with Yahoo for him to pass along to the search team. As I told him, a lesser mortal might have posted goatse all over the blog by now. ;) But I’ll be satisified with these screenshot snippets instead:

Screenshots of YSearchBlog MT

Canon A300 for $99

.

Update: Sorry, it looks like the Canon A300 is back up to about $120. Still an okay price, but I’m going for the new Canon A400 instead.

Amazon is was selling the Canon A300 3.2MP camera for just $99. I almost threw one in my shopping cart right then and there, till I saw this Canon press release linked on Engadget. Looks like Amazon is clearing out their A300 stock for the arrival of the A400 next month.

Now I’m going to wait for the A400, since it uses SD cards, but if you’re not an early-adopter type, this is a prime opportunity to get yourself a cheap Canon A300 right now — and if you buy via this affiliate link, you help pay some of my bills, too. ;)

Like a Poor Marksman

.

“…after 12 years on the Internet and thousands of registrations and forms filled out, the advertising I am seeing still does not appear to reflect my tastes, interests, previous buying habits, professional background, academic background, or income level. They have yet to successfully target me …. Or else they are simply targeting the stupid, the ignorant, the weak, the innocent, and the naive, groups I from which I naturally exclude myself.”

– Mo Nickels, posting to Metafilter on the futility and stupidity of mandatory content registration.

Golly Gee Whiz

.

Amy came to DC over the weekend, and we had a grand time viewing Sanford Gifford landscapes at the National Gallery, eating various Greek meats at Zorba’s while the remnants of Charley dumped rain outside, watching Superman II and Star Trek: The Slow Motion Picture over adobo with tomatoes and bagoong, and meeting up with Mr. (and Mrs.) Moon Pie at Screen on the Green to see Mr. Smith.

Turns out MrMoonPie is one of the notorious “HBO dancers” at Screen on the Green. And Mr. Smith Goes to Washington has one of the most abrupt movie endings I’ve ever seen.

(Note: Post title is just a reference to a phrase spoken by Mr. Smith.)

Rubbernecking.gov

.

I note with some amusement that ever since the “Washingtonniene” story got popular, inbound links from ".gov" computers searching for “Washingtonniene” and “Jessica Cutler pictures” have steadily increased. So far I’ve had search hits from the House, Treasury, Dept of the Interior, and NOAA.

More, plus pertinent WashPost link, on Wonkette. Funny headline.

UPDATE, 09/01/2004: Those of you searching for nude Playboy photos of Ms. Cutler out on the web, please go here.

Ne’er

.

Ne’er under heav’n have I sung a Christian hymn which treated the words “heaven,” “never,” “ever,” or “given” as having anything more than a single syllable. E’er.

MT3.01d

.

Just upgraded to MT 3.01d. So far everything seems to have gone seamlessly. The new CSS interface is tight, and none of the new features gets in the way of the old, familiar workflow — except for one minor thing: the lack of a search form in the Manage Weblog screen.

I’m in concurrence with Jason Santa Maria on this: despite 6A’s increasingly corporate trappings, MT is still an excellent publishing tool, and I’m quite happy with the free version — at least for now.

(“Blogging grows up?” Didn’t they say that when Google bought Blogger? Isn’t it about time to acknowledge that weblogs have grown up, or are at least almost done getting past the clumsy adolescent stage; or are we going to see these trite “Blogging Comes of Age” headlines everytime something big happens to a weblog company?)

Lovely Summer Day

.

Despite being the start of August, it hardly felt like summer today, with a brisk wind and temperatures dropping into the upper 60s and low 70s. Great day for a run along the Mall and around the Tidal Basin.

lovelysummerday4lovelysummerday1

lovelysummerday2lovelysummerday3

lovelysummerday6lovelysummerday5

Photos taken with a Sony Ericsson Communicam (on T300 phone).