MarcFriedenberg.com

After diligently watching the first two volumes of Heroes, I can say this: it is a very bad show. Bad, bad, bad. And the first volume was bad, too. I’ll report back after watching volume three.

While looking at the guy seated across from me on the bus tonight, I thought, “that guy would make a great ‘Other‘.” Does this mean I’m over invested?

As I’ve intimated said [UPDATE: Becky made me use a less colorful word] before, I’m using the Microsoft Word Notebook layout for taking notes in class, and for writing case briefs. It’s a fairly neat idea, and doesn’t require as much of a mental leap as does the transition from say, Word to OneNote. But, aside from the speed of running the application using Rosetta, I have a few other quibbles. It’s probably too late to have these corrected for the next version of Office for the Mac, but I’ll at least post them here and submit the product feedback to Microsoft for future iterations. And, if that fails, maybe I’ll make something myself one day. Without further ado, my bitch list:

• I need to be able to indent/outdent only one section at a time, regardless of whether or not there are other sections below it. The behavior that I’ve seen is that when you do move a section above, all sections below are automatically moved accordingly. Sometimes this is what I want, and sometimes it is not. I really would appreciate a way to pick between the two, perhaps with just another keyboard shortcut.
• Speaking of keyboard shortcuts, how about using the standard system ones that every other app uses? There aren’t too many offenders here, but there are enough to be annoying. For example, I instinctively press Command-T to bring up the font and text size palette. In Notebook Layout (and all of Word), Command-D does this. So when I press Command-T, I ended up changing the tab location. That’s annoying.
• Obviously there are design decisions to be made regarding how much “unique” functionality you want your application to have, as opposed to using “for free” functionality provided by the system frameworks (or, of course, user interface guidelines). I would differ from the MacBU team on the idea of the built-in spell-checker and dictionary, for example. Why not use the system functionality here? As for the former, I wouldn’t have to add my unwieldy surname to both the system dictionary and the Word one. As for the latter, it just seems redundant. Instead of having the Office team spending hour upon hour of development time reinventing the wheel, why not direct that time into something more useful, such as getting an Intel-compatible version of the application suite out within two years of the architecture’s public introduction?
• I’ll combine two complaints into one here, since they both relate to the tabs, or “Sections” on the right side of the Notebook Layout screen. Basically, they’re forgetful. There are two annoying behaviors that I deal with every single day. I have a tab for every week of class, just because it is an easy way for me to do a week-by-week review. So, let’s say I’m typing some notes in the week 6 tab. My professor asks about something related to default vs. immutable rules. I don’t remember what they are, so I do a search for the term, and the application highlghts the relevant text in my week 2 tab. So far, so good. Then I switch back to the section 6 tab, and I’m disappointed to see that I’m now looking at the top of the file, not where I was typing before. It lost my place. And I have to spend precious time trying to figure out where I was typing before, and praying that I don’t get called on, because I haven’t been paying attention for the last two minutes. So, cursor position is not saved between tab switches. Also, neither the cursor position nor the currently-selected tab is saved when the file is closed. When you open your notebook file, you are always taken to the very top of the first tab. I would argue that a more convenient result would be to be taken wherever you were last working. When you open a real notebook, you don’t turn to page one, then turn to wherever it is you were writing - you (try) to open right to where it is you want to continue writing.
• All I can say about the tables function in the notebook view is that something funky is up with it. It doesn’t work right.
• If you want to know whether or not you are in the “bold” text formatting mode, you need to have the Formatting Palette open. There is no formatting toolbar in the Notebook Layout. What a ridiculous waste of space. Because I can’t see my text at the size I would like to while at the same time having the Palette open, I’m forced to guess whether or not the next word I type will be bold or not. There is no visual indicator as there would be with a toolbar.

I don’t think any of these things would be terribly hard to fix, and they would save me a ton of frustration. So git-r-done.

Because everybody keeps asking (not true), here are my thoughts on Studio 60 that I shared with beejpost:

I really want to like it, but I think Sorkin has failed to expand his portfolio here. It’s just a mash-up of WW and SportsNight, but even more touchy-feely; I’m not ready to really care about these characters yet. There’s no built-in gravitas like there is with people working in the White House. And I feel like WW could deal in one episode with the whole range of issues (censorship, religious right, etc.) that S60 will be relying on for its entire existence.

BJ also added that Bradley Whitford’s character should be named Josh. Truer words have never been spoken.

Grammatically speaking, the most infuriating show title on television is CNN’s “Live From.”

Well, it took two three and a half years (holy cow), and the video quality isn’t the best, but the epic film made by Chris, Eugene, and myself is finally available online. I proudly present In Search of Excellence.

‘Arrested Development’ gets the ax

This was my favorite show on television that is still in production. One day I will create a television network/media provider so that I can promote this sort of show in the right way.

A Hasidic reggae artist.

There’s some relationship between the game rock, paper, scissors and the United States government. An arbitrary re-write of the game’s rules might be as follows:

Congress beats the Supreme Court.
Supreme Courts beats the President.
The President beats Congress.

All I have to do now is come up with hand signals, and I may have myself a winner.

The Evolution Wars

Scientists have determined that purple is the funniest color (to prove this to yourself, trying pronouncing “purple” aloud again and again, each time a little slower than before. It’ll leave you in stitches (unlike Brian (see below))). This fact, coupled with the fact that many people have a hard time knowing when I’m joking, has led me to create a new color-coded humor system. People used to tell me that my sense of humor is off-color; this system will solve that problem forever. I will make parts of this site that are supposed to be humorous color-coded according to how funny I personally find them. Here is the system:

• Boo me off stage / hack my Web site
• Pity guffaw
• Legitimate chortle
• The Puerto Rican Day episode of Seinfeld
• Gob’s magic shows
• The first time I saw Dumb & Dumber
• Riotous cheering
• Repeated whizgigging
• Every Simpsons episode compressed into one moment (the scientists mentioned above believe the universe started this way)

Let’s try this system out. I came across an interview with John Cusack in Time Magazine this week that I found very amusing. Like a Talmudic scholar, I’ve color-coded the relevant passages. Let’s see how your selections match up with my own.

Does your family have strong opinions on whom they’d like to see you settle down with?
My family’s basically given up on me. There’s deep sadness whenever I walk into the room.

I’ve heard that you were always the dog in your family plays.
Sure. I was the youngest for five years until I got replaced by my little sister, a wound I feel to this day. What’s this story about?

It’s a Q&A with John Cusack.
What do you wish it was about? Maybe you don’t wish it was about anything. Maybe you’d rather not be talking to me.

Are you going to run for political office?
Yes.

When?
Now.

For what?
Emperor.

Of what?
The universe. Of all that you can imagine. I’m gonna take over God’s turf.

Why haven’t you blogged recently?
I did once.

The whole nature of blogs is that you write frequently.
Not me. I blog every 10 years.

What are you eating?
Green beans. Are you gonna publish that, like he didn’t even have the common courtesy to stop eating?

Will we see you cheering on the Cubs in the World Series this year?
It probably will finally happen this year for the Cubs because I’ll be in Bulgaria.

As always, feedback is welcome. As always, I won’t receive any. Summer is a little slow.