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Garrett Murray lives here. He's the senior developer at Blue Flavor by day and an amateur writer and comedian by night. You can read more about him or
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Garrett Murray
10-30-2006 @ 18:32

I haven't mentioned it in a while, but since I received the replacement microphone we've released two new podcast episodes (one two weeks ago and one last night). Last night's episode was over thirty minutes long!

We're planning to do a live podcast episode in the future (basically, it would be the same kind of thing but live, so you could send in emails and message and we could interact with our listeners), but to do that we need you to tell all of your friends about the show.

If you haven't subscribed yet, you're insane. Do it. Do it now.

@ 12:08
10-24-2006 @ 19:36
Oscar
Oscar (originally uploaded by garrettmurray)

This is his photograph face. He seems to make it almost every time I take a picture of him.

10-23-2006 @ 22:14
@ 19:36
10-22-2006 @ 19:30
10-20-2006 @ 19:29

Shawn and I spoke about Lost via IM today:

Shawn: Were you bothered by the fact that Eko was carried miles by a polar bear? Said bear stopped to eat a deer on the way, but Mr. Eko was completely uneaten or mostly completely fine (at least compared to being eaten alive).

Garrett: Yeah, that shit was ridiculous. He didn't even have wounds. He had blood smeared on him. And he was sleepy.

Shawn: LOL, yeah.

Garrett: The bear grabbed him by the legs and tried to eat him right there in the cave when John tried to save him, and he still had legs, and they seemed to work just fine—he was just lazy about walking.

Shawn: Yeah, that didn't make any sense. Unless the bears are super smart and doing the Others' bidding. Which apparently involves dragging people into random caves.

Garrett: Also, how did that bear eat that dude but leave his shirt on the bones??

Shawn: Haha. I guess I assumed he just died in the cave.

Garrett: Oh, like maybe the bear brings them in and then leaves them there? And they're just too sleepy to leave and they die, wearing shirts only (that guy's bones didn't have pants on!).

Shawn: I hadn't thought it through but, yeah, exactly. Maybe that's why he didn't leave (no pants).

Garrett: Haha.

@ 11:01
Phone
Phone (originally uploaded by garrettmurray)

I've really been into shooting phones in NYC recently. I don't know why. I think part of it has to do with the fact that payphones mean something really specific to the city. They're still around, even though everyone has a cell phone, and people still use them from time to time. There's something very much antique about them in Manhattan.

10-19-2006 @ 23:50
@ 19:32

I've just upgraded this site to the newest beta of SimpleLog version 1.5 to test out some of the new features in a more real-world environment. As part of that upgrade, I've changed the design to something I've been working on on and off for the past few weeks alongside developing the app itself. If you're using a news reader, you might want to visit the site to see what looks like now.

This design is a work in progress, and I'll be making tweaks as time goes on, in between work on the new version of SimpleLog.

A few things of note about this design (and version 1.5 of the app as well):

  • It should be significantly faster to load, due to the massive speed-up in version 1.5.
  • SimpleLog now has "static" page functionality, which I've used to create an about page.
  • The text is much, much bigger. Looking at the old design before, I thought the text was sized just fine, but when I started working on this and made it larger, I realized just how small the text was before. It felt tiny. This text is much larger and I love it. I actually might make it even bigger in the long run.
  • Yes, it's a dark background with light text... sorry, but I like this better than black on white. Black on white hurts my eyes. I code in dark on dark, and I prefer to read dark on dark. I'll probably create an alternate stylesheet that's inverted for those of you who want it. Probably.

Redesigning is fun. I really enjoy it. I used to do it a lot more, but it takes time and it kills everything else (I never post when I'm redesigning because I'm too busy redesigning to post). Now that it's done I look forward to wrapping up this version of SimpleLog and releasing it (oh, and writing more here too).

@ 18:21

If one had a device that allowed one to look back in time (N.B.: The Light of Other Days, by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter), and one were to look back upon me during college (especially my first year), one would regularly witness the following schedule:

  • Wake some time between 12 and 4PM
  • Eat at the "Rain Garden," a crappy little "restaurant" in the student center
  • Go to class until around 9 or 10PM
  • Grab Mountain Dew, cigarettes and sandwich, head back to room
  • Play Counter-Strike until 7 or 8AM
  • Sleep

Counter-Strike was my life. I started playing CS back in high school when the very first beta was released, and I got more and more attached to it until my second year of college, when my right arm pain got to be too much for me to play any longer. That was a sad, sad time. Since then I've not returned to the first-person shooter genre via a PC (except to play Half-Life 2, which was painful but worth it), but instead have relegated myself to console gaming, that which luckily doesn't hurt my hands or arms.

One of the great things about Counter-Strike was the "realism" of how the game played—instead of instantly re-spawning when you die, you would have to sit out for the remainder of the round (usually no more than five minutes), and you had to buy your weapons with money you earned by doing well in the game. Effectively, it was a more reality-based version of your standard deathmatch FPS game, and it was loads of fun.

I've not played in a long time, but last week I came across the news that they've instituted a CS Weapons Market in the game, and I was instantly jealous. The new global system for weapons prices keeps all weapons in a constant state of flux depending on world-wide demand. If everyone buys a sniper rifle one week, it will become very expensive and therefore the next week most people won't be able to afford it. I love the idea of using the power of the internet and community gaming in this way, and it takes the realism to another level.

10-16-2006 @ 11:52

I've had to add password protection to the SimpleLog Trac recently, due to craploads of spam. Almost every ticket was affected, almost every page was edited, it was a huge mess. I've tried to get everything back to normal (for the most part it is now), and I've added authentication.

From now on, you'll need to click the "login" link and log in with "anon" as the username and password. Then you'll be able to submit new tickets.

10-15-2006 @ 18:49

A few months ago, when we were recording episode 7 of the podcast, one of my two microphones started generating a noticeable electronic humming. We were able to get it to go away by grounding the mic (I had to touch it the whole time we recorded), and then during episode 8 and 9 I did the same thing to silence the hum. Unfortunately, when we tried to record episode 10 last Monday, I couldn't get the hum to stop.

I've got a replacement mic on its way, but it's not here yet, so we're unable to record a new episode until it arrives. It should be here tomorrow, so hopefully we'll have a new episode out early next week.

10-02-2006 @ 14:39