The Substantially Similar Weblog

Via Steve: Great expose report on the Daily Show — they go on location to investigate the effects of gay marriage in Massachusetts.

I know I said I was swamped until December, but there’s always a few minutes to release a new version of a package, right? It’s kind of like dessert—there’s always room.

I’ve released randomplay 0.49.

The new version adds a keystroke to pause playing and a keystroke to display the available keystrokes, and the ability to configure UTF-8 display of tags on or off.

I’ve also improved the documentation and filled in the sample rc file to give all available options.

By the way, Clint Adams, I would be happy to add Audioscrobbler support. Unfortunately, there is not yet any Net::AudioScrobbler perl module. I contacted the guy who is working on it and he said it’s not yet fit for public consumption, but will let me know when it is.

I’m not so fond of Ticketmaster, given that they seem to have a monopoly and charge exorbitant fees with very little value added.

So I was pleasantly surprised to come across these frogs reviewing the Ticketmaster website.

I’m swamped for the rest of the month, but in the meantime here are some photos from our trip to the Catskills last weekend. Click on the image to advance to the next (this may not work in the RSS feed for this blog):

(click for big version)

I was wrong. It turns out that privoxy is now removing the search box area from the Google. Presumably this is a change in Google’s code, since privoxy hasn’t been updated recently. But I suppose this qualifies as a bug.

Is it just me, or did Google just change the layout of its search results in the last couple of hours? History in the making?

Borderline unsafe for work Flash video series entitled Leave it to Bush. I’m afraid my right wing readers won’t be too thrilled with it.

Via Steve.

Hey, no one asked me, but here are my endorsements for tomorrow’s city council election:

• Mayor: Maura Hennigan. I actually think Tom Menino is doing all right, and he will obviously win, so this is more of a “strategic” vote. I think it’s generally bad for elected leaders to be too certain of their grip on power, and voting for the challenger hopefully will keep them on their toes and more responsive to the community. It also may lay the groundwork for a better challenger in the next election four years from now. (This is why I voted for Bobbie Rush in Chicago in 1999, even though he had no chance of winning).
• City Council – At Large
  • Felix Arroyo: Hands down the best guy on the council. I heard him referred to as a “rock star” on WBUR this morning. I can’t think of anyone I would prefer for Mayor in 2009.
  • Matt O’Malley: I agree with him on just about every issue, plus there’s a strong Roslindale “home town” feeling for Matt. Someone showed me some of his campaign literature from the last time around where he was unfairly critical of Felix Arroyo, but my feeling (and hope) is that he has matured significantly since then.
  • Sam Yoon: Yoon seems to have the best chance of the newcomers/outsiders of actually getting elected, and he has been absorbed into the progressive fold with Arroyo, Chuck Turner, and Charles Yancey. That would be a nice block to have on the council. Certainly having the first Asian-American on the council would be a good thing as well.
  • John Connolly: Mostly, I just prefer him to the remaining four candidates. Although I’m a bit torn because I would also like to see more women on the council, I’m not convinced that Patricia White is the candidate to do it. Ed Flynn’s entire campaign platform seems to be “veteran,” and he opposes reproductive rights and same-sex marriage, so he’s (way) out. Steve Murphy lost my support when the only house in our neighborhood to sport large Bush/Cheney signs also posted Murphy signs. Michael Flaherty lost my support when he procedurally squashed a resolution that would have opposed the PATRIOT Act.

In any case, if you’re a Boston voter, be sure to participate tomorrow, whomever you choose to support.

Following up on last week’s excellent interview with Brent Scowcroft, the New Yorker featured a well written and thought provoking article on the Valerie Plame Wilson affair this week. The article doesn’t necessarily break any new ground, but it’s the best summary I’ve seen so far of the scandal. If you haven’t been following every twist and turn day by day, you’ll probably learn something new. Even if you have, the article puts the whole thing in perspective in a way I haven’t seen elsewhere.

The New England tourism industry has been hit hard this year by a weak showing of autumn colors. This Japanese Maple in our front yard has finally turned brilliantly red, though: