Elusive 100.

I tend to play once every two months or so, sometimes even longer. I’d like to break 100 before the end of the year, but that won’t happen unless I practice putting on actual greens instead of the living room carpet. More often than not, my reads are laughably off target.

R43

I submitted a few patches to Beagle several months ago, but keeping up to speed with its development was a bit overwhelming (especially in light of the very talented, high-profile developers working on it). So I didn’t really think that counted. But after spending the last 6 months familiarizing myself with Ruby, I finally feel comfortable becoming an active contributor. I just made my first CVS commit today for R43, a Ruby library for accessing 43 Things’ web service API.

Book recommendation for applying CSS

Developing web applications with Ruby on Rails goes hand-in-hand with web standards. So I figured if I really wanted to use the framework in all its trendy glory, I should also spend some time familiarizing myself with XHTML and CSS. CSS is simple enough to learn in just a couple of days if you’ve ever hand-coded HTML. A pocket reference can come in handy, but the real gem is The Zen of CSS Design by Dave Shea and Molly E. Holzschlag. CSS Zen Garden has some incredibly tasteful designs and the submission count is quickly growing. The book describes 36 designs, highlights image and text layout techniques, and offers helpful insight on typography, color palette choice, and overall style. Not to mention the source code for all submissions are freely available for perusal.

Buy the book. Use the source.

Someone hand me the FuckIt(TM) stamp

Long hair is annoying and high-maintenance. I have enough to deal with as it is, so I cut it short. Perhaps I’ll revisit this in six months.

In the Studio: The Commission (Part 1)

I’m back at the mixing console again for The Commission’s first full length album.

I’m pleased that I’m getting to use a pair of AKG C451Bs as drum overheads that weren’t available to me when recording their demo two months ago. So far, I’ve spent two weeks with Brad, the drummer, and the difference on the cymbals and ambience is remarkable. Jay, the primary songwriter and one of the guitarists, has taken a liking to my collection of Menatone pedals (Blue Collar, King of the Britains, Top Boost in a Can – but particularly the Blue Collar). They are sublime with just about any clean, chimey, EL34-based tube amp. And as a set, they’re incredibly versatile. We’ll probably be using them on a majority of the guitar tracks.

Unfortunately, my mixing console has developed a strange intermittent clicking sound in the output stage. However, I’ve discovered today that it could be a RAM buffer issue. Hopefully, tweaking a few settings at the driver level will solve the problem. For the moment, it’s merely an annoyance.