John’s Crawlspace

Some “pranksters” have attached a GPS to the Google Street View car that is currently making its way through the streets of Berlin. A group called Free Art & Technology (FAT) created a map that allowed people to track the car. It looks like this only lasted for a short period of time (before Google realized what was going on and removed the GPS device), but it’s funny to see the tables turned - Who is spying on who now?

I’m still blown away by how bad the soundtrack to Alice in Wonderland looks. It has popped into my head several times since I posted it yesterday… I honestly can’t think of a worse combination than Pete Wentz and Mark Hoppus. That sounds like my own private hell. The only two tracks that have any potential are at the very end of the album. Grace Potter is awesome (and smokin’ hot), and this live version of “White Rabbit” sounds pretty damn good.

I know I mentioned back in December that I was training for a half marathon. That was on January 10th. So in true jiglet dot net style, I’m only now reporting on it.

I didn’t have time to stretch in the beginning, because just like my last run, I was hanging out in a port-a-potty when the race started… I sprinted straight from the toilet over the starting line. Everyone wears running chips that register when going over the start and finish lines, so I could have slowed down a bit and stretched before beginning the race, but adrenaline got the best of me, and I didn’t want to be behind the pack… I would have definitely not paced myself in attempting to catch up with the rest of the runners.

Anyway, I really started hurting around the 11th or 12th mile of the run… I believe that this was due to my lack of stretching. I seriously considered stopping to stretch out because it felt like my knee was going to explode, but I was too close to the finish to stop. When the finish line became visible, the adrenaline became almost overwhelming, and I took off, passing a good 10 or so people. It felt awesome. The pic to the left was taken probably 10 seconds before the finish line, and I look like a robot or something, but you can tell I was really booking it.

My goal was to finish in under two hours, and I finished in 1:57:49, so I’m happy with that. My average pace was 8:59.2, and I came in 489/1056 in my gender (724/2442 overall). The reporting on my Nike+ is a little different, but that thing lies.

There is definitely something to be said for choosing the proper running music. I perfected my playlist over the course of several months during my training runs… Excerpts of Disco Biscuits jams provided the soundtrack for the majority of the half marathon, and they really kept me going.

I was pretty excited when someone sent me a link to a trailer for an upcoming Mega Man movie. You can see the trailer here.

A year of fail in review - There are some pretty ridiculous clips in this compilation. While watching it, I remembered back 3-4 years ago when I had hundreds of video clips (.mpg and .avi files) on my hard drive. People would upload them to directories and send them around on IRC and etc. I probably still have them all somewhere, but I’m sure every single one of them has made it’s way onto YouTube by now.

By the way, I thought that the Mega Man trailer was pretty awful. The trailer itself was boring and uneventful, so imagine watching the entire move… I had my hopes up, but I have zero desire to see that movie after watching that.

One last thing. Is this real? If so… I think I’m done with the internet for the day.

I’m pretty excited for Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland. Hopefully the track listing from the soundtrack isn’t indicative of the quality of the movie…

1. “Alice (Underground)” – Avril Lavigne
2. “The Poison” – The All-American Rejects
3. “The Technicolor Phase” – Owl City
4. “Her Name Is Alice” – Shinedown
5. “Painting Flowers” - All Time Low
6. “Where’s My Angel” - Metro Station
7. “Strange”- Tokio Hotel and Kerli
8. “Follow Me Down” - 3OH!3 featuring Neon Hitch
9. “Very Good Advice” - Robert Smith
10. “In Transit” - Mark Hoppus with Pete Wentz
11. “Welcome to Mystery” - Plain White T’s
12. “Tea Party” - Kerli
13. “The Lobster Quadrille” - Franz Ferdinand
14. “Running Out of Time” - Motion City Soundtrack
15. “Fell Down a Hole” - Wolfmother
16. “White Rabbit”- Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

How did this happen? I realize that often times, soundtracks are just used as promotional tools for movies, and most of these tracks probably (hopefully) won’t appear in the movie… But come on. Why didn’t Danny Elfman take care of scoring the movie? Some real doo-doo brown right here.

Check out live coverage of Apple’s latest product, the “iPad”, here.

I’m no Apple fanboy (I don’t even own an iPhone), but this thing sounds pretty cool.

The iPad was born out of the question “everyone uses a laptop and/or a smartphone - is there room for a third category device in the middle?” So far, the things that stood out to me about the iPad thus far (coverage is continuing):

• Multi-touch integration, “super responsive and super precise”
• On-screen keyboard. “It’s a dream to type on”
• Music… Itunes store integration
• View movies and TV shows in HD
• Half an inch thin, weighs 1.5 pounds. Thinner and lighter than any netbook on the market. 9.7 inch IPS display
• Powered by Apple’s A4 chip - “it screams”. 1GHz
• 16, 32, or 64 GB of flash storage.
• 802.11n, WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Accelerometer, compass, speaker, mic, dock connector
• “We’ve been able to achieve 10 hours of battery life… It’s got a month of standby life…”
• Compatible with all existing App Store apps. New SDK out today including iPad tools.
• An ebook reader (”iBooks”) that looks to rival the functionality of the Kindle.

“At $499 a lot of people can afford an iPad. 16GB is our base model. For 32GB it’s $100 more, and for $100 more than that you get $64GB. The 3G models cost another $130.”

The WiFi models will be shipping in 60 days, and the WiFi + 3G models in 90.

Update: Watching the launch was kind of cool, but once the hype wore off, I realized that I really don’t need one of these. My money would be spent much better elsewhere. If you’re up in the air about the iPad, check out Gizmodo’s 8 things that suck about the iPad.

Festival season is upon us!

I’m sure that at this point, this is the 5000th blog post to be made on the subject, but I don’t care. The lineup for this year’s Coachella Music Festival has made its way online. I’ve checked out lineups in the past, but since I was living on the east coast, I never paid too much attention… I was always happy with the Bonnaroos, Rothburys, Camp Biscos, etc. But with Indio being a 2 hour drive from where I am in LA, this is very doable, and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna have to go.

The highlights from the initial lineup (in my opinion) are: Faith No More, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Gorillaz, Orbital, Aeroplane, Baroness, Grizzly Bear, Phoenix, LCD Soundsystem, Yeasayer, Coheed & Cambria, Muse, Les Claypool, Mew, Porcupine Tree, Old Crow Medicine Show, Flying Lotus, Beach House, Julian Casablancas, Infected Mushroom, Deadmau5, The Specials, Fever Ray, The Avett Brothers, Hot Chip, the XX, Camera Obscura, Tokyo Police Club, Pretty Lights, Edwin Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Portugal the Man, Miike Snow, The Glitch Mob, and Rusko.

Faith No More and Gorillaz alone are almost enough to get me to go. Both seem like once-in-a-lifetime opportunities… And Faith No More is one of my all-time favorite bands.

Anyway, you can see the full lineup here. Having been to the Indio Polo Grounds before (for Phish’s Festival 8), I know how awesome this place is. So yeah, I’m most likely going to this. Anyone else excited about the lineup, and considering going?

Over the weekend, my roommate and I made a few trips to Home Depot and REI and built a rock climbing wall in our garage. It’s only 8′x8′, but it’s still pretty damn cool to be able to mess around on a wall without going to the climbing gym.

Our friend offered to paint a mural on the wall for us, and she asked me for ideas. So far, she has rejected the following ideas:

• A mural of Europe performing their 1986 hit, “The Final Countdown”.
• A nativity scene with a crucifixion scene behind it, and two robots arm wrestling in the foreground.
• A raptor pit with a helicopter at the top, firing automatic weapons at the raptors.
• A huge 9/11 tribute… These colors don’t run.
• A priest and an alter boy just about to kiss.
• Yoshi masturbating on a water bed.
• This.

I ran this by a former coworker who I knew would have some good ideas. Some of these are amazing:

• Man letting an elevator door close on his penis.
• A car driving a larger car.
• Old people laughing at teenagers attending a funeral.
• Disney Princesses in a sweatshop, being forced to make wicker chairs.
• A kid with Down Syndrome being stung by a bee.
• Bunch of Anteaters standing around burning oil drums, staring menacingly.

What do you guys think? Any ideas? How about a combination of everything mentioned above? Maybe everything mentioned above minus Yoshi on a waterbed?