Twittering Our Lives Away
I’m on Twitter now. I know. This seems like one of those trendy social networking sites that everybody flocks to, then abandons after a year or two — but it’s actually pretty fun. Since I don’t own a mobile, I’ll end up using it to post little observational bits that are too short to make it as a Scrubbles entry. Thanks to Bob for the heads-up.
Eight Years of Scrubbles.net
Psst. I never notice these things until they’ve gone and went, but over the past week this very weblog has entered its ninth year of operation. Happy birthday to Scrubbles.net! To celebrate the occasion, I put on my best metaphorical party dress and cherry picked a few of my favorite vintage (don’t call them old!) posts.
Looking back, I’d venture to say that Scrubbles.net’s legacy (if there is one) might be that it was among the earliest of the “look at the crap I found” type weblogs. It’s always been my mission to write about whatever ephemera or pop culture catches my fancy, with a distinct lack of trendiness, and hoping what amuses me amuses others. Gotta admit that sometimes I come across popular, more thematically focused blogs and wish I had even half their traffic. But in the end I’d rather have a small, loyal audience than a large, fickle one. “Love me, love my quirks” is pretty much the dictum around here.
So sit down, grab a piece of cake, and savor the results of trolling the archives going all the way back to the beginning (note that the pre-2006 entries suffer from broken style sheets, outdated links, and a general look of krep). Behold, “Scrubbles.net: The Greatest Hits”:
09/11/01 — September 11th, 2001. A personal observation of what happened over the course of that day. For some reason, I could only process the horror of what I was feeling through the lens of pop culture.
09/27/01 — A floor-by-floor analysis of the break rooms at work. Quirky, navel gazing posts like this were unusual in 2001 but would become more common as the years went on.
06/13/02 — Introducing Discards. A cache of found slides becomes a little-known corner of the Scrubbles.net universe.
10/27/02 — On the groovy costumes in UFO.
01/28/03 — A rant against Frida Kahlo. Honestly, I forgot about this. Didn’t know I hated Frida Kahlo so much!
01/09/03 — Influential songs in my life.
06/26/03 — Recollections of ’80s Movies Filmed in Arizona.
10/31/03 — Seven Things That Frightened Me As A Child. Fun.
02/02/04 — A Yuppie Teakettle for Everyone. Musing on design for the masses.
04/22/05 — Illustrations of Charles Harper. Ladies and gents, the most visited page at Scrubbles.net. Had I known, I would have included more examples. Unfortunately, other weblogs still link to this page even as I’m coming up with newer, better stuff. Attention, Charles Harper fans: please read my new stuff. Please.
05/30/05 — Captured on Film. Screen shots and commentary on the glamorous Manhattan of The Best of Everything (1958).
06/02/05 — Wonderland in Chrome. An unassuming little post that got linked on Boing Boing and drove hundreds of curious clicks. Who knew?
07/10/05 — Off the Treadmill. On learning to enjoy a downsized life. I need to write a sequel to this one.
01/07/06 — Artistry In Motion. More Harper discoveries, given a nicer setting.
02/14/06 — Blogging Tips from a D-Lister. Somebody had to find that advice useful.
03/26/06 — White Lace and Promises. Ruminations on twenty different versions of “We’ve Only Just Begun.” May have been Scrubbles.net’s definitive “jump the shark” moment.
05/12/06 — The Exploding Plastic Inevitable. The first time embedded video was used on the weblog.
01/01/07 — Another Year of Couch Sitting. A self-pitying reflection on 2006, the year of lowered expectations. 2007 and the first half of 2008 followed right along in the same vein.
01/22/07 — What Makes a Making Of. I thought this was a nice post. I worked hard on it. It generated zero links or comments!
06/04/07 — Cheap Thrill: Joan Crawford on The Sixth Sense. This was fun; I have to do more “Cheap Thrill” posts.
01/21/08 — Cheap Thrill: Children’s Books 1957-69. Speaking of which. This might be the most real estate hogging Scrubbles post ever.
04/23/08 — WDW Day One: Epcot Future World. In which I bore my dwindling audience to tears with an exhaustive, five-part travelogue.
07/04/08 — Riverside, July 3.
Weekly Mishmash: June 29-July 5
Endless Ocean. This game was pretty much what I expected — an open-ended scuba diving simulator on the Wii. One can go on dives, get to know fish better by petting them (yeah, that works in real life), deal with a whiny girl on deck, and perform tasks to earn scuba equipment and other rewards. Though the above-water graphics suck, the diving itself is an enveloping, scarily realistic experience. The fish and various undersea creatures behave so true to life it’s like being in a real aquarium. Though it didn’t knock my socks off, this is a beautiful excuse to chill out and relax.
The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947). It’s Rosalind Russel month at TCM — yay! We kicked it off with a viewing of this little-seen thriller which Russel made for Columbia in 1947. In a plot plugging into the Psychiatry Chic zeitgeist of the era, Russel plays a war widow haunted by the fact that her husband sacrificed his life so his comrades could go on to lead productive lives. On a quest to confront each veteran, she’s intercepted by reporter and part time lush Melvyn Douglas — a guy who also happens to be one of Russel’s targeted men. Although there’s nothing to write home about in the film’s hokey storyline (penned by the wonderfully named Lenore Coffee), Miss Russel does a great job being agitated and lovely at the same time, Douglas is solid and there are several effective, moody scenes. It certainly is an unusual film, structured around Russel’s dreamlike impressions of the various men — and when a young Sid Caesar shows up to mug away things decidedly turn surreal. It was a fun time, which is not something I could say about the other two cinematic efforts from this week.
Heading South (2005). A muddled and ugly little film about middle aged female tourists rendezvousing with Haitian prostitutes. Granted, someone could have made an interesting film dealing with that subject, but the direction is so bad that huge chunks of screen time just amble along aimlessly — which only makes the central women look even more pathetic. This film has nothing remarkable to say, the leading actress is a wishy-washy bore, and the talents of Charlotte Rampling are completely wasted. Avoid at all costs.
Three… Extremes (2004). A trio of stomach-churning and bizarre vignettes by the leading horror directors from Hong Kong, Japan and Korea. I love a good scary Asian movie every once in a while, but this shorter format really underscores how cliché-ridden much of this stuff is — the requisite Creepy Little Girl even shows up! Though all three films had their moments, none of them grabbed me. Kinda like the evil kid from The Grudge, come to think of it.
Weekly Mishmash: May 18-24
C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005). A French Canadian film about a dysfunctional family of five brothers growing up in the ’60s and ’70s — centering on Zac, the twee, self-possessed brother with a supernatural “gift” for healing and a serious Bowie fixation. The first 45 minutes are brilliant and darkly funny, calling to mind Amelie, but in the end it dragged on too long and seemed a bit “meh” to me. I was expecting a penetrating gay-themed coming of age tale, but in fact the central character is bisexual and the film dwells more on how the other characters perceive him. The soundtrack and period settings are great and it’s worth a look if you like screwy family films, but don’t expect to be blown away.
Critter Roundup. A title from Nintendo’s new WiiWare line in which you’re a farmer who has to fence in various animals (shades of the classic arcade game Qix). Not worth $10, but fun in its own modest way. Might be the only videogame in which one can get killed by bumping into a chicken.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). “You’ve never seen Temple of Doom?,” Christopher said to me recently. Yep, I’ve seen films #1 and 3 in the original trilogy, but this one passed me by until recently. Why it took 24 years is beyond me, but now I can see why it was never very attractive to me — Kate Capshaw and that Asian kid. Really, could they have found two more shrill, annoying actors to play those parts? I believe Raiders was about as perfect as an action-adventure can possibly be, but with this one Spielberg clearly dumbed things down into a loud, gross kiddie flick. The movie is okay if you watch it with lowered expectations (it’s beautifully mounted with some ace set pieces), but really the only reason this one still gets love today because many saw it at an impressionable age. Nostalgia rears its ugly head again!
Johnny Belinda (1948). Never saw this one before, either, and it was much better than I believed it would be. For a ’40s studio film, it’s refreshing both in the abundance of outdoor photography and its honest, unflinching treatment of rape. Jane Wyman is excellent as the deaf, childlike Belinda, but I think the part could have been done just as well by a dozen other actresses working at that time. The supporting cast, all of ‘em, are also excellent.
My Muxtape Is Chullin’
I have been so busy lately, getting some extra work in before taking the dream trip next week — but I did have time to do a little fun thing last night. I went to Muxtape.com and set up a little playlist at scrubbles.muxtape.com (thanks to Jonny). This playlist is the result of an early ’90s female R&B fixation I was on earlier this week, and it’ll keep me briefly hopping for the inevitable more work later on. It’s phat, it’s da bomb, Bill Bellamy digs, peace out.
That ‘Screen Saver’ Look
A new Two Bunnies and a Duck hatched today … and now for something completely different. I was rearranging shelves in my bedroom yesterday and came across a few stowed-away items that have been saved since my first computer came into my life in 1992. First is the sheet of Apple Computer decals which came packaged with my Mac IIci machine. Very rainbowy. Second are a pair of items from Berkeley Systems, makers of the popular-in-the-day After Dark screen saver. An ad for More After Dark carries all the hallmarks of clunky early desktop publishing — including a garish color gradation. Finally there’s a brochure where one could purchase a variety of After Dark attire, modeled by the fashionistas pictured below. Flying toasters away!
Hulu Party
It always happens — instead of doing something productive, I waste away the day on something silly. In today’s case, I visited Fox and NBC-Universal’s Hulu.com to find out if it lives up to the hype. Although I didn’t look into the movies (something about sitting on the computer for two solid hours makes my butt hurt), they do have a decent selection of old and new TV shows. The shows are presented with a nicely designed, iTunes-like interface, unedited and with a few brief sponsored ads where the commercial breaks should go. Image quality was pretty good but it ran jerkily (maybe that’s due to my weak web browser). I watched Bewitched‘s second season Halloween episode, with a little girl who looked awfully familiar until the credits revealed she was a pre-Brady Bunch Maureen McCormick. How fun. When they add some more cool older shows, I will have to waste yet another day there.
It’s All in the Game
I still consider myself a gaming neophyte, but from reading the reviews at various sites I could tell that Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros Treasure looked like the kind of quirky, under-the-radar sort of thing that I might enjoy. Although the name leaves something to be desired (honestly, it felt embarassing asking the guy at Wal-Mart for “Zack & Wiki”), it’s actually a fun puzzler with a challenging edge that you’d never expect from looking at the game’s kiddie oriented cover art. In the game, you are a boy pirate named Zack who, with the help of an oddly hovering monkey named Wiki, journeys to various settings in order to piece together the golden treasure of the intimidating yet friendly pirate Barbaros (all the while avoiding the aminelike pirate queen and her purple-outfitted goons). OK, the story’s a bit lame, the characters are cardboard-thin, and Wiki’s Japanese schoolgirl voice is grating, but I tended to forget that while gaping at the lush visuals and background music. Did I mention that the game is weirdly Japanese in a way that I can’t put my finger on? As in when Zack is in the presence of other living things, you can wave the wiimote and Wiki turns into a bell (?) — transforming whatever animal you’re next to into an object (??) which may or may not be useful in your quest. Weird and cool at the same time! The video below pretty much echoes my feelings about this gem of a game. (buy at Amazon.com).
Alias Smith and Jones
Steven Heller’s recent Design Observer rant over bloggers using aliases is less interesting for the post itself than the heated discussion it prompted. Heller’s basic gist is that a designer (or anyone) who uses an online nom de plume is either cowardly or behind the times.
I’ve always been up front about using my real name. Scrubbles only came into play because “The Matt Hinrichs Blog” sounds too unmemorable. Having a somewhat unusual, sometimes unpronounceable last name may be an annoyance in real life, but it’s an asset online (when it comes to commenting on forums or weblogs, however, only the first name is used). Although some may assume I use my full name for business purposes so potential clients might think (erroneously) that I’m related to the famous Kit Hinrichs, really it’s just me so that’s the logical choice. The name is unique and sticks out in a crowded field. And yet — if you Google my name the first result is the IMDb page for some actor whose sole credit is playing “School Kid” in Napoleon Dynamite. I’ve also discovered another Matt Hinrichs who blogs using his real name, weirdly enough — although any person with half a brain would notice that my blogging doppelgänger is an entirely different person. I really admire Steven Heller’s expertise and own a full shelf of his Chronicle Art Deco compilation books, his argument in this case is weak, weak, weak.
Tennis Injury
Today I invited my parents over to the house for lunch and to give the Wii a try. We played a few games of Wii Sports Bowling and they, of course, had a blast. Before leaving, my mom — an avid tennis buff — wanted to give tennis a spin. We were playing a game of doubles when she tried to do a far-reaching racquet swing, lost her footing, and took a tumble right there in my living room. Shocked and in distress, me and Dad went to her aid. She hit her head on the TV stand and had a big cut in her upper lip. After we applied a wet towel, my dad took her to the emergency room. I felt so guilty! Later that afternoon I called her up to find her in better spirits. She ended up getting seven stitches in her lip (the doctor said it was his first-ever Wii related injury), but even worse is that one of her front teeth fell out and the other one is loose. Now they have to wait until Monday to see a dentist. I was worried and super-apologetic to Mom, but she took it in stride.
Actually, this incident may have shook me up more than them. My parents are in their 60s, retired but still young enough to fully enjoy life. They’ve always been very loving and supportive of me and Christopher, which really compounded my broken heart at seeing her fall today. Needless to say, I don’t think it will deter them from further Wii playing since they like their fun. They love gaming and travel and routinely go to Vegas for Casino hopping. This year, they plan to go to Washington D.C. for the AARP conference along with a stay in Colonial Williamsburg. And in April they’re taking me to Walt Disney World to fulfill a dream I’ve had for decades to see that park. They’re gonna want to try out every ride with me, but that’s still a few months away. For now I’m delivering all my best wishes to Mom for a speedy recovery.
It’s All About Me
Because I’m a total narcissist at heart, I love to troll the web to find out when and for what reason people might be reading scrubbles.net. Two such occurrences happened this month that deserve mentioning here. First off is Julie Jackson’s interview with Indie Fixx, in which she sweetly mentioned this very weblog as one of her favorite reads. Julie’s an awesome crafter with a wicked wit as seen in her latest brainstorm, Kitty Wigs (not to mention being a great friend of mine). Thanks, Julie! Our other sighting come through the courtesy of Brad Graham, whose wry musings on The BradLands have been a steady favorite of mine for (gulp) seven and a half years now. Brad listed scrubbles on his Favorite Things on the Web 2007 list — which to me is infinitely cooler than being on Oprah’s list between a DVD-equipped refrigerator and a CD by Josh Groban (a singer that only sexually repressed middle aged ladies could love). Thanks, Brad!
He Had to Take a Wii
All right, I promise never to make puns based on the word “Wii” again! Mark Morford’s account of getting a Wii in San Francisco was surprisingly stress-free and not at all a nightmarish free-for-all that makes you fear for the state of humanity.
I’m telling ya, we’re not hardcore gamers or anything, but we’re totally into the Mercury Meltdown Revolution. Christopher and myself are in a bit of a competition to see who can get the furthest guiding that little blob of goo through various challenges. This is something I never would’ve predicted a year ago.
A Mii for Every Mood
It’s been a few days since the Wii arrived, so now I can safely say that I love it. Although we’ve been logging some gameplay on the console, I have to confess that I’ve spent the most time on the Mii Channel, where you can create little avatars in the spirit of a virtual paper doll set. The first one I did was of the Hollywood costume designer Edith Head. Then I made Miis of Diana Ross, Mahatma Ghandi, Lucille Ball, David Bowie, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. It would be a gas to pair off Bette and Joan in a round of Wii Sports Boxing.
Speaking of Wii Sports, that game definitely lives up to its reputation for fun and accessibility. The controls are nicely responsive, and I love getting up and moving around during gameplay. Even Christopher got into a few bowling matches. Favorites are, in order: bowling (amazingly realistic), baseball, tennis, golf (pretty but simple), and boxing (can’t tell what I’m doing half the time). WarioWare: Smooth Moves has also proven itself as a lot of fun, easy to get into, but perhaps better enjoyed with a larger group than just myself. Playing something like that by yourself is kinda beside the point, but I liked the weird Japaneseishness of the whole thing and being surprised by whatever crappy looking minigame they throw my way. I also just received The Simpsons Game. Despite bad reviews, I was holding out hope that this would be good. It’s not very good. Despite having the self-awareness and humor to parody other games, it’s a fairly typical deal where you basically run and jump from place to place collecting things. The controls are not very responsive and it feels secondhand, like it doesn’t really belong on the Wii. It’s moderately amusing and I will stick with it at least until reaching the “Mr. Sparkle” level.
My only gripe with this thing is that the games cost too much. Then again I can remember Asteroids for the Atari 2600 costing thirty bucks 25 years ago, so maybe fifty bucks a pop for an exponentially complex game is pretty cheap. The next game I’m expecting will be the puzzler Mercury Meltdown Revolution, only $17.99 at Amazon. Should that one be a disappointment, I won’t feel so cheated anyhow. Oh, I have to check out stuff on the Virtual Console someday, too. Whee.
The Search Is Over
What’s your opinion on videogames and patience? The culmination of months of saving has finally happened — I’m getting a Nintendo Wii! It’s mind boggling that, 11 months later, those things are still hard to come by (unless you’re willing to pay $100 more on eBay, which I’m not). Not a fan of camping out in front of stores, I used the Wii Tracker to find something online. It took several days of reloads and several failed attempts, but on Friday morning a small window opened where Circuit City had a bundled package available. It included a Wii console, remote, nunchuck controller and a choice of game. I furiously completed my order before it closed 10 minutes later — success! The package should be shipping early next week.
The bundled games Circuit City had to pick from were WarioWare: Smooth Moves, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Madden NFL 07, Mario Party 8, some soccer game and a Pokémon game. I picked WarioWare since it looked like the most fun, easy to learn and best reviewed. What kind of (Wii or not) games do you like? Out of the ones available, I could think of only a few I’d want to own — The Simpsons Game and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Trilogy both look really cool. I think I’d want to check out Ninjabread Man because it has the greatest name and concept ever. Suggestions, anyone?
Best of Times, Worst of Times
By now you’ve probably heard that the New York Times is discontinuing its Times Select subscription service and opening up their digital archives. The coolest part is the free online access to all of the copyright-free articles the paper published between 1851 and 1922. Although Jason Kottke recently posted links to some of the Times’ more notable past articles, the archive’s real fun lies in digging around and finding stories that represented the everyday news as it was 100 or so years ago. Once you get past the arcane writing styles and dense columns of type, it’s interesting to find out that, say, famed actress Maude Adams invented a new method of stage lighting. Fancy that — the Times devoted a whole half a page and thousands of words to that bit of news in 1908.
In my limited browsing I’ve noticed that some stories have a tone of quaint bemusement, others play like an Onion parody of turn-of-the-century reportage. Supposed Corpse Much Alive, printed in the May 12, 1899 edition, sports a little of both:
“Mackie celebrated some event in Irish history with too much ardor and appetite …” Something tells me that this unknown reporter, were he young and alive in 2007, would have a kickass weblog.
