Warning: geek entry, you'll want to bail now if you don't care about this kind of thing

I knew I'd posted a tweet with a link in it but for the life of me I couldn't remember what it was or when I'd even posted it. Manually searching through my timeline was a monumental pain in the arse and I gave up in disgust. There had to be a better way.

So I wrote one. tweetlinkr is a very simple Perl program that retrieves your Twitter timeline, examines each tweet for the presence of a link, and prints any that are found to screen.

And while I did find what I was looking for, I really didn't care anymore as I was far more entertained writing code to talk to the Twitter API. Which, I might add, is incredibly easy thanks to the heroic effort put into the Net::Twitter Perl module.

When I get around to it I think it might be cool to store all the links I've posted to Twitter in some kind of 'these must be interesting because I posted them to Twitter' kind of storage/viewing thingy. Another project for another day.

I'm not sure these geek posts really belong here. But I don't really know where else to put them. So here they'll go. For now.

I saw a young homeless man begging for change outside a gas station today. I felt bad because I didn't have any money on me. "Do you take debit cards?" is probably not what he wants to hear. So I offered my lackluster apology and walked on by.

When I was younger I used to go into London on the train. I remember putting my hands in my pockets for the never ending parade of people asking for change in the tube stations. I never gave that much, just a few pence here and there. But it felt like I was helping. For whatever that was worth.

Nowadays I struggle with the decision to give anything. I know they could be scamming. After a hard day's begging, they could go get in their car and drive home to their family. And deep down I guess I know that my change probably isn't going towards food. I dunno, perhaps I can live with that. Perhaps today is the day they won't go hungry. Or something.

It rains in Phoenix. Not very often, but it does rain. Usually our monsoon season accounts for the majority of our wet weather and adds plenty of thunder, lightning, and wind into the mix as well. Some of the storms are really quite impressive. The gutters at the front of our house mind you, slightly less so.

You see, the architect of our house was frustrated with that age old problem of rain being directed from your roof to the ground in an inconspicuous area at the side of the house. He decided to fix it. Because, obviously, that design is a bit crap. What everyone wants is for their gutters to direct the runoff water onto the path right in front of their doorway. That makes so much more sense.

I'd say he succeeded admirably. For ensuring that people coming and going have the optimum chance of getting completely soaked is exactly what you want from your gutters after all.

Today John Gruber wrote a small piece about Apple retiring the classic iPod next week.

Dan Frommer wonders whether Apple is set to eliminate the hard-drive based iPod Classic next week. I wouldn't be shocked if they did, but I bet they won't. The iPod Classic is like the Mac Pro -- not something that sells in huge numbers compared to Apple's mass market products, but it fills a lucrative and important niche. Some people really do want 160 GB of music in their pocket.

I count myself among those "some people" and I really hope they don't get rid of it. I love having my entire music collection with me at all times. I never know what I'll be in the mood for on any given day and being able to scroll through everything is so handy.

Now that I think about it, I probably couldn't go back to anything less. Well, I wouldn't want to go back to anything less anyway. Sure I hate having to carry around two gadgets but until Apple make a 160GB iPhone, that's what I'll do.

I grew up in a small town somewhere just a little south and just a little east of "the middle of England". When I first started driving, it was all about little country roads. Then slightly bigger roads into the slightly bigger towns. Then bigger trips up and down the Motorway to cities far and wide.

The first time I drove in Cambridge was an eye opening experience. The first time I drove in London was an eye opening experience. These were not the little country roads anymore. Before long I was shouting and giving obscene gestures to other drivers along with the best of them. Just like you did. It's a driver's rite of passage. Or something.

I left the shores of dear old Blighty to live in Italy for a couple of years and realized British drivers were amazing, stellar, perfectionists. Driving in Italy amounted to what I can best describe as total anarchy. A stop sign does not actually mean stop. A fact I learned from a rather nice Italian chap who gave me some polite advice after almost running into the back of me. I'm pretty sure it was polite advice, he gave me hand signals and seemed very enthusiastic.

The big jump across the pond followed and I began my driving adventure in the US. One thing I learned almost immediately, drivers in America are aggressive. Well, maybe I should qualify that. Drivers in Phoenix are aggressive. The first time I tried the simple task of merging onto a Freeway was all rather entertaining. The idiot trying to have me take part in an awesome-off by refusing to let me in actually taught me a valuable lesson though. There's no such thing as driver's etiquette here. It's every driver for themselves.

Fast forward to today and I don't get stressed out about the driving here at all. Life is too short to let your blood boil about things so trivial. Now I just assume everyone around me is a homicidal maniac ready to flip out at any time and I let them get on with it. Ignorance really is bliss. Don't pay any attention to the douche nice driver next to you, in front of you, or behind you. Just go with the flow, turn that music up, and smile.

When I was a DM wearing teenager* I read NME religiously. It was the absolute best way of finding out who was touring, reading album reviews, and getting caught up on the "alternative music scene" in England. Since then I've promptly forgotten all about it. In fact, until today I didn't even realize NME was still around.

But around it is and they've put together what they think are the best 50 new bands of 2010. They've even created a soundcloud playlist of the artists. I was listening to some of it this morning getting ready for work and to be honest, I bailed after 5 tracks as I hadn't heard anything decent.

But I'm going to go back to it tomorrow morning. In fact I think as part of my morning ritual this week I'll probably listen to five songs every day. Just to give it a fair shot. There has to be something in there worthy of my time. Right? I'm so so out of the British music scene these days it's not even funny.

* I still wear DMs every single day by the way.

Yesterday I was listening to my less than ten playlist on my iPod. It's my way of getting caught up on songs that I haven't really listened to all that much. It's fun especially when songs by artists you didn't even remember you had soak your eardrums. If they're tracks from your childhood, the memories come flooding back and you can't help but soak up the nostalgia.

As I listened I started wondering whatever happened to some of these artists. Not in the sense of "where are they now?" because some still make music today. No. More in the sense of "whatever happened to them being good?" kind of thing. They had their golden era and their new material ranges from meh to just a little bit crap.

Prince

Remember when Prince used to be good? No? Never a Prince fan in your youth? Well I was when I was a teenager and saw him twice in concert. Now whenever songs like Raspberry Beret or Little Red Corvette come on the radio I grin and have a bit of a sing along. As you do. My iPod dutifully presented Purple Rain and Sign O' The Times yesterday. Both excellent songs. Classics that I hadn't listened to in years. A stark contrast to his latest song that I had the misfortune to catch on the radio the other day. I think I said "oh dear" out loud and changed to station about half way through.

Erasure

I used to love Erasure. Anything Vince Clarke touched in the 80s (Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure) was something special. At one point they were my favorite group. I had all the abums, singles, and posters on my wall. They were actually the first proper band I saw live when they toured The Innocents album in 1988. As I listened to Leave Me To Bleed yesterday I was like "hello, old friend" as I was instantly transported back to being a kid listening to that album in my bedroom. While they still make albums (twelve studio albums to date), nothing can compare to the first three. I've given their newer albums a try but I don't like them at all.

U2

U2 are an odd beast aren't they? They're still cranking out the albums, playing to record audiences around the world, and are arguably as popular today as they ever were. But I have such a hard time getting into their newer stuff. I've tried. But in all honesty I haven't really been all that into anything they've done since Achtung Baby. In my opinion, their last truly good album. Yesterday A Sort Of Homecoming came on which prompted me to listen to The Unforgettable Fire in it's entirety. Both that album and their followup, The Joshua Tree, are their masterpieces. Truly their golden era.

So, to conclude then.

I dunno, maybe those artists still are good. Maybe it's just that my taste in music has evolved over the years. Sure I still like the older songs but maybe that's because of the nostalgia factor. Because they represent the soundtrack to my childhood. Would I still like those classic songs if I'd never heard of the band before and they released them today? Impossible to say. Would make for an interesting test though.

Now, if you'll excuse me I've got to get back to listening to Iron Maiden's new album.

I install quite a lot of games on my iPhone. Some come, some go. After a little cleanup yesterday, here are the ones I decided to keep.

Of those, I'd say I've played Plants vs Zombies the most, closely followed by Doodle Jump, and Orbital. The two newest games are Leap Sheep - which is hellishly addictive and The Incident.

Do you game on your phone? Which are your current faves?