Weekly Twitter Digest for 2009-02-16

• My entry consists of Breyer’s dissent in Medellin v. Texas, retitled “Hey, Maybe Y’all Should Stop Executing Foreigners.” http://is.gd/juUH #
• Excitement is building: how long does it usually take for Trudeau to depict new presidents for the first time? #newdoonesburyreader #
• A friend just said something thought-provoking: could FOSS be explained like public works spending? #
• Eight HLS students spend five minutes collaboratively editing the Bill of Rights in real time. Result: http://is.gd/iYoM #iif #
• For those who are new to Twitter, meet the Fail Whale: http://is.gd/WCm #iif #
• … and, three months earlier and not fake, was http://tinyurl.com/d365j #iif #
• Just in case anybody hasn’t seen it: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40990 #iif #
• #iif how many meme trackers does Twitter really need? These people should be contributing to debian instead… #
• The Airborne Toxic^H^H^H^H^H^HTasty Event has been diagnosed: http://ping.fm/F7LGk #
• Progress still slow on learning piano, but I’ll be damned if I can’t while away twenty minutes adding organ riffs to Wilco songs. Rawk. #
• Been digging this for a while; surprisingly relistenable: Panzah Zandahz’ Radiohead remixes, feat Doom, Ghostface, et al. http://is.gd/irYM #
• My life has taken on new purpose, as I join the hunt to find an original print of the World’s Greatest Beatles Photo: http://is.gd/ijRY #
• I’d taken the cure and had just gotten through, er, a minor foodborne illness (http://is.gd/iiiC) (nawb’seriously, feeling better today) #
• No new deafness
  No self-reference
  No cults and
  No false stands #
• An hour into #iif #
• Nasty all-day upset stomach on the one day everyplace smells like greasy pizza and wings. Ugggggggggggh. #
• The 2005 edition of this textbook is quaintly upbeat about mortgage securitization. #
• Brought $200 worth of guitar electronics back from the dead — today’s looking pretty good, too. #
• Two Vietnamese sammiches in my fridge, Obama in the White House, and two more minutes of daylight every passing day. Things are looking up. #
• Gmail’s new offline function is fine, I guess, but for my money the new killer Labs feature is the “Send and archive” button. Try it! #
• And there you have it — the Constitution is essentially memcached. And Twitter… needs a constitutional convention? #
• Madison, Federalist 10: “Dudes, America 1.0 is fine, but it won’t scale. Without republicanism, we’ll get the Fail Whale of faction.” #
• Somebody oughta write an iTunes script that averages the release year of all your music and tells you how old your taste is. Me: prolly ’89. #
• Steve Miller Band’s Greatest Hits, 1974-78. An elegant album from a more civilized age. #
• Mint julep update, day two: two cups of simple syrup and fresh mint sprigs infusing in the fridge all day. I’m expecting good things. #
• Saturday night is mint julep night! And “say ‘tarnation’ as much as possible” night! The two are not unrelated! #
• With Bush gone, who can I get righteously angry at? How about this guy, who’s utterly mis-ranked every Beatles song: http://is.gd/h1Nf #
• Now that Street View has expanded to rural areas, I think it’s only right that someone port Desert Bus to Google Maps. (http://is.gd/gVbx) #
• Doin’ taxes — in other words, time to send Obama another check… #
• (We’re at 4 on the Google Suggest index… #thedepressionisdepressing) #
• There are a lot of economic measures, sure, but I only trust typing “food” into Google Suggest and seeing how far down “food stamps” comes. #
• Last tweet inspired momentary thrill when I thought I’d coined the term “fop rock.” Turns out Adam Ant beat me to it. As usually. #
• Can’t believe it’s 2009 and Pas/Cal still never really got big. You owe it to yourself to listen to Detroit’s dandiest: http://is.gd/gMyR #
• Hey Chief Justice Roberts — weren’t you s’posed to be an originalist? http://is.gd/gFp3 #
• Listening to Appalachian Spring, feeling pretty good about my country #
• At times like this, I wish I could put it better than “wow.” #
• Thank god Bush goes to bed at ten every night — otherwise I’d be worried about midnight pardons #byebush #
• Observed MLK Day in my usual fashion: by being nonviolent. Mostly. #
• Filling out my last FAFSA ever… whoa #
• Band idea: heavier than Mastodon, more Eastern Bloc than Gogol Bordello. Name: Mamutica. (http://is.gd/gqhB) #
• People: you still have 32 hours to perfect your “Barack O. is President” parody. People, I expect big things. http://is.gd/gq7f #
• Band idea: high harmony, considerable beards. Preferably from Portland. Name: Gordon and the Strict Calvinists. #
• Just submitted my Negotiation Workshop outline to the outline bank. Its contents in full: “Talk about interests, dumbass.” #
• Band idea: that skinny necktie, dark new wave revival sound. Name: The Financiers. Ooh, or The Hoteliers! #
• Got rickrolled the other day — it felt kind of charming and nostalgic, like getting sprayed with a seltzer bottle. #
• Please excuse us; the Cocteau Twins and I are sharing a moment… what? #
• Oh, so *that’s* what “abomination” means! http://is.gd/feYd #
• On that note, ask me about Japanese free jazz. #
• Note the problem with Amazon wishlists: your friends can’t actually tell which items are only there to impress your friends. #
• Never seen such a blatant “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature” as I’m seeing from Things re: importing: http://is.gd/f7ny #
• Forgot that Facebook adds an “is” to your status. Next time I’ll do it in a way that makes clear that no, Dan Ray is *not* fucking UPS. #
• Fucking UPS. #
• methinks Black Flag sounds a little, er, legalized: http://is.gd/eNiZ (it’s Damage_d_, and it’s a decent album, especially for three bucks) #
• So that’s what’s going on in that one Tortoise song: some vintage, cussin’ Dodgers: http://is.gd/eKFN. (My guess was an obscure mob flick.) #
• Tracking what I eat using Twitter: http://www.tweetwhatyoueat.com/diary/danray. For shame, 680 calorie breakfast! #
• Related: apparently the first use of “Michigander” was Abraham Lincoln’s. So there’s that. http://is.gd/ezQQ #
• My fave law review edit to date: “As one myself, I can assure you that the more common demonym is ‘Michigander.’” #
• Lending my Google juice to an annoying problem: how to make Spotlight search Mac OS X system files: http://is.gd/ezcF #
• Someone oughtta set up an Idiocracy fan site at costco.edu. #
• The übertweet: “Shit — what was that funny thing I said at the bar that I said I would post to Twitter when I got home?” #
• Reminding you that if you liked it, you shoulda put a ring on it #
• I mean, once you’ve called Clamato into existence, why *wouldn’t* you then mix it with beer? #
• Now that 2008 is over, I can say without fear of contradiction that Bon Iver’s new EP features the year’s most unexpected use of Autotune. #
• Mark my words: by 2108, “the throwing of the shoes” will be a whimsical tradition for every outgoing president. #
• Yeah, but what if saying “yes” would itself be a lie? …Wait, what? Those are different movies? #
• BOS->DTW->FNT #
• Feeling pretty let down by the dan dan noodles, considering… #
• Exams: done! #
• Never felt more cultured: in the Hark, I was able to name two of the jazz standards the piano dude was playing. And only one was “Take Five” #
• I’ve probably done 90% of my best thinking in the past five years while listening to Steve Reich’s “Music For 18 Musicians” #
• Holy crap, it’s not mistagged — that really is late-era Nirvana playing “My Best Friend’s Girl” #
• Attn all: I have discovered the platonic ideal of alt-country band names, and it is Rural Electrification. #
• Today’s deep thought: at the base of it, are these people any different than Pitchfork’s writers? http://is.gd/bGke #
• Love the WSJ alt-text for its banner graphic: “Need a Real Sponsor Here.” Hey, bud, it’s tough times all over. http://is.gd/bET3 #
• “[T]he perfect stocking stuffer for the SARAH in your life.” I…. disagree. http://is.gd/bDFq #
• Resolved: life’s too short for reduced-fat corned beef hash. #
• Well, that’s confirmed: Gmail Goggles doesn’t suit its intended purpose.

  Or maybe I’m the drunken master of arithmetic. #

• (Oh, and… I called it, four months to spare: http://ping.fm/1k1Ro) #
• Yaaay! (RT @zittrain big lessig news http://ping.fm/MsTKQ) #
• Attn others: this concludes the list of witty things I have to say concerning the surnames of people from Chicago. I think. #
• Attn lawyers who are also Chicago sports fans: you should probably start a blog called “Obiter Ditka.” #
• Oh hey, @photomatt’s not trying to impress us with obscure jazzmen this time! ;) http://is.gd/b5OG (the new release is nice, too.) #
• Bluh-goy’-a-vitch. How’bout that. #
• Blowing the dust off flat surfaces in my room… which is almost like cleaning… which is almost like studying for exams… #
• Organizing my piles of stuff on the floor… which is almost like studying for exams… #
• Listing my textbooks online… which is almost like studying for exams… #
• Don Caballero song just stuttered for a second, and I honestly wasn’t sure if it was a scratch on the CD or part of the song. Che is god. #
• Optimizing my Twitter background… which is *almost* like studying for exams #
• Warming up to “Dear Science.” I think TVotR avoided the Interpol trap, wherein a band with only one “sound” can only have one good album. #
• Why does everybody remember “Squeeze Box,” but nobody remembers “Substitute?” Early, power pop Who >>>> Late, arena rock Who. #
• Things are gonna change, I can feel it (bum-ba-dum-ba-dum): http://is.gd/apOA #
• How do they determine the order of the “Following” thumbnails in the righthand column? #
• new guitar day! new guitar day! new guitar daaaaaaay! #
• McCain’s election night event: “Like a funeral for a family member nobody liked, who died owing everyone money.” http://is.gd/9Yum #
• The idea that someone might visit HLS for the architecture is… surprising: http://ping.fm/mHAnJ #
• New favorite typo: “anticircumnavigation.” Keeps latter-day Magellans from hacking encryption. #
• I was happier before I learned that this nonprofit exists: http://ping.fm/GsWed #
• I take back all the nasty things I’ve said about Microsoft — live.com just bought me a new guitar! #
• Well, three hours later, 69 Love Songs is over. It’s… about like I remembered it: one disc’s worth of great tracks. #
• “There are two kinds of people a), my love and I b), others.” Let no one deny Merritt & Co. have some good lines. #
• “Love is like a bottle of gin” — how could they have forgotten “When it gets empty, it sure ain’t worth a damn?” (http://is.gd/8UiL) #
• Ah, “Acoustic Guitar.” No one would deny this is a beautiful song, pretty well executed. #
• My real problem with the Magnetic Fields is that I sound ridiculous trying to sing along. My love of Johnny Cash overcame the same handicap. #
• Physically recoiling every time one of the Korg-based tracks come up… though “Long-Forgotten Fairytale” isn’t one of the worst of them #
• I tried to get @jessicahorvath to like “Washington, D.C.” when I was there in 2005, but she sort of hated it. True story. #
• Finding myself humming “Promises of Eternity.” This is a step in the right direction. #
• Alright, disc 2 is realllly dragging. #
• “Very Funny” sounds like it came from The Lion King. Which would make it Elton John singing. Which makes sense. #
• I don’t know… I think I remembered why I never listened to this album much… #
• I remembered liking “When My Boy Walks Down the Street.” I was wrong. #
• “Love Is Like Jazz,” and apparently jazz is a lot like a Tom Waits pastiche. #
• “Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing” gets my approval for its not-surprising shout-out to Lansing. #
• Wait, it’s over? 0:59? And you replaced it with a ukulele and some gratuitous analogies? I see where YOUR priorities are, Stephen Merritt! #
• Ah, “Boa Constrictor”: the girl’s singing and there’s acoustic guitars again. Proceed. #
• You know how people say the White Album should have been cut down to one record? They’re wrong — it’s 69 (23?) Love Songs. #
• “You scare me out of my wits / when you do that shih— tzu.” Congrats, Stephen Merritt, you’ve written the “My Dingaling” of the nineties. #
• Oh man, this album art is right out of 1999. Can’t you imagine the typeface down the left side saying “CHUMBAWAMBA?” #
• “I Think I Need a New Heart” — decent! Never really noticed this one, for whatever reason. It’s got a hook, which is welcome in these parts. #
• Okay, so the bunny rabbits one was probably filler. Sixty-nine songs, they can’t all be hits. #
• Okay, now we’re getting to the good stuff. I’ve always liked “Luckiest Guy…” I guess it’s one of the more immediately likable tracks. #
• “Reno Dakota” sounds like Diablo Cody’s sister. #
• I’ve heard this album at least a few times; how did I never hear the word “unboyfriendable?” I admit, it was sort of cute. #
• Oh, what the hell, I’m hereby liveblogging 69 Love Songs (http://is.gd/8Tnl). Follow along: http://www.last.fm/user/electriccounter #
• Put on Magnetic Fields’ “69 Love Songs” and enjoyed it for the first time. Does this mean I’m getting old? (Next up: Van Morrison and NPR.) #
• Gosh, all these economic problems… I wonder what Bush would do if he were alive? (http://is.gd/8QeN) #

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