hotness

So, it`s up to 85 this morning, and the humidity is waaaaay up there. And what happens, first thing? The power goes out.

I mean, I don`t even have the A/C on yet.

Not too long ago, I was whining about how cold the spring had been. Well, wham! It`s 90 F and humid now, so we`ve got something new to whine about.

So, the long-deferred annual installation of the air conditioners day has arrived. It`s time to lug the cooling monsters from the basement and wedge them back into the windows they`ll live in until, say, October. I once again get to see if I can avoid gouging my arms on cooling fins and knife edges, or rupturing a disk in my back carrying four air conditioners up two flights of stairs and around various obstacles.

Whee.

Still playing Demon Days. Still not sick of it. I put together a mix for a bike ride today, but my iPod was without any charge and I ended up riding without tunes. Still, I had `Clint Eastwood“ (Gorillaz` single from a few years back) and FeelGood Inc. playing on an infinite loop in my brain anyway as I rode down into the Jones Falls trail/construction site/urban combat area down to Maryland Ave., and down to Mount Vernon, and back up Charles Street past the Charles Village Festival, and behind Hopkins past STSCI and the new Carnegie Institution building. All uphill, the last three miles were, except for the last 100 yards over the crest of the hill past the Rotunda at Roland and 41st St.

If I had the vinyl version of the new Gorillaz album, Demon Days, it would be worn out already. I have been playing it on iTunes almost nonstop since I downloaded it on Wednesday. `FeelGood Inc.` is dark and infectious and infinitely replayable, but the album works well as a whole (unlike the cartoon band`s previous releases, which were basically a collection of singles and b-sides). I don`t understand people who prefer the old sound of the project (put together by Blur`s Damon Albarn) over the new, DangerMouse-produced feel. I even like the Dennis Hopper spoken-word bit, “Fire Coming Out of the Monkey`s Head“ (though it is probably the least listenable track on the album).

I have a rudimentary blogging widget that I built working in Dashboard on Mac OS X. It is written in a mix of JavaScript and AppleScript (the JavaScript pushes AppleScript commands to the commmand line interface for Open Scripting Architecture). There is only one problem: because of the vagaries of the command line interface, I cannot use apostrophes or quotation marks in the widget (well, at least until I write some text processing code that inserts the proper HTML code for those symbols in their place).

It isnt (sic) pretty, but it works. So now, I can punch running commentary into the blog throughout the day without even opening a browser window or blogging client–the Dashboard is just a keystroke away.