Let's get wrecked on Rolling Rock and stroll down to the sea

Back in my apartment, and it feels pretty good. I think this may have been the first time I've broken this place in as "home." You know, the "I've just traveled 1300 miles, and can't wait to get some sleep in my own bed" effect. Having it be the endpoint of some epic journey, instead of the midpoint.

Anyway. I did manage to make the number 2 (second-to-last run of the day, hot damn), so I didn't have to ride to downtown and then either walk ten blocks or try some funny tricks with the 18. Once I got back, I dropped my stuff, repacked the little bag, and set out as a man on a mission—it was 1:30 AM, my last real meal had been half a spinach-feta turnover and some fruit at around noon PDT, and I was going to get myself a tempeh Reuben from the Hard Times Café. (First had to deposit a check at the downtown ATMs and withdraw some cash.) I ALSO would have really appreciated a beer or two, but it was pretty much last call by the time I reached the ATM, and I didn't really want to drink before eating, so no dice. Oh well.

So yeah, I had a kickass and thoroughly Twin Cities meal, and am now about ready to pass out on my keyboard. Massive thanks to everyone for making my visit back to the PNW an amazing one.

Delicious! Terrifying!

The fact that I'm the only one listed as having Dinosaur Kale as an interest is obviously the result of some sort of glitch. Gnaw 'em if you got 'em, y'all.

ATTN. JON (...and the rest of y'all):

1. Jonny Crossbones, everyone's favorite slightly-Tintin-ey adventure comix thingamajob with the fresh-faced and skellington-suited protagonist, is updating again! Three new strips so far, with what looks like the momentum for more.

Evidently, a good chunk of the hiatus was due to some vicious health issues—McClane explains some of that ugliness in the log on the main page. Luckily, it sounds like he's on the mend.

2. Remember how I said City of Roses was coming back? It's back; first chunk went live yesterday, and there's more on the way tomorrow. I just finished reading through the chapbooks, and it's just as good as I remembered.

Switching subtitle tracks in Mac OS X DVD Player

I got irritated by the fact that there was no way to switch subtitle tracks in Apple's DVD Player.app using the keyboard.* If there had been any sort of menu access to that control, then I could have gone into the Keyboard and Mouse preferences pane and manually fucked with the keybindings, but no dice: the one and only way to handle the subtitles is with the little remote control widget.

Well, screw that: DVD Player is scriptable, so I paused the disc for a few minutes and wrote a pair of scripts to let you activate, deactivate, and cycle through the available subtitle tracks.

subtitles.zip -- These scripts are in the public domain. Do whatever you want with 'em.

Download the zipfile and double-click it; it'll decompress into two Applescript files. Put them both in ~/Library/Application Support/DVD Player/Scripts.** Open up System Preferences, and go to the Keyboard and Mouse pane; go to the tab labeled Keyboard Shortcuts. Press the plus sign (+) button below the big list control. Choose DVD Player from the list of applications, and for the "Menu Title," enter either "Next Subtitle" or "Previous Subtitle" (without the quote marks... and you have to type them exactly right, or it won't work properly). The keyboard shortcut is up to you; I use ctrl-N and ctrl-P, but feel free to follow your own taste. If DVD Player is open, quit it and re-open it.

Once you have that set up, you can use those shortcuts (or the items they reference in the scripts menu) to move to the next or previous subtitle track. If you go forward past the last one or backward past the first one, it'll turn the subtitles off; moving in the same direction again will wrap around to the other end. Basically, it works exactly like you would expect it to.

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* I'm watching Brick? And sometimes they talk really quiet. Fucking awesome movie, though.
** "~" is oldschool Unix shorthand for your home folder. So in other words, browse to your home folder, go to Library, etc.