My friends Josh and Dave sent me a text Sunday afternoon asking if I wanted to go see The Magnetic Fields that evening at Town Hall. Having missed out on two attempts to get tickets to the show, I shot back a faster-than-your-question text: “yes, please”.

The show – much like the songwriting itself – was amazing in its simplicity and humor. Stephin Merritt was once described somewhere – can’t remember the source – as the most miserable man in the Lower East Side. I think that’s what I like most about his music. Even though the songs are about some of the most crushing moments in life, there’s something about the way it’s put together and the way they are sung that really keeps you holding on. Misery loves company – but it’s only because there’s a certain love and hope that comes out knowing others are in the same boat.

One of my most favorite songs ever is “The Book of Love”. I almost thought they were going to skip it – but luckily they played it at the very end. Actually, I should say Stephin played it. The whole place was quiet: it was just him and his banjo and I thought it was a nice way to finish the show.

The Magnetic Fields – The Book of Love

[audio:http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/2/9/1750134/TheBookOfLove.mp3]

From Seth Godin’s The Dip:

Sergey Brin, cofounder of Google, told me, “We knew that Google was going to get better every single day as we worked on it, and we knew that sooner or later, everyone was going to try it. So our feeling was that the later you tried it, the better it was for us because we’d make a better impression with better technology. So we are never in a big hurry to get you to use it today. Tomorrow would be better.”

Sure, there’s a part of me that likes the idea of releasing early and often. However, I think there’s a bit of a perfectionist in me that thinks very much like Brin. I think many engineers and artists probably feel the same way. Sometimes you get so lost in your work and enjoy doing it so much that you are always looking ahead to what it can be. Sometimes, you’ll be 80% of the way there, but will hesitate to show it to anyone until it gets even closer to 100%. I often find myself doing this with various software or writing projects. It took me a long time to bring this blog back in a somewhat publicly presentable form – I kept thinking up new designs and content styles I wanted to include.

Back when I was a long-distance runner in high school, I wouldn’t invite anyone to come see me run at races – even my parents. I knew I was getting better and better as a runner, so the way I saw it, it didn’t matter that they didn’t get to see any of the mid-season stuff. I knew the good stuff was coming – league championships, invitationals, etc. Come back tomorrow. I’ll be better.

I interviewed my buddy Jesse Boyes about mobile game design and development. He’s the creator of a very addicting mobile game called Mitosis. It’s slowly starting to get distribution and is now available through T-Mobile. It’s especially great when you play it on something like the Blackberry Pearl – the trackball is a perfect controller. You can also play it online using an emulator – in case your handset can’t play Java games or if you’d rather try it on your computer first.

I’ve always liked neat hacks that allow me to control my phone from my computer. For instance, having the ability to type up a quick SMS from my computer instead of my phone is sometimes just convenient. My hacked iPhone allows me to control it in various ways just by logging into it like any normal server.

But what if you don’t want to hack your phone? Nokia just took a step ahead in bringing such features to the mainstream. An application called Nokia PC Phone is basically an extension for your browser and it exposes your phone’s contact list. You can use this list to make calls and send text messages directly from your browser.

I wrote up a quick howto on the Nseries workshop blog.

It’s 2008. I’m at some of the biggest tech conferences around. Yet there’s still no free blanket WiFi. *sigh*

Anytime I’m on the road without Internet access, I connect my laptop to the Internet by tethering to my N95. I wrote up a little guide on how to do this over at the Nseries workshop blog. It’s been very useful at conferences, airports and even car rides.

I’m going to go see the lovely Joanna Newsom tonight at BAM.

and all those lonely nights down by the river
I was brought my bread and water by the kith and the kin
now in the quiet hour when I am sleepin’
I cannot keep the night from comin’ in

A fan site called Milky Moon has a good collection of lyrics. The thing I like most about this set (other than the design) is that some of the words are hyperlinked so, you know, you can finally find out what “Ys” is.