The Games We Play

Is this just becoming a recommendation blog? Sure looks like it! It’s been awhile since I’ve recommended some iOS games -- the last ones were Lost Frontier and Guild of Dungeoneering -- so here we go, more phone games...

Antihero ($2.99)
This gem of a game has kept me entertained for long hours as I suffered through some bad fried chicken in Bali. In Antihero you play as a master thief, and your goal is to pilfer the city before your opponent does. You’re aided by urchins, thugs, gangs, assassins, and other fun fellows, all speaking in darling Dickensian accents. The campaign is a delight and playing against another human has the potential for great back-and-forth while using differing strategies, depending on the map. I couldn’t recommend Antihero enough and I’ve gotten two people hooked on it, neither of whom have ever played an iOS game before!

Teeny Titans ($3.99)
What happens when you combine Teen Titans with Pokemon? You get figure collecting and battling, all wrapped up in the delightful animation style of Teen Titans Go!, which appeals to all my sensibilities. I’ve recently just started watching the show and while the game itself isn’t all that difficult (or long), it is a freaking blast to rip through racks at the in-game figurine stores to find the rare one you’ve been searching for.

The Powerpuff Girls: Flipped Out ($2.99)
Arizona-based developer Grumpyface has kicked out a bunch of Cartoon Network properties and between my experience with Teeny Titans and this Powerpuff Girls game, I’m sold! Besides using Bubbles, Blossom, and Buttercup at their butt-kicking cutest, Flipped Out has an innovative flip mechanic that allows you to instantly turn it from a horizontal fighting game into a vertical match-three one. It’s really so smooth and a little bit genius. Throw in pickle collecting, the funny assortment of Powerpuff villains, plus super solid gameplay and I may just have to get all of Grumpyface’s games!

Death Coming ($1.99)
While I’ve barely started this one, the pixel art alone drew me in. You play as Death’s assistant, using semi-omniscient powers to drop things on people or bait them into unfortunate deaths. The goal is to kill the little people on-screen and it’s a freaking delight! While I do agree with some of the reviews that cite eventual frustration—and some tiny finicky controls at times—the game is unique enough, and the art so lovely, that I can recommend it for the killer in everyone.

Miracle Merchant ($1.99)
I’m actually pretty bad at solitaire type games like this but Tiny Touchables, who made Card Crawl, has always won me over with its personality-infused artwork by Thomas Wellmann and its simple yet deep mechanics. If you like a touch of math, and am into mixing potions for an imaginary apothecary, Miracle Merchant is the game for you!

• Pocket Tactics: Antihero (2018)
• Touch Arcade: Teeny Titans (2016)
• Gaming Boulevard: Powerpuff Girls Flipped Out (2016)
• Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Death Coming (2017)
• Pocket Tactics: Miracle Merchant (2017)

Send'em Packing

Okay, I’ve got some app recommendations, as usual. These are all utility ones but so far I’ve loved them all. First up is Bear, which is just wonderful because it’s a beautiful note taking app, perfect for replacing Notes. I mean, Notes is nice and all, but if you want/need a beautiful icon of a bear’s profile on your iPhone screen, high recommend. Also, Bear has very nice categorization hashtags, a clean interface, and a Mac app that syncs perfectly — and quickly.

The one downside is that Bear costs money to sync between devices, and while it’s only an annual subscription fee of $14.99 (or $1.49 month-by-month), I know how some people feel about paying for apps. If you’re against it, well, Bear ain’t for you. Actually, all these apps I’m gonna talk about today are paid. But if you want to support creators, you should really reconsider your stance on never paying for apps. Times have changed, and oftentimes paying for an app tends to bring you a more quality product. No more freemium, and the inevitable ads, for me if a better paid alternative is available!

• Why I’m Considering Bear as a Notes App Replacement (2016)
• Write Beautifully with Bear from Shiny Frog (2016)

With that in mind, I finally moved over to 1Password. As much as I harp on systemizing and frequently changing your passwords, I know I should have been using a master password solution long ago. So I’m making a change — and upgrade really — and going with 1Password. And I’m glad I’ve waited, as the newest version of 1Password is significantly easier to use than when I tried it a few years ago. Now, 1Password isn’t cheap. The iOS app is $10, and the accompanying Mac app is $50+. Plus if you use their proprietary service to sync/save, it’s another $2.99 per month. (You don’t have to though, you can use Dropbox or iCloud.)

Setting it up can take a bit of time, but be patient, and soon your passwords will be secure and yet easy to use. I’ve been using it for three weeks now, and it has helped in so many little ways. I don’t use 1Password to auto-generate all my random passwords, but I’m working up to it.

Unrelated but a pro tip: Do this for your phone, "The iOS ‘@@' Shortcut As A Text Expander For Emails.” It’ll change your life, seriously. Thanks to SuperLum for changing mine.

• The best password manager, and why you need one (2016)
• Macworld: 1Password 6.0 for Mac review (2016)
• Macworld: 1Password 6.0 for iOS review (2016)

And then we get to Deliveries, which just tracks your um, deliveries. If you prefer to do all your shopping online, this is a no brainer. While I didn’t quite see why I couldn’t just check my Amazon account a lot or click on all those emails, now that I’ve used Deliveries, I absolutely love it. I know exactly where my stuff is and when it’ll arrive. No more heading to the mailbox — we have to drive to a PO Box — to see if my exciting order has arrived. And trust me, I’ve been ordering up a storm of stuff recently, from kitchen supplies to books to well, mostly those two things. Also, it’s been useful for work as I can track UPS shipments and stuff too!

Deliveries is $4.99 for iOS and also $4.99 for Mac. I bought both. And if you want to get fancy, you can use IFTTT to cook up some useful Deliveries recipes that automates the tracking info from your email to the actual app. Otherwise you gotta copy/paste tracking numbers in.

My other friend uses Parcel, which is semi-free, and seems to be just as clean and useful, but since I was recommended Deliveries from a trusted source, I went with that one. Alternately, if you want me to keep track of your packages, feel free to send me your tracking numbers and I’ll be on high alert, I promise.

• Sweet Setup: Our favorite deliveries tracker (2016)

And now we get down to some games. No need to get into super detail here but the two that have been living on my phone are Lost Frontier ($2.99) and Guild of Dungeoneering ($4.99). I auto-buy anything from Mika Mobile because I love their games and art style so much, and Lost Frontier is a cut above due to its Western theme. Plus I’m a sucker for hex based war games and only wish this had multi-player. But I know it won’t likely have it, sadly.

As for Guild of Dungeoneering — “dungeoneering” is just weird to see/spell right? — it’s a twist on the classic roguelike dungeon crawler because you don’t actually control the character. Instead you lay down tiles and try to lure them around a dungeon. You do get to do the fighting, and losing, but when a character dies, you have to go recruit another one to send to their death. Each character is GoD is so cute and has whimsical traits, plus the art is just unabashedly cute! This is another app I like having on my iPhone just because I like looking at the logo…

So, that’s what I got on my phone these days If you have any app recommendations, please share! Actually, just one more. If you’re into fine art, Artsy is a free app for browsing museum collections. Ostensibly it’s also for collecting but I’ve never explored the side of the site/app. Because, I mean, who am I to collect fine art?

• Pocket Tactics review of Lost Frontier (2016)
• Touch Arcade review of Guild of Dungeoneering (2016)

Hello Robot!

For many years I’ve kind of co-opted Kidrobot’s robot head logo and used it as my avatar for everything, especially social media. Back in the mid-2000s, we loved Kidrobot and would always make a point to stop by if we were in Santa Monica or in the Bay. My friend JMZ had a nice collection of designer vinyl figurines but I don’t recall ever buying more than a few small items. Instead I adopted, ahem stole, the Kidrobot Mascot.

Well, a month or so ago I started using Fiverr to make random stuff like cartoon portraits for my friend. The first time I heard of Fiverr was years ago, when another friend hired someone to make a hamster eating lettuce birthday video. It was brilliant.

For some reason I’d never touched Fiverr until recently, when it occurred to me that I had some websites to redesign and wanted to revamp the logo. Well, turns out that Fiverr was perfect for the job. While there’s a lot to be said for undervaluing graphic designer’s work and paying just $5 for a logo (I tended to pay $50 due to extras, revisions, and ownership), I couldn’t resist. It's hypocritical, I know. But if you don't have lots of money to splash around, and can take good creative control, I can see using Fiverr for an abundance of tasks. Although here are some links to read through before you embark on your Fiverr quest:

• Why Fiverr Sucks for Freelancers
• Good riddance, gig economy: Uber, Ayn Rand and the awesome collapse of Silicon Valley’s dream of destroying your job
• Fiverr continues to be awful. Doubles down.
• 9 of the Best Fiverr Gigs to Make Your Blog Awesome

Personally, I have enjoyed the results of my Fiverr gigs. For example, I redid the Rich in Color logo, and then used Fiverr to make a matching tiled background too. And I had another logo person do my podcast logo which I'll throw up later. And while I may have been able to make something with my limited Illustrator/Photoshop skills, it was nice to offload the work to someone technically superior to myself.

Most importantly, I found a guy who specialized in robots and it occurred to me that I could have my own robot head! So I commissioned him to make me a robot head and after some back and forth, I emerged with my very own logo. Wheeee!

Another friend liked this robot-me idea so much that she recently commissioned her own -- complete with a signature hoop skirt -- and now we both have robot-me’s. So, despite how you may feel about the gig economy, and how Fiverr operates, it can be handy to use for a quick purchase or even for something purely for fun. I mean, its only five bucks! I downloaded the Fiverr iOS app and kind to like just scrolling the various options.

While many have complained about the quality of service and results they receive on Fiverr, I’ve had a great experience so far, and would like to link to the Fiverr designers I used. And encourage you to get your own robot avatar!

• Draw you a stylish robot character
• Draw you one realistic style cartoon portrait
• I will create an awesome unique and professional logo
• Design a good looking and professional logo
• Create cool watercolor wallpaper for you

Fit to Print

To say that newsletters are now a thing is probably way behind the times. Currently I subscribe to way too many of them. It's like following blogs back in the day; there's an endless amount of good ones. I basically subscribe to everything and then try it out for a week. Newsletters for fantasy basketball, for tech stuff, for books, for heartbreak, for random science news, it's endless.

• Why Everyone Is Obsessed With E-Mail Newsletters Right Now (2014)
• 15 Email Newsletter Examples We Love Getting in Our Inboxes (2015)
• Lena Dunham and why 2015 was the year of the email newsletter (2015)
• Why Email Newsletters are Having a Moment (2015)
• The Triumph of Email (2016)

I'm also quick to unsubscribe, as I often just want a taste and a look at the format. For example, while I liked The Skimm a lot, I stopped subscribing to it to make bandwidth for other newsletters. Here are my current newsletter favorites:

Lenny
Bi-weekly dispatches from Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner. Basically every issue blows my mind for who they interview or get stories from. I already recommended Lenny near the bottom of "Five Times Five." Leeennnnyyy!

Next Draft
Can’t beat Dave Pell for newsletter mastery. “The day’s most fascinating news” is just about right. I don’t click on everything but the consistent quality of Next Draft is incomparable.

This.cm
I kind of hate that this is a huge deal. "Each member can share just one link a day.” This is something so simple I/everyone should have thought of it. Jealousy is what it is. The daily newsletters This has been kicking out has been uniformly full of interesting stuff. Damn them.

Austin Kleon
The author of Steal Like an Artist shares ten things each week. This newsletter is super popular and for good reason! His recent "20 good books I read in 2015" is a pure winner.

The Ann Friedman Weekly
In an interesting model, this newsletter has two versions: free and paid. So far Friedman’s stuff has been great and I like the mix of personal and professional stuff she covers. Plus GIFs!

Hot Pod, by Nick Quah
A newsletter about podcasts from Panoply's audience development team member. Basically if you care about podcasts as an industry, a must-read. Also, here's Quah on why podcasting is overwhelmingly white.

Caitlin Dewey
The Washington Post’s digital cultural critic. The newsletter's title says it all: "Links I would Gchat you if we were friends.”

Jamelle Bouie
Staff writer for Slate, and general political analyst. Bouie’s newsletter always has a ton of great links.

The Daily Rumpus
I've been following Stephen Elliot's overly personal missives for awhile now, and recently he's handed off newsletter duties to Marisa Siegel, Managing Editor for The Rumpus.

Queen, by Alexander Chee
Infrequent but always great, and with another book about to release, The Queen of the Night, I’m expecting an uptick in updates.

Three Cents, by Manjula Martin
One half of the now defunct Scratch Magazine team, this is Martin’s personal newsletter. “I’ll send you 2 things about money and 1 about love, every 3 weeks.”

Too Late Now

Listening to: The Biebs! Between each single being straight up A+’s, all the fucking amazing dance videos, there is nobody else right now but Bieber. Here’s the acoustic for “What Do You Mean,” and I can’t even decide which dance video I like best. Right now it’s these fierce kids from “Children” getting all crazy but that could change tomorrow. Don't call it a comeback!

I’m back in the U.S. for a quick three week sprint. Basically a trip back now involves figuring out what I need to buy to bring back to Taiwan (for myself or others). See below.

Also, I found out the other day, while helping my friend pack her apartment, that she only gets her underwear in America. And so her annual trips here involve a huge bill at Victoria’s Secret and the like. Similarly, she was tasked with bringing a ton of stuff back from Taiwan for her family. Really basic stuff like bowls, toothbrushes, powdered soup, garbage bags, etc. At first this boggled my mind that you would want to transport all these necessities across international borders but then I thought about Glide floss and how important it is in my life and I stopped questioning. Act local, buy global?

Anyway, on with the shopping list... And if you want me to bring something back for you, tell me quick! And (double) cash upfront please. Obviously.

• Codenames: The new Bond movie was trash but this board game promises to rectify that by pitting two teams of players in a race to figure out who-is-who between rival squads of undercover assassins. Sound intriguing? It’s also sort of a word game! I have to buy this immediately, and then acquire 3-7 friends fast...
• TASCAM DR-40 4-Track Portable Digital Recorder: Because I have high aspirations for doing a proper podcast, and maybe some upcoming video stuff, this means I gotta up my voice recording game.
• Together to the Beach, Jennifer Hsu: By one of my best friends, and it’s shameful I don’t have a copy yet. Available only in print form so gotta get it all paper and stuff.
• Le Animalé Animal Totems: Red panda, narwhal, Fennec fox, slow loris, sloth, corgi, orca… I can’t decide! I want every one of these necklaces by Laura Johnston! Also, I need more necks.
• $20 Zine Superpacks: Microcosm keeps putting out amazing little collections with titles like “Cozy Reads for Busy People” and “Decolonize Yourself." I’m considering doing Microcosm's BFF six-month subscription but don’t have anywhere to get it delivered to yet. For now I’m just staring hard at individual titles like 100 Years of Modern Iran (1891-1991) by J Gerlach and Pedal Zombies: Thirteen Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories edited Elly Blue.
• Compliments Of: A deck of compliment cards courtesy of Molly Young. A must-buy. Who to compliment though? Friends or strangers? Huuuum. "A good compliment is specific, concise, and penetratingly accurate. It lands with a gentle splash. It induces a smile. It is cherished forever."
• Tweezerman Slant Tip: My friend used mine and immediately wanted one of her own. It’s the best tweezers, as declared by Sweethome.

And of course, the two items that I always restock up on because I am giving them away constantly: a short charger cord for your phone and a lipstick sized USB charger. For $15 you could change your life and eliminate many headaches. The charger won't give you more than one full charge, if even that, but it's a perfect size and handy in a pinch.

As for the short cord, which you should always carry with you, AMR showed me the light last year by exhibiting how you really need both extra short (four inch) and extra long (six feet) cords to be living that smartphone life. The stock cord length is okay but having multiple options is the way to go. Thus concludes my pre-holiday consumerism. Also, take a read through Rob's post about his son, "Daddy's Thoughts #11: First Pair of Jordans?" It's great!

• Anker PowerCore+ mini, 3350mAh
• AmazonBasics Lightning to USB Cable, 4 inches
• Wirecutter: Best USB Travel Pack

Cowabunga

Listening to: Charli XCX, “Need Ur Luv” and Carly Rae Jepsen “Run Away With Me.” Summer pop struts, one featuring a saxophone. Also, the new Carly Rae album is ridiculous good.

Today’s Surf Report: Scary waves, low standing up to tumble ratio, Jon couldn’t make it past the breakers. Knocked silly multiple times, the end. Generally speaking, when I speak about “surfing,” it is of the web variety. But every once in awhile, usually in August, I take to the outdoors for my surfing.

You grow up in California and don’t surf and people are like shocked. I’m sorry, none of my friends growing up surfed okay? Like literally nobody. Even though we lived so close to the beach. It wasn’t until a summer in our mid-twenties that we got together and started learning. I never got really good, truth to tell, any good at all, but it’s fun to sit out there on a board, the ocean all clear around you, even if nothing is happening.

We always go to 11th street in Del Mar, which involves walking down across train tracks and then down this semi-steep dirt cliff. The first time we went it was scary but now it’s more mundane. It feels cool actually, to walk to a “secret” spot. The good thing about 11th street is that even though the beach is sandwiched between the touristy areas of Torrey Pines and 15th Street, the intimidating access point keeps it unpopulated.

Every day I’ve been checking the surf report and really, I have no idea what “overlapping pair of primary SW-SSW and secondary SSE Southern Hemi swells hold. Meanwhile, small shorter period WSW and SSE tropical swells mix in, along with minimal NW windswell.” Hah, ooookay. All I’m looking for is what the air and water temperatures are. The past couple weeks it’s been high seventies and low seventies, respectively. Having such warm water is pretty glorious. I’ve even been able to consistently catch a few waves this summer, so maybe I'm finally getting the hang out of it! Surfing: Five out of five stars.

What does suck is post nasal drip. Like if you get tossed around a lot, which I did the past two days, your head fills up with seawater and then an hour or two after you exit the beach a waterfall comes out of your nose. No warning, nothing, it just comes right out. It’s not snot or anything gross, just seawater that’s been lodged in your brain. But it’s still quite the experience. Nature’s Neti Pot I guess? Also I got flipped around so much today I gave up after half an hour, went ashore, and then found seaweed in my shorts while eating lunch two hours later. Whoopee.

I don't know how I just saw this right now, orcas chasing a speedboat. I'm so behind it's frightening.

The other thing I’ve been doing besides finally going outdoors — I’m still pasty, just less so — is getting my photo situation fixed up. I remember years ago when some tech people were saying that photo management was going to be the next big thing. And boy were they right! Ever since all the Internet goliaths announced their photo management solutions, I’ve been researching and debating which one(s) to use.

Before I just imported everything into iPhoto, sorted stuff into event and yearly folders, and left it at that. I had some Flickr accounts too, mainly as legacies. My photo collection felt like a nice mix of historical documents and useless fodder, but now with camera phones it's tipped way over into “too many shots of everything” territory.

Yeah, I still pick out the stuff I want to share for my personal moblog but otherwise all those photos just sit on the computer taking up space. And space, and space, and more space! I moved everything off to an external drive last year -- 130 gigs of photos stretching all the way back to high school -- but I knew that was only temporary. Enter iCloud Photo Library. I’d been waiting for a new computer (the old one barely opened that huge of a Photos file) and faster wifi to implement my photo plan. Da-dun, the big day arrived this weekend!

Well, turns out that shoving 57,250 photos to iCloud takes awhile. So the dream continues. In the meantime, here’s my photo solution:

• Paid $3.99/month for 200 GB to use for iCloud Photo Library
• Use Google Photos, unlimited setting, for cloud backup
• Have everything on two externals too, one that goes with me, one that stays at home

I’ve discovered that one backup is not enough. Those in the know suggest two backups of everything, like two offline and two online. So a total of four. That means I’m actually behind. And I thought I was already paranoid. I pretty much believe in having backups for everything, up to and including friends. I mean, the most paranoid billionaire in literature, S. R. Hadden from Contact, essentially made a backup of The Machine so that when it blew up, he had another waiting for Jodie Foster to ride through some wormholes. Pretty genius. So yeah, back that shit up!

Oh, and I started clean with my new laptop. Instead of porting over all my old settings and programs from my Macbook, I started super fresh. New laptop, new life right? It took most of a whole day to get everything right but as I discovered, the most time consuming part was my Mac Mail folders. It’s embarrassing but I generally still rely on offline Mac Mail to do my email organizing. Even though I imported most of the important folders, I know it’s time to take my email habits straight to the Gmail interface. Hello IMAP, good bye POP.

The latter half of this post brought to you from my future android body. Let the cybernetic takeover begin.

• iCloud Photo Library: The Missing FAQ (2015)
• How to use iCloud Photo Library: The ultimate guide (2015)
• Mail (Yosemite): Import or export mailboxes
• How to Use Google Photos to Store an Unlimited Amount of Photos
• Why You Should Always Have More Than One Backup (2012)

APR: Week Two

Finding a decent slice in Taipei is hard, especially when you’re coming from New York. There’s rumors that a place called Little New York Pizzeria is pretty good, but I’ve yet to make the trek up there. One of my classmates was on a Taipei pizza hunt for awhile but gave up after tasting too many subpar selections. My general attitude toward Western food here is “no thanks.” I’m living in a land of cheap Chinese food, why am I going for expensive, underwhelming, other food? Plus the taste profiles tend to be all wrong. You should have seen this schwarma I tried out the other day. Wrongness. The bagels at Good Cho are pretty delicious though I must say, after just trying two.

On Monday my friend invited me to a photography exhibit on the ninth floor of a department store in Xinyi. It was this guy, Kazuyoshi Nomachi's National Geographic-esque photos from his travels following around pilgrims through India, Tibet, Africa, and Saudi Arabia. Pretty, and eye-catching, but the exhibits outside featuring paintings made from trash were more interesting. Still, you can’t argue with free.

Plus, I dropped my friend off afterwards for her date with A-mei, the Madonna of Taiwan. A-mei is an an indigenous Taiwanese pop star that came out during my high school years and she’s the one pop star that every Chinese-American probably knows. She was in the midst of a ten show run at Taipei Arena and her fans outside hummed with anticipation and excited energy. My friend’s friend was going three nights in a row. Talk about a pilgrimage.

We discovered beer pong. Or rather, a bar in Taipei that has a beer pong room downstairs. I’ve only played beer pong once, during house boating two years ago. I sucked then and I still suck now. In the U.S. beer pong is synonymous with frat parties but remove the douchebags and it’s really quite fun!

Also, I’ve noticed that explaining American culture to foreigners is pretty easy if they’re well versed in movies. “Frats” are easily explained by referencing Animal House or Old School, etc. The difficulty is in the details, such as trying to explain the various uses of “bro” and which are good versus bad. It’s harder to break down what makes “bro (culture)” idiotic as contrasted to indicating closeness through the use of the term. I, for one, have never called anyone “bro” in my life. In related news, I have never won a game of beer pong in my life.

After beer pong, we were all so hopped up on drinking mass quantities of beer that we waltzed out to Elektro and had a smashing great time on a Wednesday night — for the first time in awhile. Elektro has definitely shown itself to be superior to Myst in every sense. Better music, better crowds, better ambiance. And now better memories.

On Thursday, I headed to the airport to pick up my cousin and escort her to Taichung. My aunt and other cousin had arrived earlier that morning and were in Taichung already. Also arriving with my cousin was my brand new iPhone 6+ and iPad Mini. So yes, there were ulterior motives in my sudden trip to Taichung, but there were other non-tech related reasons too. Like going to see my uncle and great aunt, whom I haven’t seen since my first trip back here, last September. Plus it felt like a good weekend to get away and do nothing.

And do nothing was exactly what I did from Thursday until Sunday. While my aunt and cousins spent their time running around looking at wedding stuff — my cousin just got engaged and wanted a qipao — I just stayed up all night setting up my new iStuff and being tech productive. I literally didn’t even leave my uncle’s house all weekend as I would wake up when everyone got home and then stay up all alone through the night, tip tapping away. It was wonderful!

Oh, yeah, my iPhone 5 needed replacing because the rear camera broke (apparently a common issue) and not having it was messing up my life. Cue the melodrama. No Snapchats, no taking photos for my moblog, no way to take quickie reminder photos of things. Basically I just borrowed friends' phones all the time to snap photos and then had to bug them about sending them over for me. I contemplated living without a camera phone but in the end I just couldn't do it. I mean, without Snapchat who am I? How will my friends actually know what I’m doing? Will they forget me if I'm not transmitting ten six seconds of my life at a time?

The iPad Mini -- not that much bigger than the gigantic iPhone 6+ -- was sort of a luxury but my laptop was getting way too heavy and I was sick of carrying it around. That sucker is almost six years old and while I should probably upgrade, the thought of going iPad and best external keyboard was very enticing. "It's so light, it's so portable, I'd be so gadgety!" (Plus, I have a running list of iOS games that are only available on iPad. Hello Hearthstone and Magic 2015...)

My friend Barry, super author and Mac-ophile, has a series of posts about his various writing setups. “For the Tech of It” includes hardware and software breakdowns and since Barry is very prolific, I can’t help but be a more dedicated writer with his setup, right?... Oh, also! Barry and his wife, Morgan, who also works in publishing, now have a podcast! Go check out Writing in Real Life (WiRL). I love when friends start podcasts, it feels like I can still keep up with them, however one-sided the conversation might be.

I would also love to detail my weekend struggles with upgrading to Apple's new Photos app and trying to figure out why my iPhoto wasn't exporting, but I wouldn't want your excitement level to combust. Plus, a full-on podcast episode with AMR is long overdue about our (theoretical) solutions to photo bloat and efficient organization. Oh yeah, my podcast is here, but half the links are broken and new episodes are intermittent at best. Please come and be a guest?

• Kazuyoshi Nomachi: A Photographer’s Pilgrimmage
• Pregame: Beer pong bar
• Barry Lyga's "For the Tech of It" series | Writing in Real Life podcast
• Everything you need to know about Apple’s new Photos app for Mac

Post No Bills

Currently pushing: Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist. Yeah, Gay is having a moment right now -- she talks about that in her recent essay, “The Price of Black Ambition.” I’ve been reading Gay’s stuff for awhile, and I’m so excited she’s blowing up. Just Google around for her articles, there’s plenty, and you’ll want to quote so many things. Meanwhile, everyone should read Bad Feminist, everyone! You can start with the titular essay, "Bad Feminist (2012)."

About a year ago, I went to the Emoji Art and Design Show at the Eyebeam in Chelsea. I was only a dabber in emoji up to that point, but wanted to know more. Most of my emoji usage up to that fateful day was limited to sending spouting whale as my sign off, a way to end a text conversation. Basic stuff.

But a developer friend had been wondering how to get new emoji into smartphones -- specifically ethnic emoji -- and after some online research, I learned about the Unicode Consortium and their iron grip on what can become universal emoji. That killed that idea. Yeah, you can make your own emoji app and everything but it’s hard to get people to copy-paste things, or to flip around to special keyboards. Emoji making was not going to be in my future.

Enter: stickers.

Before coming to Taiwan, I had Line and WhatsApp but didn’t really use either. WhatsApp is profoundly ugly, and the UI is a mess so I still don’t use it. However, Line is now like my favorite app. Forget text messaging, being able to sticker everything is one thousand percent better than just using words alongside standard emoji. When we were young, George and I were obsessed with stickers. I mean, who wasn’t? We each had our special binder of stuff, and during our great garage cleanup of 2014 -- mandated by my mom -- we unearthed both of our collections. Puffy stickers, glittery stickers, scratch-and-sniff stickers, Snoopy stickers, rainbow stickers, everything was still right there. Well, fast forward a few decades and here we are, at the pinnacle of human evolution: digital stickers. And better yet, these stickers can be used as emotional shorthand and don't degrade over time. What’s not to like?

My first foray into digital stickers was this summer, via Facebook’s Messenger app. In fact, I specifically downloaded Messenger to sticker. A friend who was working at Facebook introduced us to the power of stickers and we spent the better part of an afternoon having sticker conversations. It was wonderful, and since then I've been pushing stickering on everyone, even going so far as to demand people download Messenger. "It'll change your life!" I said. I say that a lot but this time I really meant it. Here’s a nice primer on emoji and why they're wonderful: “Smile, You’re Speaking Emoji.” Same principles applies to stickers, there’s just more sticker options.

Once I found out you could skin your Line app, I was ready to buy all the stickers. All. The. Stickers. But I had to limit my purchases because you can’t spend all your money on stickers right? Maybe at seven years old but now I’m an adult and I know about fiscal responsibility and the dangers of impulse shopping. (Fact: Line takes in ten million in sticker revenue per month...) Thus I’ve limited myself to one sticker pack a week. And I'm staying within a narrow theme: Hello Kitty, Hangyodon, and then some animal stuff, preferably things you encounter in a forest like foxes or bears.

Also you have to think about sticker utility. A nice looking set is great but you must ask yourself, "When would would I use this?" before purchasing. That's practicality speaking. My greatest find so far has been Herbivore Trio, a collection featuring a chicken, a rabbit, and an elephant. They party together, they dress up like vampires, they puke rainbows, and they browse the Internet on iMacs. This personable threesome is just waiting to be tapped for all situations. My only quibble is that a chicken isn't technically an herbivore, but who’s counting?

• Herbivore Trio |  Little Forest Friends
• Tanuki & Kitsune | Bac Bac’s Diary
• Tidlom The Sky Hanger: Buffalo Life

Also, don’t overlook Line’s generic stickers, which are very expansive. Their animal collection is next level, as it includes a wide variety of birds, insects, and reptiles. And that doesn’t even include their amazing mammals collection, which have standouts like a meerkat, a pegasus, a corgi, many whales, a purple hippo, and even a Fennec fox. Bravo whoever is charge at Line, bravo! I hope you conquer America soon so when I return I don't ever have to just regular text message again.

• Womanzine: Emoji
• Roxane Gay, "The Unbearable Whiteness of Emoji (2013)” on page 26
• No Time to Text? Say It With Stickers
• Line's bears and bunnies are coming for America

Remember the Time

Listening to: All the mixes from 143's Soundcloud page. "143 is a monthly party of slow jams, love songs, and bed squeaking future R&B." Basically, I need to get to L.A. soon to attend one of these parties. But for now, these streams will have to do.

Digging the crates, looking up my important “firsts.” First Tweet, first Gmail, etc. These are really the important moments in my life. I read this article, "How Gmail Happened: The Inside Story of Its Launch 10 Years Ago” and they said that Gmail launched on April 1st, 2004. I started using it exactly a month later -- here's how to see your oldest message -- and haven’t stopped advocating for it since. I remember AMR and I got early invites because we were loyal Blogger users. Those extra two invites we had apiece were literal gold! We eBayed those suckers for like $80 each. It was a glorious time.

Now I’m taking a spin in my Gmail archives and reliving my life a decade ago. That basically involves Google stalking old co-workers and friends I’ve lost touch with. You know, the usual. Back in 2004 I was working at a generic pharmaceutical company. Filing, emailing, doing important stuff. I forgot what my title was. Quality assurance peon? This was my first foray into regular office culture and oh man, what a thrill! Sure hope I can get into that kind of job again. Not.

Oddly, my very first email was to myself, as I forwarded along a copy of my PDF resume as an attachment. Clearly I was very career focused as my first instinct was to preserve my resume for eternity on Google’s servers. Lot of good that did me over the past decade, right? Also, it’s unfortunate but my email address through most of my twenties was paradigmpimp@whatever. I had to start many subject headings with "This is not spam, I swear." I wish someone had intervened and told me to change my email address to something less faux ironic and dumb. And easier to spell.

For posterity, my first tweet sent into the world a little after midnight on May 24, 2007 was: "In new york, still up, blogging.” Ain’t shit changed....

While we’re at it, I was doing some more digging and came upon this 2006 review of my blog book from John Scalzi. Totally forgot about that! Sometimes I forget I wrote a book on blogging and that’s how I got my start.  I look at how I’ve only got five entries up so far this year and that just makes me sad sad sad. The move then is to recapture the blogging fire and toward that end I’m gonna blog every day till the end of the month. “No, don’t do it,” you cry. Too late, I already committed. And I always, always, follow through on my commitments.

Really, the first thing I should do is go through this Top 250 Blogs list from Rough Guide to Blogging and write up a “Where Are They Now” feature. Well, maybe not for all it. Perhaps just the “personal blogs” section. I mean, where is Bazima, Maganda, Minjung Kim now? Well, at least we know where Evhead went. The Blogger cofounder went on to start Twitter! Actually, let’s be real, the best part of writing Rough Guides was sneaking in friends like Boygirlparty, Eidolon, and Transcended. Plus I crammed in as many screenshots as I could of friends' blogs. Oh the power I wielded.

I think Rough Guides stopped printing the blogging book awhile ago and shockingly I only have like two copies in my closet. Perhaps I better start wandering into used bookstores to start collecting copies. Some day my children will want to hold my first book in their hands. Or maybe they won’t, since everything will be digitized by then and nobody will care about physical artifacts.

I sent these to my friend the other day, a collection of links to articles about writing and money, starting with a Scalzi classic. Also check out Scalzi's book on writing as a career, You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop.

• "John Scalzi's Utterly Useless Writing Advice" (2004)
• Keith Gessen, "Money" (2006)
• Jeaniene Frost, "Publishing Money Myths" (2008)
• Can You Make Money Writing Novels? (2009)
• Editorial Ass, "And You Thought a Royalty Involved a Crown" (2009)
• Katie Klein's self publishing posts (2012)
• Mack Collier, "So How Much Money Will You Make From Writing a Book?" (2013)
• "How Much Do Writers Earn? Less Than You Think" (2014)
• Emily Gould, "How Much My Novel Cost Me” (2014)

To Infinity and Beyond

As we all know, today marks the death of Google Reader. Post-panic, I haven't been super diligent about finding a replacement, hoping something would just emerge and come save the RSS world. Well, that didn't quite happen so I've had to make the tough decision to narrow down the field to just one or two.

I've given a quick spin to The Old Reader, Newsblur, Byline, etc. and come to the conclusion that Feedly is the answer. The team is obviously dedicated to RSS, and their product seems to hit most of my check marks. I was hoping Digg would come in at the last minute and blow us all away, but that clearly hasn't happened. (I mean, the lack of read counts bothers me to no end on Digg Reader. How can I trust a RSS reader that doesn't give me read counts?) If you need a replacement for Google Reader, I recommend hopping to Feedly.

I'm currently getting another copy of my Google Reader Takeout and re-migrating Feedly in anticipation of Reader collapse. You've got a few hours to do the same.

Things I like about Feedly: Super easy to transfer over from Google Reader. In fact it's so easy you should do it even if you're not 100% sure you're going to use Feedly. Their iOS app is also very nice and syncs fast. I still plan to primarily use Reeder for iPhone, which is temporarily free. Both the web and iOS Feedly has lots of preference settings such as colors, views, and fonts. The super easy drag-and-drop interface for organizing RSS feeds almost sold me on Feedly by itself. I mean, this is already so much easier than how Reader did it. Sure, Feedly doesn't have a search function but neither does anyone else yet so that's okay.

This is it. Good bye Google Reader, it was real. Now I'm off to re-organize my thirty categories and 650 subscriptions, wish me luck.

• The State of Google Reader Replacements
• RSS Reader Roundup: Feedly leads the pack with web, mobile and third-party apps
• Reading the Web Alone, Together
• On The Death Of Google Reader And The Future Of Reading
• Betaworks Unveils Its Highly Anticipated Digg RSS Reader
• So, How Does Everyone Feel About This New Digg Reader?

Mesospheric

Listening to: Music for Ants, "You Just Made Yourself Available: The Breakup Songs Mix."

Can you believe it, I've only gone karaoke twice this year. That number usually represents how many times I used to go per week. Last night, after a bit of soju served in a watermelon, we went to Duet 35, which is located just outside K-Town.

On the list of things that make a great karaoke place, Duet 35 had most of them: open till dawn, relatively cheap, BYOB and food, reliable sound system, mood lighting, great song selection. Repeat, great song selection.

We'd been searching for "Thinkin Bout You" forever and there it was. Sure there weren't many other Frank Ocean songs, but "Thinkin Bout You" was there! Now if we could just find a place with the rest of Channel Orange, I would never go anywhere else. I was also stunned to see that they had Patti Rothberg's "Inside," a track that I didn't think anyone else knew, much less had transferred to karaoke status. I picked up Between the 1 and the 9 at a Wherehouse during senior year of high school and had it on repeat forever. Even then I knew it wasn't the best but I enjoyed it regardless.

I was also impressed that they had Lianne La Havas ("Elusive"), a few tracks off Foster the People's Torches, Joe's "I Wanna Know," and so much new stuff I couldn't identify most of the artists. It hit me hard that I am way aged out of the new release pages. Sad day, sad day. But if you're wondering, it's possible to almost do the entire 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged album, which if it were to happen, would make me automatic BFFs with anyone who could successfully pull off a convincing Natalie Merchant. Additionally, next time back to Duet 35, my friend JMZ and I are destined to perform "Frontin'." Don't wanna sound full of myself or rude...

Duet 35 also had the real videos to some of the songs, most notably all Mariah and Christina Aguilera tracks -- please see Exhibit A. And the karaoke video for Gilligan's Island was straight up Sweded, with a child sitting in a bathtub and D-rate actors as the Professor and Mary Anne, etc. Overall, when we stumbled out of there at half past four in the morning, I was ready to do some more singing/screeching. Last karaoke related thing: While Duet 35 had a lot of indie tracks, they did not have any Tegan & Sara, which is just fine because T&S are the coolest and provided the world with their own instrumental for "Closer" and a karaoke version just for me! Okay, everyone else too.

Big life changes I've been pondering: What to do with email greetings and sign offs. I've one of those people who always has a greeting and an outro. Typically it's just "hey" and entirely superfluous but it feels weird not to do it. And I like to sign off with something too. But after reading this Slate article about the obsolescence of sign offs, I think I should give no sign ons and sign offs policy a go. Please don't be offended if I now sound curt in my emails, I just want to be a part of a movement.

And after a month of waiting, I finally got the Mailbox iPhone app. I don't need another email application, as almost all my email is done on my laptop, but I wanted to see what the hype was all about. What could possibly be worth signing up for that had 600,000+ people in line ahead of me? So far Mailbox is decidedly not life changing but it is certainly smooth and easy to use. One day I hope to get important enough to use it to achieve Inbox Zero. Right now I don't have to deal with hundreds of emails a day, much less a thousand.

• Mailbox: Swipe Your Way to a Clutter-Free Inbox
• Zero Dark Inbox (2012)
• Mailstrom Helps You Clear Out Thousands of Messages from Your Inbox

Also, the other night, I ate firefly squid. They are from Toyama Bay in Japan and look like this. Unfortunately we did not glow afterwards, as that effect would probably have cost more than a few dollars per squid. I'm not generally into novelty eating but I'll make an exception for things that light up. What other foods could I eat that contain bioluminescence?

Spring Is Nigh

Currently pushing: School of Thrones. This Game of Thrones parody, set in high school, is genius. "Prom is coming!"

When news hit that Google Reader was shutting down in a few months, I did what any sane person would: I panicked. I mean, I've been a huge fan of Reader for years and am always spreading the gospel of RSS, while constantly on guard against subscription bloat. Without Reader and my 600+ subscriptions, how was I going to keep up with the world? I cursed Google's good name, and just like everyone else, started looking around for alternatives…while simultaneously holding out hope that Google would reverse its decision. However, after reading a few articles, the decision was clearly a permanent one. On Wednesday night, I went to bed with a heavy heart, worried about the future of my feeds.

"Why, why, all you idiots who still visit web sites individually, it's all your fault! If only you had adopted Reader when I told you to, usage would not have declined! "

Luckily, morning brought clarity as my friend pointed out that with the RSS king abdicating his throne, a new and better reader would emerge. From here until July, it would be a giant battle for control of Middle Earth and the hearts of the dedicated geeks that live and die by RSS. In the twenty four hours since the announcement, the Internet has already gone through the grief cycle and now everyone is scrambling (even somewhat excitedly) for a solution.

I've tested out some of the options already but so far all are lacking. Feedly and Flipboard are pretty, but not for me. I need more power and don't care about an engaging interface. The Old Reader and Netvibes aren't even working right now, but I fear they won't be adequate either. I'm thinking that the true savior won't reveal itself until the programming community has had a chance to react. Meanwhile, I will await the prophecy and hold off on declaring my allegiance to a new king.

Sidenote: If Google somehow decides to shut down Blogger, I'm gonna turn on them so hard. I might even consider giving up Gmail. I mean, no I won't. That would be blasphemy! Ack.

• Farewell, Dear Reader
• Google Reader lived on borrowed time
• Why RSS Still Matters
• Reader's Death Is Proof That RSS Always Suffered From Lack Of Consumer Appeal
• Sad to see Google Reader go? Come on, folks...it's 2013

A few months ago, I talked about how addicted we were to Clash of Clans. Well, no more. Now it's Hay Day all the way! Hay Day is actually Supercell's first game, before they created Clash. It's the farming game we've all been waiting for. Ever since the demise of Papaya Farm, my friends and I haven't been able to replace the vegetable sized holes in our digital hearts. Well, it's safe to say that we have found that replacement. My sister actually spent money to buy speed up diamonds the other day, a first for her.

While Hay Day doesn't bring too much new stuff to the table, it is very refined and the interface, graphics, and gameplay are all stellar. Plus there's a ton of amusing details embedded in Hay Day. Like when your pigs stand up and wave at you, while plastering silly grins on their faces. Hi-la-ri-ous! I can't wait to see what the horses do. A few things I wish the game had: a global stock market, a way to directly trade with your friends, and more social features when you visit other people's farms. But that's just nitpicking. For now, Hay Day has completely taken over my life and if you download it, it'll probably consume you too. Fair warning.

While reading around about Hay Day, I stumbled across this blog, Deconstructor of Fun, that does a wonderful analysis of monetized games. Their interview with Supercell's Timur Haussila about Hay Day is very interesting. And their analysis of what makes Clash of Clans so fun, with its talk of "core loops," is a lesson in constructed addiction. The blog is a must read for anybody who plays iPhone games. I'd say throw the URL into your Reader but well... Just bookmark it, I guess.

• Gamezebo review of Hay Day
• Down on the farm again with Hay Day (2012)
• Hay Day Forum: Trading/Selling Etiquette

The Love Below

Listening to: Pop Etc, "How Will I Know." They used to be the Morning Benders, now they are the less offensive but boring Pop Etc. I am not entirely sure how I feel about this cover, even weeks later, but I love watching Chris Chu's awkward yet endearing facial expressions. And well, it's Whitney.

My friend Ameer, who captains our music blog, is a huge speakerphile. Speakerhead? He cruises audio forums, he's got speakers on top of speakers, his goal is to own McIntoshes. Lots of McIntoshes. AMR has regaled me with many a detailed break down of why such and such an amp is good, or how to compare different set ups. All of which is fantastic, because I can always appreciate learning something new. But it's also ruined me.

Yes, ruined me. I can't have shitty audio anymore. Before I could've cared less what the sound coming out of speakers was like. Give it to me heavy and give it to me loud. That was all. I was more concerned about content than audio quality. Now that I've seen the light, I am prone to scrunching up my face if the sound is bad.

For the past five years, I'd been living with these shitty speakers. They squawk when plugged in, the wires are all fiddly, and occasionally the sound drops. It was a desktop audio disaster. I told AMR that I needed to upgrade my speaker situation and after diagnosing my needs, he was ready with an answer. For $15, I got these beauties: Artic USB-Powered Portable Stereo Speakers. I'd link you to the ten minute YouTube video reviewing them but you'd definitely fall asleep. Let's just say that these are the best bang for your hard earned bucks.

As my fellow Artic owner Meggo puts it, "[they] are petite and portable." To that I'll add that they are plenty loud also, with great highs and acceptable lows. Pump too much bass in there and they'll fail, but for fifteen dollars, these little guys are a steal. Upgrade your life, get some now.

And if you are in the market for great but not overly expensive over the ear headphones, may I pass along AMR's recommendation there too? Purchase some Grados. I recently joined the Grados club -- an exclusive place indeed -- and even though I have yet to test them extensively, I am sure they are the best value out there because I trust AMR. After all, he's the genius who came up with the CD for testing audio, so he can't be wrong.

For all you undiscerning buyers who purchase shams like Beats by Dre or something similar, know that we laugh in your general direction. I'll admit that my dream headphones -- Skullcandy Aviators in white -- are a bit cash for flash, but only suckers buy the celebrity endorsed headphones. If you are really that susceptible to marketing and hype, then please contact me because I have some books to sell you. An outdated Rough Guide to Blogging perhaps?

• Celebrity Headphone Deathmatch (2011)
• Audiokarma Stereo Forums

While I'm here, some more endorsements. Lately we've been all in on Clash of Clans. It's a freemium half farming, half tower defense game. The best part of it is that you can give your clan mates stuff like giants, barbarians, skeleton manned balloons, and wizards. The worst part of it is that the game is a total time suck. According to my in-depth research, if you are a new parent with a compelling reason to be awake every few hours, this game is for you! (Currently I am trying to make the move to Arcane Empires, a slightly more complex and in-depth Clash of Clans. The steampunk theme and artwork alone has sold me.)

A goal this year is to be more organized and on top of my tasks. I tried out Bring Home the Milk, Wunderlist, Astrid, and Orchestra. In the end, I went with Orchestra because it's the prettiest. That and the web interface is the best. Did I mention it's pretty? I've been at least 150% more productive already.

My friend Mel goes to a ton of concerts and she introduced me to Songkick, which is an app that scans your iTunes library and then serves up upcoming concerts you might be interested in. I was testing out Thrillcall before but didn't find it all that useful. Songkick has been a delight already and I'm scared I'm about to blow crazy money on live music.

New York has way too many bands coming through and now I know exactly which artists I'm missing. Ignorance really was bliss -- and cheaper. I'm in the process of trying to figure out a metric for which concerts I should attend but right now it's just a free for all. Seen or about to see: Dwele and Anthony David, Jose James, Tegan and Sara, Walk the Moon, Freelance Whales, XXYYXX, and if I can motivate to Staten Island, maybe I'll be lucky enough to see my OTP, Jewel.

So much of me really wants to use/like Spun, a slick looking guide to food, fashion, and music, but so far I've found it lacking. The interface and design are neat, but the utility has yet to be determined. I'm keeping it around and hoping it gets better. I am also on the hunt for a good weather app. Please recommend.

Also, I'm pretty certain I used "OTP" incorrectly. Oh well. Baby steps.

Trapper Keeper

Listening to: "Hot Cheetos and Takis." This song, my goodness. I'm pushing it on everyone -- with an admittedly so-so success rate, but you need to be into it so we can be friends. "Gangnam Style" was so last month, this week it's all about H-O-T Cheetos.

This is an informative article from AAWW's Open City blog about "Gangnam Style" though: "Beyond the Horse Dance: Viral Vid 'Gangnam Style' Critiques Korea's Extreme Inequality. Okay, fine, I'm not truly over this song yet. Not at all. I just requested that my friend please, pretty please, play it at her upcoming wedding. With luck maybe she'll play both of these songs. Snack, snack, snack...

Back in school, if I forgot my planner for a day, or geezes, managed to lose it outright, my life was over. I couldn't remember anything I had scheduled, or what homework assignments were due, or maybe even what day of the week it was. In college, your planner was your security blanket. Plus, sometimes friends would leave you a note on a distant date and they could be assured you'd find it. (If a note falls in a forest and it's not written in a day planner, does it get read? Chances are, probably not.)

Ah, memories.

Somewhere along the way I lost the need for a paper planner. But I know a lot of people still rely on them. For example, my sister, neat freak and slightly Type A, once left her planner after a visit back home and she insisted I FedEx it up to her. Next day air too. So super serious.

What do I rely on now to run my ultra busy life? Google Calendar of course! It's come to my attention that a lot of people use Calendar totally wrong. As a public service announcement, I need to just show you how it should be done. The rule is "one color for each type of event." Calendar provides you with a multitude of wonderful colors and no limit on how many individual calendars you can create.

I have one for birthdays, one for work stuff, one for writing stuff, one for upcoming bills, one for Celtics games, one for travel info, etc. The most important calendar I have is "daily" which is just the generic tag I put on things I'm doing. Like next week I'm hitting up Sea World and attending a friendship bracelet making party, those go under the orange "daily" calendar.

Since I know I'm absolutely horrible at remembering when things are supposed to happen, I just offload my brain to Google Calendar and rely on technology to keep me on task. And instead of asking when a friend is in town, over and over, I just jot it down in my Calendar. Plus, a great side benefit of using all these colors and event calendars is that it looks really impressive at a glance. People will commend you on your busyness and being so "I'm right on top of that Rose."

However, I never let anyone look too closely at my Calendar, as they'd realize it's all just fluff and I'm barely busy at all. Shhh, our secret.

If you're still about the paper planner, my friend Susie (boygirlparty) makes the best ones. That's a definitive statement. The absolute best ones. Plus her to do lists are ridiculously great too. Foxes, octopuses, elephants, you're gonna want them all.

Fortress Around Your Heart

I have a friend who refuses to put any apps on his iPhone and I think it's crazy. "I like to keep it uncluttered." Listen, I'm a Virgo, I understand all about having to keep stuff clean and organized. But why have an iPhone that is stripped bare of anything but Phone, Mail, Messages, Camera, etc. That's like having a premium computer and not downloading any programs. "No no, I'm good with TextEdit." There are wonderful apps out there that make your life easier. I'm not saying you have to download all of them, just the few that you'd use often.

Historically I've been against paying anything for apps but I've recently changed my stance. It's completely silly to think that I'd pay $4 for a Jamba Juice but not 99¢ for an app. For example, I recently dropped a dollar to purchase the ad-free version of Chess for Friends. I've been using this app since 2007 and every time I've made a move I've been served up an ad. For a buck I ended the nuisance.

What's crazy is that even a week after eliminating the ads, I'm still trained to move my finger down to close an ad after I push my piece. I've been hard wired to be Zynga's pawn for five years!

Having said all that, I'd like to plug a few apps that might rescue you in this dark time. I used to download and try out every Twitter client. Some of the time I was on Echofon, some of the time I was on Tweetie (until it was acquired by Twitter), and I was always on the lookout for something better. Well, that something better is Tweetbot.

Tweetbot has a clean interface, wonderful gesture based actions, and allows me to switch between accounts easily. While it's not substantially different from anything freely available, the little touches add up to make it the best Twitter client available. I was a skeptic, but after using it for a few months, I'm glad I spent the $2.99. If you use Twitter regularly, I recommend you dig out a few dollars for this app too.

Also, Tweetbot just released a Mac client as a public alpha. Tell me how it is because I can't use it. My OS is still on Snow Leopard. I know, so embarrassing! And if you're heavy on the Twitter, you should probably be using a desktop client because Twittering via browser is just silly.

Next up, Stitcher. This one is free actually. Everyone knows I'm a guy who loves his podcasts. What isn't fun is refreshing them one by one, or syncing to my computer daily. Stitcher solves this problem by making it easy to refresh all your podcasts at once and then having them streamed whenever you need them. No local storage, more space for your games and music.

The only downside is that Stitcher doesn't have every podcast I listen to, and that can make it easy to fall behind for some podcasts. However, used in combination with the native iPhone podcast application, I've streamlined my podcast consuming to all new, way more efficient levels. Rejoice. Stitcher also makes it simple to discover new podcasts by suggesting stuff based on your listening preferences.

Here's two podcasts I'm into right now: Planet Money and How Was Your Week with Julie Klausner. Usually I can't stand a lot of NPR's podcasts but their Planet Money one I can get behind. As for HWYW, each episode starts with Julie droning on about her week and after awhile it gets kind of like she's your friend and you just get invested into knowing what she's been up to. Also, she has great guests like Rob Sheffield, Tavi Gevinson, Kurt Loder, Choire Sicha, and Patton Oswalt.

Actually, my absolute favorite podcast right now is Grantland's Reality TV Friday with Dave Jacoby and Juliet Litman. I've always loved Jacoby but when Juliet came on board a few weeks ago, their podcast chemistry made them my absolute favorite couple. Like in life. I don't know two people I'd rather listen to or hang out with. I know, strong statement, but it's absolutely true. I don't even watch the shows they talk about -- mostly Bachelor and Real World -- and I still can't wait to hear them banter and discuss the trivial each week. Here's a sample episode. And by "hang out with" I mean I listen via technology while they talk and don't even know I'm alive. It's a very one-sided relationship but I'm fine with that.