“You don’t know any York? Well these matches say you’re lying.”

I designed these and got an entire box made. For a single joke.

Totally worth it.

The new version is great, but some of the keys have been switched around, and I’m very picky. Luckily, autohotkey allows you to remap keys very easily (I always have a script running anyway). AHK can do tons of amazing things, but for our purposes we’re just going to do some simple remapping. The basics are:

• Download and install AHK
• Create a new text file (with notepad or whatever), and add the code below. Save it with the extension “.ahk”
• Double-click on the .ahk file you just saved, to launch it

It may seem confusing at first, because AHK is not a program you launch. You simply install it, and then launch each script individually. You can also create .exe files so you don’t need AHK installed, but I prefer to keep them .ahk so I can keep editing them at any time easily (I change my mind a lot).

Okay, so what’s the code? For starters, I really wanted the numpad Enter key on the right side where it used to be. They switched that key to CTRL. So to swap it back, all you need is this line:

RControl::NumpadEnter

The first key is the old key you want to change, the second is what you want it to be. Pretty simple. But now there’s no right CTRL key, so we’ll map that to the “www” key:

Browser_Home::RControl

That’s it! Be sure to put them on separate lines, save the file, and then launch the script. I recommend adding this script to your Windows startup folder.

For users of TypeMatrix, there are a couple other things you may be interested in. First, their copy/paste keys (this mostly applies to Dvorak typists like myself). They work fine most of the time, but some applications don’t like them. The reason for this, straight from TM:

For the record, here is how cut, copy and paste are implemented on TypeMatrix keyboards:
Cut: Shift + Del
Copy: Ctrl + Ins
Paste: Shift + Ins

They do this because those commands are more universal, whether you’re on Windows, Mac, or Linux. But if you’re always on one OS, you can safely remap them. For Windows, if we remap some keys to “CTRL-C” it should work perfectly in every app. Since the “shuffle” key is hardwired in the keyboard, we can’t reprogram it. We’ll move the keys to the left and use play and app instead:

^Media_Play_Pause::^c
^AppsKey::^v ; Keep this HIGHER in script than regular AppsKey!

The ^ means CTRL in the above code. So hitting CTRL-play = COPY, and CTRL-app = PASTE. The keys are all next to each other, which I also like. For CUT, I just use the normal CTRL-X since it’s not that far away, and can still be reached with only your left hand. Of course now the keys are labelled wrong, so don’t get confused. Also, the semi-colon in the code means it’s a comment, so you can leave that part in if you want.

Second, the shuffle key. I LOVE that key, but unfortunately it seems to be a bit buggy on the new version. We’ll just ignore their shuffle key and make our own. Again, we can’t reprogram the actual shuffle key, so we’ll use app instead:

Launch_App2::!Tab ;Calculator button
AppsKey::!Tab

Now both the CALC key and the APP key will shuffle (alt-tab one time). This only switches between two windows. If you hold it, it will keep shuffling back and forth. It’s super fast and that’s all I want. But some may prefer the TM shuffle key, which lets you hold it down to go 2, 3, 4 windows back, etc.

I’ve remapped other keys, but they may not be useful for most people. For instance:

Launch_Mail::^!+Space
Volume_Down::^!+Left
Volume_Up::^!+Right

Those are global hotkeys for VLC media player. If I hit CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-spacebar, my video pauses, even if it’s not in focus (I watch on a second monitor). So now with this new code, the MAIL key pauses, and the Volume keys skip forward and back. You’ll also need to set those within VLC for it to work.

If you’d like to remap the “desktop” key (this key sends the command WINDOWS-D), you can use this code (change the second part to whatever you want):

#d::RControl

However, note that this will disable the WINDOWS-D command, so only do this if you don’t use that shortcut.

This should give you a glimpse of how powerful autohotkey is, and this is really basic stuff. For more info, you can see a List of hotkeys, or read their tutorial on Key Remapping. I will update this post with any new commands people ask for. Have fun and let me know any other tricks in the comments!

On October 10th, 2010 I attended “The Beckoning of Lovely”:

The Beckoning of Lovely is an expanding film project involving hundreds of strangers from around the world. Amy Krouse Rosenthal initiated the project last fall by filming a spontaneous public gathering on 8/08/08 at “The Bean” in Millennium Park. The event was a beautiful testament to the power of community, cooperation, and hope amongst strangers in the name of all things lovely. The project has since evolved into the making of a full-length feature film.

What exactly the event would entail remained vague, but my girlfriend wanted to go, and it sounded like it could be cool. I watched the 08/08/08 video, and it seemed like it could be something akin to the mp3 experiment (except with more art, and no mp3). Here’s the 08/08/08 video:

Before the event started, people started singing “We’re here, because we’re here, because we’re here, because we’re hereeeeeee!” to the tune of Auld Lang Syne (as heard in the ’08 video). What seemed at first to be a mildly amusing tautology proved to be chillingly accurate.

As mentioned in the description above, the beckoning was created by Amy. Her invitation video asked everyone to wear a white shirt with their first name on the front, and “beckoning of lovely 10/10/10″ on the back. I didn’t want to do it because 1) I don’t wear white, and 2) it made it seem a bit too cultish. But I figured maybe something interesting would be done with them (e.g., “go find someone with the same name as you!”). But the only thing that even remotely required them was when Amy told everyone to “turn to your neighbor and give them a high five while saying their name.” It seems the real reason for the shirts was simply to make the event seem more important and organized than it really was.

There was a guy “warming up” the crowd at the beginning, who later explained he had no idea he would be standing up there, he was just there for the event and somehow got picked to help out. At first that seemed kind of cool, like we’d all be participating in some way, but no, it really just showed the lack of planning that went into it. There was a funny moment when he asked the crowd, “How many people here came to the Beckoning last year?” (No one raised their hand.) “NO ONE?! Wow!” (I later found out there was no ’09 beckoning, just Amy by herself, but perhaps I should have taken that foreshadowing to heart.)

Finally Amy arrived, and explained that there would be “ten moments.” Amy talked about kindred spirits, and how the word “kindred” was what this event was all about. She had two people rip a sign in half, showing that kindred was also “KIND” and “RED.” Red was the theme, which allowed her to shoe-horn in all sorts of things for no other reason. There were also tons of needless puns, such as:

“Who has recently learned to tell time?” (a little girl comes up and Amy sits her on a stool) “This is your lookout tower, you have to watch and make sure everyone is having a good time.” (That was moment number 1. A girl sitting on a stool. That’s it. Nothing else happened.)

Then someone brought up a “red carpet” (which was actually just a red towel). Amy: “This is Matt. Thanks for the mat, Matt!” Clearly, he was chosen for his name only.

She brought up all the redheads for one of the moments, then had them sit back down. She released a red balloon into the sky for another. She read letters from people who had “red” in their last name.

But what really bothered me was how many of the moments were based on previous beckonings. In the ’08 video you saw someone give a flower to a stranger. Well she had him back, and had a bunch of people give him a flower.

In ’09 there was a guy who asked for a “moment of peace” and she played him a song on her ipod. This time she had the actual band there to play their song live. It would have been great, but the instruments weren’t miked, and the singer stood too far away from his mike to be heard even by us, and we were five feet from the speaker. After the song was over Amy asked if the volume was too low, and everyone (except the people right in front of her/them) shouted “YES!” Then she asked, “could you hear it?”, and we all shouted, “NO!” But the only people she could hear were the ones right in front of her, so she replied, “good!” without realizing that only about ten people could actually hear it.

Then she read a letter from a 14-year-old girl who couldn’t come. She had everyone say hi to her on camera, so that we could all be with her in spirit. While that’s all fine and good, Amy, there are hundreds of people here right now wanting to be involved in something! What happened to the “we’re going to make a bunch of stuff together” mentality from ’08? Why aren’t we doing something, anything? The whole event seemed less like a gathering to share a moment with strangers, and more of a platform for Amy to speak to a large audience about her art project.

There were a few cool moments. At one point she had everyone take out their cell phones, and hold them up (which is a wholly unoriginal idea, but it was still neat to see). Then there were two guys in old diving suits who slowly walked around (like they were underwater) handing stuff out. They had bubbles blowing out behind them. The best thing was when she had kids hand out tiny letters, which are simply adorable:

But aside from that, we were incredibly disappointed. My girlfriend (who is an artist) later described the event as “insultingly cliche” and “offensive.”[1] I read that Amy did some other things as part of the beckoning (in book stores), and maybe those are nice. It seemed like this event was the final chapter, so it was her just wrapping up the story. However, that really wasn’t clear to all the people attending, and since nearly everyone was there for the first time, it didn’t make any sense.

Seeing clips of the event online will probably seem nice, and you may think I’m crazy to be writing such a negative review. The final film may be neat. People loved the ’08 video, and will probably love the ’10 video, but that just proves that with pretty music, slow motion, and soft narration, you can make almost anything seem more special than it really was.

[1] Edit: she clarifies “I didn’t mean anything about it was particularly offensive – just offended that she wasted my time.”

Wait, so, uh…should we cross? Everyone is shopping on this side.

I found this at the local dollar store. Boooo.

If you can’t tell, that’s a badly photocopied piece of paper wrapped up in Scotch tape. Seventy. Dollars. He told me they’re worth $100 though, so I got a good deal, right? Let me start at the beginning.

The Lakeshore Theater (LT) has a whole bunch of comedians and musicians perform, and the tickets can be anywhere from $10 to $40 per show. They have what’s called a Flexpass, which is six tickets for $100. It never expires, but you can only get two tickets per show, and it’s invalid for some shows. Obviously if you’re going to $10 or $15 shows it’s not worth it (you pay $16.67), but the guy on craigslist, Ben, was selling his unused pass for $70 ($11.67 per ticket), and most of the comedians I want to see are $20 anyway.

After emailing back and forth, and talking on the phone a bunch of times throughout the week, he said he’d stop by and make the exchange. However, there was a problem. I called LT and they said flexpasses are under the buyer’s name, so no one else can use them. I called Ben back and he said he thought they’d let us switch the name over, which he did after we got off the phone. Finally he arrived to sell it to me, and handed me the flexpass, as seen above (it does have a 3-digit number on it, however). You can imagine what I thought when I saw it. Ben was very nice and always seemed genuine, and if it had been a scam it would have been an awful lot of trouble for not much money.

He laughed about how crappy the card looked, and said I could call them to verify it. Ben read the LT phone number to me from his phone, but luckily I had their number on my phone already — a different number than what he read to me (box office vs. admin phone). I called the number I had, and they put me on hold and forgot about me. Ben said he always called the other number, and dialed it on his phone while we were waiting. He got through right away. This was a problem, because it was possible he was simply calling a friend of his pretending to be LT. I had already hung up and called them back again, and luckily got through as Ben was trying to hand me his phone. The woman verified Ben’s name, and my name, and I asked if this crappy piece of paper truly was what they were selling for $100…although I think I said it a little more tactfully than that. She laughed and said yes, but they have a record at the LT so I didn’t really even need the card if I remembered the number on it.

Fast forward back to the present, and I just saw Cinematic Titanic last night using the flexpass, and it was hilarious and everything I expected it to be. The movie they were riffing was Danger on Tiki Island, and the tickets sell for $40 each without a flexpass! Dave (Gruber) Allen opened the show, doing some standup and reading a list of sponsors, and then mocking them. He was hilarious. If he were performing by himself, I’d go in a heartbeat.

So I guess the moral is, sometimes, even the shadiest looking deals are real.

I wish I could hang out with them all the time.

So I gave up on walking around and instead stood on the corner and yo-yoed. Some people watched, and over the next ten minutes these things happened:

1. A black guy around my age asked if it was a Duncan, and I said no, it’s a YoYoJam. “YoYoJam! No way!” he exclaimed, saying they were great. I wasn’t sure if he was serious, or putting me on. He started telling me about how Duncans weren’t very good because they get knots a lot quicker. I told him I “didn’t think that was true.” He went on a rant about Yo-Yo Balls, and something about doing tricks with them. I told him they really weren’t made for tricks, and he walked away never to return. He seemed genuine.
2. A girl walked up and took my picture, and when I looked up she ran away. It was a terrible picture too, I had just messed up a trick. I wanted to tell her to take another, but she was gone.
3. An almost-skinhead guy walked up to me, inches from my face, and stared angrily at me. “What’s up?” I asked. He pointed devil horns at me with his left hand, nodded, and then walked away. It made exactly as much sense as you think it did. We had nothing in common that I could tell.

Weird day.

* There were some cool shirts in other booths, and I’m sure it was fun for most people. This post really isn’t about the Fest itself.

…but we make it:

The next problem is actually getting it up into our second floor apartment. We try carrying it up the back stairs, but it’s too big to fit. We have to use some other method, so we try pulling it up with a carabiner.

No good (as we expected).

It’s getting late, and we don’t have any pulleys, so we have to leave the couch outside until the next day.

We buy three pulleys and rig it up on the left side of the building. Here’s pliSkiNAKE on the second floor railing:

We have lift-off! Photo taken from the basement:

A little higher…

Close-up of the pulley system; the couch is as high as we can get it:

Long exposure from the ground:

Time to rig up something new in order to get it all the way up. Ratchet straps hold the couch up while we move the pulleys:

We release the straps while pulling it over the railing:

…and we’ve done it! (We don’t normally sit this close together. :P)

The final struggle is to get it through the doorway. Does this look like it’s too big to fit through? Because it totally is. But we made it fit.

We may have cuts and bruises, and the couch may have tears and scratches, but we triumphed!