I won’t be doing many (any?) posts over Thanksgiving — my grandfather’s birthday is this weekend, and I’m spending the time visiting with family. On the bright side, I wrapped up my logistical project today, and I’m looking forward to blogging a little more after Thanksgiving. I also taped three videos when I visited the webmaster console team in Kirkland a few weeks ago, so we might be able to get those up too.
If you’re looking for fun things over the holiday weekend, here are some things I’ve enjoyed recently:
DVD:
- Ratatouille is excellent. It’s family-friendly, but it’s also very clever.
- I played soccer in high school, so I’m a sucker for fun soccer movies (Shaolin Soccer and Bend it Like Beckham come to mind). I really liked Gracie. It’s fascinating to read how the movie is grounded in real life. Gracie is one of the few movies where I’ve watched the movie again with commentary later (provided by Elisabeth Shue and Andrew Shue).
Books:
- Non-fiction, I really enjoyed Rule the Web. I’ll talk about this book more when I do my Christmas gift suggestions, but the short summary is that anyone that touches a computer can find some fun things in this book.
- Also for non-fiction, Founders at Work is interesting. If you have an entrepreneurial bent or have ever thought of doing a start-up, I think you’d like this book.
- Fiction? I genuinely haven’t been reading much straight fiction for the last month or two. If you like comic books graphic novels, I’ve enjoyed Powers recently. The Powers series examines what would happen if lots of regular people had superpowers. I also checked out Shooting War. It’s frigging bleak, but you might like it if you liked Transmetropolitan.
Podcasts:
- The Daily SearchCast has gotten a little sporadic as Danny has been on vacation and doing search conferences. It’s still one of the most enjoyable ways to get your fix of search news though, and it’s much safer to listen to the SearchCast in the car instead of trying to surf web sites on an iPhone as you drive. 
I’ve got a batch of these to listen to while I’m traveling this weekend. But Daron and Danny: you tweaked the MP3 filenames to include some keywords, but you dropped the date. Bring the date back so it’s easy to listen to them in order!
Web. Some stuff that’s in my browser or otherwise interesting:
- Eric Enge interviews Eric Engleman, from Bloglines. It’s a fun interview, and I’m glad that Bloglines keeps the Google Reader engineers on their toes.
- Sure, you saw Scoble blow off Android. But though I love Robert, he’s not a hard-core developer. He’s a smart guy who talks to techies and developers and neat people. So I’d trust Scoble’s opinion on how compelling the Android videos and demos were, but you really want a developer who digs into the system to give an in-depth write-up. A better view on Android was this article by Reto Meier. I love that Android supports all sorts of inputs, from GPS to compass to accelerometer to cameras.
- This Linux device driver project needs more unsupported devices so that they can write drivers for them. My three requested devices would be 1) full support for *all* of the keys on the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000, 2) the Omron HJ-720ITC pedometer, and 3) the Fretlight guitar.
- Gmail has always been pretty open (e.g. letting you download your email for free via POP or easy exporting of your contacts). It’s nice that Gmail added IMAP support, but I’m just as excited that Google has introduced a Greasemonkey API for Gmail to make hacking on Gmail even easier. I was a little surprised that this didn’t get much coverage in search blogs, other than Google OS covering the API.
That’s it for now — enjoy your Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you in a few days.
{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
Hah, you played soccer? On which position?
.
How about the latest Google-related achievements by SearchEnginesWeb.
Didn’t think you were going to get away without mentioning them – did you?!
If you’re a soccer guy, check out Green Street Hooligans. Different angle, but a great flick.
http://www.amazon.com/Green-Street-Hooligans-David-Alexander/dp/B000FBNG1O
Uh, yeah, I guess I did think I was going to get away without mentioning them, S.E.W.
You should make up a list all in one place on your site.
I am bringing my skimboard, wetsuit, and a fork! Then going to the Ritz Carlton for their all you can eat buffet with the wife and friends in Laguna Beach.
Wishing a happy Thanksgiving to Everyone here! And for those of you outside the U.S. Just go and have a typical Thursday! but overeat at lunch!
dk
Matt,
Never underestimate “SEW latest Google-related achievements”
Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends who celebrate it..
Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends who celebrate it
I am from India, so its not so celebrated, Enjoy and let me know how u celebrate
Didn’t know you read comics Matt.
If you want to get onto something recent and bleak try “The Boys”, it’s written by Garth Ennis and drawn by the same guy who does Transmetropolitan. Very funny but also very harsh.
Have a good Thanks-Giving America, remember that we don’t get a break here in the UK, just working away everyday in our miserable weather.
Nothing else is needed if your destination has cable and a television. For me I am getting away from anything remotely work related and watching some sports! Oh and of course pants with a stretchy waste
re android its not about “hard-core developer’s the problem with wide range of screen sizes and phone capabilities.
And ok you can hack together a cute looking example in an emulator getting it to run across a very wide range of devices reliably and across all networks is going to be a killer – this is assuming that the network operators wont cripple it.
Also a lot of the location based adverts which some people (primarily the marketing weasels) have wet dreams over doesn’t realy seem to take of people just want to use there phones to A speak to people and B send SMS’s
I don’t think the mobile phone industry needs another symbian arguably it needed a new UI paradigm but Apple did that already.
M
ps happy thanksgiving btw
Thanks giving is always one of the busiest travel times of the year. But not everybody is heading home to mom.
LOL Matt. I just bought my 3rd 4000 keyboard the other day. Tip: Don’t spell coffee or coca-cola on it.. As for the keys, well I know there is a button to open the calculator, but I still “window+r” calc enter rather than hitting it.
It would be interesting see you playing soccer… And I wishh you a great Thanksgiving day.
I don’t have an iPhone (refuse to switch providers) but I do have an iPod Touch, and I have found it’s a heck of a lot more difficult to negotiate in the car than my old 80gb iPod Video. So I went back to that one for commuting. Even with my Car2iPod conversion, the iPod Touch just isn’t made for navigating while driving.
I agree on the iphone. My old phone, I could feel the buttons.. so I knew if I pressed “contacts, d, down down talk it would call my dad. k talk would be my girlfriend, n down down down talk would be the chinese place, etc.
With the iPhone, it’s tough because you actually have to look at the phone.
Same with sending a text message. Before I was able to do it just by feel of the buttons.
(it’s also the same reason I hate the apple wireless keyboard with no num pad. I learned to type on a number pad without looking and now I have to look at my keyboard)
I’m not going anywhere BUT if I was – my mac book, iPod and, possibly, an Amazon Kindle in the future
Happy Thanksgiving everyone
David
A Real Pilgrim from Plymouth, England Oi!
you forgotten an iPod stuffed with your fav songs
and a happy thanksgiving to everyone!!
Hey, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family Matt!
Mmmm I wasn’t too crazy about Ratatouille.. I haven’t been impressed with the last two Pixar movies. But the last 15 minutes of it was fun to watch.
Happy thanksgiving to all
Happy Thanksgiving Matt and all.
Speaking of Thanks Giving travel, I’d like to share with you a great road trip planning tool I use for planning our family vacations
Not sure I can add links here but you can click my name to get to the site (hope this meets the Google guidelines Matt
Enjoy,
Tomer.
Happy Thanksgiving to all Matts readers
Paul
Another Real Pilgrim from Birmingham, England
Happy Thanksgiving from my family to you and yours.
Todays plans;
Football
Turkey
Football
Pie
Sleep.
Happy Thanksgiving from the site google loves to hate, GameBrink.Com
Happy Thanksgiving all
James
A Real Pilgrim from London, England!
thanks for the tip on the dailysearchcast! i am always searching for great resources just like that
Oprah’s…… um I mean Matt’s book club! I’ve just purchased “Founders at work” on your mention, I’m sure it will be a great read. Any chance you’ll be in the sequel Matt??
Tums, lots and lots of Tums, the holidays are when I eat the most, and my poor body can’t take it, gotta settle it down…maybe if i didn’t eat, sleep, eat, sleep… it wouldn’t be so much of a problem, but ehh. it tastes sooo good.
I agree, the Ratatouille is a good one to keep the kids busy, as well we found Live free or die hard kept our 9 year old very entertained.
Happy Thanks Giving
Happy Holidays to all. Driving a manual in holidays traffic blows a big one.
Hey Matt,
Could you please email me with your mail to the mail address provided in this comment!
Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. I’d like to ask you for you mail because I want to ask you one quick question, but I’d like to keep it out of comments
Thanks a bunch man! And have a great Sunday!
Manca
Matt, if you like funny chinese movie I would recommend this one by Stephen Chow: Fight Back to School (part 1).
Those are some great suggestions.
If you like Powers, definitely check out Bendis’s older crime noir stuff like Jinx and Goldfish. Very quality stuff.
I’m not going anywhere but if I was my mac book, possibly, an Amazon Kindle in the future…