Oof...yeah, I just wrote that.

Back in January, I had a few items that I'd like to happen to the Tivo service. The trash bin feature was added, and I'm happy with it. I haven't heard anything about my "play all" idea though.

Anyway, I wanted to add one more.

Every morning, I wander out into the living room, turn on the TV and then force the Tivo off whatever horrible show he thinks we want to see. But every morning, I force him off to the same news channel. Why doesn't my Tivo record my viewing pattern to understand that around 7:30am, most mornings, I change the channel to watch the news? Tivo doesn't even need to record the news, just change that channel for me so when I turn on the TV, it's already rolling.

Instead, Thomas the Tivo just sits there, rubbing a THREE THUMBS DOWN paid programming feature in my face.

You can find a brief gallery here, or relive previous Mustache Thursdays...

Myself, Connie and Rob (one of Connie's coworkers, pictured above) drove to San Juan Capistrano Saturday night to celebrate Mikey and Brooke's wedding.

It was defintely my kind of wedding. The bride's maids arrived to the ceremony in a gorgeous cherry red classic Cadilllac and the ceremony overlooked the ocean. Then at the reception there was Wilco, free drinks, skateboarding and plenty of people to glare at the Santa Monica Daily Press crew.

Pictures enclosed.

Photos from my weekend trip to San Francisco.

My birthday isn't until Saturday, but I'm going out of town tomorrow and figured I'd share this little gem a few days early.

For more gold, go here.

When Google Maps was launched, it became my default mapping program. It wasn't stuck in 1993 like Mapquest, and it wasn't clunky and ugly like Yahoo! Maps. But then, someone behind the scenes of Google Maps had to go and eff with it.

While the browser interface remains the same, allowing the fluid drag-to-scroll, the print-friendly version is now a tragedy.

Here is a screen shot of a simple trip from the Santa Moinca Pier to the Chinese Theater.


Now if you'll recall the old version, your directions would be accompanied by a large map based on the centering and zoom level you chose from the browser interface. Connie and I would always zoom pretty close to the area around the end of the trip so that if we blew passed a venue or had to find parking, we could still clearly see the street names for blocks around. However, now you're given three dinky boxes, which in their defense do allow you to zoom in and out, but if you zoom in you don't get a better overview of the area.

If you're like me, you also like to see what major streets are ahead of your turn point so that you can prepare and be where you need to be. These small boxes don't make that any easier.

I do however enjoy the fact that someone decided that their users must be so stupid that they needed to put the giant LEFT and RIGHT arrows next to the steps where turns were indicated.

Finally, and this is a feature that is missing on ALL map applications, give me back the ability to get to a place without using the freeways. I live in Los Angeles where sometimes taking side streets is hours faster than taking the freeways. Mapquest offered this ability at one time, but then again, someone somewhere pushed a button and messed it up.

Give me back my giant maps, Google.

[UPDATE 10:39AM] - Yahoo! Maps Beta satisfies my mapping beast.

All the info is there.