I've caved (even more) to the Google Machine

I've been resistant to fully embracing the Google mentality that everything is better in web app form. I like having separate applications for email, instant messaging, and news feed reading, mostly because I can hide them without closing the application (and I don't like or think to minimize things on my Mac) and because I can get notifications, either through dock badges or Growl.

But lately I've been finding myself using Gmail in web app form more and more, mostly because tagging just doesn't work as well anywhere else.

And NetNewsWire now syncs with Google Reader, so I'm back to using that, so I've been sitting with Firefox open with three tabs (2 Gmail and 1 Google Reader) pretty much all the time lately.

I don't really like this. I'd much rather have everything in the background, and get Growl notifications when there are updates. I also don't really like Firefox that much anymore.... Maybe when Chrome for Mac gets finished (I have the beta but have yet to fully switch to it) I'll get even more on board the Google Train.

Apparently I no longer have Twitter

My account was "hacked" or whatever, so it's disabled... and I lack the motivation to do anything about it.

Maybe that means I will use this thing more often...

More Icons

I've decided to give these another go. Here's the first:

I haven't used this in a while...

Is it weird that blogging already seems old-fashioned?

Way to Normal sucked. Stems and Seeds is pretty good.

Maybe I'm in a different frame of mind from when I listened to Way to Normal (haven't listened to it since), but Stems and Seeds, the reissue/remaster/resequence of Ben Folds' latest CD is way better than the original.

My main gripe with Way to Normal was that it sounded overproduced, which appears to have been adjusted in Stems and Seeds. It's still a little too "band"-y for me to like it more than his earlier albums where he just plays piano and sings, but it's not bad...

The new track arrangement seems to work better too, and it has the "fake" tracks from the leak.