What initially felt eerie because of some interesting literary interpretation and unexpected turns, now just feels thick with bloodsport and weak at many of the pivotal points that move the narrative forward.

Of course I was in at the start, despite the warnings of vivid violence, because how unnerving would it be to see the dark and twisted written words of Edgar Allen Poe brought to life through the hands of misled followers? In an era where simple memes and new game releases garner god-like attention, imagine those indulgences being fueled and fanned by an "intelligent, charismatic and handsome" madman. Who wouldn't be fearing for their own personal safety?

Add to the mix the iconic acting of Kevin Bacon (some of my favorites being Quicksilver and X-Men: First Class), a woman that sounds like Tina Fey but isn't (Annie Parisse) and the non-Smallville Ashmore twin (Shawn, aka Bryan Singer's Iceman) and again, you have my attention.

Unfortunately, my interests started waning when I found myself not just cringing at the brutality of the followers' actions, but being sick to my stomach at the nonchalance of basically writing in steps for youths to experience and connect with depraved murder. Where there was some semblance at the start pointing to Poe's work, Joe Carroll's "I want to hear your stories" speech at the safe haven just opened the floodgates to make the show about whatever gruesome actions the writers wanted to think up. It's the exact reason why my wife and I stopped watching CSI after the first few years; the show rapidly became about the most lurid or obscure ways to show people having sex and then being killed.

Despite this shift (or failing, depending on your perspective), I went into each of the episodes "Let Me Go", "Welcome Home" and "Love Hurts" looking for the story to come back around and redeem itself; to provide meaning to the seemingly meaningless slaughter of human life.

Side note to the writers: Having a character say "I wanted my life to mean something" right before they are killed does not in itself add meaning to the action of their death or their life. It happened twice (Charlie then Paul) and only the first one could we kinda make sense with.

In each of those three episodes, essential plot actions occur or are only possible through convenience; e.g. While I'll give you that the blonde FBI agent that shot Agent Weston could easily have been a cult plant, it was highly suspect of being a lazy last minute write-in. The added fact that some of the SWAT team members were also in on it just made the whole farmhouse siege seem sloppy. Getting Emma to leave behind the boys was genius, but then I think you (the writers) found yourself with two knife-wielding proselytes (one wounded) stuck in a room surrounded by heavily armored tac teams and went for the easy out.

Similarly, Weston's suspicions not being aroused/blaring-ly confirmed about 5 muscular, non-discreet men standing around outside of his hotel during a high-profile case where the teams haven't been able to trust anyone is just poor planning. About as poor as having him be the only one with knowledge of Claire's location and thus needing a Fight Club-esque throw down. Again, a great scene, but the setup was so heavy-handed.

Lastly, making sure that Claire Matthews #4's school was having a topical Carnivale-style festival was convenient enough that I figured some intern remembered that the show was supposed to have a connection to Poe and they added it into the location scouting. Secondary to that, with so many murders and killing happening in the area, no students thought to question the only angry looking, non-mask wearing party goer?

Again, there is some great stuff built into the show, but I don't think the end result is going to outweigh the cost of looking past narrative flaws and the strong desire to shower after each episode, trying to wash some of the villainous and psychotic images way.

As a daily user of the app, with at least a couple of different podcast networks spin thing through my phone, it's nice to see some real functionality come to it. The ability to pick up where you left of between iPad and iPhone is nothing short of magical ... unless you take it in context with what everyone else is already doing (Audible, Amazon, etc.). Then it just makes sense.

The Meat

There are plenty of other write ups out there to guide you through all the knit picking of what Apple also .2 changed ... I just want to share with you and catalogue for my future self (yes that's for you, HIMYM) what I'm listening to these days, as well as some favorites from days gone by. Lets' get into it!

Primaries

These are my gotos that I usually listen to (or will pull up a video stream of) on a daily basis; it's mostly tech-related but there are a few other gems in there as well.

by Guy English, Rene Ritchie

by TwiT

by TWiT

By Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, Paul Miller

by 5by5

by Jonathan Mitchell

by Chicago Public Media

by NPR

by Timothy Keller

Secondaries

I don't always have time for these, but do enjoy when I get a chance to indulge.

• Old Tech News
• The Interface
• MP3 of the Day: Spinner
• Real Life Podcast
• 99% Invisible
• The Talk Show (with John Gruber)

Explorations

There are usually a few oddities that I try to push into the mix, so don't judge me on any of these ... they're just here for some variety.

• Iterate
• EconTalk
• Mars Hill Church: Mark Driscoll
• Judge John Hodgman
• Back to Work
• The Incomparable
• Hypothetical Podcast
• The Nerdist

Past Favorites

Some of these are long gone, while others you can still access the archives of and make them enjoyable all over again. And others are still kicking, but I've moved on.

• Hillman Curtis - Artist Series
• Tekzilla
• Layers.tv
• UrbanOutfitters
• The Beatles Complete on Ukulele/
• Tooth and Nail
• Focus on the Family
• Neue Magazine
• We Hate Movies
• http://marshill.com/music
• WhatsYourStatus
• The Accidental Creative
• The Big Web Show
• The Design View Show
• Filmspotting
• How Stuff Works
• Relevant Podcast
• Boys of Tech
• thesixtyone
• The Box
• Comic Geek Speak
• The Ben Heck Show
• Boagworld
• Doug Loves Movies
• The Bugle
• You Look Nice Today

That's it! There is a comprehensive list of all the things I have been sticking in my ears, podcast-wise, for the last few days, weeks and even years. I hope you enjoyed, and if you share any of the same or have some unbelievably good recommendations, please feel free to share.

Ugh. This is clear indication that I need to be spending more time with my sketchbook and Wacom tablet and less cultivating whatever talent constantly reading Twitter has the capability to expand.

No, it's not Matthew Perry. Yes, I would love if it made you think of Chandler ... especially any moment when he is wide-eyed with shame, embarrassment or surprise-leading-to-fits-of-hilarious-over-reaction. You'd think after a few quick sketches in Sketchbook Express (which made me remember why I don't spend all my time there) and a few more in Illustrator, I would have something more like him, but alas, time is wasted on the constantly distracted.

To say the least, the Harding Manor roommates (currently Jodie, Crystal, Rachel, Katie and Michelle) and I were watching friends via MacBook mirroring and an AppleTV, so at least the night wasn't a total disaster.

In some cases, however, you can actually find valid reasoning behind those personal preferences; in the case of All Caps vs. Sentence Case vs. lower case, different servers and languages perceive filenames and code entities as uniquely different items depending on the casing (See this About.com article for some good file naming recommendations).

When deciding whether to use single and double quotes in HTML files, you'll find that either option will validate perfectly (you can either validate to see or check out the spec) AND depending on the development team you end up working with or the open-source library your project implements, chances are that you will come across a variety of uses. For example, I personally always close my HTML attributes values with double quotes, but Google's popular web font service provides embed code that uses single quotes. Neither option is wrong and you could mix and match happily if desired.

The Rub

Here's the "however" point: When working with some server-side languages (my example is from PHP, but I'm sure this matters for at least a few others), there are times when you would want to purposefully use single quotes over double quotes and choosing between the two actually has important meaning.

In this example, I am using the PHP echo command to add the HTML markup I have to the page, hence the outside double quotes. The markup I want to add also uses double quotes, per my personal preference. PHP won't understand the above statement and even if it did, it is really easy for me to get confused as to what's happening in this statement after a few hours of coding.

If all I am worried about is PHP properly running, I could escape each of my internal double quotes and then run my statement. It would make PHP happy, but you can see in the above example how clumsy this could get as you continue to build strings throughout your web pages and applications.

In the above option, we'll swap out the internal double quotes for singles and get something both functional and cleaner. PHP is happy and if you are consistent, it will become an easy way to spot errors in your PHP commands that involve HTML markup.

The Bottom Line

If you aren't coding with anything more advanced than HTML and CSS, then you aren't going to hit any problems when choosing single over double quotes or mixing and matching. But if you plan to go beyond these simple front-end languages, begin now to make a good distinction in your usage. For me, that means sticking with double quotes for attribute value definitions and only switching as required.

Just to get out my box of markers and brushes again, I put this on some nice big Bristol paper. Nothing fancy, but as this is still a few weeks before January 1st, there is still time to begin working on establishing new habits to make the upcoming resolutions more successful. Check out Alexis' talk below and subscribe to the 99U feed for more goodness from Behance (I've only been on their email newsletter for a week and its been all great).

Also, how is everyone feeling about YouTube's new cleaner, simpler "Guide" UI feature? It seems a bit simplistic to me, but with their market moving more and more mainstream (imagine how things will change after this Christmas now that the $249 Chromebook is here), cleaning up the interface makes sense.

I have dug down deep
& come up strong;
yet the horizon
still looms.
What shall sustain me?
How will I be made whole?

None is greater
than all my sin.
My weakness leads
me further from you.
I am broken anew each day
& yet, I hear you call.

In the Darkest part of me,
I see the Brightest part of you.
Where we still falter,
You still Lead.

"Look to the Lord & his strength;
Seek his face always."
1 Chronicles 16:11

I love that he is using strongly minded men like Rob Bell, Tim Keller and Mitch McKinney to help me grow; not to indoctrinate me, but to teach me to ask questions AND to seek answers; to fully understand who and why I am and what my response to that understanding needs to be.

I love the frequent moments of clarity I have been feeling lately, when work and friends and pause all align just right and I can make perfect sense of what God is saying; when I can see so clearly and deeply what He meant and means for me to be and do. The moments are fleeting, but I think it is on purpose, as much as a sprinters' victory is only momentary; only most valuable as it is relevant. It means that I (we) have to work that much harder to find and keep and fully understand the nature of God (or at least the parts we can comprehend).

I love that in the microcosm there is so much chaos and seemingly shifting targets and interests, yet on the grander macro scale, the pieces fit. We can't see them all or even keep them all in place as we think about sorting, arranging and controlling them, but they are all there. Pieces like Jesus have even always been there; He isn't a last minute addition piece to help us fix/finish the puzzle, but as been there from the start. He was as much of the creation and nature of things as God; he is the glue/essence/flesh representation of the "ultimate existence" (Bell, Velvet Elvis) and truth. Of course "no one comes to the Father except through [Him]", the same way the no one leaves the house without first breathing. Jesus is the very thing that got us to want to leave, the very thing that moves us to leave and the very thing that sustains and leads us once we've stepped outside the door.

I love these moments because I know down deep that they aren't happening just for my own edification, but for of what lays on the horizon; for what God has planned for me. He is preparing me for that which I can't see, know or even think to expect yet.

And I love it.

Who knew that it wouldn't be a brand new entity but the book would be working to take some of comic and entertainments greatest masked heros and chuck them all into the mix together?! From just the few sample pages that Dynamite has put up, I am über excited to see where this crossover is headed. C'mon November! Get here faster so we can see this (and get some turkey too)!

Article - Dynamite Masks #1 (of 8)

Safari

• FB Photo Zoom
• Ultimate Status Bar
• Make It Short
• 1Password
• Musicbox
• Videobox
• Turn Off the Lights
• Validator
• Evernote
• Stylish

Firefox

• Dust-Me Selectors
• Delicious Bookmarks
• Download Statusbar
• Fangs
• Fast Dial
• Firebug
• Web Developer Toolbar
• Charles Proxy
• CodeBurner
• Firefogg
• HTML Validator
• Pronounce
• Pencil
• RetailMeNot
• X-Ray
• Firesheep

Google Chrome

• Adobe Shadow
• Image DNA
• RSS Subscriptions with FEED: Handler Support
• Speed Dial 2
• Web Developer

While listening to a childhood favorite of mine by Isaac Asimov, "The Caves of Steel", I drew this up in Adobe Fireworks and have to say that as much as I am accustomed to the Pen tool in Illustrator, there are some nice differences here. The rigidity of line snapping and limit of the raster preview make for an interesting environment. I'll have to do more of this later.