Things I Talk About at Bars

I’m a pretty good talker. Not all the time mind you; but get me a drink, a seat, and a captive audience (preferably tied to their chairs) and I will talk their ears off.

Unfortunately after a night of hardcore talking, which probably involved me telling you an embarrassingly personal story about an ex-girlfriend, people ask me to e-mail them all the things I was talking about. They also ask me to untie them.

Below is a list, in no particular order, of what I’ve been talking about for the month of March 2011.

Comedy Stuff

• Hannibal Buress – Very funny stand-up comic now opening for Letterman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBgoBjJkxfI

• Kumail Nanjiani – Another great stand-up from Pakistan. Love his bit about Benjamin Button.
• IT Crowd – Super funny BBC comedy about an english IT department.
• Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace – Is a total cult classic BBC comedy in the style of old 1980’s tales from the crypt, Stephen King style horror. Probably the best show to convincingly do badly done.
• QI – One of my favorite UK vices after PG Tips, Qi is a quiz show, but a quiz show unlike any you have ever watched before. The point is not to get the answer right, but instead to be interesting. Hosted by the incredibly smart and interesting Stephen Fry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-6-0JTXMPo

• Would I lie to you – A hilarious BBC show where british celebs have to lie to get points. Really great and sometimes hilariously funny.
• Nasty Cute – My main squeeze, Eliza Skinner, has a 365 project about cute animals who say terrible things.
  
• Sleepwalk With Me – Funny non-fiction from Mike Birbiglia, talked about it previously on my post about being inspired to write more.

Tech Stuff

• Stacey CMS – This little Content Management system surprised me because of how easy it is to use and install. No Databases, just easy to write templates and text files. Very good for the beginner. Can be completely pimped out as seen in the architecturally inspired theme Assemblage.
  
• TwentyTen Five – Based on an article in Smashing Magazine, this WordPress theme is wonderful for those wanting to dip their toes into HTML5. Based on WordPress’s default theme, it is very easy to work with and style. You can see templates I have built using it here on this website and on ElizaSkinner.com.
  
• Pure Reader – For all of you who use Google Reader to read your RSS, the Pure Reader browser extension makes that experience amazing. Seriously, I cannot recommend it enough.
  
• Ultimate CSS Gradient Generator – I do love me some smooth gradients, especially when I can create them in CSS3.0 ala an Adobe Illustrator style chooser. Found this via 25 Super Web-based HTML & CSS Tools an incredible resource for great web tools.
  
• Calibre – If you own an e-Book, then you must have Calibre. Although the interface is chunky and pretty counter-intuitive, Calibre can convert any eBook format to any other e-book format. It also organizes books and allows you create e-books from a website’s RSS feed.
• Roku Player – Still my favorite video streamer. If you subscribe to Netflix instant watch, you owe it to yourself to get a Roku Player.

So, now you know what it’s like to have drinks with me. Pretty exciting right? My calendar is pretty open if you?… no? You have to?… go? Oh, okay, maybe next time. Here, let me untie you.