Obzervationz 2004/5

Only in Nashville

I was laying over in the Nashville airport on my way to Austin this evening, and had the distinct pleasure of listening to three acoustic musicians jamming in the gate lobby. They played (and traded off) guitar, banjo, and mandolin, with a repertoire which stretched from classic blues (Lightnin' Hopkins' "C. C. Rider") to old-timey ("Long Black Veil") to the Grateful Dead ("Friend of the Devil") to some original stuff. Apparently, they were en route to a gig in Austin.

I guess "Music City" is more than just a tourism slogan.

Techno-curmudgeonry ([dive into mark])

I knew Mark Pilgrim was a really smart guy, but didn't know how smart until I read this post. I agree with him on everything excetp GNU/Emacs: but my allegiance to vim/gvim is based on exactly the same principles:

• cross-platform smoothness

• works in console mode, nearly identically to the GUI form

• scriptable

• extensible syntax-highlighting

My reasons for avoiding GNU/Emacs / XEmacs are the same ones Mark supplies for not using vim / gvim, only reversed:

I’ve tried vi and vim and gvim and Lemmy and all the rest; they just don’t fit my brain.

Oh, and I guess I have more allegiance to Python than he does; but then again, I haven't just finished writing a book on it. :)