mattmoore.blog()

I occasionally need to do a lot of renaming in Flash. For instance, you bring in a bunch of PNGs into Flash, distribute them to layers, but want to remove “.png” from their name on each layer. Or, maybe more practically,  you want to rename all your library class names from the package “com.domain.” to “com.anotherdomain.”. Well you’re in luck, because I just created a tool that does just that.

Library and Layer Renamer is a JSFL tool for Flash CS4 only. This tool has two functions (which can be found under the Commands > Utilities menu in Flash). First choose a selection type–for the Library Renamer, you can choose all items, only selected items, or build a selection based on a regular expression (e.g. to match all items with the string “.png” you would type in “\.png” in the text field below “Match Pattern”).

Next, if you’re using the Library Renamer, you can choose what to rename: the base class, the class name, or the library item name. For the Layer Renamer, only the layer name is affected.

Based on the selection, you can add a prefix, suffix, or do a pattern replace.  For instance, if you have five library items ["my clip", "my ball animation", "my graphic", "my button", and "my special something"] and you want to replace the word “my” with “sam’s” in each of those item names, the pattern would be “my” and the replace would be “sam’s”.

Where can you get this wonderful tool? You can download the latest from here. You can install this with the CS4 Extension Manager (a restart of Flash is required). This tool is licensed under the MIT license.

Regular status means upon entering a point of service (restaurant, coffee shop) your exact order can be anticipated without any verbal or physical prompting.

My friend Dave Schlafman is the professional at regular status. He has more regular status in the metro Boston-area than anyone I know–probably dozens of restaurants and coffee shops. I’ve known this about him since we were at college together. I believe I have distilled down what exactly are the qualities that make regular status possible using Dave as a test case.

1. You need to be memorable to the staff who probably sees hundreds of people each day. Options include being: very friendly, neurotic, funny, eccentric.  A consistent visual cue, like wearing the same jacket or hat, certainly would help to make you recognizable.
   
2. You need to be original with your order.  Maybe even get something that no one else would order. For instance, at Starbucks Dave’s order goes something like this: “Soy chai latte, five pumps of chai, no water, extra extra extra hot”.
3. You need to be consistent and order the same thing each time even if it means settling for monotony. Dave is so habitual that he rarely deviates from the one thing he likes.
   

If you do these three things time after time, I believe you will be able to attain regular status (but probably not as much as Dave).

• Hollywood Bowl Depeche Mode
• Katie’s Birthday
• BLD for brunch
• Seed in Venice
• Muppets Movie in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery July 25th
• Bulan Thai on Melrose
• Bike from Los Angeles to San Diego
• Wilshire (it’s beautiful) Restaurant
• San Luis Obispo/Central Coast
• Catalina Island
• Downtown Art Walk August 13th
• Ojai/Ventura Beaches
• Avalon
• Echoplex in Echo Park
• Santa Monica Farmers Market
• 1st Fridays in venice
• Skid Row Tour
• Farm Tour in August
• Griffith Park lectures/biking/observatory star show
• Food Not Bombs reunion
• Camping in the desert (Joshua Tree)
• LA River Bike Ride/Bike to Long Beach
• Tomato tasting
• Garlic Festival July 24-26
• Napa/Sonoma
• Elberta Peach Picking
• Santa Monica Thursday Night Reggae
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien
• Largo
• Roof of the Home Depot on Sunset
• Walk from Studio City to the beach
• Disneyland one last time
• Dodger game
• Play beach volleyball
• Huntington Gardens

Much of this list was generated with the help of Katie Diane Ricketts. She says, “Let LA surprise you with all kinds of adventures not even on this list!! You will be amazed!! !”

In the past year, I have stopped using an alarm clock (or my phone’s alarm clock) to wake up in the morning.  In addition to my technophobic refusal to be ruled by machines, alarm clocks create unnecessarily stress starting my day and make it difficult for me to remember my dreams.  The challenge of being alarm clock free, however, was that I didn’t want to be as disciplined about the time I went to bed.  It took me some experimenting and research to figure out the alarm clock’s Achilles’ heel:

To wake at a consistent time–even with variable to-bed times–is to eat something as soon as you get up in the morning.   Your body will  respect this eating schedule and wake you up at the same time each day.  The only downside it makes it really hard to sleep late on weekends–but afternoon napping is fair game!

Worked on this logo project this weekend with Dave and Evan.  Went through several rounds of exploration until we finally settled on the last logo design.  We wanted something that was fun, playful and simple .  The first round was decidedly too cartoony.

Round two was a little more serious, a little more iconic. Tried some different type faces and imagery that was slightly less illustrative. I also had the idea of a kid on a swinging trying to swing really really high. I think it was an interesting idea but started to get a little too whimsical and poetic.

The rocket ship seemed like the more interesting silhouette.  Tried two more figures to see if I could come up with something that was a little less nostalgic than the kid on the swing. Jet packs and climbing seemed slightly more adventurous.  Although I think the execution never really got there. Also, with this round, I tried to de-emphasis the “kid”.  I really wanted the focus to be on clouds, flying, imagination than kid. Even when you say “cloud kid” the emphasis is on the first word.

The forth round was an attempt to take all the comments, and make some initial choices about direction. All three designs used a rocket ship, all three had two words with different text emphasis.  The rocket ship was a much more interesting item to focus on because it has a really strong silhouette value but also could look really great illustrated in full color.

With the fifth round I really wanted to show a high detail and low detail version of the logo to see where the strengths and weaknesses were. I also wanted to make one last attempt at the figure logo. There was something that was really interesting about the swinging kid, jet pack kid. In this forth one, which I anticipated would be a throw away, I decided to add a kite to the climber from the other round.   However, it kept reminding me Dreamworks’ boy fishing.  The first option was by far the strongest. I got rid of the de-emphasized text for “kid” because it was hard to read the tail of the jet with the skinny ‘k’.  I could, however, accomplish the same effect with color or grayscale.

This is getting pretty close to the final branding. After tweaking the rocket for the full color version, I decided that the black and white version needed to match for cohesiveness.  I’m pretty satisfied with the result. It accomplished all of the things we were looking for. The full color version on the white background needs some color help, but we may end up favoring the reverse logo anyways.

We decided the logo needed a little warmer color–overall it was looking a little too cold.  I also added a few highlights on the ship to make it appear a little shinier.  

The difference between a pierogi and a bodega is that one is filled with sauerkraut and potato and the other with cigarettes and lottery tickets.

I was playing Bananagrams this weekend and came up with some game-play variations to expound upon the existing, boring rules. Try and let me know what you think.

Super Anagrams
The objective is to construct as few a words as possible that are all connected. Distribute all the tiles evenly and say “split” to start.  If you are the first person to finish you say “bananas” and the other players have 2 minutes to finish (or risk being disqualified). The first person who finishes gets to subtract the number of other players from their total word count. For instance, if three people are playing, and I go out with 10 words, then I subtract 2 giving me a score of 8. The second person who finishes would subtract 1. The person with the lowest score wins.

This game is interesting because even if you go out it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll win. This game also makes it much more about making large anagrams quickly.

No Repeats Method:
This is a modification of the original game. Play the game normally except when someone yells “bananas” everyone else continues until they finish their letters as well. Also, players are not allowed to repeat any of their words. The first person who finishes then reads all their words aloud. If any words or configurations are repeated or illegal, that person is disqualified and then the second place person reads their words. Continue until you have a winner.

I like this as the standard game because it encourages everyone to finish and prohibits excessive use of redundant two-letter words.

Banana Sprint
After a standard game is over, have each player shuffle their tiles up on the table. Then have each player select tiles (2 players = 4 tiles, 3 players = 3 tiles, 4 players = 2 tiles) and pass the tiles faced-down to the person to your right. Say “split”, flip over the unknown passed tiles and play normally–obviously without the dump or peel. Create connected anagrams as fast as you can.

We started playing this way because we were too lazy to flip over all the tiles at the end of the game. Everyone is familiar with their tiles at this point so this goes much faster–hence sprint.

For brunch today I made a quinoa salad that was pretty good.

• 1 cup quinoa
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 4 green onions, chopped
• 2 Tbsp. fresh ginger, minced
• 1 cup purple cabbage, chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp. plum vinegar
• splash of olive oil

Add the quinoa, cayenne and the veggie broth in a pot on high. When it starts boiling, cover and reduce heat to very low. It’s like cooking rice except the quinoa is ready in 15 minutes.  Once the quinoa is finished, in another pan add some oil, the cabbage, basil, ginger and plum vinegar. Cook for 2 minutes just enough time to soften up the cabbage and turn off the stove. Add in the quinoa and chopped onions and serve warm.  This dish is like a confetti cannon in your mouth.

You know those romances where you become so involved in the continuous cycle of breaking up and making up that any normal healthy relationship seems preposterous? That is, in an essence, my relationship to the cold.

The good times were spent making snowmen, going ice skating, sledding on the golf course, going home to a toasty house and sipping hot chocolate. The bad times were my parents refusing to turn up the thermostat while I walked around the house in an oversized cheap sweatshirt and itchy wool socks.  It was also being incredibly frustrated with the hot-blooded polar bears that roll down their car window all the way, leave the door open and put the fan on full blast. And it was shoveling our landing-strip of a driveway until my hands were cemented cold and battling the Boston winters on my frozen metal bicycle.

Now that I live in Los Angeles, I miss the cold. We broke up several years ago and it hasn’t been the same since. Over time, my closet has been purged of all the scarfs, gloves and long underwear. A black fleece ski jacket is the only remaining item I’ve been unable to shake from the clutches of my harping closet.

The cold I experience here is a more of a dull annoyance than those passionate winter months that you think will never end. Many houses in southern California are ill-equipped with insulation or proper heating. Also, it is difficult to find decent wind-proof, cold weather gear for the handful of chilling evenings.

Tonight is an especially brisk night and I’m considered doubling my bed blankets to avoid goosebumps from the drafty single-pane window nearby. When I close my eyes tonight, I’ll think of those New England months that I long to complain about.