fysigunkus | jay hathaway dot com

I’ve been writing a lot over at Download Squad this week, and some of it has been about software I use myself. If you’re into that sort of thing, check out my posts on Growl notification styles, Minimalist Gmail, and site-specific browsers in Fluid. Pulling Google Reader and Grooveshark into Fluid is the smartest thing that’s happened to my workflow in ages.

Also, meet my new casual gaming addiction: Ramp Champ. This little skee-ball gem from The Iconfactory is lovingly illustrated and plays like a dream. The basic premise is “roll the ball, knock stuff down, get points, win prizes,” but each level has its own unique goals to achieve. Here’s the really insidious part: Ramp Champ uses the iPhone’s in-app purchase system to allow you to buy more levels. It’s way too much fun.

Now, onward to a few friend updates:

Ben Templesmith, just back from jaunts to London and Brazil, sacrificed his beard to dress up as Dr. Who for Halloween.

Doctor Popular is in the midst of a Week of Comics on his blog, where he’s posting some comics of his own and some general musings on the medium. Doc knows what he’s talking about when it comes to the old sequential art boogie, so head over and listen up.

Doc also launched a new challenge that I’m hoping to find time to participate in: Comics Without Comics. Instead of creating a traditional comic using images, Doc is challenging people to tell a story in 4 to 40 panels using text only. I’m intrigued.

Simon has made a mixtape.

Musical Interlude:

A new video from Lily Allen, with an unexpected twist. Lily’s cleverer than she gets credit for, all that piracy stuff aside. She’s at her hottest here, but you’ve also got to laugh a bit once you see the direction she takes things. Oh, is THAT who the song was about?

Also, Kupek’s Good-Time Singles Club returned this week. I always love new music from Bryan Lee O’Malley. This time, he’s got a completely unexpected cover of a P. Diddy remix of Janet Jackson’s Son of a Gun. I don’t know how it works, but it does. The other track is an uptempo rocker called St. Clair that’s already starting to grow on me. Go get ‘em both.

And here’s your required reading for the week …

• One of my favorite thinkers on the web, Matt Jones, wrote a piece for Io9 on the city as a battlesuit for surviving the future. There’s a lot to mull over, but my favorite bit centered on a quote from a designer named Adam Greenfield: “The bottom-line is a city that responds to the behaviour of its users in something close to real-time, and in turn begins to shape that behaviour.”

• I very nearly violated my standing policy against following organizations on Twitter to add The 99 Percent, the Behance Network’s magazine. I ended up adding it to my Google Reader instead, for inspirational tidbits about work and creativity, and links to the best articles from The 99 Percent’s gorgeous website.

• Are you reading Joanne McNeil at Tomorrow Museum? She’s curating a half-hopeful, half-terrifying collection of some of the most thoughtful stuff on the web. Joanne definitely tops the list of folks with whom I’d like to collaborate on some cockamamie future scheme.