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The Bulk Rename Utility is a free Windows app from the makers of ViceVersa.

And it is awesome.

Of course, this is something only a true geek like myself can get excited about… but in all honesty it is the single most welcome addition to my arsenal of software tools in many years.

Every so often (or, as seems to be the case lately, every freaking day) I need to rename a large number of files from pattern X to pattern Y.  Usually this involves firing up Cygwin and working out some kind of rename script snippet.  Not rocket science this, but enough to make me groan inwardly.

I’ve tried a couple of rename utilities over the years; none powerful enough to replace script writing.

BRU is different.  You can see from the screenshot that it has intuitive (well, kind of) filters for just about any possible renaming combination.  Best of all it gives you a preview of how your files will be renamed… before you accidentally mung that entire directory tree.  BRU includes many, many more features, including exotic transformations such as renaming photos from EXIF extensions as well as renaming MP3 files using ID3 tags.

Anyway, enough gushing of the geekery.  It’s a nice tool.  Recommended.

Remember when Fox called this a “Terrorist Fist Jab”?

Whatever the future may hold, today is a good day.

The JL421 Badonkadonk is a “one-of-a-kind armored land cruiser recreational tank” featuring full on board-lighting, a 1000 watt sound system, and a pyrotechnic effects system including rocket pods (optional). Available from Amazon.com.

This is way better than a turbo minivan. I think I finally know what I want for Christmas, in addition to an Emacs Reference Mug.

Imagine a three-story tall castle-shaped Lite Brite flanked by a small army of seven-foot inflatable Weeble-Wobble-like iconic Christmas sentries… and you may just barely be able to grasp what it is like to stand before Dominic Luberto’s “Castle of Christmas” in Jamaica Plain on the outskirts of Boston.

The “Castle” was pretty impressive last year, when the lights alone appear to have cost about $10,000 dollars. But this year its over the top. Literally. Atop Luberto’s $2 million dollar domicile this year sits a ten-foot high 650 pound illuminated gold crown.

Apparently back in November the city was after Luberto, stating that the crown is a permit-requiring structure. Luberto claimed it to be just a “temporary Christmas decoration.” He must have won; the crown was still up when we went to see it last night.

Even more bizarre than the display itself is the fact that Luberto seems to be using it to advertise his own version of Where’s Waldo.

An illuminated sign out front, finddominicdecorating.com, points to a self-published book available from AuthorHouse.com.

The “Free Preview” paragraph on AuthorHouse proudly declares:

Hi kids! This is your friend Dominic. I’ll decorate my Castle for Christmas. Can you guess which decorations I will use? Dominic will love to paste some of the book pictures but this program doesn’t let us do that.

Woah.

So with marketing collateral like that, what else could I do? I ordered a book from my friend Dominic. Hopefully the program will let him send it to me.

This was surprisingly hard to find, but exactly what I was looking for. The Filter is a music recommendation engine that generates playlists from a Bayesian network of one’s listening habits. Select a song, hit “create playlist”, and it assembles some damn good, personalized playlists. For example, selected Chibo Matto’s Lint of Love churns out songs from:

Freaking sweet.

Ever since I was a kid I’ve been obsessed with hedge mazes. And no one ever wants to get lost in them with me. So this weekend, under the guise of some good old New England leaf peeping, the Japanese girls and I drove up to The Great Vermont Corn Maze at Patterson Farm in North Danville, Vermont.

Now, I’ve been through a garden maze or two, and figured that this would be more of the same. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes of meandering through a vegetable labyrinth. Boy was I wrong.

The Great Vermont Corn Maze is multiple acres of maize-made maze. The corn is ten feet high and uniform; one part of the maze is impossible to discern from any other part. The only distinguishing land marks are three wooden bridges and the occasional “cheater pole”.

Suffice it to say, we got seriously lost. Fifteen minutes quickly became seventy-five before we were finally were able to stumble out of the maize and ring the giant Bell of Success. And we apparently made record time. Other groups had been lost for well over two hours before finding their way out.

Fortunately for me, the girls enjoyed it. And we got to peak at the Vermont foliage from crests and bends in the maze. Altogether there are a dozen or so corn mazes in New England. I think we’re going to have to visit a few more before all the color is gone.

Here’s a shot of the same maze from a few years back to give you a sense of the scope of our predicament.

PS. Sorry for the corny title.

Oh my god I so freaking want a turbo minivan.