… Let me count the ways. Much to my sister and her boyfriend’s chagrin I brought my PS3 down from Canada with me and have been thoroughly enjoying it most nights after we all return to the Charlestown house from our respective jobs. Sometimes I can get it to function as a media center, wirelessly streaming the many movies I have on my laptop and playing them through the gaming console. It’s quite cool. But more often than not it skips too much to be watchable… so a gaming console it tends to remain. On these occasions there tends to be heated discussion on who gets to do what, but if I have to sit through the Real Housewives of Orange County a couple times a week, Janet and Damo can surely suffer my ongoing rivalry with the Portland Pirates a time or two.
The reason I brought the Playstation 3 with me is because, well, I’ve loved video games since the first time I ever played one, probably 32 years ago. To say I was an early adopter would be a major understatement. I was playing Adventure on a terminal my Dad had hooked up to a 7-foot-tall mainframe in his workshop at the age of 4. I remember a campground in the very early 80’s that had an arcade with Space Invaders, Defender, Sub Hunt and a few other pioneering hunks of fun. My friend Oliver wins the prize for the first home system I ever played, which was a combination of pong and a light gun target game with abysmal accuracy. The Atari 2600 and Commodore Vic 20 came along soon afterwards and pretty soon my obsession turned to Pitfall and the text adventure games of Scott Adams, The Count being my favorite, even though I never managed to finish it.
Fast-forward another year and I was writing my own games on my Vic using basic and well… you get the point. Considering the era in which I grew up, and who my father and Uncle were, I think that if I didn’t still have any affinity for video games – there’d be something far more wrong with me. That’s what I keep telling myself each morning when I wake up next to two Boston Terriers, at any rate.
Time has marched on mercilessly, as it does, and my current pixelly fascination is the latest version of Electronic Art’s juggernaut, NHL 2010, or NHL10 as it’s been branded. 16 years ago I beat every kid in Mills Hall at the University of Guelph in an NHL ‘92 tournament that someone set up. We chose to use 92 as opposed to 93 or 94 because more kids were familiar with it and I went through my competitors like… I should probably wrap this post up about now while I still might sleep with a woman again someday. My point is, I have a long history with the franchise.
Marco and I enthusiastically trying out the new first-person fighting feature the day of the game’s release back in September 2009.
So this post isn’t a complete informational bust for folks who may have found it via a search engine, here are my favorite bits from NHL10 – all of which have to do with the new “Be a Pro” mode.
In “Be a Pro” mode you start on an AHL team (currently the Providence Bruins for me) and have to prove yourself in order to make it up to the show.
At the conclusion of every shift your coach provides bullet points in a popup window of what you did well and what you need to work on. “Good positioning out there. Keep firing them at the net. You picked a good time to start a fight and get the team’s energy up but you have to hold your own.”
Speaking of fighting, it’s in first-person perspective for the first time ever and it’s a heck of a lot of fun. I’m getting better, and win the odd fight, but it’s been hard to master thus far.
I love the fact that if you set the style to “Authentic” if you’re in the penalty box, or even just resting on the bench, your viewpoint switches to first-person and you have to turn your head back and forth to keep your eye on the action like you’re at Wimbleton.
A super game, and well done to Electronic Arts. Who else has played it? With the strength of EA’s offering this year, is it even worth renting the competition’s 2K10? Sound off, my hockey nerds of the evening. I know you’re out there.
“It comes with 16 GB for $499. No, 3G is $130 extra. Yes, I know it’s on the large size and doesn’t do anything the iTouch can’t. Who the fuck let me walk out here thinking this was a good idea? You know I’m on a shitload of meds.”
When looking at the specs for the new Apple iPad today, the first words to pop into my head were, “Holy Moses, that thing looks big.” The first image that popped into my head also had a lot to do with Moses. Uncanny, that. I whipped up a quick Photoshop (or Fireworks if we’re splitting hairs) for my coworkers and I thought I’d share it here.
“Let my people synch with Outlook!”
Aren’t I just the silliest goose? I have trouble envisioning even big goons like me carting them around – but Apple rarely gets it wrong. Glad to be back, by the way. If you’ll have me.
I read about this recent Indiana Jones Marathon in Santa Monica (Appropriate since Harrison Ford has his own private hangar at the Santa Monica airport,) and was pleasantly surprised when, unbeknownst to me, my friend Sean not only attended but took the time to send me a photo he snuck of one of the sacred movie prop relics on display. He also wrote to describe the event and although Harry didn’t how up and start whipping the front row screaming “Get a life, would you people? It’s just a movie!”, I thought I’d share this pentultimate popular culture experience here on PITF.
“Dave – The picture below I took for you for you because you couldn’t be there to join in. I spent 7 hours in a seat watching Indy 1 through 3 last night at the Aero Theater here in Santa Monica. Just out of camera range below this was the broken stone tablet prop and matching shield from Indy 3 that tells Indy how to get to Alexandretta.
In this picture is the actual Staff of Ra headpiece prop used in the shot in the “Well of Souls” when Indy puts the staff into the correct slot and the beam of light hits the resting place of the ark. The gem in the middle of this piece is actually amber in color but was colored red in the editing because a red gem didn’t show well in the original shot. (if you watch the original film cut, the jewel is red at first, then as it seats, is amber for a spit second as the light hits it and then is red again) The larger version that Marion wears as a medallion in Nepal and then is later examined by the wise man in the “bad dates” scene is about a third larger than this one and is now on display at the Smithsonian in Washington DC.
This is the piece they also shot a green laser through to define the SFX beam on the floor model of Tanis . Then they enhanced the laser to an amber color as the glowing sun beam that blinds the audience when Indy locates the spot where the ark is buried. It is owned by Richard Edlund , the VFX supervisor for Indy 1. Edlund was one of the guests at the showing.
Rumor has it that this same headpiece once resided on Lucas’ mantelpiece along with the Mercedes Benz truck ornament that Indy snapped off the truck in the famous “out-the-windshield” scene at the Skywalker Ranch until he gave it to Edlund as a birthday present years later when he retired from the day to day business at ILM .
Fortune & glory, kid. Fortune & glory. – Sean”
Coincidently I recently forced several uninitiated folk to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time a few weeks ago (young ‘uns. Go figure). Unless I was being completely messed with – they were blown away and could not believe they’d wasted their lives so far watching summer movie tripe like Transformers. It felt good. My ridiculously large DVD collection and I will always be here for the youth of Ontario.
Let’s “face” it – since the mass influx of Facebook into our collective worlds, having a blog isn’t such a big deal anymore. Maybe it never was to anyone with a girlfriend. Likewise, having a Flickr account isn’t such a big deal anymore. Making an Evite seems like an enormous extra step. Why would you join an old-fashioned forum when you can just search for a related group? It’s an incredible, incredible (I hate to say the word) phenomenon the likes of which we won’t see again for a long time.
That having been said I know there are a lot of readers, or former readers, I might just win back one day when I increase the frequency of my posting who do not use FB and definitely never will. I was reminded of this last week when I received an email from my buddy Taz in Germany to let me know that 5 years after the last time I saw him in person – he’s still reading regularly, and what am I up to? That got me thinking. Got me optimistic and inspired. Tingly in the pants.
The first step of my long-overdue comeback will be to update my galleries – exported from Facebook using an incredible Wordpress plugin which is probably my favorite add-on of all time. I pray that Mr. Harp never stops updating and evolving this wonderful tool and I encourage you to donate some money if you end up using it. I have, and I may again someday. On to the galleries…
Mobile Uploads: These are photos I take with my iPhone. Possibly through your bedroom window. Keep an eye on this one.
Summer is Upon Us: Miscellaneous photos not falling on big holiday weekends. Lots of unfortunate evidence from Duck’s Roadhouse.
Bonnie’s Memorial Weekend: We sent Mom off in style and over 100 people traveled from as far away as Florida to wish her a fitting bon voyage.
Straight Outta Storage: Whilst going through my parent’s things I’ve found a treasure trove of funny family photos. I be scanning and yes, there are bathtub photos for the pedophile crowd.
April Flowers: Includes my attempt at a St. Patrick’s Day party and shots of the brand new man-cave in use for the first time.
Canada Day 2009: Half the fam-damily joined me for fireworks and lots of silly fun and silliness.
July 4th 2009: Jason and Jim came up for a weekend of Canadian revelry and brought more duty free vodka with them than I’ve ever seen in one place.
Kim and Gooch’s Wedding : People told me I had a good time. Congrats to the happy couple and thanks for the skidoo.
That’s my last 4 months or so in pictures, and I sincerely hope you enjoy them. It’s been a wonderful summer so far, and if you’re a friend of mine I seriously encourage you to drop me a line and come up for a visit. If you have any questions, comments or the number of a good rehab facility – please leave them below.
This isn’t some kind of virus alarm but it’s still a big dork deal. Especially if you’re a massive tool like I am. Apple released the latest version of the iPhone’s software today and it contains a ton of cool new – and useful – features that you don’t have to buy the new iPhone (released tomorrow) in order to get.
When I read all of the new phone’s features earlier this week, having just purchased the current one a little over a months ago, buyer’s remorse immediately set in. “Damn it – I should have waited.” As my local copy of iTunes automatically began downloading the 230 MB update a few minutes ago, that remorse was replaced with joy. A window popped up listing what was new in the update for current iPhone owners. I quickly realized nearly all of the new features I bemoaned not waiting to purchase so I could enjoy are included in this very software update for current and older models. Well raise my rent!
Here are the additions I’m particularly interested in adding to my productivity/silliness arsenal, and you can click through to a full list as there are many more I don’t give a fig about.
Cut, Copy & Paste with shake to undo Not being able to copy and paste has been a real headache for me. This is at the top of my “thank fuck” list. The shake option will also be perfect for days when you long for your old Etch-o-Sketch.
Landscape keyboard in key applications I have large frigging fingers. Enough said. Thank heavens for this addition.
Enhanced Messages application - Send and receive photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS. I gotta tell you, it was weird to shell out for the iPhone and not be able to do simple things like take a picture and text it to a friend like you’d been able to do for years with regular cell phones.
- Forward and delete single or multiple messages Don’t you miss having texts forwarded to you by friends writing to other friends “in confidence”? Or drunkenly forwarding something personal to the wrong person? Happy days are here again.
Spotlight search across iPhone
This new tool allows you to search Mail, Contacts Calendar, Notes and iPod tracks simultaneously. I can’t yet envision how this may be useful, unless you’re a big fan of Elvis Costello and he also owes you money, but I’m willing to fiddle around and find out.
The Best New 3G iPhone Apps.
There you have it, and my list doesn’t mention about 100 brand new applications, also being launched today, which take advantage of the more technical upgrades. Personally, I can’t wait for iShitPants (see the video). If you’re an iPhone owner – get updating.
Apple, how I loathe thee, let me count the ways. It’s been exactly seven days since I traveled to Kingston, bit the bullet and bought an iPhone. As a long time PC guy and legacy Blackberry fan it was a tough decision but admittedly – I in no way regret it. What a wonderful little piece of gadgety goodness. Here are some of my initial thoughts after a week of use.
General iPhone Observations
I’ll start with my very favorite feature – voicemail. With my Blackberry and every other cell phone I’ve ever owned I hated having to call in, enter a password and then listen to 17 voicemails on Sunday morning which went something like “Hi, this is Skip. But you probably know that cause my name will be in your call log. Anyway, just wanted to call you and see what you were up to. Call me back, but it’s in no way important and I shouldn’t have even left this stupid, redundant message. Bye.” On the iPhone voicemail callers are presented in a list as buttons, and you can listen to delete them in any order without having to enter a password! There is also a “speaker” button at the top right of the voicemail screen which allows you to listen to said messages without even having to put the phone up to your ear. I love this!
The call quality and volume is always top-notch, and I’ve yet to drop a signal or ask someone to repeat themselves. But then again, Mushmouth doesn’t call me anymore.
I bought an accompanying headset which is great for the car, never getting laid again and lying on the couch without the strength or motivation to sit up and grab your phone. It synchs seamlessly with the iPhone as soon as you switch it on and you can answer calls by tapping the top of it. It’s also very subtle so I’m not going to look like a complete iTard. Operative word there being “complete”.
It’s nice to have a camera on my phone again and I look forward to using it with Facebook and TwitPic to share my silly adventures. I’m hoping to find a Wordpress plugin that can auto-post to the blog as well. There’s no flash and it only works well in bright areas but I can live with that.
The UI is terrific, with nothing but a touch screen and solitary button to worry about. The screen keypad takes some getting used to, but after a week my speed and accuracy has improved dramatically. I do, however, type in landscape mode whenever possible.
Email is definitely decent with the ability to separate different POP accounts into multiple inboxes. Currently I’m running everything into GMail and then over to the phone using IMAP to save on data transfer costs. I have yet to come up with the ideal workflow for the email, but I’m getting there. I am seriously considering abandoning Outlook altogether and using Google Mail, Calendar and their respective Remember the Milk plugins for all business processes. This is a scary jump to make but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s the way to go.
iPhone Application Ruminations
Landscape is an app which allows you to write emails and texts using the landscape keyboard layout. This is excellent for fat-fingered behemoths like myself who cry themselves to sleep with a melted dollop of Ben & Jerry’s on their chest every night, pining for their Blackberrys.
Smacktalk consists of nothing else but a series of animals (guinea pig, terrier, kitten, chihuaua) who repeat whatever you say to them in a high pitched voice. When I visited my father at the hospital last week he laughed his head off, which is rare. This one is obviously going to be huge with children and dementia patients.
Dad’s favorite app, however, was definitely Galaga – where the classic 80’s arcade game is recreated on the phone with startling accuracy, right down to the soundtrack. I hope to see a lot of other old games brought back to life in this way. May I suggest Spy Hunter?
VoiceNote is another app I’ve used a lot over the last week. When I think of something that needs to be done and I don’t have one of my trusty notebooks in front of me I simply open it up and record the note to be captured somewhere later. Simple, but great for disciples of GTD such as myself.
Facebook kind of goes without saying, as does the Tweetie app. Good integration with these popular websites/enormous wastes of time.
Fex pulls all my friend’s profile photos out of Facebook and assigns them automatically to corresponding names in my iPhone address book. Not entirely necessary, but very neat!
Chordmaster shows you the fingering for any guitar chord you can imagine and also plays an example when you strum the screen. You can also use it to properly tune your mighty rock axe.
The Google app lets me check email, calendar, RSS feeds, documents and every other major tool that they offer under a Google account. It tends to be so slow that I don’t use it much, but hey – I live in the damn woods. Maybe this one will get more use in civilization.
Those are the applications I’ve installed and used so far. I would love to hear about your favorites. No doubt there are several hundred I haven’t gotten to yet. If you have any iPhone app recommendations please leave them in the comments. Jesus, I love technology. It’s an amazing time to be alive.
About 7 years ago, on what I imagine must have been a particularly lonely Saturday night, I not only discovered a website devoted to old Commodore 64 games but stuck around long enough to actually write a review of one of my favorites: Rags to Riches. I have been getting emails from other retro nerds as a result ever since. Yes, I have become a font of knowledge concerning all things related to this odd little game about, you guessed it, a homeless person.
A “homeless” video game in the mid-80s? Actually, that’s completely appropriate.
How anyone ever came up with the premise for Rags to Riches during the prehistoric C64 gaming era is beyond me. This title stands out because it is simply the most original game I have ever played. The usual collection of space aliens, fast cars, ninjas, warlocks and helicopters are replaced by a pathetic drunken tramp wandering the city streets in search of a better life.
To this day I still wonder how this game came about. There was nothing remotely like it during the C64 era and when I got the umpteenth email tonight from someone wishing to ask me a question about the game, I decided to dig a little deeper. Afterall, the name of the guy who wrote it, Bob Keener, is readily visible on the game’s splash screen. Who is this Bob Keener, and is he still involved in video game development nearly 25 years later? I really hope so as I am already sufficiently impressed with his imagination.
I really didn’t expect to find that much on the subject. Little did I know that both the game, and Bob Keener, both have their own Wikipedia entries. This confirms what I’ve known since 2002 when I began getting related emails in my old Hotmail account – R2R (as I believe it would be called were it re-released today) has an impressive cult following. Hardly surprising though given it’s multi-layered complexity which once again I have to point out was extraordinary on a machine and in an age where embarrassingly pixilated (by today’s standards) dragons, spaceships, ghosts and wizards were the norm. From Wikipedia – seriously, read this:
Straight out the front door of the jail at 7am. – If I had a nickel…
An alcohol, food/rest, and two education meters indicate the player’s current status. If both the alcohol level and food/rest level reach zero, the player dies and the game ends. Restaurants, fast food outlets, and convenience stores offer the player nourishment, with price depending on the establishment; there is also a soup kitchen in which a filling meal is available for free. Some stores have limited opening hours displayed on store windows and others are open at all hours. At night, it is usually advisable that the player find accommodation such as a hotel room, ranging in price from $2 per night to $40 per week; the food/rest levels deplete twice as fast during night time. Drinking alcohol is an inexpensive means of staying alive; however, the player cannot gain employment while affected.
This game kept you thinking the whole way through – sure I can save myself by topping off my Alcohol Meter, but I’m supposed to show up for work in 2 hours at the gas station. Can I get all the way to the soup kitchen before my Food Meter runs out? It was all about thinking ahead and timing – not frenetically mashing keys or joystick buttons. So who is the man behind this frankly revolutionary game? I had to know.
Neither Bob Keener or the Melody Hall Publishing Corporation’s Wiki entries had any information. Most references I found to the company name were pages requesting more information. It’s obviously been defunct for many years. As far as Bob Keener’s presence within the Google results is concerned, however, WOW – there are a lot of them out there. A couple of professors, a woodworker, a gent from Boston who looks like he might be the right age, dancers, actors and more. I emailed a few of them in the hopes I might get lucky and find the man behind the dusty top hat. Was he right out of college when he wrote the game or someone much further along in their programming career? If he one day stumbles across this article I hope he takes the time to say hello because I’d love to write a follow up of some sort. A “Behind the 80’s Video Game” for the nerderati.
Do they sell beer at this Quicki-Mart or is this the Canadian version of the game?
I am happy to see that for most searches my review outranks the Wiki entry, so perhaps it’s only fitting to close this post with a quote from that impeccable piece of writing:
Despite hours of trying, I have never been able to beat this game. Not even close. In spite of its shortcomings, Rags to Riches is worth a download and a look. A truly memorable and original piece of gaming history.
Mr. Keener – who and where are you? General public – please share your memories of this great game. Trivia is also welcomed. What were sales like in 1985? What did the box look like? Inquiring minds want to masturbate in their parent’s basements.
I recently wrote on my search marketing blog how important it was to make sure that you paid attention to, and took the time to monitor, your standing in Google, Yahoo and MSN’s search engine results pages (SERPs). Potential employers spring to mind as the most obvious reason to wanna positively manipulate your presence in Google, but there are other advantages as well. Easily being found by old friends, people with similar interests, former business colleagues for networking purposes, etc. The practice is generally referred to as brand reputation management (BRM) or online reputation management (ORM) and it’s a big deal. So get started on a little managing of your own. Stack the odds in your favor.
Here’s a neat little Google account feature I discovered this morning – the ability to create a public profile. If you have yet to do so you should be given the option at the top of your main account page after logging in to any of Google’s services. I have just created one for myself, David Pye, in about 15 minutes and if you currently have a GMail account, use Google Reader, Google Docs, Maps, etc. – I strongly suggest you do the same. No doubt this page will quickly rank highly in Google for searches on “David Pye” (as it’s frigging Google) and I may even make it slightly less silly in the near future as a result. As much as I’m sure people want to read about how much I love feta cheese.
I’ve never had any trouble ranking well for “Dave Pye”, as I own www.davepye.com, but for the more formal iteration it’s been a challenge. There are quite a few David Pye’s of note out there – a woodworking guru, a war veteran who has transcribed his journal notes, a Nobel Prize winning scientist – and don’t get me started on the amount of searches I get to my site each month via people looking for info on the now defunct 60’s British rock label Pye Records. They must owe royalties to a lot of people or something – folks, I swear neither I nor any of my direct relatives have anything to do with Bowie’s back catalog.
My point is, the Google Account’s newish profile page creation option is likely going to be an easy way to get myself into the top 5 or so for people searching on “David Pye”. Do yourself a favor and create one for yourself, then read an article I wrote last year about 11 other free ways to manipulate your online brand/name reputation. This may be the most important thing you read all week. That probably should have been the first sentence of this post, but well done to you if you got this far. Now get to work!
Waste more time in… less time. The “New Facebook” features an application bar on the lower left of each screen where you’re able to place shortcut icons to any applications you like. I imagine many people probably haven’t added it to their navigation habits yet, but it’s very useful and I use it constantly. And by “useful” I mean “not at all realistically productive” because it’s Facebook.
As I am limited to only 5 shortcuts it took me a few weeks to settle in on an inventory, and the resulting selections are probably unique to most individuals. Here’s what I have in mine, left to right.
Events Remember Evite? Neither does anyone else. As everyone you’ve ever known in your entire life continues to join Facebook, it’s rarely necessary to go outside the network for anything – and the definitely decent Events feature is what first brought me to that staggering realization. Still waiting on the “Food and Water” application.
Photos
We’re all familiar with this one. FB spent a lot of time early on (Jurassic 2006) devising a killer photo sharing system and it’s become a real thorn in the sides of Snapfish/OPhoto/Flickr. Easy java-based uploads, quick file size conversions and the ability to tag and sort are all reasons it’s become my base camp for all things ‘online photo’.
Crusades
The best FB “game” I have played as of yet. A medieval roleplayer, you join a tribe – Christian, Pagan, etc. – and then work your way up through the ranks buying land, buildings, magical gems to protect you in battle, weapons etc. Experience points are earned by fighting other players or performing special quests. I used to play Knighthood incessantly but find Crusades far more “sticky”, fun, visually pleasing and satisfying on a daily basis. Seriously, give it a try, peasant.
Scramble
This app for word game fans presents you with a grid of seemingly random letters and a time limit with which to form as many connecting words as possible. The boards are always different and unlike a crossword you can go up, down or diagonal all in the same word. It was a little imposing at first but I quickly became an addict.
Wordscraper
If you’re unfamiliar, Wordscraper is post-lawsuit Scrabulous. It’s made by the same developers who created the hugely popular original and they’ve changed it just enough that they can no longer be sued by those owning the rights to Scrabble. I tried getting into the official Scrabble FB application, but it was made entirely in Flash as opposed to Ajax, took too long to load and very few of my former Scrabulous friends and opponents ever bothered to adopt it. You can also customize the bonus tile spacing and point value making for some extremely high scoring and strategic games.
What’s in your wallet? Are you using the Facebook application bar? Regardless, what are your top 5 favorite FB applications?
When men hit their mid-50s they usually buy a convertible sports car. When men hit their mid-30s (and are secretly huge movie nerds) they usually combine and display action figures on shelves. And then die alone for all of their troubles. I’ll be turning the big 3-5 this Pearl Harbor Day (that’s December 7th and yes I do have an Amazon Wish List, thank you for asking) so when I began getting urges to do the latter I simply accepted it. I went with it. It’s who I am. Dave Pye – the font of useless pop culture knowledge who will watch the same movie over and over until his eyes bleed – and it’s usually Blade Runner.
Shall I pull my pants down and show you the jewels… of my personal collection? Super then. Top shelf Indy, bottom shelf Star Wars. Let’s start with the Indiana Jones conglomerate, left to right. First we have a genuine leather satchel, designed to look like the one Indy wears, with the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull logo burned into the lower right corner. Spielberg had them made by the Canadian company Roots (more details) as gifts for all of the cast and crew. I found it on eBay last month when I was looking for additions to my Halloween costume and couldn’t help myself. In the background we have an electronic whip, a Spalko action figure and three lego sets – all from the newest movie. Next we have four prop replicas – a Sankara Stone from Temple of Doom, the Hovitos Fertility Idol and Staff of Ra Headpiece from Raiders of the Lost ark and a bullwhip.
Ladies, all of this could be yours. Form a line to the left.
The Star Wars shelf contains a couple of items that are actually worth quite a bit of money on the open dork market. On the far left we have a modern little Chewbacca beanie baby. Behind that is a stuffed R2D2 doll with a little red button that squeaks that I got for Christmas in 1977. In front of that is a remote control R2, the controller long since lost, which I believe I got in 1981 when Empire Strikes Back came out. Next up is an original Han Solo Blaster, with no chips, the sticker intact and it still works.
Beside the blaster is a Canadian-version, bi-lingual copy Han Solo figure. The packaging is in pristine condition and I found the little guy whilst cleaning out one of my grandmother’s closets last summer. She must have bought it for me for Christmas in ‘77 and hidden it from my 4-year-old self in said closet – where it became lost for three decades. As I was cleaning out her home due to the fact that she is now in a long term care facility out of her mind and near death, the discovery choked me up. It was like a last gift from her to my inner-child. Nerd or not – you have to admit that’s pretty gosh darn cool. Thanks for everything, Claire. You did an excellent job with Janet and I.
“Pardon-et-moi? C’est la Guerre des E’toiles, cocksackeer!”
Next up is a rubber Yoda puppet in decent condition, still with all of his white yarny hair, which was given to me in 1981 and then finally bookended with another modern beanie baby version of the same little green Jedi master. All told and in retrospect a decent little collection of movie paraphernalia. Which begs the question – guys and gals: what are your most treasured trinkets from childhood? More Star Wars stuff? A little G.I. Joe or Rainbow Bright, perhaps? Maybe it’s just me, but I sincerely doubt it. Don’t leave me hanging here, folks.
It’s 11 o’clock. Do you know what your search results are? It’s also 2008 and any potential employer in any industry who is seriously considering hiring or even giving you an interview is going to do one important thing first. Google you.
I was recently asked to guest post for a Boston-based search marketing blog and I have to tell you – I feel a little like Jay Leno must have before he took over for Carson full time. As I typetty-typed away, and attempted to be jaw-droppingly clever, I realized that with a slight spin towards the stupid the topic I had chosen could be extremely helpful to my friends, family and 6 other loyal readers. Pay attention, Mom.
Social media is a double-edged sword. A tri-cornered hat. A coat of many colors. Like a bag of wild squirrels. Strike that last one. You have sites like FaceBook and MySpace for social networking. Then you have sites like Digg for social voting. Then you have sites like LOTRO for social exile. And amongst the multitude of other classifications under the main umbrella you have business networking sites. Hang up your Scrabulous games and annoying FunWall forwards for an hour tonight and build yourself a profile on Plaxo, LinkedIn, Spoke, Ziggs and all of the other social business sites I’ve listed here.
“Sharon works well as part of a team“. Enrique Gazpacho, trainee manager – Stinky Cactus Bar
Or by all means – ignore me and have the next HR person that leafs through your resume looking at your 1998 Cancun wet t-shirt contest indiscretions twenty seconds later. I don’t do this for a living or anything.
The official and just-released poster for this summer’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull follows the old-school painting style of movie marketing that was so prevalent in the 80s but has since dwindled out in favor of brash graphics, digital photography and Kiera Knightly’s side-boob. This poster could easily be hanging over the drive-in snack bar beside that of The Empire Strikes Back. Well done to Paramount and the filmmakers for staying true to the style of the first three films, yet again.
And don’t forget to visit my Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Squidoo lens where I’ve aggregated all of the best RSS feeds related to Indy 4 news in one easy to read location. May 22nd draws ever closer, and perhaps I’ll once again be permitted to kiss a girl on the 23rd!
Appetizer:What is your middle name? Would you change any it if you could? My middle name is James after my Grandfather Jimmy Smith. Not to be confused with Jimmy Smits who is far too young and hispanic to be my Grandfather. Jimmy Smith was born in Scotland and I spent most of my youth following him around and aping his accent – which probably explains a lot regarding my propencity for mimicry. And scotch.
Soup:If you were a designer, which fabrics, colors, and styles would you use the most?
I am a big fan of forest green, cobalt blue and not being gay. In terms of a style I think I’d be leaning towards metro-sexual pirate. “Avast, me hearties! Can I borrow a flask of rum and two fingers of product fer me fookin’ beard?”
Salad:What is your least favorite chore, and why?
I find that changing bed sheets requires an insane amount of effort. Especially if you use the same set over and over. Or frequently piss the bed. Stripping the mattress is quick enough, washing and drying is fairly automatic. It’s putting the whole thing together that takes the most time. Then you have to pull the bed out from the wall, flip the mattress so you can sleep on the dry side and sprinkle more lime on the dead hooker under the boxspring – it’s quite a chore, to be fair.
Main Course:What is something that frightens you? Can you trace it back to a life event? Even now I do not like swimming in the ocean. I have never been a big beach person but to actually submerge myself in the open sea is something I might do once a summer. In terms of an determining event I’ll say what everyone else probably does – repeated viewings of Jaws as a child. And the fact that I was drowned as a witch in one of my former lives.
Dessert:Where are you sitting right now? Name 3 things you can see at this moment. I am sitting at a makeshift desk in my parent’s trailer. Dad is to my right watching the first season of SNL on DVD (a present from me, obviously). The hockey fights DVD is probably going to be next. I can see the picnic table outside where I plan to sit tonight, have a beer and play LOTRO after the sun sets. That’s wicked nerdy, I know, but I’m on Dad-duty this week and as crazy as it sounds even I can only watch so many Bond films. Finally I see one of the park peacocks strutting around the lake next to our trailer. This is definitely a strange little universe I’ve found myself in that I will try to relay in future posts. Happy Friday, y’all!
I finally made it to the trailer park in Melbourne, Florida around 7pm last night and am now working on one of the surgical waiting room computers at the hospital where my Mom is having her operation. Luckily there’s also a big flatscreen in here so my father will be mesmerized for a couple of hours. So far so good, and I hope to set out soon in search of the cafeteria for one of those awesome hospital lemon danishes and a shot glass full of OJ.
Last night after my arrival I set up my computer and tried to get online using my newly purchased Verizon Wireless card. It’s a little antenna looking thing that you plug into one of your USB ports that allows you to access the internet using cell phone signals. It costs $60 a month and works pretty well. I bought it specifically while I was here at Christmas so I could work from the park for the next few weeks while I’m in Florida, but it was a Godsend Monday and Tuesday when I was stuck in Ottawa. I used it for work and left it on all night as I slept in my hotel because it’s a flat fee. After I set it up and tried to log on, I got an error message telling me to call customer service. I was quickly sent from the one of the main customer service reps to some sort of ‘wireless investigation’ department. The person I spoke to went on to inform me that they’d ‘hotlined’ (disabled) my card because over the previous 2 days in Ottawa I’d racked up $908 in ‘roaming charges’. Apparently I only had a national plan.
My silver tongue quickly came to the rescue as I calmly pulled out the dementia and ass cancer cards while also relaying how I’d been shown a coverage map when purchasing the card a few weeks before when I was last in the States. “Sure it’ll work in Ottawa!” (Oh-tah-wah) the sales person working on commission cheerfully told me. So no big tragedy here. Verizon is doing the right thing and waiving the charges. But I can’t imagine it’s too hard to implement measures that would keep such a device from working at all in another country. Anyway, I have bigger fish to fry today. Thanks to everyone who’s sent along well wishes, I look forward to your Valentines Day cards and I’ll keep you posted.
In this picture is the actual Staff of Ra headpiece prop used in the shot in the “Well of Souls” when Indy puts the staff into the correct slot and the beam of light hits the resting place of the ark. The gem in the middle of this piece is actually amber in color but was colored red in the editing because a red gem didn’t show well in the original shot. (if you watch the original film cut, the jewel is red at first, then as it seats, is amber for a spit second as the light hits it and then is red again) The larger version that Marion wears as a medallion in Nepal and then is later examined by the wise man in the “bad dates” scene is about a third larger than this one and is now on display at the Smithsonian in Washington DC.
