Infographics Made Simple: Visual.ly

I am completely loving the new infographics site, Visual.ly.

Not only is it a gallery, where graphic artists can upload, share, critique, etc.. ( finally taking digital art networking seriously) it also includes an online toolset for everyday folks to create cool infographics.

While the toolset is still limited (they say growth will happen quickly, )

I was pleased with the results of the Twitterizer tool:




is what it came up with for my personal Twitter account. I was most intrigued when it came up with a couple of my apparently "made up" words as frequent topics of interest. Other than that, it is not too far off base... pretty impressive for an under 5 minute process.

The Mummies' Funky Jive Spiced up Kokomo

Thursday evening rolled the opening of the 2011 Haynes Apperson Festival, and this year it all started a little Funky.

A bit before 8PM, the crowds started gathering in front of the courthouse... and then the Mummies arrived.

Although the ending of the show can get a little bit Racy ( in the most fun ways), families gathered to listen, dance and enjoy the funky beats.

 I wandered about the crowd... for a bit we even went over to the food and rides side of the Downtown Festival but the sounds of the Mummies' Jive could be heard clearly no matter where you were. Everyone got the treat of their


As for the Mummies? They looked, and sounded good from every angle.

Check out more shots in the album:

Once Upon a Time: When Fairytales and the real world collide, anything is possible

Welcome to Storybrooke, where the evil queen has frozen time and stashed all the residents of the enchanted forest. The problem? They don't know they are fairytale characters- including Emma Swan, the lead character. When Emma's 10 year old son- who she gave up years ago- finds her, it shifts her world view. This is the premise of Once Upon a Time, one of the new shows ABC has lined up for next fall.





Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz (Lost, Tron: Legacy) invite you to a bold new vision of the world where fairytales and the modern day are about to collide.

Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) knows how to take care of herself. She's a 28-year old bail bonds collector who's been on her own ever since she was abandoned as a baby. Henry (Jared Gilmore) is 10 years old now and in desperate need of Anna's help. Henry believes that Emma actually comes from an alternate world... and is Prince Charming (Josh Dallas) and Snow White's (Ginnifer Goodwin) missing daughter. According to his book of fairytales, they sent her away to protect her from the Evil Queen's (Lana Parilla) curse, which trapped the fairytale world forever, frozen in time. Of course Emma doesn't believe a word, but when she brings Henry back to Storybrooke, she finds herself drawn to this unusual boy and his strange New England town. Concerned for Henry, she decides to stay for a while, but she soon suspects that Storybrooke is more than it seems. It's a place where magic has been forgotten, but is still powerfully close... where fairytale characters are alive, even though they don't remember who they once were--including the Evil Queen who is now Henry's foster mother. The epic battle for the future of all worlds is beginning, but for good to win, Emma will have to accept her destiny and fight like hell.

This is one of those times when I wish networks did not do promos so far in advance- this preview has me hooked and I want to see the whole show. Because, as Snow White says, "Believing in even the possibility of a happy ending is a very powerful thing". I choose to believe that this could be a happy ending for all the TV viewers.

The show is now active on Facebook and Twitter, so plug them into your social graph.


CAST
Robert Carlyle - Rumplestiltskin
Josh Dallas - Prince Charming/John Doe
James Dornan - Sheriff Graham
Jared Gilmore - Henry
Ginnifer Goodwin - Snow White/Sister Mary Margret Blanchard
Jennifer Morrison - Emma Swan
Lana Parilla - Evil Queen/Regina
Raphael Sbarge - Archie/Jiminy Cricket

CREDITS
Production Company - ABC Studios
Executive Producer - Edward Kitsis
Executive Producer - Adam Horowitz
Executive Producer - Steve Pearlman
Executive Producer/Director - Mark Mylod

Charlie's Angels, Blast from the Past

I must confess, as a preteen/young teen girl, I loved Charlie's Angels. When someone told me I looked like Sabrina, Kate Jackson's character, I was over the moon. Three brilliant, self sufficient women being tough and solving problems on their own? I was hooked. The fact that they were gorgeous? A huge bonus. Right or wrong, every teen girl has a drive to be attractive ( oh, fess up, we all still want to be hot - it is just that our definitions of HAWT shift over time). The other problem solving females I had as a role model back then were Daphne and Thelma of Scooby Doo Fame. The lesson there? If you are smart, you are dumpy. Here was a show shattering that reality for me- you could turn heads and still be the heroine!

This Fall ABC will be bringing back Charlie's Angels. I had a bit of trepidaption about this, not all of the 70's/80's show refreshes have been even close to great. And then there is the fact that I have grown up... my view has changed too. Would I still love the Angels? This big, loud, fun take on the 1970's smash hit series introduces us to three new angels, all fearless operatives, head-turning beauties and close friends. There's Abby (Rachael Taylor) a Park Avenue Princess who became a world-class thief. Then there's Kate (Annie Ilonzeh), a Miami cop who fell from grace, losing both her career and her fiance. Finally there's Gloria, a disgraced army lieutenant who has a way with explosives. When one of the angels' missions ends in Gloria's tragic death, Charlie persuades them to partner with Gloria's childhood friend, Eve (Minka Kelly), a street racer with a mysterious past. They may not know each other yet, but one thing's for sure--Abby, Kate and Eve will always have each other's backs.
Leonard Goldberg (the original Charlie's Angels) and Drew Barrymore (the Charlie's Angels movies) join forces with Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Smallville) to deliver the adrenaline rush of the season. Set in scorching-hot Miami, Charlie's Angels delivers nonstop big screen action. With the help of Bosley 2.0 (Ramon Rodriguez), their hot, young technical expert, and the guidance of their enigmatic boss Charlie (Robert Wagner), these angels are an unstoppable crime fighting force.


If the series holds true to this preview look, I am in. It will be one of my "secret pleasure" shows - like Castle. Will it be intellectually stimulating? Probably not. But it looks to be a fun, wild ride and I will stay behind the show that taught me that you could solve the problems of the world, kick ass and still look good.


As ABC says: "Everyone deserves a second chance. Even a thief, a street racer and a cop who got in a little too deep. After all, the three women who solve cases for their elusive boss Charlie Townsend are no saints - they're angels... Charlie's Angels". I will be giving the show a second chance as well.

They are out on Facebook and Twitter, so plug them into your social graph to keep up on the latest news and info.






CAST
Annie Ilonzeh - Kate Prince
Minka Kelly - Eve
Rachel Taylor - Abby Sampson
Ramon Rodriguez - Bosley
Robert Wagner - Voice of Charlie

CREDITS
Production Company - Sony Pictures Television
Executive Producer - Miles Millar
Executive Producer - Alfred Gough
Executive Producer - Nancy Juvonen
Executive Producer - Leonard Goldberg
Executive Producer - Drew Barrymore
Director - Marcos Siega

SamCast Guest Appearance

Not so long ago, I made a guest appearance on the SamCast weekly podcast. His show is quite a bit of fun, and if you haven't checked it out yet, you can listen to me yammer on about the 3DS....

I am working on another review for him, so this could become a "regularly irregular" collaboration. It was a great lot of fun and I am looking forward to it continuing.

Peculiar Preztelmen- the cure for Mondays

Over the weekend, I got turned on to The Peculiar Pretzelmen by Ms.Pat Kight. My life has not been the same since.

Their music is an amazing and complex blend of old fashioned gritty jazz/blues, chaos and the experimental joy of making music with everything around you. The rhythms are infectious, make me want to move and even their darkest topics made me smile.



Close your eyes and you are transported back to dustbowls, a hard scrabble life and simple pleasures and joys. The gravel in the lead singer's voice makes him somehow more grounded and real- someone you expect to look up and see banging on a banjo on your front porch.

With a philosophy of renovating, recreating and restoring old instruments, they fit well in the Maker ethos, bringing a modern beat and exploration of sound to life on musical history itself.



If a song like "Wash the Ground" does not turn around your Monday, nothing can. A slow start of melodic rhythms that eases into gravelly vocals backed by instruments that sing the harmonies, this song had my toes tapping, then my legs bouncing, then me up out of my chair and dancing inn the office. So come on down.... time to get infected by the Peculiar Pretzelmen.



If streaming music is more your thing, you can also find them on last.fm, myspace, or check out the Pandora Station I created. If you fall in love with them, check them out on CD Baby and help support some great music.

I have not had the privilege of seeing them live, but will be watching their tour listings for something close by. Do you have Peculiar Pretzelmen stories to share?

edit note: updated to correct the amazing person who originally turned me to the Peculiar Side-- I apologize for the confusion. Mary Mactavish still has an awesome blog ya'll should check out if you love geography.

HTC Evo Photo comparison

I have been playing around with the back camera ( 8 Megapixel, dual flash) on my Evo. So far, I have been pretty impressed with what it can do, considering it is a cell phone camera. Low light is a challenge, but the flash does well for objects not too far away. Shade gives a little focal issue,

From Drop Box

but it is so much better than the camera on my BB ( which got used a LOT) that I am stunned and more than pleased. Our household camera is a Kodak Z950, which is a good little all purpose point and shoot for us. the other night, we were goofing around on the deck, waiting for a storm to roll in and so I decided to do some side by side shoots for comparison. All of the pictures are untouched.

This is the shot from the Kodak, no flash at all from across the deck toward the fireplace under construction. You can see it was pretty dark out.

From DeckStormPics

The Evo with Flash manages to light up the area pretty well, but the flash causes some pretty bad washout.

From EvoDeckStormPics

Flash on the Kodak caused less washout.

From DeckStormPics

Rearranging the lantern the boys had inside the fireplace gave better clarity with the Evo,

From EvoDeckStormPics

and even gave pretty good results when zoomed all the way in as far as the Evo could:

From EvoDeckStormPics

.

The Zoom on the Evo still can not touch that of the Kodak ( no surprise), so it will not be completely replacing our family camera.

From DeckStormPics

I was pleasantly surprised that the Evo did not give me a complete blur when I shot the boys climbing out of the fireplace from across the deck with only the flash:

From EvoDeckStormPics

All in all, don't be surprised to see me whip out my cell phone and grab a quick pic.

[video test and review soon to follow]

Roku Revolution

As you probably already know, late last night, Roku released the new channel store. I got my tipoff this am from @thepreppydude when I checked Twitter before email. After humping over the silly check for update bug (No, REALLY roku.. check again..) I had a channel store and the potential for 10 new channels on my Roku box.

It was 6:30am when I pronounced to my family that Broadcast Media is officially spun on it's head and we began pondering how the war would shape up. More on that later, first- here is a Rogue's take on the new channels and the navigation software...

The Channels are broken into 3 main categories- Social Media, Podcast/Media Distribution, and Personal Content viewing/sharing.

Social Media:
The new channel line up includes Facebook Photos ( which allows you to see your friends' photo streams) and MobileTribe. For us, Social Media apps on the family TV make no sense at all. You have to associate the channels with an account. We have 4 different account holders in our household... none of us want our accounts up there and viewable by the household. With Laptops, netbooks, cell phones and an iPod Touch in the household, we are all already 24X7 connected to our chosen social media, this is just noise on the TV. I did NOT add these channels.

Personal Content Viewing/Sharing:
The sharing feature of this may be the nudge that pushes me into buying Roku boxes for family members for Christmas. The Flickr Channel is nice, but I want to be able to see my contacts' photostream as well. If I do this, I could upload photos and my parents half a country away could view them on their TV instead of their computer. Yes, I can make a private group and add them to it, etc.. but that is just complicated. The selling point of the Roku is it's simplicity. There is also frameChannel, which allows me to do photo sharing. I hate to move photos to yet another service, but if we can not get Flickr right, we might consider it. the sharing application that really sold me was MotionBox. With a free account I can share video with my contacts. This means I can shoot video, upload it and the grandparents (and great grands maybe) can see it on their TV, even though they are far away. I am SO all over this. An unlimited account is 40$/yr. I wonder how good their infrastructure is on the backend.. seems like it is about to become VERY easy for someone to film and produce a TV show and distribute it. Who needs YouTube?

Podcast Distribution:

The other channels are not just single channels, but collections of hundreds or thousands of feeds. These channels include Twit.tv, Blip.tv, Mediafly, Revision3 and Pandora. the amount of content that will contend for my attention on my living room TV just increased about 400%. This is the reason that Broadcast media just got spun on it's head. Makes me wonder how all of those podcast hosts feel about being elevated to TV star over night.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly:

Once content explodes, navigation and search becomes the barrier to enjoyment. This is the only place where the Roku channel interface falls down. With just 2 or 3 channels the old coverflow style was functional. As the channel number goes up, this becomes unwieldy. I still hope for a Boxee/Roku mating. I love the Boxee interface for navigating many channels and creating favorites. Even better, I dream of functionality that my old lover Joost had.. the ability to take content from many channels and providers and create my own custom channel with only the content I love on it.

What content do you most love that you want to see on your TV? Which service providers will you prod to create a Roku interface? the possibilities are endless... as my youngest daughter quipped, "Now we really can get the Puppy Channel... puppies, puppies, puppies......"

What's wrong with FlashForward

The new Fall 2009 show FlashForward was one that lots of people wanted to like and whose premise was initially exciting. It has, however, fallen flat. People not actively slamming it have given up on it. I tried again this week to watch it...but find it so uncompelling that it is easy for real life to interrupt. For many shows, I may hit pause on the DVR when I am interrupted and come back. With FlashForward, I walk away without hitting pause and do not have any qualms about missing pieces of it. This is not a good sign for the life of show.

The show has interesting characters and takes on compelling philosophical issues- so what went wrong? This last episode finally gave me some insight into the problem when they introduced yet another character. The show now has over a dozen major characters in a one hour show. With the average show running actual time about 45 minutes * 9 episodes, that comes out to just a little over 33 minutes of airtime per character over the course of an entire season. Not a lot to become invested in characters. Even worse, all of that time is in small 4 or 5 minute bursts. The story, while compelling, has been made overly complex to the point that the storytelling is fragmented, fractured and not even close to fun.

What other shows have failed you this season- giving in to complexity, special effects or shock value rather than building upon great storytelling??

iTouch and gaming is fun again

A recent WSJ article shows that Nintendo is starting to get a clue that they are under fire, but they are still in denial. From the article:

" Nintendo and Sony say unlike Apple's products their devices are designed to be game machines. "From the actual game play to the games themselves, we don't see any real overlap," said a spokesman for Sony's games division."

"If we can't make clear why customers pay a lot of money to play games on Nintendo hardware and Nintendo software and differentiate ourselves from games on the mobile phone or iPhone, then our future is dark," said Mr. Iwata at a recent company event.

We are a Nintendo family. We have a Wii. We have a lot of Wii stuff. We have multiple DSs. We have a library of DS games. We have a library of DS games the game chips of which the kids are constantly losing and re-finding (sometimes) despite dollar penalties to replace lost games and family peer pressure from other people angry at the lost game. We have invested a lot of energy ( and money) into the Nintendo platforms.

Then I got an iPod Touch. I have purchased a couple of DS games since the Touch came into my hands. I have been fairly disappointed in them. I hardly play them. My iTouch is rarely far from my hands ( part of that is the fault of Tweetie2.

What are the reasons that I think the Touch is a superior platform?

1) The games are cheap. If a game sucks and I only spent 3 bucks on it, do I care? When I spent 20-30 on it, I am grumpy.

2) I can download the games without ever going to a brick and mortar store. I know Nintendo is going there with the DSi, but I am NOT going to spend 200$ each for 4 kids just to upgrade and get download capabilities. It sounds silly, but in a family and life pressed for time, it makes a big difference.

3) I can load and take MANY games with me without carrying a case of game chips.They can't get lost, I do not have to keep track of them. I am considering switching our family to this platform, just for the loss of Mom headache of tracking games when we travel.

4) The games and the interface is fun. Nintendo may have a machine designed for gaming, but it does not grab everyone. My second daughter- the rebelliously Anti-Geek in the family who gave up her DS years ago and rarely plays Wii got ahold of my iTouch the other day and started playing games. I had to arm wrestle it back from her.


5) Even the gamers like it. My two stepsons are at prime tween gaming age and have been gaming almost as long as they could walk. They live and breathe games. Getting time on the iTouch to play is a huge motivator for them. They play RPG, they play tower, they play strategy and they play just silly stuff.


If Nintendo thinks that having a device "designed for games" is superior, they are lost. Do they forget that electronic games evolved on Computing platforms? Have they noticed that other gaming platforms have evolved back to computing platforms and do much more than games these days? Time for Nintendo to look around and do an honest assessment or their future is so dark it will be 6 feet underground.

In the Twilight Sector a Role Player's Dream Comes True

I am an old school RGP'er. For me, it is about the role playing. I have been lucky enough to find and grow a group of friends who feel the same way and a couple of times a year we get together for a weekend long gaming session that both satisfies and leaves us hungry for more. We play a variety of games, from D&D , ShadowRun, Cthulhu, Hollow Earth, Traveller and others. The ones we latch onto longest tend to be the richest settings and the most imaginative stories that the DM puts together. Although we are enamored with the concept of Traveller, it tends to not get as must traction because the ( very old) manuals and supplements we have access to tend to be full of mechanics, but not as much story. When I was given the opportunity by @ephealy to review a new setting for Traveller, I was both excited and hopeful, but also cautious- wondering if I was going to get another book full of lots of tables.

When my link to The Twilight Sector Sourcebook by Michael J Cross and Matthew Hope arrived, I downloaded it quickly and did a quick flip through before work. I was intrigued by the subtitle "Space Opera" and encouraged by the parsity of tables and the number of beautiful interior illustrations. I could not wait to have time to sit down and read through the entire 131 pages. I was not at all disappointed.

The first 30 pages are back story. Not dry, historical Old Testament style "begats" but rich storytelling that quickly builds a Universe in your mind. There are 17 pages of "things to consider when playing and new rules, but much of this is due to the introduction of mutants. The are two types of mutants in the setting ( Scientifically Induced and Natural) and there was a need to explain them further and describe the powers, combinations and possibilities of these character classes. This is followed by 44 more pages of narrative description of the 7 main systems in the Twilight Sector and its 2 stations. Again these include illustrations, stories, history and maps. The last 28 pages are the beginnings of an Encyclopedia Galactica, which the state up front will be expanded in every supplement. I am crossing my fingers that they will take this feature and put it online, not requiring the purchase of every supplement for a "full encyclopedia" - that comes across as slightly manipulative.

The best thing for me was that after reading the sourcebook, my mind started spinning possibilities. I have already contacted our biggest Traveller enthusiast and we are going to co-GM a round of Traveller in this setting during our Dec 11 weekend gathering. I think it could turn things around for our group. The writers are very clear in pointing out that you could spin any genre in this setting, from mystery to horror, but the truth is, as rich and diverse as the setting is, you could run many different games in this setting as well. I can easily imagine playing with Mutants & Masterminds ( with modifications), Cthulhu or even a modified ShadowRun in this captivating setting. That would of course, break way too many rules for most gamers,so we will stick with it as a Traveller setting for now.


Want to learn more about Twilight Sector? Read on...

• Atomic Array: href="http://atomicarray.com/twilight-sector-aa034">Twilight Sector
  (Atomic Array 034)


• Game Cryer: href="http://gamecryer.com/2009/11/02/twilight-sector/">Review by
  Chris Perrin


• The Zhodani Base: href="http://zho.berka.com/2009/11/02/twilight-sector-a-new-tu/">Twilight
  Sector - A new TU


• Apathy Blogs: href="http://www.apathyblogs.com/2009/11/02/twilight-sector/">Something
  New For Traveller


• Rogue Puppet: href="http://roguepuppet.blogspot.com/2009/11/in-twilight-sector-role-players-dream.html">A
  Role Player's Dream is Discovered


• Examiner.com: href="http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-7763-Chicago-RPG-Examiner~y2009m11d2-Review-Twilight-Sector-campaign-setting">Review
  by Michael Shorten

Drop by Terra/Sol
Games today!

Tweetie2- very sweetie

I recently mentioned in an article about my iPod Touch that I was falling in love with Tweetie2 for twitter use - even across multiple accounts. I love it so much that even though I still hate and despise the Touch keyboard, I find myself at home picking up the touch to twitter with this Apple Design award winner rather than any of the computers I have access to. I am not going to waste time listing all the features available, you can click the link and read the website yourself. Instead, here are the top 5 reasons I love Tweetie2 enough to abandon a real keyboard.

1) Offline Sync: Since I have a touch and not an iPhone, I do not have constant connections. But I can download all the latest tweets, hit the road, respond while traveling ( while someone else drives) and have it auto sync when I get a connection again.

2) Bounce to update: There is really no technical or life changing reason why this is important. it is just simple, elegant and seriously fun. Simply pull down the list from the top and release to have the app update.

3) "Email this tweet": There are really a multitude of ways you can simply respond to a tweet, but the addition of being able to email it is a bonus. I still have important people in my life who are *gasp* not on twitter ( the Ogre is the main one). There are often times I want to share a link or message with him and this has always involved cutting and pasting and having multiple apps open. Being able to simply select "email this tweet"has made life much easier.

4) The Blue Light Special: Switching between your timeline, @replies and DMs is as simple as clicking icons at the bottom of your screen. Even better, when you have new activity in one of those streams, it glows blue. My timeline is active enough that I just ignore that one and update at will, but having DM notifications ( which I sometimes do not monitor closely enough) is very nice. If you are a low volume twitterer, all of these would be handy.

5) Threaded DMs: If you have had some back and forth exchange of messages with someone via DM, you get to see the whole exchange history when you open the most recent DM. I absolutely love this feature and wish I could get it for @replies as well.


There are other features... maybe some you love even more and I have not glommed onto. Do you use Tweetie? If so, which features do you love most?

"Inspired by sex dreams....."

I admit it, as soon as I heard Brandi Carlile say that her new song Dreams was inspired by sex dreams, I was hooked in. Luckily, the music is great and I have stayed around just for the fun. I got lucky and the One2One network got me a free download of her entire album. I liked it so much, I turned around a bought a copy for a friend as soon as it was available.

True Confessions? I am a die hard Melissa Ethridge and Indigo Girls fan. ( kill me, I am already over it) As such, I was doomed to love this album. In "Looking Out", the rocking beat pushed hard and adds to the desperation and ache that echoes in her voice while she belts out lyrics like: "I've got a new interpretation and it's a better point of view... you were looking out for a landslide and I was looking out for you..." .... "I close my eyes and think of you, I take a step , I think of you, I catch my breathe - I think of you...." "when you are outside looking in, you belong to someone".... This contrasts with the quiet vocals ( almost a yodel in some places) accompanied by ukele in "Oh Dear" "It's only you that my heart desires, only you alone that can break my fall...". Then of course there is "Dreams", not quite folk, not quite country, not quite rock but 100% wonderful. "I keep it to myself, I don't know what it means- I can't argue with dreams-- I have dreams". If you have any love in your life for a female folk rocker type of musician, this is a must listen, must own album.

Your Songs, My Songs, a trip down memory lane

I am apparently exactly the demographic being targeted in the latest Harry Connick, Jr musical collection ( album? CD? Download?) from the One2One network. I was very lucky to get a copy of the new set of songs to review and had a blast with it from the first play through. This is a set of songs that were fresh and new and popular as I was a kid growing up. Listening to this immediately flashes me back top a calmer, safer and more pleasant time-- how can you not love that ? As a matter of fact, it reminded me so much of my childhood that I gave my free copy to my Dad as a part of his recent birthday celebration.

While Harry soars with " All the way" and "Can't help falling in love with you" and you can not help but sing along when he gets to "Besame Mucho". I was not thrilled with his rendition of "Some Enchanted Evening"- but in fairness ever since I saw South Pacific as a child, no one but Rossano Brazzi is allowed to sing this song and have me like it. He was also just not quite right for "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"- but it takes a strong take to overcome Roberta Flack in my mind. I would have ended the collection with "And I Love You So" instead of pushing on, but I am an incurable romantic.

It has been a couple of years since Harry has released anything other than Christmas music, and this sweet little album is a good plunge back into the waters. I will quietly qualify this by saying that I also recently picked up the new Michael Buble and that is currently showing as many plays in my iTunes library as Harry is-- even though it came out a month or so later... if you have to pick just one retro dream album- go with the Buble. If picking up a couple works, I recommend them both.

Massage Bar Soap

My hotel has small, palm of your hand massage bar soaps for the shower. For those of you not familiar with the object under consideration, massage bar soap is regular soap molded with small "massage" nubbles on one side. While small bumps on your soap does not really qualify as a real massage, it does have a soothing effect on small muscle knots and tension tightness lurking beneath your skin. Therein lies the biggest problem. It feels just good enough that you will easily find yourself running the soap back and forth across tight, tense curves and dips much more than you would have with an ordinary bar of soap, leading to a much faster consumption of soap than you may have planned for in your toiletry budget.
There is also the issue of exfoliation. The natural exfoliation that occurs by simple rubbing the terry roughness of a washcloth across your naked skin is one of the best things that can happen to you. Roughing away the surface dead skin cells leads to brighter, lighter more glowing skin (don't rub too hard-- red skin is NOT glowing). Mechanical action is also one of the major contributors to the removal of bacteria and other "ick" from your environment. Rubbing a bar of soap directly on your body gets every more foamy and slick, but does NOT provide that fresh scrubbed glow.
In my opinion, this is a product that combines two great products and comes out with something that is not quite as good as the originals on every point. Stick with your favorite soap, a great washcloth and maybe a waterproof massager, if the in shower massage is important to you. I think when I get home, I will resort back to the ministrating fingers of my man and leave the massage toys alone.

The Roku Review

I have had my Roku Netflix box for about 2 weeks now and so far the Pros far out weigh the cons.

Setup was so easy that I am comfortably considering getting my parents one of these for Christmas and knowing that they could open the box and set it up themselves. Take it out of the box, plug it in, power it up and follow the set of simple onscreen instructions.

Connectivity is excellent, I have had playback over my AT&T DSL without glitch, hitch or hiccup.

The software interface is clean, easy to use and you can easily browse movies in a "cover flow" style, get details on the movie and jump back to the flow without difficulty.

Because the box only displays the items in your instant view queue, and does not browse the entire instant view library, you will need to either spend some time building up a long queue, or be satisfied with just a few choices when you use the box. Since I can never be sure what anyone will be in the mood for, I now have an instant queue that is 334 titles long and manually organized by movie genre. This was not a fun process and takes time to maintain when new movies are added to the queue.

Allowing profiles to have their own instant view queues and being able to select a profile from the Roku home screen would simplify this. Since we have a wide range of tastes ( elementary school boys, teen-aged girls and grownups) the titles I had to put in the queue vary widely and you have to wade through everyone else's possibilities to find the ones you might be interested in. I do not like that I have to either closely monitor the kids and make sure they do not choose the more adult content in the queue, or else add and subtract it all the time to keep them out of it- but this is not a killer issue. I will just keep my fingers crossed that since they are officially keeping profiles on the regular queues, they will soon let us have multiple instant watch queues. Having a search feature to be able to search through the queue ( by title, by actor, by director, by genre) would be a great addition to the interface as well. I believe that Roku and Netflix think that people are going to put about 6 movies in their queue and dynamically change it all the time. I don't see this happening. It is much more useful as a sort of streaming video on demand box with a broad list of options to choose from. Once you get more than about 20 movies in the queue, you really start to wish for search.

We have also learned that losing power unexpectedly will cause the box to lose it's brains and hang- luckily a simple power hup seems to bring it right back again. The power up and reload process takes about 4-5 minutes ( I have a queue that is over 300 titles long, remember...????) so this is an annoyance if you are in a hurry- but not many people are on a tight time schedule to watch a show. Since power outages here are limited to about a weekly episode during thunderstorm season and this is not a daily occurrence, it is a livable problem. A cleaner failure would be nice- the hung interface would be frustrating to most users without the savvy to figure out the power hup trick ( then again in an age when cable companies make commercials telling people to power hup their routers and modems when they have problems, maybe it is becoming a common solution).


The biggest issue is the available content. Netflix is adding new movies and TV shows to the list of titles that are available through the instant view option on a daily basis- but if you are the type of person who only watches first run movies, the current industry licensing policies will keep you from ever enjoying this little box. If you like classic movies, strange B Science fiction, really great documentaries, musicals, music specials or like to watch TV shows on DVD, you will love this little box. Since there are tons of classic movies I still want to share with my kids, I like to watch musicals and bad science fiction while folding clothes and we are a documentary hungry household, this is a good fit.

The Future of Music is FUN!

I am pretty sure I just saw the future of music earning potential, and it was a blast. Tonight I attended a live webcast concert of The Maine on DeepRockDrive ( thanks to TechCrunch for the freebie tix). I dialed in for the Product Launch announcement first and then watched the concert. There is actually a second artist performing at 1am, but it is getting too danged late here in the EST timezone to watch that and THEN do a write up.

Just for kicks, I decided to do a dual trial test and did my first initial beta testing with CoverIt to "livecast" the live webcast. I was not doing this to test the interactive features of Coverit( we will play with that another time), but just to test out the mechanics of it. The archive of that transcript is saved here: http://roguepuppet.blogspot.com/2008/01/coveritarchive.html

But now to focus on DeepRockDrive and the concert.

Here is the setup:
Las Vegas sound stage- a fairly big one, from the pan shots after the announcements. Not a movie set, but nice space. From here you can have Musicians, Comedians, even- god forbid- politicians perform. That performance is broadcast live over the web. In the browser window, you have the video feed, as well as a box to type "shoutOuts" to the band. These are broadcast on multiple large monitors that the band can see. There is also a listing of songs, that the audience can interactively use to vote on the next song they want to hear. You have 4 potential camera angles and you can click and switch between them live at any point. There is a slight lag when switching cameras- at times up to 3 seconds- but the audio continues through fine and it all re-synced seamlessly.

The other audience members were not at any time quiet. The shoutOuts flowed in a fast and furious continuous stream across the bottom of my screen. If you really hate that sort of thing and just want a fine concert experience, go full screen mode and the text chat disappears.

The Maine were a great pick as a first highly promoted band to show.. they have great energy and appeal and even more important, they have the interactive rock gig down pat. They paused between songs to talk to the audience, reading aloud and responding to the messages that flashed on the screen. There was even a series of marriage proposals flying back and forth! It did seem that the band had to step off stage to read the monitors well, then step back on stage to perform again. Because they had mobile cameras, you did not lose visual, but this is something some artists may not be comfortable with at first. The Maine did great, calling people by name, having running chat, and even calling for the audience to type certain messages to respond. There were so many messages flying in simultaneously that there were at times delays of a minute or longer before the message you typed made it to the display. The band did note that everyone's oddball nicknames and online handles made it very odd and difficult to talk to the by name out loud.. they suggest people use their real names.

Here is the compelling business model I see looming from this. During the product launch, they indicated that in the future real even tickets would cost $6.99. At first this seems like a lot for a web event, but this is a fraction of the cost for real concert tickets. It is even less than typical cover in a bar. This was a fun, high energy event that engaged me WAY more than I was expecting it to. And then I started imagining this with a room full of friends.. I was even standing and dancing to the show here in my bedroom at one point.. I can imagine how silly a group of us with some snacks and drinks would get. This is a concert event I would attend over and over and over again. I am ready to go and cruise the concert catalog right now and see who else interesting is going to be performing soon. They split the concert take with the artist, so the musicians get 3.50/ticket. This does not sound like a lot, but if you can get a few thousand ( or more) people attending an event, that is not a bad take for an evening's work..

I have to unwind and head for bed soon.. but I am absolutely not done with this topic yet.. Part of me is hotly curious what the web hits on the band page looked like right after this event.. and what the download of their songs does in the next 24 hours. I also have some thoughts about improvements for the deeprockdrive guys, but I am getting too tired to type coherently, my typo rate is starting to scare even me.

although part of me is very very curious if this will play over the wii browser on my tv....... 1am is not that far away, is it??

EDIT:: FYI, I really did stay up and test on the wii... no dice. I am not blaming this on the DRD guys, however- it has to do with the Flash install on the wii. Hulu will not work yet either. Hopefully Nintendo will get their acts together soon, so I do not have to break down and buy an XBox360 or something...

Viewdle testing

I am not generally a name dropper. I am not much impressed with someone just because they are famous, or their name is batted about. I have no compunctions about walking up to someone and talking to them or asking them a question, if I have something interesting to say, or have a question I really want to ask them. Actions and the person themselves tend to garner my respect more than their title or the famous-ness of their name. However, I do occasionally have reason to mention someone by name, and so the development of Viewdle as a utility intrigues me. This is my post to try it out.

The concept behind Viewdle is that the company is developing and maintain a library of pictures of the faces of famous people ( maybe someday they will allow us to upload pictures of ourselves and have ordinary people registered as well..). By some simple javascript pasting and putting a custom tag around references to people in text, hovering over that person's name should pop up a picture of the person. I like this idea, because I will often find myself reading someone's blog, they mention someone and I find myself hitting Google to look them up and remember who the Heck Robert Metcalfe is. If this database expands and the technology works, that mental mind shake in the form of a picture could come to you without ever leaving the page!.

So here, let's test it out a little bit.

At SC'07 this past November, I had the opportunity to meet and talk with lots of new people, some of them famous and some who probably should be, but aren't yet.

Dr. Raymond Orbach, the US Undersecretary of State for Science was one of the keynote speakers, and I had a chance to chat with him for a few minutes after his talk. He is very excited about the expanding use of modeling and simulation in manufacturing and wants to see it grow more. It is, he believes, what will give any manufacturer the competitive edge.

I spent a great amount of time with Dave Pokorney. We met in the Twitterverse. I had put in a watch on all Twitters mentioning "SC07" and his ( and a few others) popped up. We chatted back and forth a bit, then met in person. He is deeply involved with the team that does all of the networking for the conference, and got me some great behind the scenes interviews. Hopefully a Network World and a PMI Journal article will come out of those interviews.

All in all, SC07 was great fun and over the next month there should be a good number of publications coming out of it. Too much name dropping here will spoil the fun.

I did notice in the news this afternoon that Marc Andreessen is being a remarkable person and standing up for free speech on Ning, even though there are people up in arms about people chatting about sex on it. Come on folks, chatting sex, is NOT porn. If it were and it were really illegal, they would have to shut down every chat network in the universe. You really think there are NOT people on Yahoo or AIM or Meebo or gTalk out there chatting sex sometimes? I know I am.. being a healthy human who is often separated from her fiance for long periods of time, chat is one of the things that keeps our relationship going. Just because Ning has "networks" published where like minded people can hang out, does not make it the anti-christ. Honestly, I had not spent much time checking out Ning, but it is now on my list of things to test this week. Review and report to come.

So-- a little bit of name dropping there, though not the celebrity Madonna type of names.... so it will be interesting to see how Viewdle handles it. Give me some feedback, what do you see? What do you think?

Last Night On Earth:Review

Harv gave us this:
a family copy of Flying Frog Productions' "The Last Night on Earth" game for Christmas this year. Since we actually had Christmas with Harv on New Year's day, last night was our first chance to sit down with the whole family and give it a run through. We enthusiastically give it a 6 thumbs up. We played with a group of 6 that ranged in age from 8 to 43, with a 43 year old female and a 16 year old female, the rest male. (My 13 year old daughter is currently on a rampage against the total family geekiness and shut herself in her room with a phone and 8th grade gossip while we played) The game was enough of a hit that after the first game, the next words out of most players mouth was "let's play again". We played two games in about 3 hours. Even with pauses for learning rules, the first game played in an hour. We started with the basic game ( "Die, Zombies, Die!"), and I agree with the game makers that this is a great game scenario to learn the turn rules.

The game is played with 1 or 2 zombie players and up to 4 hero players. The zombies are a team and the Heroes are a team, working together to meet their goals. If you have never seen a zombie movie in your life, but like strategy type board games, or RPG games, you will enjoy this game. If you are a fan of zombie movies, you will revel in this game. It is a cinematically rich game, with amazing graphics on all the game pieces, quotes from zombie movies and the classic zombie movie characters (the priest, the sheriff, high school sweetheart, high school hero, Jake the Drifter, the nurse, etc...). The item cards are lots of fun to play with ( revolvers, pump shotguns, pitchforks, baseball bats are some of the weapons) and the events are not only fun, but make a classic zombie movie ( teen angst, over confidence, zombies take over buildings or cut the power to make a black out, etc..). As a matter of fact, if you could record the game play for play, you would have the outline for a great B grade Zombie movie. The fun thing is, the game is so variable there are probably thousands of outlines in the box. Maybe some movie makers need to buy the game and play it to release a series of "Last Night on Earth" web flicks.

Our biggest complaints were from the zombie players- they wanted more zombies in their zombie pool. There were several times they had the ability to take over a building, but only had one zombie in the pool to place in the building. I agree that having more zombies on the board would make the game more fun and more challenging, even from the Hero Player's perspective. A small technical detail, but one that was a constant ongoing issue was the colors of the zombies. The zombies in the pool are two colors, so that two players can play on the zombie team. One group of zombies is moldy green and the others are baby poo brown. The issue we had was that one of our zombie players was color blind, and the two groups of zombies looked exactly the same to him. Different colors or markings on the zombies would be helpful. We might get bored one winter day and start painting the plastic miniatures to make them easier to distinguish.

One of the features we really like about the game was that when a hero character dies, you are not out of the game. Your Hero becomes a Zombie Hero under control of the zombies and you get to draw a new hero character out of the set to start in the game. Because the game can go for an hour and a half, this works ell to keep all players engaged and not have "I am dead" dropout boredom issues. This was a nice twist and I wish more RPG board games did something in this manner.

All in all, it was a blast of an evening. Everyone is looking forward to playing again- it is without question getting added into the Kwakcon game round up and we are already looking forward to the expansion pack being advertised to come out this year. We would even pay to just have more packs of zombies and some zombie cards to add to the game-- sort of like Heroscape expansion packs. It was a big enough hit that I was motivated this morning to clean out the hall closet and make a good space to store that and a few other family games for easy access, without putting the games in the midst of all the kid games where pieces are at risk of being lost.

Now? I am off to get lunch on the table and keep the kids from eating me...