Monthly Archives: July 2009

Working at Play: Rock Band Network Allows Musicians to Upload/Sell Tracks Within Game

The folks at Rock Band have taken the inevitable next step: creating a network that allows bands to upload their own music, and allows users to buy/download the tracks. On top of that, they’re soliciting help from the “community” to do the track reviews. While there’s a lot of “made by the fans” to this

Continue reading »

Drinks at Rodan, Near Dusk

This was taken several days ago, when Liz and I went to Rodan after work to do some wedding planning. Posted for no other reason than I like the light in the shot. [previously]

Continue reading »

New Blog by Chris: Everything Under Review

I’ve been remiss about mentioning this, but a little while back… Chris quietly launched a new website: a blog called Everything Under Review. When the site launched, I was in the midst of getting our wedding invitations designed and printed. I was reminded of it this AM, and realized that while I knew about his

Continue reading »

Death Race: 24 Hour Challenge Involving Tree Stumps, Memorization and Legos

The race itself is estimated to be 24 hours long, and involves some pretty rough mental challenges, at a point in time when participants are at a point of physical exhaustion. The video (above) is lengthy, but engaging enough to where I watched it all, start to finish. Each racer has to haul their bike

Continue reading »

White Box: Clean and Colorful Video by Makoto Yabuki

White Box by Makoto Yabuki starts cleanly and slowly… and then unfolds into delightful bursts of color. I saw this late last night, and it’s even more pleasant watching it again this morning. I’m reminded of Jen Stark’s work, as she does a lot of amazing things with colored paper. Check out some photos/videos from

Continue reading »

The Psychology of Sending (or Not Sending) Wedding Invitations

While I’m still quite happy with the fact that we made our own invitations, and got them sent out in the mail… I have to mention that the guest list itself has been, by far, one of the most troubling and stressful steps of the whole wedding planning process. I’ve mentioned this before, but wanted

Continue reading »

Auto-Tune the News #6: Michael Jackson, Drugs and Palin

While I haven’t loved every single version of Auto-Tune the News, this one really kicked things up a notch in my opinion. The back and forth between the singers and the actual news snippets had me in stitches, and these guys seem to be getting better and better at what they do. The actual lyrics

Continue reading »

Playing with Zubbles: Blowing Colored Bubbles in the Kitchen

At the end of June, I heard that after many years of waiting, Zubbles were finally available for pre-order. I first learned of these magical colored bubbles in 2005, and have been waiting around patiently for them, ever since. Though I’ve mentioned it before, it’s worth noting that the inventor of Zubbles, Tim Kehoe has

Continue reading »

Watching a Swarm of Migrating Ants

While in Frankfort today, we were outside of Liz’s parents’ house and happened to see a very large group of ants. This wasn’t your run of the mill gathering near an anthill entrance… this was a massive, coordinated group travelling from one spot over to… somewhere else. It was a little crazy to watch. Think

Continue reading »

Katie Participates in the Valpo Triathlon – Valparaiso, Indiana

Liz and I woke up early this AM to travel to Valparaiso, Indiana. We were headed to Rogers-Lakewood Park, to watch (and cheer on) Katie as she participated in the annual Valpo Triathlon We weren’t able to get to the swim portion, but saw it from a distance. Katie later described this part of the

Continue reading »

Following Work Zone Speed Limits Seems… Dangerous

On our way from Chicago to Valparaiso, Indiana, we encountered a “Work Zone” and both Liz and I remembered that Illinois recently re-enforced its strict fines for workzone violations. With new photo-equipped vans, first time offenders are hit with a $375 fine. A second offense triggers a $1,000 fine along wiht a loss of license

Continue reading »

Profanity is Fucking Beautiful: Free Desktop Wallpaper

For fun, I decided to make a new Desktops section. Around the time we were working on the wedding invitations, I started messing about with one of the fonts we used: Feel Script. I’m not really a font person, or someone who knows a lot about type. But I found this font quite beautiful, and

Continue reading »

Michael Jackson @ California and Milwaukee

Spotted this on the way to the California Blue Line stop. Related:Looping Michael JacksonEternal MoonwalkThe White Glove Tracking Project

Continue reading »

Birthday Drinks with Ben

To celebrate Ben’s birthday, a few of us met up at a nearby bar for a few drinks. Ben and Allison had dinner reservations at 7, but we were all able to have a few toasts before the two started their evening together. L to R it’s Allison and Ben and Chris. Total aside: While

Continue reading »

Chicago Postal Service, Mail Tampering Revisited

Believe it or not, I received this ripped envelope the day after I called to complain about ripped mail. To the credit of the USPS though, their customer service folks were good – they took down my info, and I even got callbacks from the Post Office wanting to follow up with me about my

Continue reading »