Here what I learned:
The majority of people in Rogers, Arkansas who go to the 4pm Saturday showing of Moneyball on the second weekend are not the least bit interested in David Fincher’s upcoming English version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig. I seemed to be the only excited one in the theater when the latest trailer played.
Awesome interview. NdT is super-intelligent, yet amazingly down to earth. What he wants most is for America to dream big again, like we did during the space race of the 60′s.
I am a huge Amazon fan. I’m a charter Prime member and I spend thousands of dollars a year on the site.
So why in the hell would they wait two days to send me an email about the new Kindles? I’ve actually purchased two other Kindles and have the app loaded on eight devices. For a company that usually knows me so well, they seem to have missed on this one.
#kindlefire #amazon
When I signed up for Posterous, I was looking for a way to simplify the way I update Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and my blog at nerd.is. It has definitely helped, but unfortunately it’s only a partial solution.
I had written off finding a better solution when I heard about ifttt.com. It is awesome. You create tasks based on linking one service to another, with dozens of popular services to choose from. There are thousands of possible workflows, most of which are highly customizable. I setup a few basic tasks to start off, like handling stories I star in Google Reader, and one that lets me text notes to myself that get aggregated automatically with timestamps for later review. With winter coming, I also setup a weather alert that will automatically text me when it starts snowing at my house since I work 20 minutes away and the roads get bad quick.
Those are just a few examples and believe me they are the tip of the iceberg. There are even a bunch of ready made “recipes” for tasks so you don’t have to start from scratch.
The site is in beta, so don’t expect it to be bulletproof, but it’s 1000 times better than doing this stuff manually.
#ifttt
This is a big week of premieres, so if you haven’t looked over the fall schedule yet, I highly recommend The Futon Critic’s extremely comprehensive guide. I realize most people won’t go to the level of detail I do in planning, which includes a spreadsheet to ensure no DVR conflicts, but that’s what makes me a tv nerd.
We started watching The Lovely Bones 25 minutes ago. When it started and I saw that Peter Jackson directed it, I wasn’t sure why. Now I know. In the critical scene where the girl meets creepy neighbor man in the cornfield, a note she has gets blown away by the wind. When the note blew out of her hand, I was worried that they wouldn’t be able to shoot a scene with her chasing her note across the field as the wind blows it away. Fortunately, Jackson’s crack team of animators at Weta Digital were able to create a CGI piece of paper and add it to the scene digitally. Bullet dodged.
Seriously filmmakers – we can’t even blow a fucking piece of paper using practical effects now? Barf.
When my brother Brandon graduated from high school in 2008, I decided to make him a special present. I created a book of inspirational quotes instead of buying one of the cheezy ones I saw at Borders. For the title, I took one of his favorite quotes. I never got around to making “You Suck At Life” available to the public–until now. I plan to make a second edition at some point, but for now this will do.
You can find the book at: YouSuckAtLifeBook.com YouAreCrap.com or GraduationQuoteBook.com
I was sitting at my desk today when I heard a familiar voice coming from a few desks away. I was busy so I didn’t look up. Then I heard that voice say “Crystal Head Vodka” and it clicked. Dan Aykroyd was the one talking.
I kept my initial reaction of OMGITSELWOODBLUESRAYSTANTZWINTHORPEANDSOMUCHMORE in check long enough to queue up, take a coworkers picture, then pose for my own after exchanging a few brief words.
My encounter was brief, but long enough to tell he’s a pretty cool guy who seems to enjoy his new life of driving around in his massive vodka-fueled semi and promoting his company, punctuated by occasional acting or writing gigs (like Ghostbusters 3!)
Random celebrity guests are certainly a perk of working for a big company, but I wasn’t prepared for one of my comedy gods to pop up a few cubes away today. Glad I stayed cool.
If you’re not familiar with Longshot magazine, it’s definitely worth a few minutes to check them out. They produce an entire magazine in 48 hours, all about a central theme. They announce the theme and accept submissions for 24 hours, then they spend the other 24 hours designing and laying out the issue.
I submitted a short essay for this issue’s theme–Debt. I hope it gets accepted, but even if it doesn’t at least I made something.
