Toy Story Stringy Pull

Since Jim Dandy asked, I thought I should deliver. One of the hot, new attractions at DisneyWorld's Disney Hollywood Studios is Toy Story Mania. Let's explore at length:

By hot, I mean you cannot see the end of the line. No joke - at 15 minutes after a 9am park opening one fine day, the wait time for this thing was over 1 hour. Fastpasses were being distributed for a Noon return. The wait time to even get a Fastpass was close to 15 minutes.

The line to get in (called the Stand-by Line in Disney parlance these days) was mostly populated by the usual assortment of fanatics - their bodies and electric scooters dripping with Disney merchandise. The minority of line dwellers appeared to be zombie parents - always betrayed by their bewildered stare that cries out 'I have no memory of coming here...'. And there was the usual assortment of little kids - fidgeting, screaming, comatose, perched on weary parental shoulders, sucking on breakfast candy - all in some manner of 60-minute stasis to be rewarded with 6 minutes of high-tech interactive entertainment.

One elderly gent I befriended in the Fastpass Distribution line confided he was only there to enable his wife's addiction. She had somehow ended up near the front of the Stand-by Line for an early go-round with Buzz, Woody, and friends. She was already back in line for another shot while her devoted husband awaited his Fastpass for a 3rd ride later in the day. He looked a little hollow-eyed to me, but proud of their 'system' nonetheless.

Since waiting in line for an hour was not going to happen, we elected to do the Fastpass thing and return later. In all, we experienced this attraction twice during our Christmastime visit. So would it measure up to waiting in line for an hour or more?

Theming: It's Disney. You are in Andy's room and you are toy-sized. The immersiveness, the colours, and the attention-to-detail are the hallmarks of a Disney attraction.

Queuing: It's Disney. You stand in line for awhile, you look at lots of interesting stuff, and soon you're sure you're near the front of the line. Then you realize you're not as the line snakes around another corner and the process begins anew. Like I said, it's Disney.

Highlights: In the queue you'll be entertained by an audio-animatronic Mr. Potatohead. He moves, he tells jokes, he seems to talk to the audience - all very, very well-done. The various shooting-gallery stages of the ride, itself, are very well animated and cleverly funny.

Lowlights: It's just a series shooting galleries displayed (in 3D) on large screens. Your ride car takes you from gallery to gallery, and these transitions 'break the magic' by giving riders too much of a glimpse into the ride mechanisms. For all the theming in the queue and loading areas, it's mostly lost inside the ride, itself. As well, the 3D effects are minimal since everything is happening so quickly at each stage.

Overall: It's a fun ride. You ride around in little vehicles, you wear 3D glasses, you score points by shooting Toy Story cartoony things with a string-pull gun/canon device. While it may be one of the most technologically expensive attractions at DisneyWorld (something like $80 million to design and build), it really doesn't break any new ground from a entertainment perspective. It's simply a virtualized take on the traditional shooting gallery game. I suspect that the degree-of-difficulty was in designing something that could provide a fun experience while moving tourist bodies through a continuously loading ride platform. In short - it's not worth a long wait.

And now - pictures!

Outside theming in Pixar Place. Everyone loves monkeys.

Ride entrance. Notice the Stand-by Wait (click to enlarge).

Queue theming.

Nice detail on a giant videogame package.

More queuing.

I had one of these.

Big-ass Candyland box.

Contemplating the ceiling.

Entertaining spud-man.

Going upstairs. Must be getting close.

Ride queue overlook area. Definitely getting closer.

I see the loading area!

Down we go - ever closer to 6 minutes of fun.

Yes! That's it! We're next!

Old Tech Lazy-Ass Me

Okay, so I didn't post new pics in a day or two like I said I would. Other than a few Twitter and Facebook updates, I didn't post anything else here while I was away.

Wanna know why?

Number 1 - I found out how lazy I can be. Schleping through central Florida all day long takes it toll on my 47 year-old frame, it seems. Writing something longer than 140-ish characters just felt like work.

Number 2 - Mid-week I switched to an old CF-format camera for still photos. The pics are nice, but the laptop we took along don't know from CF cards. They're made of birchbark or something.

But I will post some Florida stuff here over the next few days. That's a promise.

Just a taste (for Jim Dandy) - The new TTA spiel sucks donkey ass (yeah, I went there). It's bland - like Disney Channel bland. The voice talent is as generically-exciting as oatmeal without the Bailey's. There is no "paging Mr. Tom Morrow". There's nothing but a fucking advertisement for Tomorrowland without any attempt at entertainment.

The Story So Far...

I'm alive. The flight was uneventful if you discount my Drama Queen aisle-mate and her 4 kids. I know her life story and it's been a hard-knock one at that. Otherwise, it was the typical trip into MCO and onto Disney in a crappy domestic rental car.

The first few nights were at the The Swan and we've moved to the Yacht Club for the remainder of the week. The weather is cool-ish, but just fine by me. We've had a bit of rain, but mostly sun so far.The crowds have been uneven - sometimes lots of people, sometimes not so much.

Some highlights so far: Backstage tour of the steam train operations at the Magic Kingdom, lunch at the Teppen Edo (Epcot) where a Japanese dude throws knives in frontof your face while he cooks your meal, after hours Christmas party at the Magic Kingdom, and riding lots of rides.

And some lowlights: rental scooters and wheelchairs for the morbidly obese and the ambulatory unethical - all for the chance to queue-jump where possble, people lining up for turkey legs (see previous), and NASCAR ('nuff said).

And now, pictures.

Main Street (Magic Kingdom) before opening.

The Roy O. Disney in the roundhouse.

Dee and The Boy doing the Astro Orbit.

A lonely Snow Speeder.

Christmas Castle.

Yacht Club dock.

View from The Swan towards The Dolphin.

Tom Sawyer's Island at the Magic Kingdom.

There's the fix of pics for now (requests will be considered). Tonight we're back to Disney Hollywood Studios for Fantasmic. Tomorrow we're going to stow away on th Shuttle out on the coast. Wish me luck.

Later....

Merry Sithmas to All

With any luck, this time tomorrow will see me comatose in the fluffy bosom of DisneyWorld. Between now and then lies a midday drive to Detroit, a dinner-time flight to Orlando, and a short negotiation from MCO to Disney through the predictable mid-Florida drizzle.

I'm really and truly hoping to put up a few blogposts over the next week - and I'll be sharing a few photos along the way. I'm kind of excited about this (assuming I have the stamina). In addition to the usual DisneyWorld stuff, we have a few special things planned: helping get the Magic Kingdom steam trains running before park opening, celebrating Christmas at an after-hours Disney party, checking out the Space Shuttle, and a few other surprises.

But I'm a cautious fellow, too. Some might even call me pessimistic. So in case the whole 'blogging from inside the magic' thing doesn't work out the way I hope it does, let me extend my very best Holiday Wishes to all of the geeks and ne'erdowells who stop in here from time to time.

See you soon (I hope).

Iffy Traditions

We send Christmas cards to people. Left to my own devices, no one would be getting any cardboard in the mail from me. I'm far too lazy to go through all the steps necessary to get a personalized piece of shiny paper into someone else's mailbox. At best, I suppose I could manage a mass email - perhaps some clever animation of a dancing elf sporting my head on its shoulders. So it's my sainted wife who drives the card production process every year while I hang on for the ride and sign my name where I'm told.

Some people love cards, some people hate them. I'm kind of in between. Even though we tend to re-use them for gift tags in our house, they are largely a waste of trees and ink. But I also recognize they are a form of personal recognition during a holiday season dedicated to such things. They are the nod exchanged between passers-by - an acknowledgement that other people exist in your mental inventory of Things That Matter. They are also terribly political - with vague rules about card reciprocation and such.

And then there are the letters. Time was when a few lucky folks on the card list would also get a lovely note in Dee's best handwriting - all for catching up those family details unknown to friends far away. But somewhere in time The Letter has become The Christmas Letter. No longer personal and handwritten, each Christmas card comes equipped with a folded 8.5-by-11 year-in-review in Arial 10-point font.

The Christmas Letter is a much-derided cliche. In the wrong hands, it's a soapbox to announce to everyone you know that you're still rich and successful - surrounded by an adoring family where nothing but blue eyes and blonde hair are allowed into the household gene pool. In the right hands, you get to remind your far-flung familiars that you're the same ol' sad sack you ever were, but getting older.

I enjoy writing the Christmas Letter, and I hope I fall into the latter category. But it's much too easy to fall into the trap of gushing about my kids' school grades and that my cat can jump to the top of the fridge in one leap. Impressive as these things are, I look at it all as a wry joke - a public admission that, yes, we're normal and boring and proceeding down life's path like everyone else.

So far no one is complaining and, in fact, some people tell us they look forward to the annual missive. Then again, they're all so polite...

Would You Rather?

Yes, it's been far too long since my last post. Sometimes I forget that 5 or 6 people depend on me for several seconds of entertainment during the closing credits for X-Play. Really, I just haven't had any time or inclination for much more than a smart-assed Innertubes drive-by in the usual places. It's not that I'm giving up on this ridiculous blogging thing (hold your applause for now). Rather, it's been the constant, underachieving lethargy that's attached itself lamprey-like to my neocortex.

Not really sick, not really well - I've spent some quality time staring into space the last few weeks. For whatever reason, my reverie has wandered into imagined places where the deep questions of Life are pondered, flipped end over end, and then pondered again.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

The problem with answering this question is that I tend to be limited by the filter of pop culture. The superpowers I can imagine have already been imagined by far more imaginative folks than I through comic books, literary classics, and film. How can a Gentleman Suburbanite like myself develop a superpower that isn't just an amalgam (or rip-off) of what someone else has devised?

But I decided it isn't important that I be creative. It's important that I be practical - and not too greedy. If someone or something is handing out superpowers, I don't want to be unseemly about it.

Flying - really fast flying - is the answer for me.

If I could fly at supersonic speeds, I'm thinking I could go anywhere on Earth and in space. Whatever gifts protected my mortal frame from burning up doing the express run from my backyard to the top of the Eiffel Tower will assuredly protect me anywhere Out There, too. It's not really an aggressive superpower since flying large means 'running away from trouble'.

But I think it would be damn convenient and entertaining - and lucrative. I'm guessing there might be some odd jobs that NASA might pay me to do. The travel industry could use a man-on-the-spot service like mine. Got a Balloon Boy troubling you? I'll take the pictures for CNN and save the day all in short order.

Yup - flying would be alright by me. But first I need to do is convince my butt to leave this really comfy chair.

Sometimes Hate is Too Strong a Word

And sometimes not. My daughter is learning that Cat Dress-Up is a game with serious reprecussions.

The Rules

All this recent talk about podcasts and those who listen to them have got me thinking about what makes for a good podcast. And when I say 'good podcast', I mean it's one that I'll come back to again (and maybe even again). In no particular order:

1. Have a clearly advertised theme. Well....duh. While you don't have to limit yourself to a narrow set of topics for discussion, don't veer off into rants about the sorry state of the Beanie Baby collectables market when you're supposed to be helping me grok the finer points of car repair.
   
   
2. Know what you're talking about. Another 'duh', but do a little preparation. I don't care whether or not you're an expert on anything, but do a bit of homework. Understand your topic.
   
   
3. Quantity does not equal Quality. If you're podcasting on a weekly basis, any episode over an hour is too much for me. If you're releasing new episodes on a monthly basis, don't go over 2 hours. Otherwise, I'm just not going to keep up. Do you really have that much to say?
   
   
4. Learn to speak complete sentences. It's not a lot to ask, but for the love of Xenu do not spend your time punctuating each thought with 'umm' or 'you know'. Just don't do it.
   
   
5. Having a few drinks while you're recording is just fine, but having one too many is not. I like to listen to podcasters who are having a good time, and that often involves some 'light refreshments'. But if you cross the line into frat-party territory - you're no longer interesting. You just get boring.
   
   
6. Pay attention to sound quality. If I can't hear you or you sound like you're talking through a length of hose, I'm likely going to turn you off. Even worse: the sound level or quality varies wildly between members of your podcast crew.
   
   
7. Listening to you and your friends 'party' is not as fun as you think. If you're having fun making your podcast, I'm having fun listening to your podcast. But if your crew spends most of the time shouting over one and other and laughing maniacally about nothing apparent to your listeners, I'm movin' on.

So, what have I missed, folks?

Hey You - Off My Cloud

If you were to buy a red car, you would perceive that most cars on the road are also red. I call this the Red Car Effect - or RCE for short. I made this up, so don't bother Googling - you'll just get this page, anyways. And this one, which I'd never seen until 30 seconds ago.

My point is, I recently had an RCE day. A day where I heard something in the morning that made me pay attention to something else in the afternoon, which led me to actually have an opinion about something in the evening.

In the morning: A friend of mine related an experience where he had found a forgotten copy of a video game in his house. Still pristine in its shrinkwrap, smelling of 9 year's worth of CD out-gassing - my friend loaded it onto his modern PC, happy with his unexpected windfall. Mind you, there were problems in combining these 2 pieces of technology that had been separated by epochs in tech-time, but it was an interesting story nonetheless and I couldn't help but hope some patching would fix his problems.

In the afternoon: I was driving around town running oh-so-bland errands and checking out a new podcast. A few of the disembodied voices started talking about direct-download video games. As the story goes, a bigwig executive from EA Games recently opined that the next decade would witness the demise of disc-based game media in favour of direct-download distribution. We'd all pay less (no media to distribute!) and the distributors would store our games somewhere in The Cloud.

In the evening: I thought about direct-download some more. It has some merit, I suppose. Steam has been working this model for awhile now and it works not too badly. But I'm super-skeptical. First off, The Cloud is a lovely buzzword in tech these days, and the chattering classes of tech have made it the current darling of the IT consulting business.

But the reality is that it's simply a collection of servers that are attached to the Internet - owned and operated by a company who wants your money. In this alone, there are mountains of issues to be solved before we see the demise of the CDROM or DVD gaming media: Cloud capacity, security, escrow guarantees, re-installing games on new/upgraded PCs, etc. etc and friggin' etc.

And that's just for starters. Buying a new game often has some social or synergistic aspect that direct-download can't satisfy. Need a guitar for Rock Band? You're going to a store. Want to dig through the clearance bin? It's better at a store. Want to kibbutz with the guy behind the counter or check-out the gamer-chick in the next aisle ? Well, you get the picture.

And what of my friend and his found treasure? In a world where The Cloud rules all, he would have been denied his eureka moment. And would The Cloud even bother to remember a 9 year-old game that had never been touched?

For me, direct-download isn't very attractive, at least for the big, expensive games. Spending $10 for a fun PopCap download doesn't feel very risky, but I'm not ready to trust The Cloud for Fallout 3. And, really, I love that new game smell under the shrinkwrap.

Evolution Doesn't Always Work, I Guess

When I was a young fellow of 7 or 8, I used to visit my older cousin from time to time. While he's only 3 or 4 years older than I, he didn't have much use for a little kid back then. So I'd usually spend my time there being half-ignored while my cousin would play with his friend.

But this story is not about that - it's about this.

My cousin had an electric football game, and I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. It was a table-top metal field painted to look like a real gridiron. A small motor underneath the surface would cause the field to vibrate - with the rate of vibration controlled by a tiny dial. Each contestant would arrange their little plastic football players in formation, with one team controlling a small, felt football. With the application of vibration effects, the plastic players would move around the field and, fate willing, someone might get a touchdown.


Being the little kid in the corner, I always had to watch as my cousin and his friend would play their football games. I loved to watch the players run their patterns and I'd wish just a little bit that I could play, too.

One day, it happened. My cousin was out for the day and my aunt, bless her, brought out the football set for me to play with. My hands almost shook as I set up the field and arranged the men. I flicked the switch and, with with the faint smell of ozone in the air, I watched the players come alive. Glory!

It only took me about 10 minutes to realize the whole affair was a sham - total bullshit. While my cousin would protest otherwise, there was no skill involved, no Great Oz behind a curtain. It was just little pieces of plastic moving in spastic, random circles on a sheet of vibrating steel. I wasn't disappointed. Rather, I was empowered with the knowledge that my cousin was too easily amused by what must have been the stupidest game ever manufactured.

For reasons I cannot remember, this story came up at the office a few days back. As is usually the case during these sorts of useless conversations, a co-worker and I Googled 'electric football' and discovered that, to our total surprise, electric football games still exist! Not much has changed by the looks of them. In this age of silicon chips and immersive gaming, one can still find a game that has not changed very much since its birth in 1947.

The only appreciable evolution of electric football seems to be in the plastic players, themselves. Instead of figures on a stationary base, the state-of-the art includes a settable dial in the player base that - allegedly - introduces a bias in the direction a player might travel under vibration.

I still think it's all bullshit, but obviously others do not. The game has persisted in the market a very long time (although I have never noticed it on a shelf at any store I frequent). These days, one can purchase teams that are painted in authentic NFL uniforms or, if so inclined, purchase unpainted players and paints for a more custom job. There are even websites devoted to customizing the field, itself.

Thanks to the Internet, there are chat boards and fan sites devoted to this game-come-hobby. And there are leagues - electric football leagues. This, I find, a most astonishing thing that people would devote that much psychic effort into what is, essentially, the worst game ever made.

Makes me wonder what my cousin is up to these days. But I probably don't want to know.

Go Ask Your Mom - Just Not Me

Not unexpectedly, I didn't make the cut to be a 2010 Disney Mom. The lovely email from the Disney folks let me down easy. They know how hectic it is to raise a family and they appreciate the I effort I put into my application. The know I completely understand how hard it was for Disney to narrow down the field out of the thousands of applicants. And while I was not selected, they are grateful that I took the time to just apply.

And you know, since I was among the earliest applicants for a coveted spot on the Disney Moms panel, they've made me a member of the exclusive Mickey Moms Club - created for all the Disney Moms and Dads that didn't make the cut.

So while I didn't expect to spend the next 12 months helping folks plan their Disney vacations, there was still a little bit of 'dammit all' after getting the Dear Mom email. My family, of course, is completely devastated. We anticipate months of counselling followed by a low-dose lithium regimen before we can subject the kids to the sight of mouse-ears. But - Walt willing - we'll get there. We'll get there together.

And, you know, there's always next year.

Scooped!

Freeps story on October 9, 2009.

Crazylegs story on June 15, 2009.

Another victory for the electron-stained wretches, Blogger Brown!

Just Nod And Agree

We ventured into Wortley Village today to buy catfood. There's a little petshop where kittens run down the aisles or sleep curled up on the counter. We go there because they stock 'healthy' brands of catfood with exotic labels. Our cat seems to prefer them (read: Mika will eat them) and the prices are actually in line with grocery-store faire.

That's where I heard the weirdest conversation of the week (even by Wortley Village standards):

Dee: Do you have any more Tiki Cat in stock?

Pet Store Lady: No. We just can't get any right now. Maybe in the future, but not right now. Our supplier used to get it straight from Thailand, but now they have to get it from the U.S. and the Feds won't let the stuff across the border for some reason.

Dee: Oh....Thailand?

Pet Store Lady: You might like Snappy Tom brand!

Dee: Okay.... Thailand?

For the record, I do not own a Tilley hat and yet, somehow, I can get into Wortley Village.

Please Don't Screw This Up

Us Reboot fanboys have taken a beating over the years. Promises have been made and broken.

Rinse. Repeat.

And then more audacious promises of a movie trilogy beginning in 2010.

And now I'm getting feverishly moist over what is possibly the worst teaser trailer ever.

But still....

And now...

... back to our regular scheduled programming, already in progress. As Aunt Bea used to say, "Holy Jeebus, Andy, but it's been a biatch of a week!". And it really was.

It started with my In-laws driving down from The Big Nickel for their annual Autumn stay here in All Mixed Up Land. That, in itself, throws a wrench into the ebb and flow of the household schedule, what with having to make sure there's ample provisions and clean blankets on hand.

On top of that:

We had our first 'university information night' for BandGeek - two-and-a-half hours of infomercial blandness punctuated by dollars threatening to fly out of the bank account.

JediBoy had an overnighter school trip requiring taxi service and packing assistance. The lesson: teenagers need access to a shower every day.

Your Scribe (that's me) spent quality time with his father-in-law installing new flooring for his sister-in-law. He also got bit by a small dog in the rain when all he was trying to do was coax the wee mutt through a broken fence back into his own yard. The fence will be fixed post-haste.

A family reunion of sorts meant that Dee and I were unable to check out Roller Girls as we had planned.

But the one thing that sticks out this week was a fundraiser concert. One of JediBoy's classmates from Grade 8 last year was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer this past Spring. The backstory is long and sad, of course. But some very hardworking folks in the community (including JediBoy and BandGeek) put together a school concert to raise funds for the family - a bit of help as they cope with all the necessities of living through their extraordinary experience. It was a pretty emotional evening - hundreds of people gathering to offer whatever they could.

But to be sitting there a few nights ago, watching Alex wheel up on stage, after 4 rounds of chemo, and belt out a kick-ass, old school, country song - well, not too many dry eyes, I'm afraid. Even the folks covering the event for A-Channel had to pause a bit. It's trite and altogether hackneyed to suggest that a 14 year-old girl fighting cancer can put the world into perspective, but that she did.

I think there were hidden messages embroidered into this week. Things never stay the same for very long, so don't miss the scenery while you're enjoying the ride.

FTW

30 days.

30 posts.

2 of 'em not bad.

But it seems a little bit trivial tonight - more on that tomorrow.

Whoosh!

That's the sound of a kid growing up. Thanks to Einstein and Doppler, parents perceive time as a complicated blur whereas the kids feel like bugs trapped in amethyst. But it doesn't matter where you're standing - time lurches steadily forward whether we like it or not (TARDIS owners notwithstanding).

I'm thinking about all this today because I have to go to some kind of 'post-secondary information night' later this week. It seems that my daughter the BandGeek, all of 16 years old, is theoretically eligible to get kicked out of high school the proper way come next June.

I'm not ready, the RESP is not ready, and it's questionable whether BandGeek is ready. True, I left home to go seek my fortune when I was a few months shy of 18 - which is the same boat my December baby could board next year. I like to think it's different situation here (and it is!).

But we'll all go to the information night and see what's what. At 16, the kid has no real idea of what she wants 'to be' when she grows up, nor should she. We'll support her and give her all the advice she can stand, but I'll secretly hope we get to keep her with us, just like it is today, for a little while longer.

I Must Have Too Many Friends

Microsoft is a company that owes much of its success to marketing its product better than the Other Guy. Before MS Office came along, their bread-and-butter was the Windows operating system. But here's a dirty little secret, it was never 'the best' (and still isn't). By most measures, Windows has been close to 10 years behind competing products in terms of technical sophistication and quality. In fact, a lot of the concepts in the guts of modern versions of Windows can trace their roots back to an ill-fated collaboration between Microsoft and IBM so many years ago.

So why did Windows persevere while the likes of OS/2, Amiga, and BeOS bit the dust? Microsoft knew how to market to Big Business. While the Other Guys were convinced that the better product would win, Microsoft figured out that that didn't matter. Good ol' fashion schmoozing and FUD in the boardroom will always win - hands down.

For all it's success in convincing business users and hardware manufacturers that Windows was the way to go, MS has never (and I mean NEVER) figured out how to talk to real people. And there's a special place in the annals of computer geekdom for the Dancing Monkey Boy.

With Windows 7 (erasing the deeply flawed Vista debacle for only a few hundred bucks), the brain-trust out in Seattle is asking people to sign up to host 'launch parties'. Let that sink in a moment.

Launch parties.

You sign up with MS, they send you some party supplies and some instructions, and you show all your friends the wonders of Windows 7. I presume the party kit will contain a good assortment of 'Apology Cards', which will likely consume most of the day after you host your Windows party

Granted, there are people doing this for reasons only they can explain. In my IT profession, these people are called virgins. Or Futureshop sales personnel.

For myself, I cherish my friends. And I'm pretty sure none of us are virgins.

Small = Cheap

I ran across this article today. The upshot: the console gaming industry is casting a nervous eye towards cellphone-based games as a drain on market-share. The poster-child here, of course, has to be Apple and their powerhouse couple: iPhone and App Store. To quote from the article, "Of the 758 new game titles shown at the Tokyo Game Show, 168 were for cellphone platforms — more than twice as many as in the previous year.". Interestingly, Apple was absent from the Tokyo show.

There are a lot of smarter people than I who are looking at these market forces and confirming that the cellphone platform is a legit threat. But I don't see it that way. I think there's room for consoles and cellphones and I doubt anyone's slice of the pie will need to be cut into finer wedges.

On my iTouch I have a few games: iShoot Lite, Jellycar, Assassin's Creed (Demo), and a few others. I've tried them all, but I only come back to one or two on a regular basis. Fact is, these games are for casual use only. They're great for whiling away the time in the dentist's waiting room, but I don't find myself clearing a few hours to spend time in that gaming world. The form-factor is just not built for that kind of gaming, I think.

In addition to offering casual gaming, the cost is cheap. I'll never spend $50 on an iTouch game. I'd even have trouble spending more than $5 or $10 on a cellphone game. I'm more comfy with a few bucks risked on an iTouch game. Even then, there better be a try-and-buy version. The reasons are simple: an iTouch provides a low barrier to entry for anyone to write software - including games. There's lot of choice out there. The flip side of that coin is that there's a LOT of dreck out there, and it's caveat emptor all the way. I can't afford to experiment too much.

For console gaming, the biosphere is a bit different. Enthusiasts aren't providing a ton of content in that world (save the most motivated of souls). This limits the choice to studio-produced games that we are only too willing to shell out $50 to own. Even there, we seem to rely on an eco-system of professional reviewers and marketers to convince us to part with our dough.

In the PC-land, both worlds seem to be colliding. While big-budget PC gaming is not dead yet, studios like PopCap are really embracing the low-end, low-cost, big-fun games (and they get the need for try-and-buy). Maybe this is where PC gaming will end up: PopCap at one end and big-ticket MMO at the other, with consoles trying to own the middle.

I don't think the folks at Square Enix have a lot to worry about. Rather, they need to be considering how to exploit this nascent cellphone gaming market. There's room enough for all, so long as the studios realize that not all gaming is created equal.

Work Hard Today To Be Lazy Tomorrow

The Sun did not shine.

It was too wet to play.

So we sat in the house

All that cold, cold wet day.

So I've had this old, beat up, cast-off PC hanging around for awhile with no real plan in mind. I just hate seeing old stuff like that go to the dump when it could be useful to someone. In its day (like, several years ago), it was a pretty powerful machine. And while it's still more than capable of surfing the Innertubes and doing some light-duty office work, it's worthless by today's standards.

Getting tired of seeing it sit in the corner all by its lonesome, I spent the afternoon dusting it off and seeing if I could hook it up to the flat-screen TV in the family room. I like this PC because it's very small and very quiet - perfect as an 'Internet terminal' component for the family TV!

It took some fussing and slightly creative cabling, but I finally got it to work pretty well. I had hoped to keep Ubuntu Linux on the box, but I couldn't find drivers that would support a high enough video refresh rate. So, I had to swallow my pride and install a stripped down Double Secret Probation version of Windows XP (made for 'legacy' hardware). It did the trick, and I can use the PC in 42 inches of wide-screen LCD goodness!

Phase 2 of the project will be to install a cheapo wireless adaptor for network access and a cheapo wireless keybpard/mousepad combo for sitting in my comfy chair while I surf. If it all works properly, we'll be able to surf the Net and stream audio/video from the Big PC downstairs.

Is all this really necessary? Probably not. But it's a minimal investment for a bit of fun on a rainy afternoon. And if it all works out well enough, maybe I'll put together a real HTPC down the road. Not that Osmos on a big screen would kick-ass or anything.

Mighty Casey Has Struck Out

Over the years I've developed a bit of a reputation in my neighbourhood as a Fix-It Guy. Within the small circle of houses on my court, I have 2 advantages, it seems: I have a lot of tools and I 'do something with computers' for a living.

Everything is relative, of course. Having a lot of tools is no guarantee that they're useful. To some folks, hammering a nail with the flat side of a wrench is perfectly okay. Likewise, 'doing something with computers' is no guarantee that a teenager's PC can be disinfected from all varieties of virii that travel through cyberspace on the backs of stolen MP3s and Vanessa Hudgens money shots.

Still, my neighbours keep me busy. I've fixed toilets, replaced sump-pumps, hooked up PCs to the Innertubes, even buried a family pet. I like to help. It feels good. And it's good karma that often come back to me in the form of returned favours, bottles of Scotch, or lovely baked goods.

But I feel like I'm slipping - like my salad days of handy-hood might be on the wane. It started a few months back.

One my regular 'customers' - a single mom with a special needs kid - called me all in a tizzy over a botched toilet repair. I'll spare the details other than to say that my repair unearthed another critical problem. In resolving that problem - and feeling the glow of gratitude from my neighbour - I neglected to install a gasket in a place where a gasket is critical. The result was water - lots of water - seeping through the ceiling below. I fixed my mistake quickly and, while the good neighbourly vibes did not seem to diminish, I felt like a bit of a fraud.

While that may have been an anomaly, tonight's events make me wonder. Over the last few weeks I've been helping another neighbour learn the ins-and-outs of her new iPod. Tonight there was a frantic knock on the door, and there she was clutching her iPod. She was trying to load a rented movie onto her New Best Friend, in preparation for a plane trip the next day. Sensing her critical timing, iTunes was throwing up cryptic errors. "Relax", I said, "I'll help." 90 minutes later, I had deduced that the problem was well-known on the Innertubes, and none of the recommended fixes would work for me. She graciously offered that she had a good book picked out for her trip, and that I was 'super' for trying. I shuffled home in the dark mulling over the fact that 25 years of 'doing something with computers' didn't seem to matter too much all of a sudden.

I need a win and I need it soon. Maybe something simple like hanging a picture straight or rescuing a kitten from a tree. Otherwise, I'll be buying my own wine and cake. And that ain't good.

Doreen Green?

I have never had an original thought, I think.

And that's not too original either.

Deep thinking aside, the concept of squirrel-like super-powers was brought to the fore today. The Why and What For is a story on its own - and not mine to tell.

But as my limbic brain worked lazily on the question of exactly what such super-powers might be, my neocortex took matters in hand and started Googling for squirrel facts. Predictably, someone beat me to this long ago. I should have known. There's nothing new under the Sun - at least in my solar system.

It did occur to me, however, that there's one critical squirrel ability that is astonishingly absent from Doreen Green's arsenal:

Sometimes I Must Cheat

This is, indeed, lazy blogging during a month when I've promised not to be so lazy. But this video took my breath away a little bit, and I had to share. The film was created by 3 young French filmmakers as a thinly-veiled nod to Jim Henson. I find Over Time: The Sad Mystery of Death simply and utterly brilliant.

What, Really, Is Productive?

I tend to measure free time in terms of unencumbered hours. It's an elusive definition, but it seems to be a momentary lack of intersection between Must Do and Should Do. A theorectical gap that can only be perceived when you're standing inside it. I call that rift in time Nice To Do.

My Nice To Do list is always long and always in flux. It's that place where I can read my books, stare into space, think about software I'll never write, plan the home media network that proceeds in fits-and-starts, play a video game that may never get finished, complete that pond fountain idea - all the things that would make me a Renaissance Man were I, in fact, rich and idle.

Lately, I've noticed my precious Nice To Do time has been fairly unproductive - although that feels like the wrong measure. The point is, I don't seem to make progress on the Nice To Do stuff anymore. And it dawned on me that the clarion call of the Internet might be to blame.

Since you're reading this, you already know that the Internet is a potential time-sucking vampire. It asks us for nothing more than feeble mouse gestures and the will to remain sedentary. In return, it feeds our short attention span and slakes our thirst for entertainment and knowledge in all forms high and low.

Of course, the Internet is not evil. It's simply the analogue of life's rich pageant. But for those of us who are sometimes weak in resolve, it can tip the scales between inventing the Next Big Idea and a life of poor posture. And don't even get me started on the Pavlovian effects of an iPod Touch and a Wi-fi connection.

It's a battle that I fight almost every day, and one I intend to win every day. I think the key is to set goals, even when floating in the void that is Nice To Do. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm learning about laminar flow rigs.

But I really should check in on what LiLo has been up to lately.

Totally Not My Fault

Today is going to be a sort of hiatus from the whole blogging for 30 days thing and I'm just really embarrassed about this. We had this whole 'guest blogger' idea worked out and it's totally not original, I know, but we thought it would be really fun for everyone.

Well, it turns out my 'guest blogger' has a little problem with self-medication and she kinda screwed up the whole big idea at the last minute. Since I didn't have a Plan B (my bad) we're kind of stuck here today.

They told me "don't trust a furry Siberian", you know? And I just ignored them - totally blew them off and now everything sucks. So....umm....sorry, and we'll have something a little more interesting tomorrow.

Got Fair?

Yeah, we went to the Western Fair today. We were motivated by the The Boy's love of rides and The Girl's entry fee in the horse-jumping competition. It was the same old, same old - but a little less so.

The rides seemed a bit more expensive, but the usual assortment nonetheless. The buildings seemed to have fewer reasons to poke a head inside. The various competitions - photography, local crafts, and the like - pushed further into the corner of irrelevance.

Like last year and many of the years before, the patrons were largely the tattooed demographic - with their piercings, their strollers trailing cigarette smoke, and the general vibe that life was not going to get any better than today.

To be fair (ha!), there were some memories to take back to the 'burbs:

• a woman leaving as we arrived produced the day's best quote: "You know, the fair is as ghetto as I can remember"
  
  
• watched The Boy eat a deep-fried Mars bar and then ride every sickening ride without choking up something vile
  
  
• saw a warm family moment unfold as Mom and teen daughter fought over the last smoke in the pack (just bad planning if you ask me)
  
  
• witnessed a small lamb squeeze through the enclosure bars and prance over to nearby children, eliciting surprised shrieks
  
  
• watched Nick Paparella - family in tow - eat a corndog and not once did he make his goofy TV-guy-at-the-fair face. Astounding!
  
  
• The Girl, after a long day of waiting her turn, got her rented mule jumping well enough to win a First, two Fourths, and a Sixth in her various classes.

There was a time so very long ago when I looked forward to visiting the Fair. It knew what it was back then. It didn't need shiny ad campaigns that, today, feel oddly out-of-kilter with the sensibility of a Fall fair. Now, the facade promises something that the inside can't deliver - and the heart is gone.

Too Windy For Blogging

Every Fall, I look forward to Doors Open London. It's the thrill of seeing forbidden places blended with the chance to be surprised by places I see everyday. I'm betting the whole experience stimulates the brain in the same way that checking out someone else's medicine cabinet can produce a tiny rush - a little bit of naughtiness with the promise of a 'wow' moment.

For various reasons, there's not a luxury of time this year to make the Doors Open circuit. Today, I did find some time (with The Boy in tow) to take a tour of the wind tunnel facility at UWO. I've never been able to get there in previous years, so I'm glad there was time today.

Our guide, who's name I never did get, was extraordinary. He truly seemed to love his work at the facility, with an enthusiasm for the subject matter that infectious. And for good reason - it's a bit of a geek paradise in there. There are shops that construct elaborate models of buildings and bridges (costing anywhere from $50K to well over $100K). There are huge puzzle-piece models of mountain ranges, the city of Hong Kong, and a section of London, England. There are computers, high-voltage cables, water tanks, smoke machines, software, metal catwalks, and all the other trappings that say "there are happy geeks on premises".

And there's the tunnel. Actually, that should plural. The main tunnel is actually a racetrack-shaped affair with 4 different testing areas. We were lucky enough to stand inside one of the testing areas and feel the gentle breezes, although the tunnel is capable of winds up to 100 km/h. All the while, our host interspersed facts and figures with war stories, wind science, and an obvious affection for the facility's founder and namesake, A.G. Davenport.

It was a heck of a 40 minutes. And I walked out wishing (just a little bit) that I was that happy geek we left behind for the next group.

Get Out Much?

A conversation my family had this evening at a local well-known eating estabishment:

Waiter: Hey! You brought a DisneyWorld book. Planning a vacation?

Mom (after a few glasses of wine): Why, yes! It's our Christmas present this year!

Waiter: Excellent! You'll have Mickey and heat!

Waiter leaves.

Me: Did he say we'd have Mickey in heat?

Mom laughs. Daughter laughs with much eye-rolling. Son not so sure.

Daughter: What did you just say? Jeez, Dad!

Me: Well, that's why Minnie has her own house. Mickey can be a real problem for her, you know? Everyone knows he's 'all hands' with the ladies.

Mom laughs harder. Daughter laughs in spite of herself. Son not so sure.

Mom (did I mention the wine?): Oh, it's true! Why do you think Mickey wears such baggy pants?

Mom laughs way too hard. Daughter laughs in shock. Son not so sure.

The bill is paid and we leave.

Son: What about Mickey's pants?

Me: Let's go to the car and I'll try to explain.

The curtain closes.

Oh, yeah. Stay classy, family.

A Yin for a Yang

For every Red Robin there has to be an Immortal Weapons.

As for the former, I went ahead and picked up issue #4. The good news: something happens besides panel after panel of introspective sulking whilst staring out windows. The bad news: there is still a lot of sulking - well, you get the picture. Still, I keep buyng these like the beaten dog who still manages a tail wag with the hope that my master will find a heart. I feel dirty.

In contrast, I enjoyed the hell out of Immortal Weapons #1 - enough to pickup #2. The good: issue #1's Fat Cobra 'origins' storyline was a heckuva tale. Being new to the character, the writing was 3-dimensional enough to make me care. I like that. The bad: I understand that each issue will be created by a different team - story and art. This means I could be in for a disappointment down the line, but I'll buy it just to see.

And when all else fails, I have a small stack of Gotham City Sirens that I have yet to get to. And I like bad girls just fine.

The Major Never Dies

I ran across a video today that takes me back to a time before I knew about cynicism, anxiety attacks, and harmonized sales tax. A time when Saturday morning was all about cartoons and sugary cereals. A time when a bendable plastic astronaut told me what the future would be like. A time when my blogging didn't channel a Stuart McLean monologue. Now I know that we covered this territory some time ago, but classics are timeless.

Get close to the TV now - close enough to feel the screen-static tickle your nose. Snuggle nice and deep into the shag carpet, feel the red-dye rush from a mouthful of Froot Loops, and remember how things used to be...

There Be Dragons In There

Apple recently announced iTunes 9.0 was comin' at us with a raft of cool, new features to make our lives easier. That assumes our lives are unnaturally focused on the care and feeding of our music collections - or at least the part of the collection that sits in iTunes. I sometimes imagine that iTunes is just an elaborate Tamagatchi toy - compelling us to feed, tickle, and stroke our digital music-pets lest they whither and die.

For the most part, the ballyhoo over iTunes 9.0 was lost on me. The new features might be cool, but I would probably just throw them onto the slag heap with all the other iTunes tricks I ignore. The one feature that caught my eye, however, is the new ability to manage iPhone/iTouch applications.

I've longed for a way to easily arranged all my little iTouch apps according to some categories that make sense to me - e.g. Screen 1 would have all the stuff I use everyday, Screen 2 would be games, Screen 3 would be reading material, etc. and whatever. Today this is only possible through spastic finger gestures on the iTouch screen - finger gestures that really don't lend themselves to anything useful other than Primal Scream therapy. The new capability in iTunes would let me do all of the work on my PC, and let iTunes tell iTouch what to do.

Tonight I discovered iTunes 9.0 was ready for me, and I clicked 'yes' to start the upgrade. First off, the new version (including iTouch app management) clocks in at a whopping +100Mb of downloaded software. I have written software for fun and profit for over 25 years - mainframes, mini-computers, PCs - and I cannot recall EVER having developed a piece of software that large. That, in itself, made me suspicious of just what the hell is inside iTunes. It also worried me that something could go wrong. That's a lot of code.

When I clicked 'yes' to install the iTouch app manager feature, nothing happened. It would download, but it would not install. No explanations were given beyond Steve Jobs' assurance that something went wrong. 15 minutes later, I finally coaxed the new software to tell me that it wants a Windows update first. A very specific update.

Mr. Jobs wants quid pro quo from Mr. Gates - and I think with that, I'll just forget the whole thing. It seems like a lot of effort for a stupid Tamagotchi.

Do Chromosomes Lie?

Somewhere, somehow, researchers have determined that, on average, men lie 6 times each day. Women, on the other hand, lie an average of 3 times per day. I can't dispute these claims, but I do wonder about the methodology behind the numbers. All I know is that I pretty much believe everything my wife says for the simple reason that I'm never quite sure what's going on around me. Her job is to keep track of all the things that matter, while my focus is to get the trash to the curb and dig holes in the garden as per her instructions.

Anyways, I thought about everything I've done today and wondered if there were, indeed, 6 lies in there somewhere. All I could come up with was:

Lie: Don't worry. We'll manage just fine while you're out of town this week.
Reality: We'll eat pizza and live in our own filth for the next 4 days.

Lie: You kids really ought to get some sleep so you're not over-tired for school tomorrow.
Reality: For the love of god I need some quiet time with a bottle of Red.

Lie: I'm just so proud that you managed to finish the main quest in Oblivion!
Reality: You can count on more chores around here, buddy.

Lie: I am totally pumped to work on your project. Your ideas are innovative and I love the challenge.
Reality: When others begin to suspect that your ideas are the result of a childhood head injury, I'll be long gone.

Lie: I can totally come up with 1 blog post ever day for 30 days.
Reality: I'm perilously close to blogging about Ashton Kutcher's tweets.

See? That's only 5 lies today, although I do have an hour to kill...

Star Wars WaltBoy Wet Dreams

Taking a page from ComiCon and PAX, Disney wrapped up their inaugural D23 Expo today down in California. I would love to have been there. Virtually every division pulled out all the stops to wow the legions of WaltBoys lucky enough to attend. In a very shrewd move, Disney used D23 as their platform to make an unprecedented series of announcements for future plans across the Disneyscape. A few highlights include the confirmation of Pirates of the Carribbean 4, a major expansion for FantasyLand at WDW's Magic Kingdom, and a plan for Disney Cruise Line to run Alaskan cruises in Summer 2011.

One of my favourites has to be official confirmation of Star Tours v2.0 at WDW and Disneyland - slated for 2011. Star Tours is about as close as I'll ever be to living inside Star Wars. For the uninitiated, the Disney Studios ride centerpiece is a simulated tourist trip to the moon of Endor that goes goes awry - and ends up as part of a Rebel attack against the Deathstar. The set design is part of the magic for me: entering through an Ewok village, a full-size Imperial Walker shooting water vapour, a full-size speeder station with C3PO and R2-D2 engaged in conversation.

But the attraction is a bit elderly, with film effects having advanced considerably since the ride opened in 1987. There have been rumours of a Star Tours re-boot for a few years now, but nothing was ever official - until now. It has been confirmed that 2011 will see a revamped attraction that will center on a full 3D pod-racing experience! Disney has gone so far as to release a teaser for v2.0. I've watched this a few times, and I'm still all goosebumpy!

Old School Geeks

For no other reason than we had enough fossil fuel in the tank, we pointed the beige minivan towards St. Jacob's this morning for a little family road trip. I hadn't been there in something like 10 years, but I didn't expect much to have changed since the local Mennonites are all about tradition.

Our first stop was the Farmer's Market just outside of the village. It was massive - definitely putting anything around London to shame. There was a huge outdoor spread of vendors selling what you'd expect - lots of local produce, baked goods, and pseudo-carny snacks.


Then there were the entrepeneurs selling the unexpected. In one case, it was an assortment of retro Nintendo gear (with a wee bit of XBox to ensure the geek-net was cast wide).


Adjacent to the sea of outdoor stalls, a slightly smaller building filled with every variety of vendors selling every kind of Germanic cheese and meat that one could imagine. All that was missing was polka music - and the inevitable heart disease that comes from that kind of diet.

The final stop before heading into the village-proper was the dreaded 'outlet mall'. It was the usual collection of clothing and footwear shops that induces the eyes of male species to roll backwards into their sockets.

The one bright light, however, was a Lego store that contained a pretty sizable collection of Star Wars kits. A perennial favourite of The Boy and I is the 10,000-piece Millenium Falcon that could be had for a cool $700. Our guffaws were noticed by a nearby young couple who joined the gaiety after explaining they were hard-core Star Wars fans but could never imagine shelling out that kind of coin. Afterwards, I noted to The Boy that the female half of the geek couple was smokin' hot, which further proves that geeks are the most attractive people on the planet.


Next on the agenda: into the village where we would peruse Olde Tyme Shoppes. The place was packed on a Saturday morning, and the air was filled with sounds of singing. To our surprise, a local Mennonite church choir had arranged it's 50+ voices on a street corner to belt out some serious gospel. It was great music, but I grew squeamish at the sight of paparazzi tourists with telephoto lenses a mere foot or two from the music - trying to capture something they found exotic. It just seemed to be in bad taste, somehow.

Our first official village stop was to grab a bite to eat in a sit-down restaurant that seemed to be a magnet for some seniors' bus trips. The rule to follow: seniors know where the good buffets are, so follow them. Out on the highway you must rely on truckers for culinary clues, of course.

After scarfing down some saurkraut and sausages, we started making the rounds. Much of the wares were not of my taste: fussy little doodads produced by local artisans and lots of potpourri. But there were a few gems in there, too. As St. Jacob's is the historical ground-zero for the Home Hardware empire, there was actually a museum dedicated to their history. In reality, it was just a collection of old hardware without much context, but we liked it just the same.

Down at the old Mill building, a local model-railway club had a damn fine setup. I counted at least 3 trains rolling through a model recreation of St. Jacob's from earlier days. On the floor below we found a maple syrup museum which was interesting enough - if not a peculiar choice. And no visit to the village is complete without a trip to the old blacksmith shop where you can watch folks manufacture honest-to-goodness corn brooms. We even bought one!

Last on the agenda was a stop by a on old railway caboose now serving as a walkthrough ice cream parlour. I opted for frozen yoghurt to balance out the saurkraut. And with that, it was back to the minivan, which we pointed along backroads that took us through Stratford and, eventually, home.

That's not too bad a day. And now I kind of wonder if Mennonites are big into Star Wars Lego.

How Jerry Found His Palm

Because I had The Roofer and the NASA appliance guys visiting me this past Wednesday, I worked from home. Because I worked from home on Wednesday past, my lunch-time walking partner, Charles, had to spend his lunch-time walking alone. And because Charles was walking alone at lunch-time on that fateful Wednesday, he unwittingly met Jerry's Palm.

Taking the usual route down the newly refurbished 'river walk' opposite Harris Park, Charles rested for a moment on a park bench - something he only does when he's walking alone. Beside him on that bench he spied a gadget sitting all alone. The gadget was dirty and muddy, and Charles felt pity for the lonely little gadget. He wiped away some of the grime to find the gadget had a name stamped above a little screen. And that gadget's name was Palm Treo AT&T - Palm for short. So off they went together, back to the office, where Charles would give Palm a proper cleaning and discover the little gadget looked none the worse for wear - no water damage, no sticky keys, no scratched display.

This is where I come into the story, for Charles wasn't sure what to do. Palm must have been lost and must have had an owner. But Charles, being unfamiliar with the likes of a Palm Treo AT&T, did not know how to ask the right questions in the right way. And, alas, Palm's power button had no effect, and the screen refused to shine. But I knew what to do.

Palm came home with me Thursday past where I found an old Palm charger that fit just right. Once Palm was able to shine his screen, I asked him for his secrets. By asking the right questions in just the right way, Palm told me everything he knew and maybe a bit more.

His owner was Jerry (just Jerry), and he had lost Palm in late August, although they had not known each other long. Jerry was likely in his early 20's and a student at Fanshawe. Palm made phone calls for Jerry on the Rogers cell network, but Palm was not a Rogers phone. Rather, Palm was an unlocked phone, which meant Jerry had paid a price for his gadget. Palm also told me his phone number, and that his SIM card - his Rogers brain - had been deactivated. This could only mean that Jerry had told Rogers about his problem and that Jerry had a new phone - probably with the very same phone number!

The very next morning I shared Palm's secrets with Chuck who, while slightly disappointed that Palm was not a true orphan, resolved that we must find Jerry. After calling Palm's old phone number a few times, Charles connected with a confused Jerry and told him about the whole adventure. Jerry was indeed a young Fanshawe student, so after his classes he hopped on a bus so that Charles might reunite the two old-new friends.

Alas, Jerry was young and mono-syllabic - not one for graciousness and story-telling. With a shrug and a thanks, Jerry accepted Palm and left, leaving Charles and I wondering about Palm's adventures before the park bench by the river at Harris Park.

We'll never know, of course, but we'll always have karma for doing the right thing.