2:23 PM
What appears to be four high school band nerds in Madison, Wisconson have combined to form the Lucido Felice Quartet, performing video game music from the olden days.
Their downloads are gone until they can get some torrents hosted, but I'm told they're pretty groovy.
In related news-
Combine hard-rock with a string quartet and you wind up with Apocalyptica, a not entirely unpleasant listening experience! All their samples are in RealAudio though, so make sure you install Real Alternative before taking the plunge.
10:39 PM
I was sick of Nextel's lousy coverage and insane billing practices, so today I jumped ship for Cingular.
I chose to go with the totally radical SonyEricsson T637. I hate flip phones with a passion, so the T637 was right up my alley.
If you've got a T637, or are thinking about getting one, allow me to educate you on some points!
Customizing your phone with games, ringtones, and themes can be a costly endeavor! All those downloaded kilobytes can add up pretty quickly, so you should avoid doing that at all costs. You can link up your T637 to your PC through a direct serial connection, infrared, or bluetooth.
You'll also want to use an essential piece of free software called Float's Mobile Agent which'll let you edit your phonebook, sync it with Outlook if you want, upload games and themes, download cameraphone shots, and other stuff.
The T637 supports games written in Java and in something called Mophun. Mophun is similar to Java, however it was created for the sole purpose of creating cell phone games optimized for whatever hardware they're run on. So as you can imagine, Mophun games run a heck of a lot faster than Java games.
Finding games for the T637 is tricky at first, but it's easy once you realize that it's got the same capabilities (speed and screen resolution) as the T610, T630, Z600, and maybe even some other phones in the SonyEricsson lineup.
The definitive SonyEricsson game archive is over at http://soneric.ru/games, however in order to access the site you'll need to hit it through a russian proxy server. Use the search tools to narrow your search if you'd like to exclude Java games.
If you can't be bothered to do that, you can still find quite a few games at t610yz600.com.
And finally, there are tons of free themes out there, so I'll just link to one site that's got a few hundred - esato.com.
Now that you know how to do all this stuff for free, please don't ever spend your hard-earned money on something as stupid and pointless as ringtones and games for your mobile phone. Cellular carriers prey on the uninformed to make their money - don't get taken in by their saucy charms!
4:01 PM
Today is an excellent day. We've moved into our new office, and Warner Brothers has released the trailer for Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. The stop motion looks so good that you could easily mistake it for being CGI!
8:46 PM
The LA Times has an interesting writeup on Shag's house in Lemon Heights. I'm not really into artsy fartsy artisty things, but Shag's style is really unique and nobody else out there does what he does.
His taste in home decor leaves a bit to be desired, though...
"We had so many close calls where we'd see a house and think, 'This is it!' and then we'd see the crown moldings and oak woodwork and walk out feeling so depressed."
WTF, man. I'd kill for some crown molding in my house. Most people would.
8:53 PM
We're in the process of moving our office to a less crappy part of Southern California. Our servers have and always will be located in downtown Los Angeles, and up until a while ago all of our staff was located about 15 minutes away in Huntington Park.
Well that's over with now. Now our admins (roughly half our staff) work downtown in the same building as our datacenter, and the rest of us are moving to a swankified new office in Brea.
Moving out of Huntington Park and into two different offices on opposite sides of LA county pretty much improves every single employee's commute. My own drive time has been reduced to a mere 30 minutes and I couldn't be happier.
The movers come bright and early tomorrow morning, so soon the B and C-rated local restaurants with no english menus will be a mere footnote in our company's history.
1:43 PM
Interestingly enough, Starbucks' own website makes absolutely no mention of their newest non-coffee beverage, Chantico. There's billboards all over the place for this thing, and they couldn't be bothered to put it on their own website. Brilliant marketing strategy!
I had one the other day. It's like drinking hot brownie batter. Which is to say it's very rich and rather good...sort of like how hot chocolate is supposed to taste, actually. The cup is tiny - just six ounces! But really, it's so rich that you may have trouble finishing it.
It's entirely too expensive though. $2.65 is about a dollar too much.
4:20 PM
Tammy and her uncle are en route to India for a three week vacation. I just dropped them off at LAX yesterday. I am sad and alone with our two cats for three weeks.
My tech-savvy wife is photoblogging the whole affair. Check her out at Tammypants.com.
3:04 PM
If you got a scanner for Christmas and you live in SoCal, you're probably getting tired of hunting for stuff to listen to. The Southern California Frequency Directory looks like the solution to your problem!
I've never seen the book up close before, but the sample pages look well organized with nice illustrations!
1:24 PM
Sunday at CES I saw the world's largest plasma television. At 102", it wasn't exactly something I could slip into my bag and sneak out with. Samsung had it roped off too, so someone would have seen me.
The temptation was great. I resisted.
I somehow manage to cross paths with Tony Baxter all the time in Anaheim Hills around my house. I saw him walking the floor at CES, too. He was checking out the PocketPC stuff at Microsoft's booth.
I lost about five bucks having a grand old time playing nickel slots at New York, New York. The free-drink-bearing waitresses seemed to steer clear of the machines, though. I imagine a twenty cent tip probably doesn't go as far as it used to.
I drove to Las Vegas and back by myself in some of the worst weather the region has seen in nearly a year. Amazingly I still made it in less than four hours each way. Leaving my house at 8pm in total darkness Saturday night added a nice "Oh shit! What was that!" factor to the mix.
Satellite radio made for good company this weekend.
4:01 PM
Their website is among the worst on the planet, but Tazo's Chai Latte mix is delicious. Mix one part Tazo Chai mix with one part milk, and pour over ice. Mind blowing.
Last week I found the same Tazo Chai concentrate that Starbucks uses in their stores at Costco and picked up a few boxes for myself. Now I can make my own Chai Lattes at home whenever I want for a fraction of the price that Starbucks charges.
11:38 AM
Six Apart bought LiveJournal. It's official now.
Six Apart got a little investment money a while ago, and they've been burning through it like gangbusters. In less than two years they've grown from 5 employees in one office to 70 employees in three international offices.
Color me cautious, but this sounds like a tale we've heard many times before in the golden era of the dot-com boom. If they can sustain their growth without having to rely on more outside investment, then good for them. But spending all that cash so early in the company's life sure seems risky.
10:43 PM
The list of merchandise for the Indiana Jones event is now online.
These limited edition items often go for several times their original selling price on ebay in the days and weeks immediately after an event. With an edition size of just 250, I bet that $95 pocket watch could easily bring in $150 - just enough to pay for a ticket to the event in the first place.
Nothing on the list really strikes me as something I'd want to own, however that obelisk is frickin' rad.
9:44 AM
"passPod is an iPod based field guide listing blackout dates and discounts for Disneyland Annual Passport holders. It is compatible with the 3G and 4G iPod as well as the iPod photo and iPod mini."
2:04 PM
I don't think that most people these days understand the concept of an RSVP.
We had a little new years shindig at our house last night and sent out 47 invitations through Evite. We were only expecting a handful of people to actually show up, as it was just a low-key BBQ and booze party in our tiny house.
Out of those 47 invitations, 22 people never responded at all. 22! How are we supposed to figure out how much food to buy and prepare if we've got this nebulous cloud of 22 people who may or may not show up?
Evite even makes it super easy to RSVP - you literally click a link that says "Will Attend," "Won't Attend," or "Might Attend." It's not rocket science. Maybe people feel bad about declining so they pretend like they never got the email or something. Who knows.
Aaanyway, a good time was had by all. And I will never use Evite again.
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