Life, Part III - Revenge of the Yeti

For the record...

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:04:13 GMT

I'm not entirely sure what's in kombucha, but I'm apparently not ready for it.

John Williams...

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:42:27 GMT

For the second time in the past couple of years, we got to see John Williams conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra tonight. Like the last time, this was a program entirely of movie music, but for the first time they brought in a movie screen and played clips during some of the performances. The first half was narrated by Michael York and was a tribute to the films of David Lean, including: The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, and Lawrence of Arabia.

The second half was entirely devoted to the music of the Harry Potter series, which Nancy and I both love. They wrapped up with a compilation of clips done to the main theme. Of course, no one was going to let John Williams go without an encore, so he ended up coming back to conduct the theme from E.T. and a piece from Indiana Jones ("Marion's Theme", I think - I didn't know it by name, but it's very recognizable).

To cap it off, when the audience wouldn't let him go, Williams came back and conducted the Imperial March, which was amazing. Finally, when we were just about exhausted from clapping, he did a 4th encore, the Sunday Night NFL theme, which is actually pretty cool in full (always interesting to hear the full scores of TV themes). Finally, we let the orchestra go home, but it was an amazing show.

NaNoRepo Man (19/20)...

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:13:14 GMT

I have no idea what that means - I'm running out of "Re-" words. This week has been nuts, but somehow I've managed to catch most of my clients up post-conference and put in 12.5 hours of writing since Monday. I'm only 1 hour shy of my target, after facing a 7.5-hour deficit. Even more amazingly, I'm making much better progress than expected. I've actually written up all of the tools, and have created most of the supporting pages and layout. I should have a rough-draft before the holiday and will hopefully be able to release this in early December.

Of course, the fact that I don't have that much left (compounded by the holiday) probably means I'm going to fall short of the 30-hour goal, but if the e-book is done, it's done. I'll take some extra time to edit that I might otherwise rush through, and then that's it. If I reach the concrete goal but not the arbitrary one, then mission accomplished.

Just one more (I think)...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:18:58 GMT

Ok, one more mini-survey I need help with for the e-book. The user testing tools require you to find your own participants, so sorry to be such a bother, but it's easier to ask a few friends, and I only need 3-5 or so to get some data. Here's the URL:

http://beta.usabilla.com/rate/2473848954b04

I'd offer you a free copy of my e-book to thank you, but it's going to be free anyway, and you may or may not care about the topic. My eternal gratitude and $3.50 will buy you a cup of coffee, though.

Another Survey, If You're Bored...

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:20:29 GMT

Testing another tool for the e-book I'm working on. Similar to the last one, this takes a few clicks and probably only 2-3 minutes. I only need a handful of participants, so any help is greatly appreciated:

http://www.loop11.com/usability-test/2420/introduction/

NaNoReNo, Nevada (6.5/14)

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:36:57 GMT

Let's call this the total honesty recap. Just got back from Vegas yesterday - conference was great, but as expected, I fell way behind on writing. This was, unfortunately, inevitable. I was in sessions from 8am-5pm and had sponsored events, dinners, and parties with industry people almost every night. Crashed one night (Wednesday), but I needed that just to catch up on work-related fires. Also had 2 clients at the conference with me, with the inevitable demands that creates (having them both there was actually very positive, but it did create extra details to manage).

So, I have some catching up to do, and it's not going to be easy. I am encouraged by one thing, though. The 6-1/2 hours I've spent on the e-book have been surprisingly productive. I've tested almost half the tools (including notes and screenshots), and I've developed and 80-90% refined a layout for the product pages, which will be the vast majority of the book. It's actually coming together well. If I can put in the 30 hours this month, I may very likely finish it. Gives me some incentive to push forward, even though I have no idea where I'll find 2 hours/day for the rest of this month.

Help on FaNaNoWriMo (please)?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:05:53 GMT

So, part of what I'm doing for my new e-book is testing a bunch of new usability tools. I'm working on one right now that requires you to find your own participants. If anyone wants to lend a hand, it's basically just a few screens to click through (<5 minutes):

https://usereffect.optimalworkshop.com/chalkmark/survey/UserEffect1

Growing Up...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:30:52 GMT

I really liked this piece from Gapingvoid yesterday, summed up by this quote:

As with Simon, I think we all need to have that “Moment”, eventually. That moment when we stop futzing around and actually start behaving like proper adults. That moment when we actually start acting like “Officers” commanding our own lives.

http://gapingvoid.com/2009/10/28/finding-your-moment

Overlooked New Movie...

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:25:30 GMT

We decided to go see "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" today while it was still in theaters, as I like some of the 3-D animated movies (I find the 3-D is much more impressive for animation than live-action). The movie turned out to be hilarious - extremely creative with a lot of subtle 80s references.

It also had this line, which I loved:

"C'mon, Steve - we've got some diem to carpe!"

For future reference...

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:17:13 GMT

I saw a Tweet today that is exactly how I would like to be remembered:

"He's a smart ass. And he's more smart than ass. We like him."

Happy Birthday, dimfuture!

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:33:04 GMT

Facebook was trying to get me to wish you happy birthday yesterday, and it almost tricked me. Luckily, my laziness paid off, and I ended up getting the right day.

Happy Birthday, rev_hp_meyers!

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:29:53 GMT

Almost forgot to post on LJ, because I'm a bad brother.

Pre-CABAMF Amateur Film Camp

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:35:05 GMT

A while back, luminousx suggested CABAMF, a just-among-friends film festival that would give some of us an excuse to finish projects and others an excuse to play around. Unfortunately, since many people had never played around with filming at all, and others of us had but just generally need a kick in the ass, interest was mixed.

After some discussion, we decided that maybe what we need is a Pre-CABAMF Film Camp, a day where anyone who wants to can get together and just film any projects we've been toying around with. That way, we can share equipment, expertise, and even be each other's actors, key grips, best boys, and whatever else they do in Hollywood.

So, here's the proposal: Meet at our place on Saturday, August 15th, lets say 11am. We'll provide some kind of lunch, we can take a couple of hours to talk about ideas/scripts and then spend a couple/few hours filming. We've got multiple location options in our neighborhood and plenty of living room space. Along with Sean, we'll try to provide enough equipment to cover the basics.

You don't have to have any serious project in mind or any experience at all to join us. We'll be filming some stuff that's just plain silly. If you have an idea, just write it up a bit in advance, email it to us, and we'll try to get it far enough along before the 15th that it's filmable. If you don't have an idea, but just want to act (even if you act badly) or help out in any way, that's great, too. Hopefully, we'll shoot enough film to take home and edit and create sufficient fodder for an eventual CABAMF.

Questions, comments, insults?

Stating The Obvious...

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:31:06 GMT

Just caught part of a cartoon where a team of vampire hunters go into a castle, the leader pulls out some sort of holographic, 3D map, and then explains:

"The castle has three areas: the main area, the tower area, and the basement."

Wow, thanks. I don't think you needed a holographic, 3D map to figure that one out. In fact, I'm pretty sure I could say that about most of the castles that have ever existed, even if I've never seen them. I'm sure the rest of the group also found the phrase "main area" to be a very useful description. I can just see a similar scene in some action movie:

"Team, we're gonna have to split up to search the building. Bob, you take the main area. Jane, you cover the secondary area. I'll take care of the remaining areas."

That would be about when Bob and Jane went looking for a new leader.

Vacation Story - Now with photos & 50% more embellishment!

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:57:08 GMT

In case you hadn't noticed, I've been gone for the past 8 days. We left on Saturday, May 30th for a week or so in Orlando (well, pretty much just Disney World). The bad news, for you, is that we took 520 pictures. The good news is that we pruned that down to 149 marginally acceptable photos, and I've decided to pick about a dozen and create a photo documentary for your viewing pleasure.

We were originally going to fly, but decided to drive our Hogs instead, because that's just how we roll...

A few boring bits - we stayed in the park for 6 days, it was about 90 degrees most of the week, we managed to avoid most of the rain, and we generally had a great time. We were just there a few years ago, so there were only a few completely new things, including Everest, which is pretty awesome (more on that later).

On the very first day, spent in the Magic Kingdom, Nancy forced me to experience the most excruciating torture device known to man...

*WARNING!*

The following photograph depicts graphic violence being inflicted on an innocent human being. You should bear in mind that, while I am hardly what one might call a "manly man", I love thrill rides and some physically extreme experiences. I wait for the front car of roller coasters, have ridden Tower of Terror 20+ times, have gone 120 MPH on Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point, topped out our rental car on the Autobahn in a storm (Ok, I was driving an Opel Deisel that could barely hit 90 and it was lightly raining, but still), and have jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at 10,000 feet for a mile-long free fall.

Still, none of this prepared me for the horror that is the Mad Hatter's Tea Party (affectionately known by sadists as "the tea cup ride")...

This is Nancy being subjected to the same torture. Clearly, she has no soul. Astute observers will notice from the motion blur that the ride is at about Speed Setting #2 during my picture and around #11 in Nancy's picture...

We hit Animal Kingdom and Everest on the second day. Say what you will about Disney World, but there's something pretty amazing about a place (and about Walt Disney's original vision) where they're willing to build an entire mountain out of nothing just because they can. Is it excessive? Probably, but I think sometimes our visions should be excessive, especially when it's in the cause of providing wonder and amusement as opposed to corporate excess or building more war machines. Anyway, here's the mountain...

Everest features the Yeti, which, judging by the couple dozen completely black pictures on the camera, is about as difficult to capture on film as a real Yeti. Nancy managed to get a couple of shots of the Yeti destroying the track in front of us...

We hit Hollywood Studios on Day 3, possibly our favorite park, and home to Tower of Terror and the Aerosmith roller coaster, easily on my Top 10 ride list. Tower of Terror is possibly my favorite ride of all time (competing with Top Thrill Dragster and the front row of Raging Bull). We hit a cool restaurant for dinner, which was an indoor recreation of a drive-in movie theater. They showed clips from classic Sci-fi movies, and we sat in booths that looked like 50s-era convertibles...

We hit Hollywood Studios again on the last day, where Nancy set a record on her personal favorite "ride", collecting simultaneously valid Fast Passes. If you go to Disney World and do not experience the joy that is the Fast Pass, you are a fool and I pity you. I also mock you as you wait in line and we stroll by in the Fast Pass lane...

We figured out how to use the new camera pretty well during the trip, and I got a cool action shot of a car in mid-air during one of the stunt shows...

I think we hit Epcot next, but let's face it, you don't really care. Two guys made a point of coming up to me in the park and telling me that my JLA T-shirt was "sick". I'm too old to know exactly what that means, but I hear it's good...

Here's a picture of us with possibly our favorite character, Tigger. You probably don't care about this either, but Tigger is awesome, so you're going to look at the picture whether you like it or not...

We did a bunch of other stuff, but eventually it was time to go. Unfortunately, the heat had taken a toll on our Harleys, and we had to find alternate transportation. Luckily, I ran into my buddy David Prowse...

Since he was driving the convertible, I asked if we could borrow his Star Destroyer. He said that was cool, as long as we got it back by Tuesday and bought him a Miley Cyrus T-shirt...

I only had to Force choke one Vice Admiral for insolence on the way home, so it was a pretty uneventful trip.

When Montages Go Bad...

Wed, 20 May 2009 23:33:18 GMT

If you ever thought that a Rocky-style, 80s montage could solve all your problems in life, this guy has proven you very, very wrong:

(hat-tip to my friend Ciaran for finding this).

My Muppet's Video Debut...

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 03:01:49 GMT

Just finished the first video for my Muppet intern, Yoozer. Production values aren't quite what I'd like yet, but we got it to a point where I was happy with the first attempt. Working and filming the puppet is just going to take practice:

My First Mini-webinar (video project)

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:06:31 GMT

Since my 1-hour webinar was pretty successful, I've been working on the idea of doing some mini-webinars (less than 5 minutes). Basically, you can get a decent audience to a webinar, but after it runs, very few people are going to dedicate 45-60 minutes at their computer listening to a program, and if they do, they won't pay attention.

I found out that SlideShare supports PowerPoint + audio presentations, so I've been working on a 4-minute presentation defining usability. Because of the technical issues and the scope of the project (I'll have 100 usability people publicly call me an idiot if I don't cover the bases), that 4 minutes took about 15-20 hours. Anyway, here's the end result, and I'd appreciate any feedback:

And so it begins...

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:52:04 GMT

My custom-made Muppet arrived this afternoon, and so begins Phase I of my evil plan. I've got to name him and start working on a voice, but I have a couple of plans for videos for my blog, and he's going to be my "intern". Kind of looking forward to it - I used to do some puppeteering when I was a kid, so we'll see what I remember. He works like a regular hand puppet and has one metal rod to control an arm.

He also matches the colors of my website/logo, which is either the coolest or dorkiest thing I have ever done (or both).

I Bought A Muppet...

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:05:23 GMT

It shipped today. I know you're super-jealous, as you should be.

Webinar on SlideShare...

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:37:48 GMT

If anyone's interested, I've got the slides from my webinar up now on SlideShare (embedded below). You can flip through them instead of spending an hour listening to all the audio. Something cool: I got an email this morning that they picked my slides to feature on the SlideShare home-page today.

Happy birthday, luminousx!

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:44:15 GMT

I hope your weekend is gloriously unproductive, or unproductively glorious, or non-gloriously productive - take your pick.

The Boring Store....

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:15:15 GMT

Don't usually just post links on LJ, but I read this article and thought it would appeal immediately to a lot of people I know. It's about The Boring Store, a spy shop on N. Milwaukee Ave. which is actually a front for a non-profit founded by Dave Eggers that funds after-school creative writing programs. Everything about the concept seems really cool.

Review of "The Happening" (chock full of spoilers)

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:11:00 GMT

A couple of nights ago, we finally caught M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" on DVD. In the interest of catharsis, I feel like I need to get my feelings about the movie on paper. Now, it's important to know that I'm not an M. Night hater. Sure, his movies have gone gradually downhill, but I genuinely liked "Signs", and even "The Village" and "Lady In The Water" are hardly in the Top 50 worst movies I've ever seen. Yes, I know, the whole "the aliens are real" twist in Signs was a little goofy, but that's not the point of the movie. The aliens are secondary to the core idea of fate and the interconnectedness of people, and I found that part fascinating. Plus, I thought Joaquin Phoenix was great. Anyway, I digress.

Here are my general issues with "The Happening", in some particular order that I don't care enough to explain:

1. Where Was The Twist?
Maybe the twist was that there was no twist. Man, that would be deep, and by "deep" I mean asinine. Early in the movie, it's suggested (repeatedly) that plants may somehow be causing the happening. Later, we found out that, in fact, plants are causing the happening. I bet you didn't see that coming.

2. What Was With The Acting?
Mark Wahlberg has become such a fine actor that I've been forced to forgive him for New Kids on the Block, and that's saying something. Zooey Deschanel is, admittedly, a little odd, but she's quirky and charming in her own way and it's hard not to like her. I can only guess that the director repeatedly gave them only one command, and it was "Act like you're in a Japanese cartoon". Both of them overreacted to mundane events, underreacted to the bizarre, improbable, and downright horrible, and constantly had facial expressions that said "Run... it's Godzilla!" The cast of Pokemon would be more believable human beings.

3. What The Fuck?
About midway through the movie, the main characters find themselves teamed up with two pre-teens: a fat kid and a black kid. I don't say this to be mean or racist, but because I have no other way to describe these completely undeveloped and useless additions to the movie. I have no idea where they came from, and 5 minutes later both of them had been shot in the face. Was that necessary? Did I care? The answer to both questions is: No.

4. Seriously, What The Fuck?
In the end, we learn that the entire event only affected the Eastern Seaboard, and since the happening mostly killed New Yorkers, Fox News says it has nothing to do with plants and everyone keeps driving SUVs. But wait - now it's going to happen in France, too! Hey, maybe that was the twist. Here's the problem: I don't fucking care. For future reference, a good ending would've involved Godzilla showing up to justify the actors' facial expressions or maybe the earth being saved by "The Power Rangers: Tree Pollen Force" (or whatever they're calling themselves now).

There's one bright side to all of this - I came up with a title for the movie if it's ever adapted into a porno. I would call it "The Happening (In My Pants)". In lieu of watching "The Happening", I would suggest watching an episode of Pokemon while playing New Kids on the Block in the background and inhaling copious amounts of tree pollen. You'll get all of the same basic elements, and at least you might get high in the process.

Interesting Bit of History...

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:32:41 GMT

I have a word-a-day style calendar for learning Chinese, and occasionally it has a historical or cultural tidbit. I found this excerpt from an entry on Chinese tea fascinating:

"It is argued that the English were so in love with tea-drinking that their tea import caused a huge trade deficit with the Qing Dynasty (1616-1911). That deficit led to heavy taxes on tea exports to America, to the Boston Tea Party, to the American Revolution, to some English companies' export of opium from India to China, to the Opium War of 1840, and therefore to world history as we know it today."

Now, the conclusion seems a bit overboard, but the idea that the Boston Tea Party resulted in part from a trade deficit between England and China is a really interesting historical subtext, IMO. It's also yet another example of how we lose the nuances (and, with them, the lessons) of history.