This is ridiculous but I’ll take it. To set the scene… April 3rd, iPad launch I was skipping around an apple store and decided to “check in” with Gowalla, the mobile application to share your location with anyone. At the time I had other things on my mind – like the money I was going to spend on a large iPod touch. Anyways, instead of picking up fake tacos or a virtual black kettle for my virtual backpack, this goofy popup announced that I had to enter my postal information because they were going to send something more awesome than free napkins. They ended up sending me this bird and a bill for $600.00… TO THE POINT -> This is huge. This is now a completely new way to market to customers. The feeling of accomplishment and the personalized care I received makes me want to open my wallet and buy whatever they’re selling. This quirky, invasive marketing technique is the future – at least for the next few months. I’m totally down.
QUICK POST! I recently had to go to Chicago for family reasons. This means I sat in an airplane for 4 hours. Great time to do work, not a great time to Photo Shop when my seat tray is in a full reclining position into my lap. Eventually I found 45 minutes to whip these out. Not great but it’s been a while since I’ve done any flyers.
With Intel’s 2010 Sacramento LAN party coming up in early May, I figured I should post some of the sweet pictures taken at the SoCal LAN. Though it was great having the whole crew there the LAN held at Howie’s Game Shack in Mission Viejo lacked the intense geek action that my previous LAN outings packed. Sure there were contests, prizes and pizza night but the event was lacking organization and the general attitude wasn’t the friendly nerd attitude I was used to (my iPhone was stolen as well). Anyways, if you’re thinking about attending the Sac LAN sign up quick. This event does sell out quickly and it’s worth it to grab a seat
Santa Cruz Next recently had its first annual Santa Cruz Next Awards recognizing four individuals who live and work in Santa Cruz and do some pretty amazing things. Check out santacruznext.org to find more information on the awards and SC Next. I was lucky enough to be the Tech Director for this event and oversaw sound, lighting etc. Over all a great experience and lots of fun working with cool people.
It's been quite a while since I posted... That's all I'm going to say. Well it's that time again, case modding time that is. Intel's Lanfest 2010 in Mission Viejo is coming up in a week so I thought I would put some colorful lights in my case for the occasion.
Santa Cruz Boardwalk Bowl's Coasters Bar had an awesome list of bands for their Holiday Havoc 3 show. A few of the bands were Honest Mistake, Who's Holdin', 3UPFRONT and The Devil Himself. Free CD at the door and a few of Captin's ladies wandering around made the cover ($7-10) a great value. This was my first time shooting a night time concert and I have never been so frustrated. I was trying to use flash as little as possible while taking advantage of the short bursts of stage light. All in all, great learning experience. Can't wait to do it again. Check back in a bit for more, I have quite a bit to go through. Pictures right here.
The Cocoanut Grove kitchen killed it again with spiced beets and swan shaped desserts to top off a delightful evening. A few things I enjoyed were coming in from the cold air outside, watching people get drunk and say silly things to people they usually wouldn’t say silly things to, as well as witnessing a certain someone winning a 42 inch screen to sit right next to his other… 42 inch screen. Pictures right here.
In the last few months, Google has been updating their Street View around the country including the west side of Santa Cruz. I recall seeing and yelling at the Google Street View car last summer and sure enough, they saw me. Their new cameras make quite a difference. Check out some of the older streets where business signs are barley legible. Cheers. Skating on Bay.
About 100 people lined up outside the Scotts Valley Game Stop to grab their pre-ordered Modern Warfare 2 copies. Most of the people waiting were gearing up to play on their Play Station 3 or Xbox 360.
The guys working said they only had 5 pc copies but I was able to pick up two. After a few PC vs Console battles and funny talks with guys wearing night vision goggles I bailed and started installing MW2.
After about thirty minutes of watching a bar crawl across the screen I was able to start training.
So just so you know here's what I'm benching on: Intel's i7 965, Nvidia 285GTX, 6 gigs of ram.
I played maxed out on 2048 x 1152 and 4x AA. First impressions (first two campaigns): these guys are blowing me away, again.
From the elegant loading screens to the movie like game play, audio and storyline Modern Warfare 2 deserves the hype. I'll finish up the campaigns tomorrow and give my full rant and specs.
Just so this post doesn't seem to positive, I'm still ticked about the lack of support for dedicated servers. Things are getting to serious. Out. Ok, not out yet. Now I'm even more excited MW2's youtube channel video is playing freaking Eminem. Eminem! That's how hardcore this game is.
Coffee has been ruling my life for the past few months, so much that if I don't have a cup by eleven or so a nice migraine kicks in and ruins the day.
So I decided, before I become anymore addicted I would find another way to fuel my daily life. Enter loose leaf green tea leaves.
Due to a conflicting LAN, Intel's LanFest Howie's SoCal is being pushed back again to 2010. You have a choice to request a refund or have your registration transferred over to the new date.
If you're still up for a lan check out Lancryption for 45 bones. Hope to see you all eventually... Hopefully Santa Clara.
Since Apple refuses to take down a few walls preventing flash after request and protest, Adobe seems to be taking the path of nasty copy. Hopefully this will piss off iPhone and iPod touch user enough so something can be done. Maybe this will be the return of legit propaganda from the 40s. Click image for full size.
Your mum can hardly wait for December 4th when the 506 crew drives eight hours to pick up C-money then head over to Mission Viejo for 36 hours of Bawls, hotdogs and epic tournaments. If you're going, make sure to sit in BYOC Section 3 so I can steal your extra outlets. If you register in the next 9 minutes i'll give you a black taco.
As of right now there is no ASUS video contest but you're welcome to make a video for me and post it on youtube. I'll watch it, and if I like it I'll give you a black taco. I'm really just writing a little bit more so the text wraps around image better.
Event layout after the period. Lanfest Seating
Since the 506 crew gets so upset when I talk about super sexy cool events I thought I would start posting some super sexy events. To start off, we won't be talking about an event, rather the ASUS Extreme Design Contest that started a few days ago. ASUS and a few other hardware manufacturers (Intel, Antec etc.) are asking YOU to tell them how you would use 1800 dollars and “Xtreme Design” technology to build a kick-ass system. If you win, you could be showing off your rig at the ASUS booth down at CES 2010. This contest is promoting the ASUS P7P55D Series that features easy over clocking while using phrases like “NO. 1 Reliability” and “No. 1 Safety” so have fun with that... You can find the contest description after the period. ASUS Contest
I thought I would write down a few things that really excite me about Windows 7. I only used Vista seriously for about 2 months so I'm not sure if the features I talk about were already included. But I digress...Individual volume control - I discovered this by accident when starting a voice chat on skype and a video from Chrome was turned down. It's very useful to have one console to manage all my applications volume instead of going to each program to adjust volume. The way the audio console is opened is very similar to XP and Vista but very slick and easy to use.
I'm cleaning out my storage room getting ready to move. Naturally I'm listening to Cranky Geeks and doing the texting. Usually Dvorak's rants aren't to brutal to my phone but this time it went to far. Now, when I try to go to the home screen or go to sleep it just takes a screen shot of the screen. I suppose this is better than the problem I was having earlier where my phone would not wake up from sleep mode with out doing a full reboot, the latest iPhone update from apple claims to have fixed that problem.
And if were on the subject of suck, thanks AT&T for giving my my voice mails... a month later. I didn't really need those messages from the insurance company anyway.
This is ridiculous but I’ll take it. To set the scene… April 3rd, iPad launch I was skipping around an apple store and decided to “check in” with Gowalla, the mobile application to share your location with anyone. At the time I had other things on my mind – like the money I was going to spend on a large iPod touch. Anyways, instead of picking up fake tacos or a virtual black kettle for my virtual backpack, this goofy popup announced that I had to enter my postal information because they were going to send something more awesome than free napkins. They ended up sending me this bird and a bill for $600.00… TO THE POINT -> This is huge. This is now a completely new way to market to customers. The feeling of accomplishment and the personalized care I received makes me want to open my wallet and buy whatever they’re selling. This quirky, invasive marketing technique is the future – at least for the next few months. I’m totally down.
QUICK POST! I recently had to go to Chicago for family reasons. This means I sat in an airplane for 4 hours. Great time to do work, not a great time to Photo Shop when my seat tray is in a full reclining position into my lap. Eventually I found 45 minutes to whip these out. Not great but it’s been a while since I’ve done any flyers.
With Intel’s 2010 Sacramento LAN party coming up in early May, I figured I should post some of the sweet pictures taken at the SoCal LAN. Though it was great having the whole crew there 
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It's been quite a while since I posted... That's all I'm going to say. Well it's that time again, case modding time that is. Intel's Lanfest 2010 in Mission Viejo is coming up in a week so I thought I would put some colorful lights in my case for the occasion.
