Day #1 of 30 in the NaBloPoMo challenge and time to get on the board. Also it’s Thursawday #9 and time to do the month end books at VTOR, so lots to do online today. Tonight I’ll be at Microsoft doing some beta testing. Always look forward to these sessions.
Lots of leftover candy or get wiped out? We were only home for an hour of trick or treaters and then retreated to the store to shop. Picked up a new 500GB Firewire drive for the Mac (now let’s see if we run out of music and video space). Installed Leopard yesterday and like what I see there. Also picked up the new Eagles studio CD and have been listening to that. Wal-mart had some good deals on AC DC cds, I picked up For Those About To Rock for $6.88, nice.
Speaking of Halloween, and this should be my last post on it for awhile, but the following video of this Bioshock costume and the little girl is great. The best costume I’ve seen.
This year is the first time I remember none of our kids trick or treating (since they were babies). Instead they are at the local church doing community service helping with an event. We’re home handing out candy.
2006 - 6 posts - a series of alternating trick or treat posts + $6.66 comment contest
2005 - 3 posts - an evil twisted podcast audio mix
2004 - 1 post - a single post with celebrity masks linking to Yahoo — now 404
2003 - 4 posts - fell on a Friday and radio show day with a party inside the virtual world There
And what about this year? Expended a little brain energy trying to figure out something wicked for this year but as Ray Bradbury wrote something wicked way this comes, nothing has knocked on my skull yet. It’s getting dark out side, maybe now the moment of inspiration will arrive.
In the meantime, a little housekeeping: added every post in the history of this blog on October 31 to the Halloween category (14 total posts, not counting this year).
It’s almost completely dark outside. Where are the trick or treaters? Wait — there’s the doorbell! This year’s first visitor dressed up as … little princess?
Trick or treat? Treat: Phonespelling looks like fun.
Our business line number is 253-843-6283 which is also TDavid on Skype. I kind of like Ale-then-Bud, but then my ale lager of choice is Budweiser (Update 6:17pm PST: I’ve since been corrected in the comments below that Budweiser is a LAGER, not an ale, now you know why I’m not a brewmaster). Or does the phone number reefer (!) to that other bud? Haven’t touched that stuff in years, sorry to disappoint the stoner crowd.
ALE = 253
THEN = 8436
BUD = 283
Slick, huh? I also like: 253-THEN-ATE, 25-DUG-EM-CUE (could be a call to digg something?)
On a serious note: please always include the numbers when spelling out your phone number. Not cool when people only include the name without the actual numbers and force us to work it out on the keypad.
Even though this is Halloween, the following screenshot is not a trick:
iPod fanboys and girls might not like hearing news that their favorite player didn’t even make CNET users top 20 most wanted products list. The only Apple products to make this week’s top 20 list were the Apple iPhone 8GB at #5 and the iTouch 16GB at #10.
Yes, it’s true that the 80GB black Zune v2.0 is topping the CNET users wish list (thanks Zune Insider). The Zune v2.0 player will not be available in stores until next month.
Now for the devil’s advocate position: this is a far cry from Zune vindication, as wish lists don’t necessarily equal sales and the most wanted item isn’t for sale yet. And look who’s #3? The Sony PS3 which hasn’t burned up the sales charts to date (but is getting more attractive). The AT&T Tilt weighs in at #4 and I’m not familiar with.
Any readers planning on buying the Zune 80GB? I’m trying to decide between a Chumby and the Zune. The Chumby isn’t portable, but is programmable, unlike the Zune. I was hoping we’d see some kind of API for the Zune. Maybe that comes in version 3? I am looking forward to the increased podcasting features.
Last night there was a Zune preview event in Seattle that I couldn’t make because I was DJing our VTOR Halloween Party — which we were pleased with how it came out (a ssssssnnnnakkke avatar won). I’m guessing if I had been able to be at this event — why oh why can’t we be at two places at the same time? — I would have learned more about Zune v2.0. Maybe would have seen and been able to touch one of them.
On Halloween 2007 the Google (disclaimer: I own GOOG stock) juggernaut has pushed past $700 for the first time ($703.93 as of this writing). Tomorrow they will be launching an OpenSocial API at http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial which they hope will provide developers the ability to create applications that will run on multiple social networks.
Except for Facebook and MySpace. Facebook employs their own markup language while Google will use Javascript and HTML, similar to what they did with Google gadgets. If you know Javascript and HTML, you’ll only need to learn what API calls to make. It’s a juicy proposal and one that has my mind clicking and whirring with the possibilities. Looking forward to tomorrow to see and start playing around with the OPenSocial API.
As for the stock price? When will Google slow down? I’m not going to even try to guess, but remain curious what others think. The movement from $600-$700 was fast. Yahoo (YHOO) and Apple (AAPL), two other stocks I own, are also doing well. Gotta love how Q4 has begun and hopefully will forget the misery of Q3.
Think I’ve found the 2007 rising of The Blob. Doing some desk clean-up and see the need to replace my mouse pad gel wrist rest. It’s becoming disembowled and look what evil lurks beneath the stitching:
Is that stuff hazardous to touch? If so, I’m doomed. So close to Halloween it is giving me Blob creeps. Had to pause from the action this morning to try and figure out what this gel is made of.
Scary, a prior art patent conflict over gelatinous goo:
A wrist rest (10) has in its core resilient, deformable gelatinous material (50). Gelatinous material (50) consists of a solution of glycol-like material, which is highly deformable due to its liquid state … Gelatinous material (50) is encased in an elastic envelope.
You’d think the gelatinous good was as secret as the Coca-cola recipe by how it evaded my Google search queries. Lots of patent-related posts were turned up and inside what I scanned (ok, didn’t read every word) more often than not the phrase “gelatinous material” is used in these patents.
But is gelatinous material safe, Senor? It might be there for ergonomic reasons, but is its innards pure evil incarnate?
Not safe to eat, mind you, but will it ooze out while we’re moving the mouse, envelope our bodies and slowly devour us inside its eerie brown substance? Have to get rid of this thing. Now.
It’s getting to be trick or treating time in these parts, we’ve already had our first few at the door and the fogger is rolling again. So much fog that I had to get up and shut the door for a bit. It was wafting in here and making it difficult to see.
Trick or Treat — the movie
One of my favorite unsung movie soundtracks is from the rather cliched and unscary movie Trick or Treat by Fastway. This movie starred Gene Simmons as a DJ named Nuke and an 80s version of Ozzy Osbourne as — get this — a preacher! Backwards satanic messages [gag] we’ve heard that before.
Good luck finding the Trick or Treat soundtrack online at the various music download services. I wonder when the online music stores will get caught up with the massive backlog of great music that’s available? iTunes draws a blank for this gem from Fastway which features my favorite music soundtrack song of all time “If you could see.” As you can see from the picture above we have the cassette and it’s time to upgrade to the CD.
Amazon ratings show it as five star and has it available on CD for $9.98 as of this writing: Trick or Treat Soundtrack by Fastway(affiliate). A bargain for those who like 80s style rock. I’m also hunting that new CD from Quiet Riot Rehab. Hope to pick that up at the store later as I understand it’s being released today (?).
Spirit on the radio blog
My thanks to this Halloween’s first ever spirit of the blog, Aura Nge for making a few alternating trick or treat posts. Also thanks to Karen Blundell for providing this year’s Hmm Halloween blog theme. Karen will be linked on the bottom of every page until the theme is changed back. For those who crave the old Hmm theme, don’t fret, it will return some time after midnight tonight PST again. For those reading this only in their RSS readers, hey, you are missing on the fun stop on over for a few minutes.
Comment contest ends at midnight PST
There is a comment contest running until midnight PST. We left money in our PayPal account expressly to pay to readers, so leave some Halloween-creative comments wearing your costume name and have a chance at winning. Odds are very good right now, but maybe will get worse as the night rolls on, who knows. This contest ends at midnight PST tonight and the contest details are here. All comments in posts dated October 31, 2006 and in costume are elligible. FYI, the server time is a couple hours ahead of PST. Yeah, that should make things more interesting, just get the get those spooky, crazy comments posted.
It seems the iPod Click Wheels have other worldly uses, or so an editor at CNET learned:
We asked Brad, “How did you die?” Our fingers slipped on the Click Wheel and transitioned to a different menu. Clearly Brad wanted to communicate with us using the medium of song. Our fingers scrolled slowly though the tracks, as it neared the ‘M’ section it slowed to almost a stop before settling, chillingly, on Murder Incorporated. This was a shock few of us were ready for — the ghost liked Bruce Springsteen.
On Halloween 2007 the Google (disclaimer: I own GOOG stock) juggernaut has pushed past $700 for the first time (
(affiliate). A bargain for those who like 80s style rock. I’m also hunting that new CD from Quiet Riot Rehab. Hope to pick that up at the store later as I understand it’s being released today (?).
