When I originally received an email about reviewing the Sumo Omni Chair (Regular price $149, on sale: $129 USD, shipping is free) my first thought was pass. I’m not really a beanbag chair guy, especially higher quality — and thus more expensive — beanbag chairs. I prefer not to write reviews for products/services that aren’t typically in my shopping wheelhouse and furniture isn’t really my department. Still, I liked the look of the chairs shown in the Sumo Omni Chair website.

I asked a friend about the chair and he said not only had he bought one, he liked it (see him chanting SUMO! SUMO!). Still not completely convinced, but no disrespect to my friend, I mentioned the chair to my wife — and she looked over the website and said: I want one. Ok, ok, I’ll try it.

So I emailed Andrew back and said, send one along for review. If you want to stop here because I didn’t pay anything for this chair (and am not required to send it back after the review) that’s cool with me. Before sending the chair I warned Andrew in email that if I didn’t like the chair I’d be writing that, but he didn’t mind taking the chance.

My wife chose charcoal green and it took a couple weeks to arrive in the box shown at the top of this post. Extra points for no assembly required. The chairs come in the following colors: pitch black, charcoal green, platinum, midnight blue, fiery red, tangerine, hot pink (yikes!), pure white, lime green and funky brown.

As the Fonz says, “Sit on it.”
For this review, I’m trying something different: I’m actually sitting in the Sumo Omni Chair while writing every word of this review. But before opening that box, let’s take a look at my existing office chair:

It might be on the worn side, but works and others probably spend on a lot more on office chair than me. Office Depot sale special. Now compare to the charcoal gray Sumo Omni Chair:

Just pull out the Sumo Omni Chair, take off the plastic packaging and mold into the format you want to sit in — and sit. Sorry if you were expecting to fill it with beans first. No zipper, it’s sewn shut (Update 8:18am PST: in the comments below darkmoon points out there is a velcro opening to be able to add more beads, if you want a firmer chair.).

Beanbag chairs have always had a cheap, cheesy feel to sit in to me, but not the Sumo Omni Chair, which feels like some kind of high quality vinyl. The Sumo Lounge website describes the chair as having:

space age rip-proof nylon and come[s] filled with top quality Sumo Beads. Omni is 4.5′ x 5.5′ and it only weighs 18 lbs!

Doesn’t seem like it weighs even 18 lbs, which makes moving it around and adjusting easy. Nice for transport from room to room.

And now for the bad: it blows an office chair, so don’t use it for that purpose. The word “lounge” suggests it’s a place for pleasure, not for work though. I’m not sure I’d even want to sit in this with my laptop and type away, but that scenario might work for others.

As a gaming chair, watching TV chair, reading a book chair, it’s comfortable and worthy. I’m not sure I could sleep in it though, but some probably do. It also has the same problem as other bean bag chairs: getting out isn’t nearly as easy as getting in. My wife needed my help pulling her out. It’s like being stuck in quicksand. Comfortable quicksand, mind you, but you can sink in too far.

The Sumo Omni Chair is easily the highest quality bean bag chair I’ve ever sat on. Worth $129? If it lasts a lot longer than its competition, then yes, it’s worth it. Since I can’t wait a few years to review the longevity of the chair — but I will try and come back to this review in a future update — I’ll guess that it will last.

The “space age rip-proof nylon” sounds long lasting and they offer a satisfaction guarantee (emphasis mine):

Let’s make this simple. If you’re not happy, we’re not happy. If our product proves not to be the best beanbag you’ve ever sat in, contact us within one week of use with the order number and your problems. If we can’t make it better, we’ll refund you your money - all of it.

With a satisfaction guarantee like that, if you like beanbag chairs and have it in the budget, at least trying one of these chairs is advised. We’re thinking about buying one as a Christmas gift. If you bought other beanbag chairs at say $30-40 each and had to go through a few of them because of the cheap quality, you’re at the price of the Sumo Omni Chair, which bears consideration. Because of the limited use for me, I’m still not a beanbag believer like my friend, and thus no A grade, but there’s no comparison to any other beanbag chair I’ve ever tried. Alright, my wife is telling me to get out of “her” chair. That’s still a darned good endorsement in our home. Grade: B+.

The vast majority of popular internet sites don’t give me the privacy creeps. Amazon? I’m more troubled by their patent obsessions. eBay/Skype/Stumbleupon? Nope. Yahoo and Google? Still own stock in both. One popular site that gives me the privacy willies:

Facebook.

Yes, it’s suspect using Valleywag as a source because they seem to delight in stirring up dust that isn’t there (National Enquirer of Silicon Valley), but yesterday’s post on Facebook employees profile activities rang true to me:

Turns out Facebook employees can (and do) check out anyone’s profile. Not only that, but they also see which profiles a user has viewed — a major privacy violation. If you’ve been obsessed with a workmate or classmate, Facebook employees know. If Barack Obama’s intern has been using the campaign account to troll for hotties, Facebook employees know. Within the company, it’s considered a job perk, and employees check this data for fun.

Again this is Valleywag and thus could be completely bogus, but I could see a group of FB employees gossiping about what profiles people are looking at and that creeps me out. Why don’t they have a company policy that forbids this type of behavior? They should get one — ASAP. Even a gossip rag like Valleywag can make a good point once in awhile.

Facebook has a chance to react by beefing up their privacy policy.

In case anybody is curious, I’m not worried if FB employees know what FB profiles I’m looking at, heck, those that interested in what I’m up to online can already follow services like Friendfeed which provide a running stream of my daily online activity at some popular sites. I’ve been thinking about pulling all these services together plus Friendfeed and putting it on my personal site which is in need of an update.

Remember AOL offering up data that violated their own privacy policy? They quickly apologized after being hammered over it, but it planted seeds of doubt. I’d put that type of carelessness into privacy that concerns me. In defense of Facebook they do offer many tools to specifically set what types of information you are willing to share with applications, friends and others — except employees can bypass all these settings.

That should change. Let us encrypt our Facebook data even from the prying eyes of employees.

Recently we had one of our bank accounts breached. A real pain that we had to change to a new account, order new checks, change the account that was hooked in different online places. This breach wasn’t because of identity theft online. It was because an employee of a vendor used by a retail store sold our data along with some others. The FBI is still investigating the matter. Moral of the story: a company’s hands are only as clean as their employees.

Must admit it’s real events like this that have prevented me from putting too much information into Facebook. That and Facebook seems a little too closed to me. Are these employee-related concerns valid?

What major sites privacy handling give you the creeps? And does it impact how much time you spend at these sites?

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.

Or can I?

Where can you buy and live in a Titan 1 Missile Base here in Washington state? eBay, naturally (also described at themissilebase.com), if you’ve got an extra 1.5 million bones laying around.

Or rather $300,000 USD down and the rest within 3 years at 7% interest. There are 16 buildings to choose from, according to the eBay ad Q&A text:

The Power Dome alone is 125′ in diameter with about a 65′ center ceiling. That’s more than 12,000 square feet of open space. You could literally build any type of typical house INSIDE the Power Dome - if that was what you wanted to do. OR You could remodel all or part of the Control Dome, which itself is a 100′ diameter two story dome containing over 7800 square feet in the first floor alone. OR you could decide to live in one of the THREE, four story equipment terminal buildings that contain about 1200 square feet of floor space on EACH floor!! OR you could build an apartment in the AIR INTAKE BUILDING, which OVERLOOKS the Power Dome so you could have an UNDERGROUND APARTMENT WITH A VIEW!! The Air Intake Building is 60′ in diameter with about a 20′ high ceiling!! That works out to about 2800 square feet of living space. OR you could choose to live in one or BOTH of the Antenna SILOS - They are 30′ in diameter with about a 40′ ceiling ON THE FIRST FLOOR! The lower level is also 30′ in diameter with about a 20′ ceiling. ADDITIONALLY, if you chose to live in one or both of the Antenna Silos, you could retrofit the ANTENNA SILO - SILO DOORS - each weighing about 50 tons - with a new hydraulic opening system and then you could have your own push button 100-ton opening skylight. And if you really wanted to go whole hog, you could live in the bottom of one of the 155’ tall MISSILE SILOS and retrofit the 150 ton SILO DOORS so you could push a button and open them up – 155’ above the floor!!

As I perused the ad, I thought about the movie War Games with Mathew Broderick. Greetings, Professor Falkin.

Don’t get too excited now, most the 1950s era equipment has been removed when it was declassified and decommissioned and the ad admits some work would be needed. Unlike other Titan facilities which are badly rusted or under water, this one is dry.

View Larger Map

This was the former Larson Air Force Base Complex 1A Titan ICBM Facility and is located between Moses Lake and Ritzville. No address is listed in the ad but the Google map above shows the general surrounding area. Hat tip to thinkorthwim.

Congratulations to Al Gore for earning the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with the Intergovermental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC).

Since hearing this news yesterday, I’ve been wondering why Gore wasn’t elected President in 2000. Not to open old wounds here, but did the whole Monica Lewinsky sideshow with Bill Clinton damage sully the 2000 race? Or was it simply a lackluster Gore campaign? He got the popular vote it seems, but the electoral college votes are the ones that ultimately matter.

For many who figured Gore would go where coulda-shoulda Presidential candidates who were Vice Presidents go, he re-emerged with a movie about global environmental threats that won an Oscar called An Inconvenient Truth. Gore’s actions for raising public awareness about potential problems in our environment is what bagged him the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday.

Gore is in some fascinating company with past Nobel Peace Prize winners like:

2002 - Jimmy Carter Jr - former President of the United States of America for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.
1993 - Nelson Mandela (Leader of the ANC) and Fredrik Willem De Klerk (President of the Republic of South Africa), from acceptance speech:

“We stand here today as nothing more than a representative of the millions of our people who dared to rise up against a social system whose very essence is war, violence, racism, oppression, repression and the impoverishment of an entire people.”

1990 - Mikhail SergeYevich Gorbachev - President of the USSR, helped to bring the Cold War to an end.
1989 - The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) - Tibet. Religious and political leader of the Tibetan people.
1979 - Mother Teresa - India, Leader of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity.
1977 - Amnesty International - London, Great Britain. A worldwide organization for the protection of the rights of prisoners of conscience.
1973 - Henry A. Kissinger (USA) and Le Duc Tho (Democratic Republic of Viet Nam) for jointly negotiating the Vietnam peace accord in 1973. Le Duc Tho declined the prize (was he the only one to ever do that?)
1964 - Martin Luther King Jr. - leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, campaigner for civil rights.
1952 - Albert Schweitzer - Missionary surgeon, Founder Lambaréné Hospital in République du Gabon.
1919 - Thomas Woodrow Wilson - President of the United States of America and founder of the League of Nations
1906 - Theodore Roosevelt - President of the United States of America who drew up the 1905 peace treaty between Russia and Japan.

Al Gore’s tech ties
Gore may not have “invented the internet” as he’s been derided in the past for allegedly claiming — which he actually never did — he does have some strong technology connections.

In contrast to other Nobel Peace Prize winners in recent years, Mr. Gore is a multimillionaire who has built a media and high-tech empire around himself and his environmental work. He is an adviser to Google, sits on the board of Apple and is the chairman and co-founder of Current TV, a cable network with 38 million subscribers. He receives up to $175,000 per speaking appearance, although he waives or reduces his fee for some nonprofit companies and schools. Fast Company magazine has estimated his net worth at more than $100 million.

I know many feel (with good cause) that the election was stolen from John Kerry in Florida in 2004, but what about 2000 for Gore?

Gore has been sticking by the story that he isn’t interested in running for President again and with the Prize in his back pocket, that’s inarguably a higher honor. Even if he doesn’t enter the race, this creates a very powerful ally for the Democrats in the 2008 race.

So will the Democrats get a Clinton / Obama ticket or possibly another — not out of the realm of possibility — Clinton/Gore ticket? For the betting types, the odds on Gore running are down from 100 to 1 to 8 to 1. Personally, I hope Gore doesn’t enter the race. What about you? Would you rather see him than Obama? I think whether or not you like Hillary Clinton, she is going to be on the ticket. The question is more likely will Clinton be the Vice President candidate as Geraldine Ferraro once was (and lost in 1984) or the Presidential candidate?

Following the race in 2008
I just registered for the site Political Base and will be following the 2008 race closer than the 2004 race. This election is shaping up to be the most important one in my voting life to date and I want to keep informed.

You might note from the image above that I classified myself as a moderate in the political arena. That’s true. I’ve voted both Republican and Democrat in the past on the local level. I’m more left of center than right, but I can weigh issues and candidates based on what I believe they will do for this country regardless of their political party affiliation. As far as past presidents and the current administration: I liked Reagan and Clinton but don’t care for either of the Bush clan.

The ability to see who Spock was giving campaign contributions to was the ‘logical’ clincher to join Political Base. I’m sure it’s merely the first of many political sites I’ll be registering for leading up to the 2008 election. As I’ve done with virtual worlds, the Mac and other topics deserving dedicated coverage, I’m planning to discuss politics occasionally (moreso than in 2004) and pursue in more depth elsewhere at sites like Political Base. You can find me there as my name wasn’t taken.

Seriously, there is a lot at stake in this country and abroad and we need to make sure the right people get in office in 2008 — if that’s even possible. I want the soldiers to come home, would like to see a balanced budget and/or at least some sort of fiscal responsibility in the White House and perhaps most importantly, we need to rebuild our relationship with foreign countries, and yes, Mr. Gore, the environment and future needs to become more important.

A lot of people around the world dislike America right now and should we blame them? It’s important to understand that not all of the American people support what’s happening here politically right now. We have a chance in 2008 to make some positive changes. I hope, along with people like Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, we can.

Thinking of moving into a neighborhood and wondering what fellow geeks think about it?

See who has been reported as Rotten Neighbors near your existing or prospective business and home. Would I add some comments about rotten neighbors in our area to a tool like this? Probably not, but possibly if they were really, really rotten.

Move over 93 year old Donald Crowdis from Canada, you’ve been one upped on being the oldest blogger from Australia by Ms. Olive Riley, age 108. Yes, 108 (well worth repeating and emphasizing) and blogging at The Life of Riley. No, she doesn’t seem to be related to fellow Aussie blogger Duncan Riley who writes for TechCrunch.

Under puzzling dispute with some people is the issue of blogger legitimacy when you don’t type the words yourself. Ms. Riley’s typist is named Mike who also participates in the conversations. Are you a blogger if you don’t type the words yourself? Absolutely yes, as long as they are your words, how they get to into the blog editor and ultimately published is unimportant. If speech software worked better, I’d be using that instead of typing because I can talk a lot faster than I can type.

Hat tip to frozen coagulated culture via Blog Herald.

Donald Crowdis’ most recent blog post was March 8, 2007. Olive’s most recent blog update was last Friday, she’s using Wordpress and accepts comments (rel=nofollow). The blog is written in an interview format and includes YouTube video.

Although she doesn’t know who Jay Leno is (host of Tonight Show who took over for the legendary Johnny Carson), Olive does like oysters and drinks Guinness. Take down those shooters, Olive!

At Poodwaddle, you’ll find a bunch of different clocks, including the US Crime Stats that updates while you watch:

Nice design, but a bit depressing. Even more depressing is the Bush countdown clock which shows Mr. President still has 492 days left in office as of this writing. Why can’t the election be this November?

If I’m to believe the following New York Times article Silicon Valley is now targeting baby boomers and senior citizens or “Facebook — with wrinkles” as they say, because those [sarcasm] stodgy [/sarcasm] gray haired folk like me tend to stick around longer. I’m sparing readers a picture of my mostly white hair to prove Club Gray membership, but you can count on this evidence another post, another day.

Some of the older users of the sites say the experience feels more comfortable to them than when they tried MySpace, Facebook or Friendster.

“I’ve discussed my divorce, my medical issues, and when do I dare go dating again,” said Martha Starks, 52, a retired optician in Tucson, who spends an hour or two each evening on a site called Eons. “I sure wouldn’t discuss that stuff with a 20-year-old.”

I’ve discussed before a generation gap being one of several reasons sites like MySpace and Facebook haven’t appealed to me personally. A bigger issue to me is what I mentioned earlier this week: I’m reluctant to spend that much time at any third party site, because they tend to change or disappear.

No offense to those still in middle school, high school or college, but I prefer to network and hang out with people who are out of school (preferably 21+, but 18+ is cool too), if I’m going to “hang out”, that is, with anybody. People are generally more comfortable hanging with people around their own age or older. It’s more likely the younger crowd is more interested in spending time with us graying folks (yes/no???) than vice versa, if both young and old being polled are being honest. Go ahead and correct this line of thinking in the comments below. What age group are you most comfortable with online? I don’t speak for the masses, I speak for myself and don’t have any problem admitting which demographic with which I’m most comfortable socializing.

Where do you feel most comfortable hanging out, if anywhere, online?
The thing is I don’t really “hang out” anywhere online. I’m not an excessive chat/IM person, with the lone exception being the Script School IRC channel and has been running some 5+ years. I’m more certain this IRC chat will be there longer than most of these here today, maybe here tomorrow social networks will be. In the IRC we don’t have to share every discussion we have with the world (Twitter/Pownce/Jaiku) nor display pages about us with all kinds of flashing lights, bells and whistles. We don’t need to obsessively ‘friend’ each other, because if you show up and hang out there for any extended period of time you become a ‘friend.’ It’s not a clique, as anybody that isn’t overly disruptive and spammy is welcome to join. And even there, I’m most active Monday - Friday during work hours, not 24/7. I’ve invited readers to this IRC channel before and I’ll invite all of you reading this again, just to reiterate how open this community is to new folks, here’s the details: irc.scriptschool.com #scriptschool

This chat is intended and welcome to those 18+ who are willing to stick around for awhile. At times this IRC channel — particularly during the live radio show on Fridays — the chat is inappropriate for those under 18 (that show is targeted to adult webmasters). We usually talk about different things happening on the web, some programming-related educational chatter and share links with an IRC bot that keeps track of links that are mostly worksafe. There is a java chat client for those who don’t run an IRC client, but I suspect most people who would be interested in an old school IRC channel run their own IRC client.

Truth is I get all the social networking and chat I want from IRC.

This doesn’t mean I don’t continue to try and get involved with sites like Facebook and MySpace to see if there is something that can improve my life and our businesses, but this interaction is primarily done at an outstretched arm level. I’m not sure how long these sites will be here and would rather allocate that time to creating something or helping somebody in a place that is more stable and long term.

Isn’t that a general personality trait of getting older? You don’t want to waste time as much as when you were younger because — reality check — you have a lot less of it. We all only have so much time.

With that said the sites which target baby boomers and seniors cited in the article still don’t appeal that much to me on concept (I’ll still check them out before passing any serious judgement): Eons, Rezoom, Multiply, Maya’s Mom, Boomj, and Boomertown. I might feel more comfortable hanging at sites with people closer to my age, but the here today, gone tomorrow aspect still remains.

Stowe Boyd, a fellow gray hair, doesn’t sound impressed:

Connection transcends demographics. We have to hope it does, or else the bullshit line that the old media idiots used to throw out as a condemnation of the blogosphere — just an echo chamber where people can find people with exactly the same parochial viewpoints to agree with — may become the basis of sound business models. I don’t buy it.

As for older people being more loyal? What do you think? If I was 21, I’d be a little annoyed reading an article like this which makes it sound like every younger person is flighty and disloyal. Maybe a higher percentage of this age group are, but it’s flawed painting any group with a broad brush.

From a business standpoint, who usually has more money?

Last night at dinner a humorous age-related thing happened.

We went to pay for dinner at the buffet and a woman who I’d guess was in her late 20s to early 30s asked me if I was over 50 to apply a discount. Being I’m not even 40 or perhaps because she found it funny, my wife snickered. In case you haven’t seen one of my many different pictures or Hmmcast videos shared at this blog, I have a lot of gray hair for my age. Don’t use grecian formula. I started graying in my early 20s and figured by the time I was 40 I’d be all gray.

My response to the cashier with a smile: “If you want to give me the 50+ discount, go right ahead.”

This morning I noticed a birthday notice in Skype from one of my friends online. After sending out a happy birthday to my friend via Skype chat, I started wondering how many others fill out the birth date field in profiles when it is optional. For the sites where the birth date field is required, do you lie about your birth year?

Hiding from your age or promoting it?
Some people seem terrified of anybody else knowing how old they are. Vanity is a fascinating thing. When it comes to age, it’s no secret to me. I don’t care who knows how old I am. Maybe when I’m actually over 50 I’ll feel differently, but first I have to get to 40.

I don’t go so far to advertise or actively promote my age like some folks do, but I do fill out the birthdate field honestly whenever I encounter them. My birthday is later this month in case you are curious. I just peeked back through the archives to see what I’ve said about my birthday on the blog, if anything. The only post I found here about my birthday on my birthday was made in September 2003 (post #299) when I wrote about not receiving a speeding ticket and thinking because of the day, the officer gave me a break. Later at the casino I hit a jackpot on a penny machine.

Do you fill out the birthday field online?
Now it’s your turn below or via trackback from your own blog and you score extra points for being honest. Do you fill out the birth date field in your public profiles online when it’s optional? No, not anybody else’s business? Yes, like me, it doesn’t bother you?