I didn't know Robert Scoble could sing!

This is a great parody of "Rock Band" sung to the tune of "Roxanne".

Found at nehatiwari.com after catching her segment on PopSiren. A Revision3.com production.

Technorati Tags: Music Video, puppy, Robert Scoble, Rock Band, Roxanne, The Police

Flowers - LensDay

So today's LensDay dealt with flowers so this week so I submitted this photo that I took in Egypt. I thought most of the flowers from there seemedso bright and beautiful. The other people on the trip compared it to flowers in Hawaii but since I've never been there I attributed it to the Egyptian mystique...

I just thought they all seemed so bright and beautiful....

When Arcade Game Creatures Attack!

So imagine this: You've got some kind of handheld inviso-detecter-o-rama and through the viewfinder you can see the invisible creatures in your world. Better yet, if you can see them, you can shoot them. Now imagine this handheld device looks an awful lot like your Treo.

ToySpring has created a game, called Arcade Reality, using your Treo that uses the live image from your camera to to superimpose the creatures on. So it appears as if you are fighting arcade creatures in real life. Here are some more screenshots.

Personally, I don't see how they can get enough processing power out of these handhelds to do this, but the machine might have overlay capabilities that I'm not aware of (I've never tried to program a Palm like that). Or they might just be faster than I think. I have seen some zippy video games, I juse don't play them that much these days...

Sledding with the LineRider

So check out LineRider. Just draw a slope (not too steep) and hit play! Hit stop and you can modify your drawing. It's entertaining (at least for a few minutes)

From Rocketboom.

Rain Delay...

As we all know, I'm not a huge fan of sports, normally I'd be hard pressed to know who's in the World Series. But being from the Detroit area I was curious as to how they were doing tonight. Unfortunately they've got rain, much too much rain to play so the game has been delayed. I'm not sure if they might still play tonight or not. Very sad for the sports geeks who had their whole night planned out...

I know how I feel when Apple has a press conference and Steve Jobs doesn't announce the product I was expecting...

You can tell I'm not into sports that much when I'm wondering how “they are doing” and not how “we are doing”.

New iPod! Must Have...!

The new iPods have brighter screens and up to 80 GB hard drives (with a 60% brighter screen). It's also set to play more games these days too (I'd like a nice Scrabble).

The new redesigned Nano now goes up to 8 GB!!! I think the nano looks more like the old minis but smaller.

I'm really thinking I might need me one of these. Mine doesn't have the video and I've been thinking that might be a nice feature. At $349 for 80 GB that's a nice price (I think I paid $599 for the 60 GB when they first came out). Usually these are about 5% cheaper for education employees but I'm not seeing the discount :(

Deal? Or No Deal?

She had 1 penny, $400,000 and $750,000 on the board so they offered her $375,000. A very generous offer as the show goes. If she doesn't take the money she has to open one more. She said she was a gambler so this should have been easy and Howie pretty much spelled it out for her that there were 3 options if she picked the case:

Product Placement

So I was going to finish up the followup to the Alex Rider post before I hopped in the sack but then I remembered I didn't mention my dreams!

So I've had odd dreams lately (the last two days) with lots of advertising. This is odd for several reasons, I generally don't remember my dreams and when I remember them as well as I did this morning they're usually normal, as in I'm not sure if the stuff really happened or not.

So back to the advertising dream: I think I was in Cingular (which I actually needed to go to today) and there were people there in Dominoes' uniforms trying to sell me a Dell. They made a phone call to their friends who were at Taco Bell and wanted to meet up with me and we were going to go eat and get eggs or omelets or something like that. Oh and I think the friend's played on a baseball team, which I would assume is the Tigers since Dominoes' owned them at one time.

Winter Olympics 2006

I was a little disappointed with the opening ceremonies with the olympics. A few neat things but I wasn't enthralled, even with TiVo to get me through the slow spots. The fireworks and sparkler type things were awesome!

And who's this guy who's doing some of the commentary for the skating? Dick Button? They act like he's some hotshot but so far (IMHO) he's just this dorky guy who's annoying (seems kinda mean).

Later: Okay, so I looked him up, he's won a few gold in skating (over half a century ago), but he's still kinda gruff for figure skating.

I Love WhirlyBall

So we played WhirlyBall again yesterday!!! I love playing this game. If you haven't seen me mention WhirlyBall before, it's kinda like basket ball but with a whiffle ball/scoop and you're driving a bumper car!

We were at WhirlyBall West in West Bloomfield, MI. I didn't have any problems the few other times I played but I knew I was going to have a few bruises this time and sure enough the two spots where I knew I got bumped while bouncing around the car are looking pretty colorful.

There's a video on the web site that gives a sample of what a game is like. It makes the game seem pretty slow where it seems quite busy the whole time you play...

I'm Famous...

So I was in the newspaper today and they ran a photo too so that made it a even more fun. At least I assume the photo was in the printed edition. It's the local paper by where I work so I'll have to check it out next week, but I remembered to check on-line and there it was “Expert shares advice on technology deals”.

Here's the story, people always ask me what tech stuff to buy and how to get good deal on it. So a few jobs ago I started doing sessions for people who were interested and I'd get stuff together and they'd come with questions and I'd tell them what they “needed”. This job I started opening it up to the public for parents (I work for a school district) and residents and I do it near Thanksgiving so I can give them tips on all the Thanksgiving sales that'll start on Friday. Then they can figure out if it's worth getting up early for if it's one of those killer deals. This year one of the paper's reporters came and voila I'm in the local paper (she had mentioned the dates in the paper too).

Games People Play

While not actually a board, my favorite is actually Dominoes, which (if you've never played) is like playing cards, they're a million games you can play with one set. As actual board games go Scrabble is probably my favorite regular old board game.

It's trivia, has a board and requires a DVD player: DVD game" target="Scene It? DVD">Scene It? It's the best trivia game out there, games are fast and it's easy to learn.

Sugar Free Alpha-Bits

Why would they do this?!? Sugar Free? And the box looks the same! That's just mean!

So I was going to have a bowl of cereal as a little snack tonight and I was pretty disappointed. I don't generally keep sugar around the house so I had to use powdered sugar. It actually worked pretty good, just don't watch anything too funny when you eat it because if you laugh you might accidentally inhale some of the sugar...

Think dry cardboard-ish Cherrios, but still in cool letter shapes.

$225 Million

Two-Hundred Twenty-Five Million dollars! The MegaMillions drawing is tonight. I'm off to spend a dollar (or two)...

Skylab Stamp

So I got this package in the mail the other day (from a small mail order company). It had a Skylab stamp on it! It was only a 10 cent stamp (actually it had other old 10 cent stamps on it too) so that makes it about 20 years old. It was strange, I assumed if they had hundreds of these laying around it that it'd be better to sell them for a few pennies more than to actually use them. And it's a nice Stamp I've always liked the way that one looked so it really caught my eys. My purchase was a $100 upgrade to something I had already purchased preciously so I'm assuming they weren't scraping for loose change to mail this. It just struck me as strange...

Now that's scary!

I always thought he looked pretty creepy!

And what's with the subservient chicken?!? (That's really what it's called!)

Blind Video-Gamer

Brice Mellen is on G4 TechTV (Attack of the Show) right now. He plays Mario World and Mortal Combat and he's blind. And in a few he's going to play another sightless gamer in “the world's first Sightless Gamer Mortal Kombat Challenge!” Here's a link but they don't really do show notes like they used to...

Here's a little more from USA Today, CNN and Wired.

Plus they are going to show doom on the iPod (which I talked about last week).

Scene It? New Editions - Review

So I know I've mentioned Scene It? several times before. I'm going to plug it again? Why you ask? Because I've seen a few new editions and some old ones released differently. Personally, I own the Junior, TV and regular refill pack (the board is the same for them all). I've bought at least a half-dozen of these as gifts (maybe a dozen).

Why is this game so great? It's fast and easy to play; plus you can even fold the board in half to play an even shorter version. It's got fun questions and about every third one is multi-media via the DVD player. Go directly to the Scene It? web site for more info and samples. Plus they give away a Scene It game a week.

The different editions are:

A Music Edition is now out too (at least I haven't seen it before and I can only find it at Target so I guess that's new).

I just found a HBO Expansion Pack too!

FYI - I saw all these at Target today (just the refills for 007 and TCM but not the Sports or HBO).

Read or leave comments (or trackbacks/pings)
Posted by Gary on Sunday at 8:29 PM on August 7, 2005.
Related categories: activities + sports, games, reviews
Thanks for the 2 comments/trackbacks from: Omni: Gary

Rag Doll Physics

So this is a little disturbing, yet somehow compelling. Grab the doll and drag/throw it (or it'll seem like much isn't going on). Even when the screen refresh rate slows down it seems to keep the momentum (literally) going.

Stolen (title and all) from Rori.

I got mentioned in Today's Podcast!

So not only is one of my favorite podcast's back in business (he's been busy for the past 5 weeks) but I got a mention for suggesting today's word, “Voilà!”, be sure to listen to the the audio (it's only 74 seconds). Scott does Today's Podcast which is generally “A brief daily podcast of words and quotes”. He's always looking for words to do and even has a phone number where you can leave comments or messages. Be sure to check it out...

He does mention my new site that I'm migrating to (http://GarySaid.com/). It's not 100% done yet but if you've got blogrolls or bookmarks please change them. It should be done by the end of the week. It's (mostly) fully functional (and currently has the same new posts as the old site) but many links take you to the old site. It should be complete this week...

Educator's Discount for Books

Most Border's Books and Waldenbooks are celebrating Educator's Appreciation this weekend. This means 25% percent off most stuff and some various other freebies (books, food, contests, etc.). You just need a pay stub (they don't have any way to check if you drive a bus or work in the cafeteria). They also give you a 20% off card for the year on books you purchase for classroom use.

Whirlyball is great!

The game is called WhirlyBall. Picture it as Jai Alai (with the the scoops with a whiffle ball) but you ride around in bumper cars and your trying to score by making shots in a flat basket on the wall. I really wish I had taken photos so I could illustrate this. This was hysterical to play, we had about twenty people and we played in shifts (8-10 minute games are more than long enough) and you play in teams. It was great! It was easy for all us to learn and lots of laughter! Thanks to Jenny and Susan for inviting me!!!

What else can I tell you: It was a little pricy, I'm guessing it was about $300 for the court for two hours (but that's why you bring a bunch of people). The official site is http://whirlyball.com/ but they don't list all the locations, I'm only listing it since it has some visuals. The scoops and the wiffleball is available as a kids game on it's own (you basically just play catch) but none of us could think of the name of the game, we found it as a toy called Jai Alai but we thought the sport used much longer scoops (can anyone help me with the name of this kids game?!?)...

Star Trek: The Experience

So I had an opportunity to go on the Star Trek 4D “experience” today. I made contact with a friend just as I was about to go into the exhibition hall. There are 2 parts: The Borg Invasion and the Klingon Encounter; if you're a fan at all, spend the $35* and see both. Actually there is a third part included, it's the (future) history museum. Very cool stuff if you remember some of the details from the movies or some of the significant episodes.

Back to the two main parts: I'm not going to tell you too much... See Borg first and then the Klingon one. If there is action going on look all around not just in front of you, the cool stuff may be behind you. And you can go on any of the rides as much as you want on the day you buy the ticket for it. I wish I had done the Borg one a second time, there was a lot going on.

The (blurry) photo is a shot the shows the part of the upstairs (Museum) and downstairs (Quarks). My digital camera isn't so good with low light.

*The Jeffs' had some kind of discount coupon they got south on the strip for 1/2 off, all I know is they got it at the giant coke bottle.

Easter Island

So this isn't exactly a post about Easter Island, it more about the map of it at MapQuest. The 3 legged armadillo did a post of useless roadmaps (post no loner on-line) )and I thought it was pretty funny. The amount of detail is incredibly lacking. One of the maps the 3LA links to actually has some detail, made me wonder if Mapquest is actually working on it as we speak...

All over town

So I Roller-bladed all over “downtown” Evanston today and got some good breakfast McThingy to eat at Einstein Bros.

Then I went up towards Northwestern and bladed around campus and they were having a huge run for breast cancer awareness month. It was chaos there! It was fun to watch and I got to sit down by Lake Michigan and see the water, hear the waves and see Chicago to the south. I love the campus there and the view is always so nice, I just wish it had been warmer out...

All that and I was done by noon.

Another Year Over

Schools Out. My babies are gone. I've got tomorrow off. I'm just about to get into bed. Okay, (since you asked) I'll elaborate.

The last day of school for the teachers was today! My phone should ring a lot less with all the things that they've thought of the last 9 months that they want to remind me of as they run out the door. It's still busy, our fiscal year ends in 3 weeks so lots of wrap up and then the new one starts and that takes time and then it's mid-july and everyone is back in a month...

I want to go to England for a week in July, anyone have suggestions on where to get the best price from Detroit?

Okay, so they aren't my babies. Day care for the district is in my building so I get to see all the little kids when they go for walks or play outside etc. But they are all wonderful and I already miss them. Whatever it is in the drinking fountains at school that causes the staff to get so pregnant so often also causes the children to be beautiful and smart and to generally like me. They are great kids and the department that takes care of them does an excellent job. It's great to see them and they all know who Mr. Gary is. Speaking of the water in the district, one of my favorites' became a big sister today as her mom had twins!

I'm all tuckered out from the last few weeks, so I took a vacation day tomorrow, made a list that maybe I'll cross a few things off of. I've got the new Lee Child and Dean Koontz books from the library. The forecast isn't great, maybe I can cross a few items off. And play outside on Saturday. Maybe I'll rollerblade, I got my bike out the other day and it was great to ride around.

Bonuses today: Lots of end of the year/retirement food. Very few voice mails. Visiting teachers on maternity leave, which really means I got to see/hold/play with a few babies. Lots of hugs and handshakes from people leaving for the summer or forever.

Bad Scrabble Hands

Thought this was an interesting use of a photo-blog...

Who doesn't like Bubblewrap?!?

Just click the link, need I say more?

Actually I do... Be sure to check out Maniac Mode!

You can access this directly here.

What's your score?

Actually I haven't played Scrabble in a while. If you like Scrabble and you have a Palm (or PocketPC) handheld they make an excellent version that you can play against the computer or others.

But I digress. The reason for tonight's post is that I saw this on Heather's Blog and had to do it myself... Especially since mine is bigger than Heather's.

Pholph's Scrabble Generator My Scrabble© Score is: 32. What is your score? Get it here.

Have you Scene It?

Have you seen Scene It? It's a great new game that you play on a board and on the TV (with a DVD player). It asks a bunch of trivial questions about movies, but about a third of them are on the TV. I've played this with several groups of friends and it's been a hit every time. There is a short and long version of the game (you fold the board in half!) and they make a junior edition too. It's fun, you get to shout out answers and it really gets everyone interested...

Check this out when you get a chance. There is a more interactive demo if you have flash.

Happy New Year!!!

It's the start of a New Year! My friends have headed out and it's time for the first entry of the new year! :) It's been a great day (no crisises have occured, at least nothing nationwide), great friends, great pizza and I love those new Seagram's Twisters! We played games: Dominoes and Scene It? (excellent DVD/board game that's due for an entry soon). I'm off to sleep in the new year...

Dominoes

Dominoes is great! It's a simple strategy game that can be learned quickly. Did you know that Dominoes is an actual game and you can play many different games with just one set of pieces? It's sort of like cards with lots of different games; sometimes different variations of the same game. So can you guess what I was playing this evening?

Dominoes is the best kept secret, I know few who play but many of them like to play often. Dominoes started in the 1100's. It's easy, it's fun and people realy like it. It's sort of like playing cards.

It's easy to get started with a set for $10 or less set of Double 9s, which means each side of the dominoes goes from 0-9 (it's easiest to play with the colored dots). Try it, you'll like it...