RockStar Nights

A new home!

2011-01-23T10:15:00.003-08:00

I've moved to a new home over at http://robfine.com. Come join me there!

Atlanta Concert Wishlist 2010

2010-01-11T08:26:00.001-08:00

Gentlemen, BEHOLD!! My 2010 Concert Wishlist!

I've started making a greater effort to seeing at least one of my favorite bands a year in concert. I was lucky enough to have 3 of them come through on tour together last year (Blink-182, Fall Out Boy, All-American Rejects). Unfortunately, DJ AM decided to be a dumbass and kill himself with drugs, which bumped the entire schedule back and kicked F.O.B. and A.A.R. off the tour line up for Atlanta, but I still got to see Blink-182 which was AWESOME. I've seen them once before in Seattle, but this was the first time I got to see Travis Barker with them and it meant even more having Jessica there with me and finding our wedding song together.

The following 12 bands are on my radar for '010; I often finding myself questioning concert tickets when I see the prices, especially with the outrageous ticket master fees; but I'm committed to seeing these bands this year and have promised myself to be flexible when I see how much the tickets will cost.

Muse

I'm happy to announce that I've already bought tickets for my number 1 band I want to see in 2010. I'll be seeing Muse on Feb. 27th, front and center. Muse is one of my favorite bands to listen to while working on scripts and ideas for some of my storylines such as Hollow Falls, As We Know It, and other little projects. Best thing about this concert is it is on a Saturday, which means it's an all out party!

The Offspring

I've always enjoyed Offspring, but it wasn't until Americana that I really became attracted to the band. Their latest album Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace that I really started loving the band. Having listened through all of their older CDs, I would be bold enough to say, this is their masterpiece. It's their American Idiot, though, it's not really in a story form. I watched Offspring tour all over the US last year and somehow (like several big bands) skip right over Atlanta. Not sure how that happened, but I'll have my eye on them this year.

The Veronicas

I've watched as The Veronicas came through Atlanta 3 times in the past 3 years, I've bought tickets each time and somehow something came up such as a family vacation or something I just couldn't miss and I had to give up the tickets. Never again. I know it's tough to catch one of their concerts since they're based in Australia, but they seem to be gaining momentum and I'm hopeful that we will see them come through Atlanta this year again.

t.A.T.u.

They don't tour through the US often, but they just had a new CD released in the US, so I've got my fingers crossed! I've loved every album t.A.T.u. has released and they've always had a special place in my rock hand heart. They have also released a U.S. version of one of their more popular music videos from this album, so maybe just maybe they'll have enough steam to hit at least a couple big cities in the US for the next tour. I'm willing to travel for it. Best case scenario, they come to Atlanta with Rammstein.

Linkin Park
Rammstein
Green Day
Britney Spears
Evanescence
Garbage
No Doubt
Red Hot Chili Peppers

I've seen Green Day, Evanescence, Garbage and No Doubt before, but they all put on such great shows, they had to make the list again. Before she overdoses or dies of some other crazy cause, I need to shell out the money to see Ms. Spears in concert. It's unbelievable that I have missed them so many times, but your next trip though, I'll be there Linkin Park! As strange as it sounds, I think RockBand has finally caught my attention of what a great band the Red Hot Chili Peppers are. It's strange how many hits they have, yet you don't hear too much about them. And, I know Rammstein is a long shot, but maybe they'll be a part of some big international tour. Maybe, there will be some kind of Best of the World Tour that has Rammstein (Germany), t.A.T.u. (Russia), September (Poland), The Veronicas (Australia), Jolin Tsai (Taiwan), and Muse (England).

Benefits of the One Man Shop for Web Design

2009-12-22T11:30:00.000-08:00

I finally finished putting together a website for my web design side projects, which I've been meaning to do for some time. I've just had so many side projects that it seemed I seldomly had free time to put together a website for myself. Irony?

I always hate it when someone who sells a skill fails at using that skill for their own benefit, so I didn't want to throw something trashy up just to have a site. Besides, most of my business seems to come from word of mouth, and word travels fast. It seems like I very seldomly have to look for the next project, in fact, I seem to be in a position now where I've got a couple lined up for the future. Business is good.

I think the recession is much to thank for the prosperity of my own web design business. There seems to be a trend of people getting away from using large companies with a lot of overhead expenses and less of a grasp on just one client's needs. It's understandable when a company gets large enough, it does become less efficient. Clients are moving towards individual or smaller companies to get sites made for less costs to themselves and more one-on-one care for their products.

Pay For What You Want

Where I've found my niche is just that place, creating websites that do just what the customer wants- nothing more, nothing less- which means it takes less time, and costs the customer less money. Why charge more to give the customer things they never asked for. Hahaha, I sound like a bank commercial.

Avoid Developers With Heavy Loads

I do web design and development as a side job to my regular 40 hours a week job. Therefore, I may not have your site to you as fast as some of the larger companies who dedicate several employee's regular work week schedules to your site. However, I always make sure never to take on too heavy of a load. I stick to working on one customer's website at a time, and don't begin the next project until I'm completely done with the last one. I've noticed some of the bigger companies take on several projects and have a lot of different people focused in on one skill touch the product at different points.

The Website Assembly Line

There are some great benefits to this method. You essentially have specialized areas of expertise each giving the website their own input, like an assembly line at a factory. The first guy does his job, the second guy does his job, the third girl does her job, etc etc etc until it's at the end of the assembly line. This is all great until something needs to be changed. The 6th person can't do their job now because they need the 4th person to fix something they did. Meanwhile, the 4th person has already moved onto the next project.

Don't Pay For Larger Companies' Overhead

And of course, who is going to watch over the product as it jumps from person to person? A project/product manager (adding more to the cost of the website). And that's just the beginning of what you begin to pay for with larger companies. Marketing, Sales and Management all have to be paid somehow and that's through your website. With an individual, any marketing and sales costs are incurred personally through motivation that it will bring in future business that pays the design and development salary alone.

So that's just a couple thoughts about the advantages of using a smaller design house / individual for your web development needs. It came up in a conversation earlier today and I just thought I'd share it.

Atlanta Last Call Moving to 4 AM?

2009-12-02T14:11:00.000-08:00

I just stumbled along a great article written by Jamie Gumbrecht regarding the possible extension of Atlanta's last call from 2:30 am to 4 am.

The Article:
http://blogs.ajc.com/inside-access/2009/11/17/how-would-4-a-m-last-call-change-atlanta-entertainment/

There are a lot of opinions being thrown around regarding the last call law revision at the bottom of Jamie's article; definitely seems like Castleberry Hill is not in favor of the last call push while other areas of the city are in much anticipation of it.

Sadly I never got to know the Atlanta with the 4 AM last call, but I have some great memories of the Buckhead strip (currently known as the rubble along Peachtree Rd). It's unfortunate that Atlanta no longer has a centralized party place like the Buckhead Strip used to serve as or Cresent Ave used to be before Vision shut down and Hush burned to the ground. I think Orlando has probably done the best with Pleasure Island. That’s an amazing area with everything contained.

Atlanta recently turned a trouble-area around when they built Atlantic Station, maybe they could do the same for a "party central" (ideally along a MARTA rail line that should stays open long enough to deter drunk driving). What's amazing is this city runs MARTA til 1 am on weekdays, but then closes down earlier on weekends (the time when a later train is actually needed).

MARTA has stated that they stop running trains at this time because it's not worth their funding to keep it open and continue employing cops/rail line employees. However, if they actually stayed open to a reasonable time for club/bar goers, people would actually ride the train to the nightlife hotspots and back home. I've known several people to ride MARTA out to Midtown or Buckhead, and shell out even more money to ride a taxi back home.

Let's not get started on Atlanta taxis. No wait. Let's-

The last time I took a taxi home from Buckhead, it was a fifteen minute ride with 3 other people in the car that ended up totalling a little over $70. The cap driver explained that there was a fee for picking up extra people, fees for picking us up in Buckhead, fees for this and that; regardless. It should not cost over $4 a minute in a taxi. And of course, he was unable to accept credit cards because his machine was broken. That's a lie. Don't let a taxi driver tell you that. They all accept credit card, they just don't want it on the books when they ripped you off with fake fees.

Ok, that's over, back to MARTA...

If it's not worth it to pay officer/driver's salary for an hour and a half between 12:30 and 2 am, up the cost after midnight. I'd be fine with paying double for MARTA to get me home (or closer to home) safely after a night of drinking and partying.

I don't think the issue is last call. It's everything else Atlanta's infrastructure does to hurt the nightlife industry. Honestly, I think the city is scared of Freaknik returning. I think MARTA is not staying open late on weekends because it would hurt the criminal taxi cab industry. And I think everything is fixable by creating a "party central" with clubs and bars all lined up like Orlando's brilliantly orchestrated Pleasure Island in Downtown Disney. Orlando has an advantage of being a tourist town, but they got that way through being an open infrastructure that invites the tourism. Same for Vegas. Same for New York.

Can Atlanta repair its nightlife industry?

WTF Delta?! No Cheap Vegas Flights

2009-12-02T11:24:00.000-08:00

Dear Delta,

WTF? You send me these emails like every week that tell me about your "awesome" deals like $109 to go from Atlanta to Savannah (not awesome) and finally you send me a good one like a one way ticket from Atlanta to Vegas for $139. But then, when I go to your site, this deal is not to be found. WTF?!

Sample: Email Advertisement showing $139 one way flights through December 10th

Sample: One-Way Delta Flights on their Website (cheapest $342)

On the flip side, I did find some ok deals for a New Years Eve trip to Vegas. Looking at about $350 for the flight (not awful). Just started looking at hotels, but I've been getting some great offers through the MGM and Harrah's players clubs lately.

Who wants to go to VEGAS?! (again)
Putting something together.
Still tentative, but let me know if you have an interest.

Can BlackBerry, Microsoft, Palm, or Google dethrone the Apple App Store?

2009-10-27T16:02:00.001-07:00

The Sprint App Developer conference has been ongoing for the last 2 days and nearly every mobile phone operating system provided has been toughting their SDKs and new app stores to show how they are matching up / catching up to the epic iPhone.

To begin with, the iPhone is not the most robust OS on the market place. In fact, it's far from it. With just recently getting MMS support, video camera support, and more. What has catapulted the iPhone into the stardom that it's in are two things: Marketing and the mobile applications catalog.

Marketing: Apple vs. Palm Pre
I think the Palm Pre is probably the first marketing campaign to remotely touch Apple's reign, but their commercials don't seem to be getting the coverage that Apple has. Unfortunately, Palm doesn't have near the status of the name Apple. No one is excited about using AT&T, it's the name Apple that has engined the mobile device's marketing hype. Both companies were known at some point as being the latest and greatest thing (Palm Pilot, Apple IIe), then got left in the dust of a competitor's greater product (Blackberry, Windows) and after years of evolving Apple was able to reimerse as the "beautiful" and "creativity" machine that the public has embraced it as today. Will the Pre be Palm's redemption? They're certainly on their way.

App Catalog: Apple vs. Palm Pre
Since we're on the subject of Palm's latest gift to the mobile world, we should look at one of the most exciting components of the phone for developers, and that would be the application engine. All of the apps on the Palm webOS are websites. It's as easy as some HTML, some CSS and some JavaScript. With those three basic tools, anyone can easily create a Palm webOS application with their Mojo. This is one of the easiest tools for mobile apps out there, more so than Apple. Expect a lot of great applications coming soon for Palm.
Information about App Catalog Publishing Costs

App Catalog: Apple vs. Windows Mobile
A rivalry that resembles Coke and Pepsi, Microsoft and Apple are head to head once again. Microsoft's application platform for Windows Mobile is another one I'm personally really excited about, as it is basically the same as creating a Windows application just with a subject of the .NET framework. You can use Visual Studio, make just about any application you would for a Windows desktop machine, in nearly the same way and then publish it for any Windows Mobile device on any network.
Information about App Catalog Publishing Costs

App Catalog: Apple vs. BlackBerry
I personally don't see many IL customers with BlackBerry devices, yet there are a lot of corporate customers interested in downloading the apps. Will this ever be as big as Apple's catalog? Doubtful. BlackBerry is expensive. In every way. A lot of large businesses have started an exodus from the BlackBerry domain. BlackBerry requires a BES Server with an individual license for every user to allow a connection to a company email server and it does not come cheap. With Microsoft's latest releases, Windows Mobile is beginning to take over as the premier corporate phone platform. It won't happen over night, but I've heard several very large customers planning their migration in early 2010. Despite all this, I'm actually really pleased with all of the development options. Primarily, they have provided a BlackBerry Java Development Engine, but you can also use a plug-in for Eclipse as well as, yes, my favorite, a plugin for Microsoft Visual Studio. Now, while developing in Visual Studio does limit your potential with the application (doesn't allow you to access device cameras, bluetooth, etc), it's still an easy starting point.
Information about App Catalog Publishing Costs

App Catalog: Apple vs. Google Android
Android is tough. I spent about four hours last night learning the Android App creation process on the HTC Hero and, for someone who has never developed a mobile app before, it was far far more difficult to work with than Palm webOS, BlackBerry, and Microsoft Windows Mobile. In less than an hour each, I was able to create a fully functional application for each of these other platforms. Of course, much like Apple, this is Google, another huge name that people trust and love. And the Google phones themselves are very easy to use and fun. Despite not having an extremely user-friendly development platform, public demand may launch the Android application catalog to face off with Apple's strangle hold on the mobile app industry as it stands today.
Information about App Catalog Publishing Costs

Has Apple peaked? The Motorola Razr and Nokia phones once stood as the "it" phones of their time; what's to keep the iPhone from following? A lot of app developers believe that Apple's position over the next 6 months will determine the fate of the iPhone. As the AT&T Apple exclusivity contract comes to an end with the conclusion of 2009, Apple has the perfect opportunity to become a cross-network platform like Google, BlackBerry, and Microsoft have already accomplished.

Mobile Apps Stores and Publishing Costs

2009-10-26T16:57:00.000-07:00

After spending a day at the Sprint App Developer Conference in Santa Clara, and hearing some presentations from Palm, HTC and Sprint, there has been a lot of great information being presented. Some really cool devices hitting Sprint lately and over the next month, but I wanted to look into some of the different platforms' app stores and their respective publishing costs.

Of course, Apple has created the grandeur marketing campaign around there app store, but there are several others popping up to support the Android operaton system, BlackBerry and Palm phones as well as the Windows Mobile Operating System. It was actually a lot tougher to find some of this information than I expected, but here's the basic layout for some of their front runners for the future App Stores of Mobile Devices:

You may also be interested in...
A Developer's Look at the differences between Developing for BlackBerry, Google Android, Microsoft Windows Mobile, and Palm webOS

Name: App Store
Provider: Apple
Primary Language: Objective C
Membership Fee: $99
App Submission Fee: $99 (per app)
Profit Sharing: 70% / 30% (30 - apple)

Name: Palm App Catalog
Provider: Palm
Primary Language: Mojo
Membership Fee: $100
App Submission Fee: $50 (per app)
Profit Sharing: 70% / 30% (30 - palm)

Name: Ovi
Provider: Nokia
Primary Language: Java
Membership Fee: $200 (per year)
App Submission Fee: $20 (per app)

Name: BlackBerry AppWorld
Provider: RIM
Primary Language: Java
Membership Fee: (included in App Submission Fee)
App Submission Fee: $200 (up to 10 apps)
Profit Sharing: 80% / 20% (20 - rim)

Name: Windows Mobile AppStars
Provider: Microsoft
Primary Language: .NET Compact Framework
Membership Fee: $99
App Submission Fee: $99 (per app)
Profit Sharing: 70% / 30% (30 - microsoft)

Still got two more days of the Sprint App Developer Conference; Hope to find much more interesting stuff. Really looking forward to playing around with mobile apps!

As a side note, check out the iPhone app, "Pop Artist!" featuring a sweet pic m.a.x took of me about four years ago. Developer Jon Kean put it together and just recently launched it. I've got a couple of free redemption codes for the app that lets you turn your photo into an Andy Warhol portrait. Let me know if you are interested!

You may also be interested in...
A Developer's Look at the differences between Developing for BlackBerry, Google Android, Microsoft Windows Mobile, and Palm webOS

Waiting for Jim and Pam's Wedding on The Office

2009-10-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

Jim and Pam have gotten married. As many of you know, I've never been much a fan of Jim. I actually liked him for the first two seasons of The Office, but I've since been disgusted with him more and more with each passing episode.

It took me a while to understand it, but I've finally realized it. He's a smart ass who thinks he's better than everyone else in the office (It's a pun!). He constantly looks down on the people around him, and I'm actually fine with that. But after two years of this whole "I'm meant for better things, I'm better than you, I'm not like you" attitude, Jim is still sitting at his little desk pushing paper (literally). He'll be at this company for ever, hating his job, because he lacks the motivation to do something about it.

I've actually started understanding some of the psychological developments of the character that led him to be so unmotivated and lazy after watching the most recent episode where Jim and Pam get married. Jim makes a toast and speaks to the plot outline of the entire series that he fell in love with Pam when he first met her and she had a boyfriend and he just had to wait for her. He continues a monologue wherein he praises and makes a toast to "waiting".

Through waiting and no effort, he has achieved his goal- though it took him this long, and it's now had a positive reinforcement for him. In an earlier season, Jim had moved branches which then merged with his old branch. Since he worked for both, the company thought it would be best to promote him to help the offices better cope with the branch merger. Again, through no work on his behalf but rather being in the right place and the right time, Jim was promoted and again has received positive reinforcement for his unmotivated lifestyle.

I've noticed The Office do this before with Michael Scott. They set up this managerial character to be a bumbling idiot at times- to the extent where you almost believe nobody would ever be like this in real life. Then, later you learn things about their past and start to notice subtle mannerisms and habits of the character that reveal why they act the way they do. It's an interesting look at human nature.

Great Photography Exhibit in Atlanta October 2009

2009-09-29T07:43:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know my good friend Max (http://www.twitter.com/mdotadotx) who has come take pictures at several of my parties and always leaves us wanting more. He's extremely talented and I really can't speak to it enough. He served as the lead photographer for Atlanta AfterDark at Compound Nightclub and several other Atlanta hot spots.

This Friday October 2nd, his non-profit organization Atlanta Photography (http://www.atlantaphotography.org) will be presenting their Fall 2009 exhibit "Southern Fried Photographers" at Le Flash (11 Peters St, Atlanta, GA 30313). I've gone to his shows before and they are always very entertaining- his one especially, featuring several performances coinciding with Le Flash. There should be over 50 emerging Atlanta photographers' work on display. I'll be there Friday night at the opening, hope to see some of you there as well!

October 2 7-10pm Exhibit Open for ACP Kickoff and LeFlash

October 3 12-5pm Exhibit Open

October 9 7-10pm Exhibit Open for Castleberry Hill Art Stroll

October 10 12-5pm Exhibit Open

Atlanta has become Nation's Largest Flood Zone

2009-09-21T12:23:00.000-07:00

It has been raining for the past week and a half in Atlanta and there are no signs of any relief for the next week. Several roads have been closed, trees are down, interstates are flooded and bridges are collapsing.

During work today, I was looking out at the parking lot and thinking, maybe I should move my car away from that drain. I grabbed my keys, went to the bathroom and when I came out everyone was yelling, "Hey! Hey! Move your car. I looked outside and saw my backtires completely submerged and the water level flirting with the bottom of the door.

I raced out to the parking lot, lept through huge puddles of water to hop in my car and take off before the rising waters did any damage. Luckily, the car started right away and I was able to move it to higher grounds. I thought about parking it on the other side of the building which is slightly more elevated bu thought, "Well.... that water sure is rising fast." Lightning and thunder were pounding the sky while the hard rain was tap dancing on my windshield, adding even more excitement to the situation.

I watched one car go through the small creek that had become our building entrance and thought, "This is why I played Oregon Trail trail in Elementary school." I whipped through the stream and made it out of the complex. I parked at a nearby shopping center on a hill and ran back to work to find the ENTIRE parking lot now flooded. The entire complex was doing what they could to find the highest elevated spots at the creek rose very fast. The entrance was now too high to drive through except for large trucks.

These pictures show the water level as it is now, though it has lowered a bit. The dumpsters are still floating on top of the water, banging up against one another. The creek next to us is a foot or two away from taking over the entire parking lot.

Best Mortgage Rates for Refinancing: 5 Year Arm FTW

2009-08-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

I've lately decided to look into Refinancing Studio7 and I've come across some great rates. I've been dealing a lot with Lending Tree, Wells Fargo, Amerisave, and First Choice Bank (formerly known as Bay Rock Mortgage). Amerisave and First Choice have been the best deals thus far, which Adam ironically worked for both last year (way to pick em Adam)

I've been doing a lot of the math and it looks like it will all boil down to the maximum savings comes with the largest closing costs (of course).

I've also made some other observations though. I can maximize my savings by getting a 5 Year ARM to lower my rate. What is a 5 year arm? Essentially, I'll be locking in a rate (say 4.125%) for the next 5 years, at which point, they will re-asses my loan and give me a new rate.

There is a lot to take into consideration with the 5 Year ARM. You don't want to get screwed when 5 years is up and it's time to adjust the rate. We are at a very low rate right now and the market is likely to pick up soon, bringing rates up with it. Hopefully, the real estate market will be back to normal in the next 5 years, so I don't want to hold on to the 5 Year that long to see it spike my rate and payment.

However, should the market be back to normal in 5 years, what better time to sell the ole townhouse? If the market hasn't recovered by then, I'll likely be able to lock in another low rate. Here's hoping.

Vegas Halloween Party :: Sin like Flynn

2009-08-26T06:34:00.001-07:00

With October just around the corner, I started looking at options for Halloween this year. I typically never make plans for Halloween until the week of, but I got the itch. It's true, I just got back from Vegas, but I was tempted to take bing.com 's travel search engine for a stroll down the strip and sure enough, I found the lowest flights to Vegas I've ever seen. Not to mention, I've just picked up two more side projects working on DUI Lawyer sites that should be bringing in some extra gambling dough.

With a layover in Houston, we can take Continental Airlines out to Las Vegas on Friday night (Oct 30th), arrive by 11 PM, set the town on fire all weekend, and be back by midnight Sunday all for under $250.

Hop that bill up $16 and we can fly out on Delta Friday night, arrive before 9 PM on a nonstop flight, and then hit the red eye back to Atlanta sunday night.

Outstanding deals that are so incredibly tempting. I've also found some good deals on hotels. Don't know if it would be as fun without the entire group I went with two weeks ago and this may be too close for them. I know Josh may retract alcoholism and cirrhosis if he goes back too soon. Will it be worth it? Yes. Yes it will.

I haven't really used bing.com for much searching, but if you are familiar with FareCast, Microsoft bought it and used it for Bing.com's travel search tool. It is awesome. It checks all possible sites and then tells you the current cheapest rates as well as lets you know based on history and selling patterns whether you should buy now or wait to buy the ticket later and gives you an idea of how the price of the ticket will change between now and the flight.

Some of the best #SongsInCode Twitter Trend ( Songs In Code )

2009-08-20T13:54:00.001-07:00

Today's fun twitter trend was #SongsInCode where the programming population translated some of their favorite songs into various code languages including SQL, HTML, VB .NET, C#, C++, even BASIC was represented and more! Songs in Code isn't for everyone as far as creating the tweets as it does require some technical knowledge, but it is pretty fun to try and decipher what is written even if you don't have the programming skills to write them.

Here's a couple of my own (@painhatelove):

Like A Boss - The Lonely Island
Class Me extends Boss
  Sub HitOnDeborah
  End Sub
  Sub ShitOnDeborahsDesk
  End Sub
  Sub CrashIntoTheSun
  End Sub
End Class

I Gotta Feeling - Black Eyed Peas
While True
  Me.Controls.Contains(Feeling)
  Feeling=2nite.Equals(GoodNight)
  Dim cup As New SqlDataAdapter()
  cup.Fill()
End While

Cotton Eyed Joe - Rednex
If Not cottonEyedJoe.exists() Then
  Me.MarriedDate.AddYears(-10)
  Page.FindControl(cottonEyedJoe)
End If

And here's a couple I pulled from the peanut gallery on Twitter.
See how many you can figure out!

@nathansmith while (i.dip) { you.dip(); we.dip(); }

@8bitrocket you.forgetAboutMe=false;

@tpflomm if (you == likedIt) {you.shouldaPutARingOnIt();}

@DavidGood 10 print Mmmm bop 20 print shimee shim sham oowah 30 goto 10

@dansumption Name+" "+Name+" bo b"+Name.substr(1)+" banana fana fo f"+Name.substr(1)+" fe fi fo f"+Name.substr(1)+" "+Name;

@rkruzan emptiness=loneliness; loneliness=cleanliness; cleanliness=godliness; god=null; me=null;

@myotive jennys_no = string.Format("{0:###-####}", "8675309");

@KevinPang for each (var step in you.Take()) { this.Watch(you); }

@sstaver while (false) { giveUp(u); letDown(u); runAround(); desert(u); makeCry(u); System.out.print("Goodbye"); tell(lie); hurt(u); }

@xiinite if(door.color == uint(0xFF0000) && door.visible == true){try{door.color = uint(0x000000);}catch(e:Error){}}

@tatertoten while (!isWeekend(today) && everybody.isWorking){ today.AddHours(1.0); if (isWeekend(today)) { break; }}

@atcrawford while( you.work() ) { you.whistle(); }

@sconefiend if ($billiejean != $lover) { $kid = 'not my son'; }

@z3cka if($you == $mylover) { getwithmyfriends(); } else { $you = bugme(); echo "Bye Bye!" }

@morrisai if(this<18) incarcerated =" false;" theworld =" 'we';" thechildren =" 'we'" usetype ="=" timetotalk =" false;" musicloud =" womenWarm" location ="=" hole =" box.createHole();" dj="=" water =" false;" dayofweek ="=">= 20) fight();

@jeff_lamarch e self.target = sheriff; // self.target = deputy; self.selfDefense = YES;

@jose_ibanez if (we.wantTo("Dance")) then we.canDance for each friend in your.friends{ if (!friend.dances){ my.friends.remove(friend) } }

@neave if (stop == true) { hammerTime(); this.touchEnabled = false; }

@option8 if( target.like(this.body) && this.sexy) { target.tell(this); }

@robocallaghan Lean on me

@ara_p var alabama = {location: "127.0.0.1", skies: "#00f"}

@pinksy if(!that){ doAnything("love"); }

@cyborgirl <p style="COLOR: #ff00ff">pretty</p>

@jzeitler public void reality() { try{ if( this.realLife()this.justFantasy() ) { throw new Landslide(); } } catch (Landslide l) { this.reality() } }

@lingmops class we { var highVoltage = true; function touch() { if($this->highVoltage) { echo "Danger! Danger!"; } } }

@BrianPeek light.Exit(); night.Enter(); myHand.Take(); goto neverNeverLand;

@JasonBarile foreach(day in week.Days) { Party(); while(day.IsNight()) { RockAndRoll(); } }

@_SteveWilson_ visitor->location = jungle ; if ( visitor->new ) { visitor->welcome() }

@jeffstieler if ([self on:aBoat]) { [you lookAt:theMotherFuckinBoat withAttributes:(GOOD HARD)]; }

@_saint if (kids != alright) print("ooOh!");

@matflores if you.start_me_up then while(true) do nothing end and stop end

@BenjaBloodworth Person I = new Person(); if (DateTime.Today.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Friday) I.InLove = true;

@djbigdaddy cometogether = [] cometogether.append('right now') cometogether.append('over me') for i in cometogether: print i

@DamianOS3 For (Person* obj in people) { If (obj.aboutToRock == YES) { [ self salute:person ] } }

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The Goods Prescreening: Big Ups fuckin blow!

2009-08-14T13:45:00.001-07:00

The title explains itself after you've seen the movie

The Goods came out today and Jessica and I had the privilege of seeing the movie at an incredible pre-screening thanks to Allied Advertising. The movie is funny and stars the very talented Jeremy Piven or as we've all come to affectionately know him Ari Gold.

Despite this being a pre-screening, what was really cool about this night was all the activities going on at the drive-in theatre the prescreening was held at. To begin with, this was my first drive-in movie and it was a really cool experience, held at Starlight Six Drive-In theatre in Atlanta, GA. It was very romantic with the convertible top down in the Z3 with Jessica.

In addition to the drive-in magic, the had "The Corndog Lady" who I must say did make one hell of a c-dog. They also had live bands and rappers perform through out the night, even a burlesque show.

To top it all off, they had a 1993 BMW 7-series at the front of the drive in with a sledge hammer and they let us go to town. Everyone was welcome to grab the hammer and beat the holy hell out of the auto industry as many swings as they like. It may have been even more powerful had the car been a GM, but maybe that's just cause I didn't want the Z3 to see me with a hammer against the blue and white roundel.

Given the festivities of the night, Jessica and I dressed up like kids from the 50s, she in her poodle skirt and I in my T-birds jacket (wow, that was like the hottest day of the year!). We cruised to the event with the top down listening to classic oldies like Rock Around the Clock and My Boyfriends Back. What a fun night! I'll try to get around to posting some pictures of it.

Summer Blitz 2009 Field Day

2009-08-10T05:59:00.000-07:00

On July 4th, Jackson Five squared off against the Make It Dirty team in Summer Blitz 2009 Field Day!

The Events Were:

The Flag Contest

Jello Shot Dodgeball

Hula Hoop Chain Race

Sponge Bob Relay Race

Blind Frisbee Toss

Bobby Cox That Ole Drunk

Tug-Of-War

The Jackson Five:

Adam Eltarhoni

Max Shirley

Mandy Brodner

Emily Barringer

Ryan Nakai

Team Make It Dirty:

Rob Fine

Jessica Xie

Liane Kitzka

Jeremy Ballard

Dan Watts

Lexi Carter-Miles

The event was so much fun! We can't wait to do it again. We have a lot of activities we didn't end up getting around to, but next time we'll stick to a tighter schedule so we can do the water balloon toss, three legged race, and more!

Las Vegas Tips, Tricks and Deals

2009-08-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

The countdown is on. Less than 10 days until 7 lucky friends and I hit the Las Vegas Strip for an incredible weekend. As we are drawing near to our journey where we transform from boys to men to prisoners of the the Clark County Detention Center, I wanted to share with them as well as the incredibly large audience that reads my blog a list of helpful tips and tricks to get the most out of your money while on and off the strip.

Slick Deals on Las Vegas
First off, this site is, within the terms Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, Money. It's a bit of a read, but its got some great stuff in it.
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=1288629

Free Shows in Vegas
There are tons of free shows in Vegas, and while some of them may be lame (Sirens of TI), others are actually really fun. One of my favorite free attractions is the Lion Habitat at MGM. I haven't been but I hear really good things about Fremont Street. Here's a list of free shows both on and off the strip:
http://www.allvegasguide.com/free_shows_activities/

Free Drinks in Vegas
It took me a while to get a hang off the Free Drinks trick, but I feel like by the end of my last trip, I was a total pro. This works for pretty much every casino. Find a slot machine, or if you're a real man, sit down at a black-jack, poker, craps, roulette, etc gaming table. Hang there for about 5-10 minutes, and you'll eventually have a drink girl come ask you if you'd like a drink. They are free, but you really need to tip them if you expect her to come visit you again. The art is where you sit and how you order. If you go with a gambling table, you're set. They are a lot more dedicated than the slot machine girls. If you opt for a slot machine, you want to sit as close to the kitchen/bar that the girls are getting the drinks from as possible. You don't actually have to be gambling, but you need to give the appearance that you are. When you order, you cannot say "I'll have 2 beers" as they all tend to have a 1-drink at a time policy. So, what you want to do is order something like "A margarita with a double shot of tequila on the side." And what's best is you can actually specify the tequila. "Make it patron" - Sometimes they'll say they don't have that particular brand. I often have luck with just moving seats and asking someone else, but sometimes it seems they just aren't giving it to you.

Tix4Tonight Discounted Show Tickets
Don't go see a show in Las Vegas and pay full price. Find a Tix4Tonight stand. They've usually got pretty much everything. You may have to check several times throughout the day, or better yet, purchase for a future date. Also, here's a $2 off coupon:
http://www.lasvegas-nv.com/tix-4-tonight-coupon.htm

Doria's Tips
My friend Doria was awesome enough to compile a list of advice as well. Here's what she has to say about Vegas deals:

Fontana Bar & Lounge at the Bellagio (http://www.bellagio.com/nightlife/fontana-bar.aspx). It's really classy and they have live performances there, plus, it's free to get in, and you get to see the fountain show from the Bellagio side which I think is really neat.

Best buffet in town is the Spice Market Buffet at Planet Hollywood for its variety, taste, and price. If you're staying there, they'll probably give you a $5 off coupon for the buffet or you can ask them for it. If not, then the coupon is also in this coupon booklet that they have at the customer service desk located right when you walk in from the Miracle Mile Shops entrance (left of the Sephora store front). They'll be people standing around the desk that want you to sign up for timeshare tours so keep your eyes on the booklet and just grab and go :)

There are girls wearing very little dancing on poles at a section of casino tables in the Planet Hollywood casino ;)

If the group likes Japanese food, and you get a coupon from one of the tix4tonight booths/locations (http://www.tix4tonight.com/index.html), then another good place to eat is Todai (http://www.lasvegas.net/Todai-Japanese-Seafood-Buffet.htm). I wouldn't go there without a %50 off coupon from tix4tonight though. The coupon is what makes it a good deal.

Also from tix4tonight, you can get a coupon for the Le Village Buffet in the Paris hotel. It's a great French food buffet and really nice ambiance.

For all the buffets, lunch prices are better than dinner, so you can do a big lunch/afternoon meal and follow up with something smaller later.

A good night ride on the strip is to take the Deuce (http://las-vegas-hotels.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g45963-c5528/Las-Vegas:Nevada:The.Deuce.Bus.html) to Downtown Vegas and walk around Fremont Street, they have a light show and food around there is pretty cheap - dollar shrimp cocktails are fun (http://www.lvrj.com/news/18559294.html).

Best club in town is Tao at the Venetian hotel (http://www.taolasvegas.com/). For the days that you're going, Tao Beach should be open as well, it's at the roof top level of the club. They have free entry for girls coupons (sometimes guys or discount for guys, too) located at this mini booth thing when you walk between the Venetian parking garage and the hotel part. It's across from one of those mobile souvenir carts and a bakery/starbucks type of place. If you're walking around the Venetian hotel, just follow the signs to the parking garage and you should pass this coupon booth.

Cirque Show's that are on sale right now: http://entertainment.travelzoo.com/las-vegas-entertainment/616508?utm_source=top20_us&utm_medium=email_top20I haven't actually seen any of them, but I think KA is the best of the bunch from all the reviews I've read.

Great stuff there from Doria. I can vouche that Tao is awesome! I've not been to many of the clubs, but that one blew away every Atlanta club I've been to.

If anyone else has any great deals, tips, or tricks, let me know and I'll add them to the list. Thanks!

2nd Installment of You Are a Miserable Hero coming soon

2009-07-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for voting for the Choose Your Own Adventure series we started based on the hilarious book "You Are a Miserable Excuse For a Hero" by Bob Powers. The second installment will be coming out soon based on the voting results. Our main hero is currently in Germany, but we've planned to film the 2nd piece as soon as he gets back. Along with the second installment, we've got a much improved voting system that won't require you to email us.

Also, it seems the author of book, Bob Powers, has found us. He was even nice enough to give us a mention on his website bobpowersonline.com . Thanks very much Bob! We love the book. As I learned from Bob's website, the book itself is being transformed to the silver screen by Mandate Pictures. (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118005701.html?categoryid=13&cs=1) It should make a hilarious movie.

Kim Jong is Ill with Cancer

2009-07-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

I was flipping through the newspaper today while eating lunch and way back on the 7th page or so, there's a little blurb (not an article, I mean a blurb) about Kim Jong Il who has recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It would seem like this would be a headline front page story, but it was tucked away in the back of the paper. Strange.

Anyway, pancreatic cancer is life threatening. 20% of people who get it die within one year of discovering it. Less than 5% of people who get it live more than 5 years of discovering it which means the world can expect less than half a decade more of the North Korea dictator.

When I first read about all of this, I was like Hey! That's great. Let's get rid of this guy, but then I realized how scary that whole situation was. With a license to Il, Kim Jong is now a dying man with his finger on a nuclear trigger. Nothing scarier than a powerful man with nothing to lose. I can only hope that if he is to ever attack the US, he'll focus mostly on Matt Stone and Trey Parker (writers/producers of Team American: World Police).

First Draft Movie Quotes

2009-07-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

Twitter has a trend going on right now for the First Draft of Movie Lines or Quotes marked by the hashtag #1stdraftmoviequotes or #1stdraftmovielines. After having a good laugh at several of them, I felt I should chronic-what-cle them for the rest of you to enjoy.
Here's just a few of the good ones. And if you don't like one or two, those are the bad ones I purposely threw in to make sure you were paying attention.

"I'd like to order the thing she ordered which gave her an orgasm." - mindykaling
"Me love you for a good three hours or so" - henpow2nd
"We'll cut off his horse's head and put it in the bed with him" - henpow2nd
"E.T. phone intergalactic space operator." - whitneyd
"Ding dong you crushed an old lady to death. Which old lady? The one under the house." - BenedictReid
"Houton, we're fucked!" - rosenkranzc
"Unfortunately, no one can be told what the matrix is. I'll need a whiteboard." - WChrisLeach
"Khan Noonien Singh you make my so angry I could scream." - awrittenfad
"To put it bluntly, my dear, I don't give a shit." - masonmiller
"Could you tap out that tune on the piano again, Sam?" - dle90742
"These are the droids we're looking for, but I'm tired and this gun's getting heavy. He can go about his business." - Blangadanger
"Toto, I've got a feeling we're having a dream where we're not in Kansas anymore." - Blangadanger
"It's a bird!...It's a plane...It's a, wait, how am I mistaking a man in spandex for a plane?" - Blangadanger
"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore, except on Fridays, because Fridays are nice." - Blangadanger
"Rosebud... My sled, Rosebud!" - robcorddry
"Snakes. I'm glad it had to be snakes because I have no problem with them at all." - robcorddry
"Hold your fire ... there's no life- oh wait, there might be droids on board. Fire away." - courtarro
"We will likely need a larger vessel to catch that shark." - akaOMC
"That is it! I have had it with these darn snakes on this darn plane!." - painhatelove
"Do you expect me to talk?" "Yes, Mr. Bond. I do." - painhatelove
"There's an cellular device application in the iTunes store for that" - painhatelove

You Are A Miserable Excuse For A Hero: "Wake Up, Hero"

2009-07-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

We recently came into possession of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book called "You Are A Miserable Excuse For A Hero". It's definitely got the style of humor similar to Breaking News, President Evil, and some other previous projects of mine, so we decided to bring the Choose Your Own Adventure style to INTERNET!

In chapter one, we find our hero passed out in a daze of shame when he receives a phone call from kidnappers who have taken a girl he just started dating hostage.
Watch the video, then vote for what you'd like our hero to do next by e-mailing ChooseYourEnding@gmail.com with either parents or girlfriend in the subject line. Voting is open through July 12th.

Beat It at the Club All Night Long

2009-07-06T09:19:00.001-07:00

Atlanta's Sutra Lounge is throwing a Michael Jackson party on Friday and I couldn't let the opportunity to make that joke pass me by. They will be playing music by the King of Pop all evening long, so you can finally tell people you Beat It in the middle of a club along with 300 other people all night long.

Hahaha, fantastic masterbation joke. Anyway, I've got a friend promoting the event, so if you live near Atlanta and it sounds appealing to you, let me know and he can put you on the list. Knowing that the music will be Michael Jackson and MJ covers all night long, does actually sound pretty appealing, so I might be there as well.

AT&T applies a $10 monthly recurring charge to American Idol voters

2009-07-02T08:29:00.000-07:00

Got a weird recurring charge on your phone bill for $9.99 a month? Did you vote for American Idol? AT&T is screwing you.

It's not really anything out of the ordinary for AT&T. They are constantly finding themselves the subject of public outrage after pulling this kind of scam. But this time, they went mainstream and started charging people who voted for American Idol (an election that rivals the US Presidential vote in numbers and the Iran Presidential election in shady biased results).

At the end of every show Ryan Seacrest reminds the audience that "Standard Text Messaging Rates Apply" to votes received via text message. When I hear this, I think "yeah, that's cool. I have unlimited free texts" but that's not the case.

Christina writes "I kept getting $9.99 charges for the past 3-4 months. Well this last bill had THREE $9.99 charges on it. I'm getting tired of paying these charges that I have no idea what they are from." After some time, Christina called ATT to inquire about the charges. The rep explained to Christina that after voting for American Idol, the $9.99 monthly service was attached to Christina's account. The bizarre thing is that the subscription doesn't come in as an "American Idol" line item, but goes by unfamiliar names that don't make sense.

But AT&T isn't the only one looking to profit from the American Idol text messaging vote system. Verizon tags a $1 charge to every vote cast towards the hit FOX competition series billing it as a "Premium Text Message". So that teenage daughter that just voted for Adam Lambert 100 times, just flushed a benjamin down the drain.

Neither T-Mobile nor Sprint charge any extra fees on top of regular text messaging rates for the American Idol votes.

Since we're on the subject of text messaging, here's a common myth that is not true:
"If you delete a text message before reading it, you are not billed for it."
I've always heard both that once you receive a text message, you are billed for it as well as the argument that the cell phone company only bills you for it if you open it. I did some research and found that AT&T charges you for the text message as soon as you receive it on your phone, not matter if you delete it immediately or read it. This is straight from att.com's support page.

Q. What messages am I billed for?
A. AT&T bills for all messages whether sent or received, read or unread, solicited or unsolicited. Also, any message sent or received that is longer than 160 characters will be delivered as multiple segments of up to 160 characters each. Each segment is billed as a separate message.

In addition to AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon charge for the incoming text messages as well despite what actions you take after receiving the message on your phone. I wasn't able to find anything on Sprint's website regarding how incoming text's are handled, but I spoke with 2 customer service representatives who both told me if the text is deleted before being opened, the end user will not be charged.

This is a glimpse into how cellular service companies can really push the customer around however they want, and AT&T is perhaps the biggest culprit. With the iPhone on their side, people have no choice but to sign up with the cell phone giant who nearly went bankrupt before Apple came along and saved them. The AT&T iPhone exclusivity contract expires at the end of this year and AT&T is doing everything it can to keep the iPhone from leaving the carrier in the dust. Analyst predict that were Apple to break free from AT&T and stretch across multiple carriers, their profits would continue to soar as its former exclusive carrier would lose a large percentage of its business and iPhone service plans would become much cheaper. #KeepYourFingersCrossed

Unplugged in Peidmont

2009-06-29T11:50:00.001-07:00

Something I've wanted to do for a while (and by a while I mean for the past 8 years or so) is to grab a guitar, maybe some kind of pot or something to drum with, get a couple people together and go to a street corner or park and play a set of about 10 songs or so kind of like a street performer.

At one point I'd had the thought to dress in ratty clothes as if I were homeless or something like that, but I can imagine the legitimate homeless people may have an issue with that. Although, I'd also had the though to put out a tip jar or whatever and donate anything people put in it to a homeless guy.

Anyway, I've decided that since summer is here, I'm gonna do it. I've been toying around with some easy songs that I both enjoy and can play on guitar. I've got about 13 songs together and now I just need some willing volunteers to give it a go with me. I'm definitely no Rex Burk when it comes to guitar but I think I can carry these songs, so if you are interested in flirting with some public performance anxiety, I'm looking at hitting up Peidmont Park or a similar venue sometime in the next month or so.

This list may change, but here's what I've got so far:

"Use Your Love" - The Outfield
"Hey Jealousy" - Gin Blossoms
"Poker Face" - Lady GaGa
"Gives You Hell" - All-American Rejects
"Novacaine" - Green Day
"The Pretender" - Foo Fighters
"Circus" - Britney Spears
"Cry for You" - September
"I Kissed A Girl" - Katy Perry
"Original Prankster" - Foo Fighters
"Hey There Delilah" - Plain White Tees
"Boom Boom Pow" - Black Eyed Peas
"One of the Boys" - Katy Perry
"Live Your Life" - T.I. & Rihanna

So let me know if you are interested. Also, if you know how to play any instrument, that'd be helpful too. I can write out music for pretty much anything. Guitar, flute, french horn, a pair of spoons, anything. We don't really have to be good, it's all just for fun. Leave me a comment if you live in the Atlanta area and are interested.

Fisting Statue of Liberty

2009-06-25T05:37:00.000-07:00

Lately I feel like the Daily Show and the Colbert Report has lost it's flair. I'm not sure if its the new administration in office, or if the show itself has lost the pizazz or maybe it's just me. I did however laugh my ass off during last night's episode, especially Stephen Colbert's mention of the "Fisting Statue of Liberty". You may be asking yourself What is a fisting statue of liberty? and if that's the case, you should probably find out.

The Fisting Statue of Liberty is a key element in the internet labrynth "Not pr0n" available here: http://www.deathball.net/notpron/ . Not pr0n is a multi-leveled puzzle game, in which each step of the puzzle presents the user with a new page in which the user must determine how to get to the next level, whether it is changing the url, putting in a password hidden within the page, playing a sound backwards, or some other sort of computer function. I can't express enough how much fun this game is- especially if you know anything about web design.

Get Ready for Summer Blitz 2009 Field Day!

2009-06-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

The Studio7 Crew is putting together a field day. That's right! 3-Legged Races, Tug-Of-War, Water Balloon Toss, yeah, the good stuff from your child hood! I'm planning everything out now and I want to make sure to be able to include as many people as possible. The more people we have, the more teams I can form and the more competitve it will get. I plan on having teams make flags, and stuff. Hoping everyone will really get into it.

If you're a reader of my blog, then I'd love to have you there.
Follow this link and fill out the survey real quick. It's super brief, just getting scheduling info:

http://www.summerblitz.co.cc/

I'll end the survey in the next day or two, so fill it out as soon as possible so I can get your input!

Summer Blitz 2009

2009-05-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I was reminded of how great life is.

Over Memorial Day Weekend, I got to go camping with some good friends and shared some great memories. We canoed down a creek in Rome, Georgia and it was definitely one of the most exciting canoe trips I've ever had. There was a fallen tree in the middle of the creek that we had to lean back and drift under; at one point, the Mandy (in the canoe in the lead) yelled "Stop! Stop! There's big animals" and we got to canoe passed a head of cows in the creek with us. It rained quite a bit but despite that the trip turned out great. Plus, the Jello Shots were a great success. Jessica planned the entire trip and it turned out incredible!

With a very heavy heart I pleaded with Liane to stay in America another year but it looks like there's not much that can change her upcoming departure. She's been a great friend to both Jessica and myself and we hate to see her go. It's like having a small kitten that you love and then one day when you open the door it runs out into the wild unknown of Germany. Be safe out there, little kitten! Come back soon! We have milk. And also dippin dots ice cream.

I got to share a lovely Memorial Day with Jessica. No matter what challenges we face, we face them together and it makes everything seem alright knowing that I'll always have her by my side. She is a wonderful person and I'm so lucky to have her in my life. We've got an exciting summer ahead of us.

Cancelled TV Shows

2009-05-18T15:16:00.000-07:00

It's that special time of the year that every actor on a Fox show fears as stations announce which shows will not be returning in the Fall. Interestingly Fox got one-upped on their reputation as the trigger happy network by NBC who cut over twice as many shows as Fox this year. The term "cancelled" I use a little lightly, as I know some of the shows listed below (such as "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno") decided to end their series for reasons other than actually be cancelled by the network themselves. Let's take a look at some of the shows we'll be saying good bye to.

FOX
It's always fun to poke fun at the fact that Fox cancels shows prematurely. I think they often find shows with great concepts (such as Reunion - I wish I had seen that before it got cancelled), and sometimes things just don't pan out, it's all a ratings game and Fox is a strict enforcer. Maybe thats why they have the top 2 most watched shows on TV now and often fill up 4 to 5 of the top ten shows in the ratings. I think we can all appreciate that Fox very well knows when it makes a critical mistake and does right to make up for it by bringing back Family Guy. And, if you're still pissed off about FireFly, you got a major movie out of the deal and the show went out on a high note, rather than making Willow a lesbian or killing off a major likeable sidekick character in the first season.

Again, while I don't know the full details on why some of these shows will not be returning, I think it's especially bizarre that both King of the Hill and Prison Break will both not be returning while DollHouse remains on the air. I've seen a couple of episodes of DollHouse and I'm convinced the only reason this show is on the air in the first place is Fox apologizing to Joss Whedon for that whole FireFly fiasco. And from what I've read, that's the only reason it's being kept around. Fox has stated "This is a big bet on Joss Whedon" regarding DollHouse not being cancelled this season.

Mike Judge won't be going home empty handed, as he jumps down the dial to ABC with his new animated show "The Goode Family". And to fill that Animation Domination, the Seth MacFarlane empire continues to expand and cast a shadow over the Simpsons as "The Cleveland Show" premieres next Fall. Matt Groening is probably praying for a Family Guy Resurrection type miracle to happen with Futurama before the Simpsons gets a boot to make way for more MacFarlane voices.

There's a lot I could say about Fox cancelling Prison Break. TV died a little when the cancellation was first announced, but all that can be said is that Prison Break was an incredible show. It captured audiences and ratings for 2 solid and great seasons. It may have been the writers strike short season or the pure nature of a show focused around an event that can only happen so many times, but the show definitely made a mark on those who watched it and pushed the envelope for all shows about prison and evading the law to a new level. R.I.P. Scofield

FOX's Cancelled Shows
Do Not Disturb
Hole in the Wall
King of the Hill
MADtv
Prison Break
Sit Down, Shut Up
TalkShow With Spike Feresten
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

ABC
Oh, ABC. I sometimes wonder if I would ever even flip by your channel if you didn't have LOST. I do know that you have a following with Greys which continues to amaze me everytime I happen to see it and I've heard good things about Pushing Daisies and do like the general concept of the show, but you just seem to not really have anything to offer me other than everyone's favorite mystery show.

I've honestly not heard of most of the shows ABC has decided to cut this season, but I do know that Boston Legal had a good run. Eli Stone seemed to go so young, but there definitely was something missing there. It wasn't a bad show, but there was something missing. Can't put my finger on it. And Pushing Daisies was an innovative and fun concept for a show, I can only hope the network decides to try more ideas like this one and avoid the Cop-Drama fever that CBS has.

ABC's Cancelled Shows
According to Jim
Boston Legal
Dirty Sexy Money
Eli Stone
Homeland Security USA
Life on Mars
Opportunity Knocks
Pushing Daisies

CBSWow. That is a short list of cancelled shows for CBS. I don't really have much to work with there. I haven't seen CSI since Grissom left but hopefully Lawrence Fishburn is filling in nicely. The last time I checked, CBS was still the number one watched network, despite Fox having so many shows in the top 10 for ratings. Keep up the good work CBS.

Special Note: Jerry Bruckheimer produces many many shows on CBS, none of which were cancelled. All hail the Bruck!

CBS's Cancelled Shows
The Ex List
Swingtown

NBCA couple NBC shows, we knew were ending such as ER. If you've watched anything on NBC lately, you can't miss a commercial for "The Final Season of ER" that they've been airing the entire season. It's really unfortunate that creator Michael Criton didn't get to see the show come to an end. Criton was an incredible author and will be missed from the literary, film, and television industry.

Everyone who watched American Gladiators knew it wouldn't last long. After Ninja Warrior began airing on G4TV, it's hard to compare aged people being shot by nerf guns. I could have guessed My Own Worst Enemy would be cancelled by watching the previews for it. I think the only shocker from the NBC cancel list is Life. I have a couple of friends who speak highly of it, but maybe America is finally getting tired of Cop Dramas.

NBC's Cancelled Shows
America's Toughest Jobs
American Gladiators
The Baby Borrowers
Celebrity Circus
Celebrity Family Feud
The Chopping Block
Crusoe
ER
Fear Itself
Last Comic Standing
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Life
Lipstick Jungle
Momma's Boys
Most Outrageous Moments
My Own Worst Enemy
Nashville Star
The Tonight Show With Jay Leno

Non-NetworkIt is amazing Mind of Mencia is just now being cancelled and wasn't cancelled right in the middle of its second episode.

Never seen either but still surprised to see The L Word and The Shield on the list. Wondering if, like Battlestar Galactica, they just decided it's time to end it before we go downhill.

Guess its safe to say neither Will nor Grace will have much luck outside of their token roles, as both of their new series have been cancelled (The Starter Wife, Trust Me)

The Suite Life of Zack and Cody was actually a pretty watchable show for the Disney Channel, but I imagine you can only have a show like that for so long til the kids are too old for it. I'm sure Ashley Tisdale has better things to do now anyways.

And TRL has been cancelled. The one show on MTV that still showed music videos (or at least partial clips of them). The Carson Daly legacy is dead.

Non-Network Cancelled Shows
13 - Fear Is Real
4REAL
Battlestar Galactica
Charlie Jade
Chocolate News
D.L. Hughley Breaks the News
Easy Money
Flip That House
Frank TV
In Harm's Way
Kyle XY
Mind of Mencia
Roommates
Stargate Atlantis
Stylista
The Emperor's New School
The L Word
The Middleman
The Shield
The Starter Wife
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
Trading Spaces
TRL (Total Request Live)
Trust Me
Valentine

But with every show cancelled, a new time slot is open and a whole new batch of new shows will soon be hitting the air. Keep your fingers crossed that we continue to see more scripted shows and less reality television.

Oh That Kristina... (Vol. 2 "The Nail Polish Incident")

2009-05-15T13:05:00.000-07:00

Click the picture to enlarge

When my family first moved into a new house, my mom caught my sister painting her nails on the carpet several times. She would always warn her not to have the nail polish in the living room and time after time my sister would still do it, just when my mom wasn't around.

One day, Kristina was painting her toe nails while home alone when she spilled the nail polish at the tip of her leg stretched out towards the television. She slightly panicked just in time to hear the door open as my mom arrived home from work.

"Hey, Kristina, I'm home."
My mom announced herself as my sister quickly sat down on the nail polish stain, not but two feet from the television set.

"Why are you sitting so close to the TV?"
my mom inquired as she walked into the room.

Searching for a good excuse, my sister arrived at
"Oh ... Just stretching."

As these comics have no legs, I found it easier to go with the "I need glasses" angle. One quick tip, if you or your sister or daughter or an au pair ever spills nail polish on the carpet, Nail Polish Remover works wonders! (Seems so simple, doesn't it?)

Oh That Kristina... (Vol. 1 "The Chalk Incident")

2009-05-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

Click the picture to enlarge

Once my sister was drawing her name on our basement walls with Chalk.
All over the basement "K R I S T I N A".
In cursive.
In print.
In all caps.
Etc.

My mom came down the stairs to find her up to no good and shouted,
"Kristina! What are you doing? Your dad is going to be so mad!"

Startled, yet still thinking on her feet, my sister quickly came up with a plan.
She looked innocently at my mom and responded,
"Don't tell him who did it"

My Generation in 140 Characters or Less

2009-05-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

I recently saw Watchmen (a little late, I know, but hell, it was only 75 cents) and I have got to say I was bored out of my mind for nearly the entire movie. I made some observations about not just Watchmen, but the the entire movies, television and video industry in general. When I was younger, I used to cling onto every minute of a movie and feel disappointed when the end credits started rolling. Yet lately, I find myself constantly wondering "How much longer is this going to take?". In fact, there aren't many movies I have seen in the past year that I didn't think could have been trimmed down a little. I would wonder is this just something that comes with age, but my parents don't seem share the same feelings. What seperates my recent lack of attention span from their own?It's not just movies. I constantly find myself sitting through television shows wishing Tivo had the ability to speed it up, maybe just 20 percent faster, or god forbid, the crew cut out some unnecessary parts and just fill in the rest of the time slot with commercials or something. Nothing annoys me more than a lingering pace, much like the one I saw in the nearly 3 hour Watchmen - much of which could have been pushed into a montage or the opening credits (much like Wolverine's opening credits - Perfect!). Even YouTube videos that exceed about a 7 minutes mark tend to have me moving on to the Related Videos or More from this User panel.

Not until I started going to bed last did I find a possible answer as to what has triggered this Video-A.D.D. I've acquired as I started watching [adultswim]. A large majority of this station's programming is fulfilled with a collection of scenes no longer than two minutes each. In fact, some of their shows are barely over 10 minutes total running time such as Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Frisky Dingo to name some of my favorites. Even the flagship of the station, Family Guy cuts up its scenes and kicks the pacing into 5th gear by splicing flash backs and reference videos about every other minutes or so. And Robot Chicken, well, that's the pot of gold for people like me. Was that sketch funny? Doesn't matter, it was only 5 seconds long. On to the next one!

[adult swim] is not alone in fueling this condition. YouTube plays probably just as big of a role in my developing habit. With the information super highway at my fingertip, I'm not shooting through videos like fruit at the grocery store. If it doesn't grab my attention within the first 10 seconds, I skip to the middle. If nothing interesting is happening at the random point I drop my mouse, so much for that video and on to the next.

And how about that Smart Phone? It doesn't matter if you have an iPhone or a BlackBerry, not matter what you cannot stand in a line alone anymore without playing with it. Facebook, Twitter, Chat, Email, the World Wide Web available anywhere in the world. I don't even need a newspaper anymore, I can get everything I need from this little 4 oz computer that I carry with me at all times, not to mention, most of the headlines have to grab my attention in 140 characters or less.

If you haven't lost interest in reading this blog yet, then chances are you've got a longer attention span than myself. Let me know what your thoughts on it.

IE (vs) FireFox: A New Leader Emerges

2009-05-12T05:44:00.000-07:00

For the past 7 years, W3Schools.com has been keeping track of what internet browsers are most commonly used, what screen resolution is at, what operating systems are being run, etc. I checked in on them this past week to find that Internet Explorer is no longer the most commonly used browser (as of Jan '09). After more than a decade of being the leader in internet browsing technology, IE has about 5% less users than Fire Fox. In fact, in looking through FireFox's history, it's done nothing but grown in popularity, except during the release of Google Chrome (which I've not heard great things about, but with a name like Google backing it, I'm sure it will come around soon enough).

There have been two guiding factors behind Internet Explorer's success:
1) It comes pre-installed on your computer.
2) Because it was the leading browser, all developers code for Internet Explorer.

Having it pre-installed on my computer and not having to go download yet another piece of software was what primarily attracted me to Internet Explorer, but I noticed on my new computer at work that it now came both equipped with both IE and FireFox. This could be related to FireFox's recent success in over taking the leading browser spot. It's also got the underdog spirit with it. You'll find a lot of people in the IT industry that claim FireFox is superior simply because it's not made by MicroSoft (whether or not FF > IE). When I meet an IT guy who starts bashing MicroSoft, it's always a turn off, but then again this is probably all better saved for another blog.

Despite having FireFox already installed on my new work computer, I've continued to use IE since it was the leading web browser. In my web development work, it's imperative to write sites for the end user, and while I want to make sure people using FireFox is covered, Internet Explorer was always the highest priority, as it had over 18% more users last year.

But now everything has been changed. With FireFox now being the most common used browser on the market, I'm now getting used to using it for everything. I've noticed that they have improved a lot since their former versions. It doesn't seem to have an issue with javascript anymore. It also tends to load a lot faster initially, but then when I attempt to go to the first site of my session, it takes a little longer than IE. And of course, I've been to several sites where the CSS doesn't quite work all the way; Internet Explorer and FireFox sometimes have different terms for style sheets and some developers don't check their sites with both browsers.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the Google Chrome browser. They talked a big game while it was in production, but it's not had the successful launch it planned for. But, I've rarely come across a piece of Google technology, that in time didn't impress me.

Review of X-Men: Wolverine

2009-05-04T06:21:00.000-07:00

I wanted to wait a while and let everything sink in before diving into a little review of the new X-Men movie Wolverine. To start off, I should say that this was my least favorite of the X-men series, but I still enjoyed it. It will be very difficult for any X-Men movie to ever top X2, and I knew that going into Wolverine. I should also mention that Wolverine has never been one of my favorite characters in the comics/cartoon. I think Hugh Jackman does a great job with him, but I just don't really care for the character himself.

When I first saw the preview, I was excited to finally see Gambit in the movies! Gambit has always been my favorite X-men character and it's good to see him get some screen time, after he was written out of X2. It's difficult to say they did him justice because he was only in the movie for maybe 5 minutes of running time, but those 5 minutes were fantastic. I could have used a little more cajun accent out of him, but I'll have to let it slide, because he did at one point use the poker cards as a weapon and I may have yelled "squeeee!" in the theatre at that point. (P.S. You can see poker superstar Daniel Negreanu playing poker with Gambit in one scene)

If you watched the trailer and thought to yourself, "Oh Snap! I finally get to see ______" (Insert any character you saw in the preview besides Wolverine and Sabertooth here), then you'll be mildly disappointed. Most characters don't show up on screen for long, but I guess this is a Wolverine movie, not an X-men movie. Bolt, Blob, Deadpool, Emma Frost, etc etc - None are on screen for a significant amount of time. One cool thing is that there is a lot of talk circulating a Deadpool movie starring Ryan Reynolds. He was great in Wolverine and I really wish we could have seen him more.

The two characters I really could have used less of was John Wraith played by Will.I.Am and Stryker. Wow, I never expected Will.I.Am to be such an awful actor. I couldn't wait for him to get killed or fall down a hole or decide to move to the wilderness of Canada to be alone with himself and spare us all. Danny Huston had one of the most difficult jobs in this movie, playing up to Brian Cox's role in the 2003 movie X2. Brian Cox was incredible and Danny Huston just didn't have that same appeal. Since we're comparing anyways, there is a certain magic that Brian Singer brought to the first 2 X-Men movies, whereas somewhat new director Gavin Hood just didn't have the touch.

As far as the plot, as a whole, this just seemed like a bunch of action sequences thrown together with a shot or two of Hugh Jackman naked thrown in for the female audience. They make a small attempt at a story of love and loss with Wolverine, but it is pretty weak compared to the tragedy of Jean Gray and Cyclops in the previous movies. However, I guess its not fair to compare this movies to its predecessors. For an action movie, it did a great job of keeping me entertained. I never once thought, when is this movie going to be over and with the ADD I've been cultivating with YouTube videos lately, that's really saying something. I'm glad I got to see this one in theatres. May is going to be a really good month for Hollywood with Wolverine, Angels & Demons, Star Trek, and Terminator Salvation. I'd put my money on Star Trek to be the movie of the summer.

President Evil: The Web Series

2009-04-23T07:55:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know that last November Adam, Jessica, Holden and I attempted to revive the President Evil concept that Jay and I made in college. We filmed three episodes and then Adam moved to Dubai, but he came back and we finally got episodes 2 and 3 off his computer.

President Evil is a web series about a zombie that becomes President and two men who find it their duty to kill the new leader of the free world, President Grogg.

The idea began in 2004 during the George Bush / John Kerry election season. "President Evil: The Beginning" was entered into the Mercer University Halloween Film Festival and won 1st place. Heroes Chip and Jim feel their patriotic duty to slay this surprisingly effective new President to save mankind from zombie...kind

Four years later, while Obama and McCain led campaigns, a new set of heroes found themselves fighting against the zombie executive branch after a re-election keeps President Grogg in office. After saving the economy, balancing the nation budget, mending foreign affairs, and saving the country, President Grogg is still just a zombie to Nick and Mack who are fed up with brains on their pizza in "President Evil: Re-Election Day".

Nick and Mack hit the road bound for Washington DC and with a little help from their friends, they aim to take down the zombie empire with guns blazing.

Episode 1: "Re-Election Day"

Episode 2: "Campaign Strategies"

Episode 3: "Right To Bear Arms"

And, in case you've never seen the original one that Jay and I made in 2004, here it is. As a fair warning, we only had one night to write, film, and edit it. Plus, it ran longer than expected, so we had to cut it short (film festival had a 6 minute limit)

Episode 0: "The Beginning"

The Pirate Bay takes on a Ship Load of Damage

2009-04-17T11:03:00.001-07:00

If you have never been to The Pirate Bay website, it's essentially the Napster of the late '00s. Rather than download a program that lets you search for peers with mp3s, The Pirate Bay is a website that allows users to post links to bittorrent files. The bittorrent files are then used in a bittorrent client which uses the file to find users sharing the file you are trying to download.

After a legal battle, The Pirate Bay founders were each sentenced to one year in prison and an alltogether fine of $3.6 million (yowsers!). They were originally charged with "assisting copyright infringement" which was dropped; but were convicted on "assisting making available copyrighted material".

It sounds as if they made up that charge to fit exactly what they were doing. I do agree that they did break that law, if it is in fact a law. I always enjoy seeing the progress of internet law as the internet seems to move much faster than lawmakers can keep up with, but it seems like this time the law won. As we move farther and farther away from cds and dvds and more into pure software, I think we'll see more agressive action on the music, movie, and gaming industry's part to eliminate warez (pirating).

Blockbuster and Netflix both offer forms of watching movies directly over the internet and most television stations have now posted their show episodes online. It's only a short time before Blockbuster ends up having to shut it's stores down and netflix stops mailing you DVDs. I imagine within the next 5 years, we'll see the beginning of the collapse of cable and satellite television. Everything will be streamed via the internet to a small computer hooked up to your TV or straight to your hand held devices. And as history has shown us, the less hardware, the lower cost of pirating.

Obama Sends a Firm Message with New High Speed Rail Line

2009-04-16T14:37:00.000-07:00

President Obama has been supporting this new high speed rail line, or so the headlines would leave me to believe. Despite the title of this post and the associated picture, I am actually quite excited about this. The sooner we can rely less on oil, and cars in general, the better. I am all for public mass transportation. I wish Atlanta had a better public transportation system. For those of you non-Atliens, we have Marta which makes a plus through Atlanta, one line going north and south, and one line going east and west. It's great if you want to go to somewhere on the plus, but otherwise, you're up shit creek (which is also 7 blocks away from Marta).

This new high speed rail line gives a lot of potential to lower travel costs, I imagine it will also bring down the cost of airline tickets. When I first read about the project, I got very excited at the possibility of having a high speed rail line straight from Atlanta to Vegas, or at least maybe Los Angeles. Unfortunately, I won't be making the cross country journey via train, as the tracks don't go anywhere near the mid west. It's great if I chose to take a trip up to Washington DC, but the map is set to for the most part keep me on this side of the mississippi. It's as if the people who designed MARTA were asked to make a train system that made it easier to travel around the country.

It really does nothing for the West coast. I suppose it lightens up traffic on I-5 a little. The entire Mid-West is omitted from the track, though I imagine - I hope - the plan is to eventually connect all of the lines. There are even plans to hit two canadian cities, yet none to bridge the East and West sides of America. This is why we have such strong tensions between gangs on opposing sides of the country.

I'm sure there were several considerations taken, but I would have foreseen something more along the lines of this (Ignore the circles and highlighted Oklahoma). This plan hits the biggest cities in America as well as sweep into several of the other high travel cities that are in path along the lines between the large cities. This also hits most of the major airline hub cities (which I'm sure is part of the reason Obama's map doesn't look like this).

Cities this map covers:

Miami
Atlanta
Nashville
Washington DC
Houston
New York
Boston
Detroit
Chicago
Kansas City
Oklahoma City
Dallas
Denver
Salt Lake City
Seattle
San Francisco
Albaquerque
Pheonix
Los Angeles
(After drawing the map, I realize I should have maybe included New Orleans btw Atlanta and Houston)

Some much to do! So little time!

2009-04-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

Feels like I have so much I want to do with so little time. Here's a list of thing I hope to do within the next 2 months before I go to China. These are not necessarily in any particular order.

Complete current big web development project (est. 2-3 more weeks)

Learn how to program iPhone applications

Get a band together for May 9th "Fame" party and learn 20-30 songs

Finish putting together ADL Directory site and start marketing it.

Finish filming Ting Ting's "Thats not My Name" music video and edit it.

Bang out a solid script for President Evil series / movie.

Come up with a new name for President Evil series / movie (the PE name is flooded on youtube)

Finish at least half of the BNS2 novel.

Finish planning Deuces Wild Vegas Trip

I might just cut out sleep for the next 2 months, that should help me get more of these things accomplished. I would estimate that within the next 60 days, I should be able to cap off at least half, if not 3/4 of these To-DO items.

Funny License Plates

2009-04-09T07:08:00.001-07:00

Found a bunch of funny license plates online at various sites. I couldn't upload them to blogger for some reason, so they may take a while to load as they are all coming from their original hosting sites. For that same reason, some may not load at all if the original publisher changes the link or removes them.

Honing in on a Music Video concept for this weekend

2009-03-31T14:08:00.001-07:00

First I'd like to thank everyone who voted on the poll or expressed your preferences to me in one form or another for the upcoming music video shoot this weekend. As we are drawing closer to the call time, I've been working on getting a script together / picking a song to use.

Oddly enough, I'm now drawn to a song that wasn't even in the voting. It's called "That's Not My Name" by a band called "The Ting Tings". It's a fun goofy song that's got a good beat. The concept will be centered around a softball field, which is perfect for Saturday. We can shoot the video, then play dodgeball. Perfect sunny afternoon.

In addition, we can film a "How To Play Dodgeball" video for our new and future players. Not 100% on the "That's Not My Name" video yet, but it's the only one I've got an idea for and I'd really like to email the plot to my dodgeball peeps and start casting for the vid by tomorrow night (wednesday night). Adam's working on some of his own ideas as well. Might be able to film two videos this weekend. w00t!

Process Release Party at Standard (Buckhead)

2009-03-28T15:47:00.000-07:00

Adam and I produced this short video after attending the Process Release Party at Standard in Buckhead. If you're into boutiques, they've got some neat stuff. Not really my style, but Adam loves them.

Music Video Poll - What Video Should We Make?

2009-03-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

Getting back into video production and what better way to relight the fire than with a music video. I have a bunch of ideas for videos, but I thought, why not get you all involved as many of you will probably be the cast and crew of the video. Select one of the songs below that you'd prefer to make a video for. Also, feel free to leave a comment explaining why. Or if you like several of the options, leave a comment. You don't have to sign in, just leave it anonymous, but leave your name in it so I know who you are :)

What Music Video Should We Make?
	"Born For This" - Paramore
	"If You Seek Amy" - Britney Spears
	"Waking Up In Vegas" - Katy Perry
	"Human After All (Deranged Remix)" - Daft Punk
	"Ice Ice Baby (Dance Remix)" - Vanilla Ice
	"Rock Star" - Hannah Montana
	(Song To Be Determined) - Rammstein
	"Rock Star (Blue Crush Remix)" - N.E.R.D.
	"Faster Kill Pussycat" - Paul Oakenfold
	"Hammerhead" - The Offspring

= see results =

Adam found most of these on Songza.com;
Paramore - http://songza.com/z/wpfflv
Britney - http://songza.com/z/y3zvqv
Katy Perry - http://songza.com/z/eq09lp
Hannah Montana - http://songza.com/z/lz3dp3
NERD regular version, not blue crush:( - http://songza.com/z/h0jkls
Couldn't find the others, but they exist.

A Rebuttal to Time Traveling to the Future

2009-03-26T08:01:00.000-07:00

This is a rebuttal to Titus' post regarding time travel and the benefits of traveling into the future. The original post can be seen here: http://flyasakite.blogspot.com/2009/03/time-travel-is-future.html

Per Holden's Back To The Future 2 theory, he suggested that time traveling to the past is boring/useless. Read his whole argument for a better idea of his theory. While Holden made several great points, after thinking about it, I've come up with some thoughts opposed to only time traveling to the future.

Time Traveling into the future would only be profitable if you could go back to your original time. Marty McFly had the delorean which was able to carry him back to 1985, but what if this jump was only a one time event. In such a case, going into the future may be unwise.

To begin with, there's the obvious plot that Blast From The Past, Encino Man, and Brenden Frasier in general has taught us. You will be uneducated about the world events that have occured since you time traveled. You would just be that guy who knows the same thing as old people do. Go on and on about how in his day, facebook and google ruled the world.

But maybe you decided to go far into the future, after laptops and desktop computers had gone the way of the dinosaur and cellphones were now old technology where everyone gets everything you need is in a chip implanted in you (Mulder was right). Man continues to evolve and get smarter with every jump. But you're still set in your old ways, now having to catch up to the faster world.

With out that delorean, you won't winning any horse races. The only way to use time traveled knowledge to make the dough is to travel back to 2004 and bet a hard eight when you know its coming, bet on the RedSox to win the World Series, and 4 8 15 16 23 42 to win the lottery. Maybe while you're in 2004, start up a website called Twitter and make even more bank. Oh and do us a favor and tell congress that GM, Ford, Chrysler, and AIG will sqwander any money they give them, and you should know, you're from the future.

The Veronicas at Six Flags Over Georgia?

2009-03-26T07:34:00.000-07:00

Just heard some super exciting news through the grape vine. The Veronicas may be booked for a concert at Six Flags Over Georgia in the late summer! It's down to either Lady GaGa, Veronicas, or Brandy. (I know right? Brandy? Who is that? What year is it?).

The Veronicas are not extremely well known but they are definitely my favorite band of 2008 and thus far 2009. I'm torn as to whether I really want them to catch on just yet. I need to use a lot of their stuff for Breaking News: Channel 2. If they are already big stars by then, it will just be lame.

If you haven't heard of The Veronicas, you should definitely check them out. Look up these songs:
- Untouched
- 4ever
- Hook Me Up
- Everything I'm Not
- Revolution
- Revenge Is Sweeter Than You Ever Were

Also, if you've ever heard of Everlife, then you probably know the song "I Could Get Used To This". That was originally released by The Veronicas in 2005. Nearly the entire "Hook Me Up" CD was solid gold. Check them out. Let me know what you think.

Horse Racing and Speaking German

2009-03-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend in South Carolina betting on horses and learning German. I won $3 (balla!) at SteepleChase during an afternoon of hanging out with friends, drinking, playing beer pong, and watching horses race around the tracks while dressed up like the Great Gatsby. Going into with low expectations, I was really impressed with how much fun I had. While one of the horses I bet on won, another didn't even finish the race. I was wondering where it went and a few seconds later we heard the announcer call over the intercom, "Horse Ambulance to the track. Horse Ambulance to the track."

The word "Horse Ambulance" is code for "Truck to ship horse to glue factory".

On the way to and back from South Carolina, we watch movies and I inquired as to what all my favorite Rammstein songs where actually about with some new friends from Germany. I learned several new phrases that should be fun to put use to:

"Mutter" - Mother
"Benzin" - Gasoline
"Buck Dich" - Bend Over (typically said to a girl before mounting)
"Keine Lust" - Not tonight, I have a headache
"Mein Herz Brennt" - My heart burns
"Ich Will" - I want
"Du riechst so gut" - You smell so good
"Links 2 3 4" - Left 2 3 4 (as in a military march)
"Zwitter" - Hermaphrodite (this one was a lot of fun hearing the girls explain what it means)
"Tier" - Animal
"Spieluhr" - Music Box
"Seemann" - Sailor (a lot of confusion while they were explaining this one. I believe the phrase "Oh, I love seemann" was the highlight of the explanation)
"Rosenrot" - Rose color
"Feuer Frei!" - Fire away!
"Sonne" - Sun

Now I need a russian friend to explain to me what all these t.A.T.u songs mean.

No Dice on No Doubt

2009-03-16T07:09:00.000-07:00

As it turns out, I will be out of town during the concert I was most looking forward to this Summer (No Doubt and Paramore). It's The Veronicas all over again, haha. At least I haven't bought the tickets before discovering I'll be out of town.

The good news is, I seem to have attracted enough interest for Lady GaGa and Katy Perry. Fall Out Boy is still on the maybe list.

Lady GaGa: April 9th @ 9:00 (Center Stage)
$20 - Currently Sold Out (of course)
Going to still see if I can get any of these tickets.

Katy Perry: April 15th @ 7:30 (Center Stage)
$18 - Also Sold Out ... Awesome
Workin on this one too

#FAIL

Hopefully more concerts will pop up further in the summer. Maybe I'll get really lucky and Evanescence, Green Day, The Offspring or The Veronicas will schedule a tour through the ATL.

Atlanta Concerts

2009-03-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

My goal for the summer is to hit at least 3 big concerts. I've hit kind of a weird wall over the past 3 years where either I don't buy tickets to a concert until a week before the show and end up not getting tickets or I get tickets and then for some reason can't go. I've missed The Veronicas three times now because I've had to travel during their concert in Atlanta and ended up just throwing the tickets away.

So, I decided to take the law of nature into my own hands and plot out a plan. Below I've listed several Atlanta concerts this summer. If you'd like to go to any of them, let me know and we can grab tickets:

Lady GaGa - April 9th ($20)
Katy Perry - April 15th ($18)
Fall Out Boy - April 23rd (?)
No Doubt / Paramore - June 5th ($10)

(MORE TO COME)

Girls Aloud

2009-03-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

Thought I might share little known music group (at least in the US) with all you drunk internet surfers who somehow stumbled across my blog at 4 am at night. (I recently got a traffic analyzer and my key demographic seems to be people hitting the site between 1-4 am and surprisingly a couple hits from Guam).

Girls Aloud is a pop group from britain, very much in the Spice Girls fashion. As it turns out, they've been around for about 7 years and were a pretty big hit in England despite their speech impediments (british accents). They were formed on a television program similar to American Idol. They've got 8 CDs and 7 DVDs. To highlight some of their hits, I've found a great megamix that presents a lot of their big hits:

After they released the megamix above, Girls Aloud had another CD come out that has this great song called "Sexy No No No" on it. I really love this music video , got kind of a Marilyn Manson meets September vibe to it. If you don't know who September is, don't worry, that'll be a post for another day. Here's Girls Aloud's "Sexy No No No":

My Future Home

2009-03-10T19:37:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some research on Michael Vick's old Mansion. It is required to capitalize the word Mansion when referring to this house because it is grande!

They recent had an auction for the house with a minimum bid of 3.2 Million Dollars. Neither of the two attending parties bid the minimum; therefore the house did not sell and word on the street is that the bank will lower the price to 3 Million before foreclosing on the house.

This house has 8 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, and tons of extra rooms such as a library, game room, billiards room, lake side patios, porches, and balconies. It is incredible!

I got excited and called up Adam to see if I could get a mortgage loan for 3Mil. He was optimistic about it, hell- the mortgage industry isn't one to turn someone away from getting a mortgage they don't need.

Well, a little more research with a mortgage calculator showed me that I'd be paying 21K a month under a 30 year mortgage. Twenty-One Thousand Dollars a Month. That means, after calculating what I can only imagine the utilities and taxes will be, I'm looking for 7 roommates willing to pay $3,000 a month for rent to live in Michael Vick's ex-Castle.

::Sigh::

The dream is dead. Until the house goes into foreclosure, and gets as low as a $1 Million price tag, I won't be buying the Mansion. But just in case a couple of you have an extra 3K every month burning a whole in your pocket, here's some eye candy for what could be yours:

Watchmen and Free Movie Tickets

2009-03-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

Going to see Watchmen tomorrow and I am superstoked despite all the bad reviews I've heard from a lot of friends. I'll post my own review after seeing the film, but I'm glad that some of the momentum of the previews has been extinguished so to lower my expectations of the movie.

Speaking of movies, I've got a pair of free movie tickets for a pre-screening tomorrow at Parkway Pointe at 7:00 PM. The movie is Race to Witch Mountain. Let me know if you're interested. You'll need to be there at least 30 minutes before the movie starts. Leave me a comment if you are interested.

Oh, and good news about the web development side projects. The DUI lawyer emailed me tonight saying he is satisfied with the site and we are going live tomorrow morning. I'll post a link after it's live. If you end up with a DUI in Kansas, this guy is your man.

Finishing side projects just in time for Dodgeball

2009-03-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

We started Dodgeball up again this weekend and I am sore all over. The warm weather comes at a great time as I am finalizing my biggest side project this week. I have a meeting tomorrow at which I collect a nice check (all of which will be going to the mortgage payment - trying to pay off as much of the mortgage as I can now to make the interest take as low of a toll as possible). Sadly, I still haven't gotten paid for the DUI lawyer website. I'm not sure what is holding us up now, but as soon as I get the check, we'll be going live with it. I also started another small Atlanta DUI Lawyer project that will be ready by the end of the week as well.

With all of these projects coming to an end, I'm going to have plenty of free time for Dodgeball and I'll be picking up a couple more side projects as well, including some video projects. Speaking of which, be on the lookout for 2 new President Evil videos coming to YouTube soon (I'll post them on here as well).

Britney Spears Circus Tour in Atlanta

2009-03-06T09:00:00.001-08:00

Was anyone who reads this lucky enough to see Britney in concert in Atlanta last night? I'm so mad that I didn't get tickets when they first went on sale. I found a great deal- $28 for Britney tickets, So stupid to have not jumped on that! Two weeks ago, I finally decided that I wanted to go. The only law abiding tickets I could find were $575 each. For the first time, I made a commitment to trying to win tickets from the radio, which of course was a bust.

When she made her first come back attempt in Spring 2006 with the secret concerts, I was actually lucky enough to be in San Diego where the first two occured. I heard about the first one the day after it happened, so I visited the gas lamp district and looked for tickets to her second show that night under the same fake name as the first. Tickets had skyrocketed from $15 to $200 for the cheapest. I found out later that tickets got as high as $700 right before the concert for a 20 minute show.

As it turns out, I ended up getting really sick last night anyways, so I guess its for the best I didn't get BritTix.

As a general poll, does anyone ever really win anything off the radio?

Goin Places!

2009-03-04T13:29:00.000-08:00

They say "Jed move to california, it's the place you oughta be!" A quick shout out to three friends who are doing great out in the California, official state of movie magic and wildfires.

Liz is on IMDb:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2774639/
(Speaking of Liz, you can now find her here on BlogSpot at http://melizabethhughes.blogspot.com/)
Liz has done an incredible job producing movies, web series, even reality shows for E!! (The first exclamation point is part of the channel name, the second is for excitement) You'll be seeing her name next to Jerry Bruckheimer's in no time!

Kevin is a Lawyer - WTF?!
For those of you who know Kevin Thomas from my childhood (and that's not likely many of you), you'll be very surprised to know that Kevin is now a lawyer out in LA. I'll hold my judgement on a lot of it, but it's good to see that Kev is now on the opposite side of the court room.

Baron plays with PlayStation all day at Work
Baron moved out to Cali earlier this year for an amazing opportunity. He designs this: http://playstation.com/ - I actually can't see what it looks like right now, because work has blocked nearly every site on the internet, but from what it looked like a couple days ago, this site is amazing! All done in .NET also - Word to MSoft.

I still plan on moving out to California one day. Hopefully soon. I can sell my house starting in October, but we'll have to see what the real estate market looks like then. Also, I've got a pretty great job right now, so that will be a factor as well.

Excitement at the Office

2009-03-03T13:06:00.001-08:00

Today this guy came into the office and tried stealing some stuff. One of my employees was cool enough to question him when he walked by an office and saw the guy under a desk. He asked the guy what he was doing and suddenly the guy took off running outside. My employee ran to our Operations VP's office and told him about it. The thief had already gotten to his car and was speeding in reverse out of the complex parking lot, so not to show his license plate. Our VP was running him down on foot- this guy should be an olympic sprinter. Sadly, he couldn't beat the car's engine. But some guys from our customer service team were already in their car hot on the trail. They followed him towards the highway, but the guy was slick enough to evade their car in the lunch time traffic. As it turns out the guy stole one blackberry phone box. He'll be upset to find out later that the phone in the box is actually a plastic model for tradeshows, and virtually worthless. Needless to say, they've already started beefing up security. Exciting day at the office!

The Beauty of the Halo Soundtrack

2009-02-27T06:05:00.000-08:00

Jessica and I were playing a game last weekend where I'd play a song from an old movie or video game and she'd try to guess the source. Having not grown up in America, it's got an extra challenge in that most of these games and older movies, she's never seen, so instead she would describe the atmosphere she perceives from the song.

I'd play the Spiderman movie theme by Danny Elfman and she'd explain the violins sound like someone flying through the air and the robotic percussion sounds something like a bugs, usually arriving at something that fits the movie the song is on the soundtrack for.

When we got to the Halo theme, it really made me appreciate the soundtrack of the game. There are basically two competing forces in the theme song. The first and most prevalent is the low strings- what everyone would sing if you asked them to hum the halo theme. Dun dun dun daaaaaah, dun dun dun daaaahhh, dun dun dun daaaaaa, dun dun dun dah dun dun dun dah dah dah. It's a very military style of music. Really gives you the image of troops gearing up and running into battle. The second element of the song is the tribal percussion. With several repeated hits on the uh of 4 and the down beat of 1 "Bah-bum", it makes me imagine something like a mayan tribe around a fire getting pumped up to fight off whoever it was the mayans fought with. You put the two together in the song and you've got the Earth dwelling troops vs the alien tribe dancing on the battlefield.

My Entourage

2009-02-25T09:28:00.000-08:00

A quick shout out to my entourage! Adam has two blogs now, one for his personal day to day ramblings about video games and another about his life as a mortgage broker. Josh Brown has created a blog as well, which I think we can all predict will be about fast cars and girls who have wronged him.

Adam:
Fly As A Kite (http://flyasakite.blogspot.com/)
Get Me a Mortgage (http://getmeamortgage.blogspot.com/)

Josh:
Rock Hand (http://rockhand.blogspot.com/)

Good Flight Deals to Las Vegas

2009-02-22T12:33:00.000-08:00

I'm getting a guys trip together for Las Vegas in early to mid May. I've been scouting the internet for cheap flights and the cheapest I've found is in the area of $329. It's on Delta and would get us out there around 8:30 PM on Friday, and we'd leave around 11 pm flying back into Atlanta around 5:30 AM.

I saw some great flight deals around thanksgiving and christmas for the area of $120 for flight and hotel via US Airways. If anyone has good cheap flight finding methods, let me know. Or if you see any good cheap flights going out to Las Vegas from Atlanta.

Pain Hate Love Blender Trailer

2009-02-20T16:24:00.000-08:00

Jessica, Adam, Holden and I started a band called Pain Hate Love Blender. To be fair, Jay Owens coined the name about 3 years ago when it was Jay, Holden, Nathan, and myself. I'll never forget the night he gave the only copy of our album to a waitress at Chili's trying to score.

Anywho, as a way of promoting the new band, we are starring in a Disney movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Michael Bay.

Check out the trailer: