Category: Personal
Stuff about me or my family.
Indian Traffic is Amazing
I spent much of December in Southern India for business. I was awash in culture and history yet the most amazing thing I experienced the entire time was the traffic. It’s impossible to accurately describe the semi-organized mayhem, the constant multiaxial motion and the utter and complete lack of fucks-given. Here’s a 10 minute video that’s a pale, sad shadow of what I experienced:
Our First Ball of Picture!
Several years ago we supported an odd little Indiegogo project: the Panono 360° Camera. The group has worked doggedly since to produce the device and strengthen their company. It’s been a long, sometimes frustrating road, but the camera arrived today and some things are worth waiting for! Here’s our first shot:
No, the subject matter isn’t particularly impressive, but the technology definitely is. The camera, about the size of a softball, packs in 36 cameras for a total resolution of 108 megapixels. The images are uploaded to a cloud service where they’re stitched and made available for sharing.
Expect a full review soon! I’ll be visiting Southern India in December, I expect the unit to get quite a workout!
Extra Life 2016 Marathon: Wrap up!
Our Extra-Life 2016 Marathon is over! All told, with various breaks for jobs, prior engagements and at least one scheduled SAT exam, we had involvement from nearly twenty people and raised $873.55 to help sick kids!
Although the marathon is over, you can still donate, if you like! Please click on a team member to do so!
This year was more subdued than previous years, yet still a blast.
- One of our team members did a complete run of the utterly Japanese “Robo-Chibi” on the GameCube.
- The roll-heavy “Dicecapades” was a hit in the wee hours of the morning.
- Our last-minute annex of the garage gave us some breathing room.
- Studying.
- Dawn breaking through the window.
- At the end, we only had a handful of survivors, all muddling through rounds of the classic “Buzz!: Quiz TV” on the PS3.
We want to thank everybody that helped with this and hope to see them all next year!
Extra Life 2016 Marathon
We’re about four hours into our Extra-Life 2016 Marathon! There will be some drop-ins later, but we’ve squeezed 16 people into our home and raised over $800 so far!
You can still donate, if you like! Please click on a team member to do so! We’ve playing a lot of classic console games, portable games and board games. There was also an odd digression into completing somebody’s engineering homework…
- Board games in the parlor.
- Video games in the family room!
- Classic consoles and LAN rigs in the garage!
- You sunk my… something?!
- A weird sideline into bridge design?
- A weirder sideline into bridge building.
Extra Life 2016 Marathon: The Calm before the Storm!
We’re getting ready to kick off our Extra-Life 2016 Marathon! In a little over 12 hours we will be invaded by over a dozen teenagers. They will fill our humble home with the sights, sounds and smells (oh when do the smells stop?!) of charity! And gaming. Lots of gaming.
Our team have currently raised $634 for sick kids. You can still donate, if you like (please click on a team member to donate!) – we can always use more sick kids; they’re so inspiring!
Things got a little weird at the 23rd hour last year:
We’ve got a PS4, a PS3, a Wii-U, a regular-old Wii and an impressive tower of board, card and dice games. Our Steam Link is ready to bring PC games to our TV and a proud, lonely PlayStation Vita stands united with a short-stack of Nintendo DS’s for private play. Controllers are charged and stacked like cordwood. Plentiful snacks are at hand! Caffeinated beverages are standing by!
Folks. We. Are. Ready!
I’m not Terribly Political
Marian Call(s) Plays “Sensitive to Bees”
I’m a huge fan of Marian Call’s distinct brand of quirky/awesome/nerdy/perfect music but missed this somehow. I’m making up for lost time by playing it on a loop while I pretend to work.
Dad Jokes are Pun!
Capturing the Emotions of 9/11
After 9/11 there were a lot of empty-headed, “America, Fuck Yeah!” songs released. They gave people something to scream about on their ninth beer, but didn’t seem to capture anything real. This did. The confusion, the impotence and the raw emotion of it.
You can buy the album (which is amazingly good) from Amazon: Mark Aaron James, Just a Satellite.