I Was Googled

This is, at long last, the short film based on Google My Keys, my short story from oh so long ago now. I’ve been itching for its release for a while now, and I’m happy to see that it has been well received (if controversial… but I said to myself a long time ago that I can’t pay any mind to YouTube comments.)

Here’s a brief history of it, in a slightly overblown fashion, but what the heck, it is my blog:

The iPhone Cometh

I’ve had the thing for two weeks now, after Sprint finally pissed me off enough to make me abandon what’s got to be the sweetest cell phone plan I will ever have. I keep getting asked (mostly by current iPhone users) what I think about it. I can sum my feelings up thusly: It’s a worse smart phone but a better iPod.

As I knew I would, I hate the keyboard. I was a very fast typist on my old smart phones (with actual keys) and I end up with tons of errors when I use the iPhone touch screen, moreso when the application won’t turn sideways. Calendar, notes, and to-do list are much worse than what I’m used to- lots more options, difficult to do on the fly without navigating through several menus and button presses. The App store obviously makes up for a lot of this, with some truly amazing apps, and specialized programs for a lot of my often used tasks (like instead of using notes for a grocery lists, I can get a grocery list app, or the Twitter app, etc.) Also, the web browser is great and light years ahead of other ones I’ve used.

But where it’s really shined for me? The music. It works as an iPod (albeit a small one and even the largest won’t fit my entire music collection). Add to that adds like Pandora and Last.fm that let me stream custom internet radio. Add on top an app solely for my absolute favorite radio station of all time. Add to that an app that lets me stream my music library wherever I go without loading it on. Plus I can stream podcasts and other internet radio wherever I go. It’s an iPod plus all the advantages the internet brings.

I broke down today and bought an FM transmitter/car charger. I’m going to be experimenting with it over the next week, but if it goes as well as I think it will, I’ll probably be canceling my SiriusXM subscription, and possibly looking into selling my iPod. Having WOXY with me wherever I go (with my home music library as a backup) is just better.

So as a smart phone? I’m sure it’s awesome for the many people who never had one before, and it’s fine, and I’ll get used to it (and probably the damn fake keyboard too). But as a portable music player? It can’t be beat.

New Phone Number

Just a quick note that I finally bought an iPhone and thus have a new cell number. If you’re my friend on Facebook, you can find it there, or if you need it otherwise, drop me a message.

Things I hate

1. Receipts. They’re always such a waste to me. Even if I’m doing my taxes, I just look at my old statements online. Ideally, there would just be an email tied to your credit card, and your receipt could automatically emailed to the email address associated.
2. Plastic bags. Also a huge waste- like receipts, just take a minute to think of the scale associated. Walk into a grocery store and see how many people there are shopping, most of whom will need multiple bags to carry their stuff. Then multiply by how many customers there will be in a day. Then multiply by every grocery store on the planet. This one is harder to solve than receipts, but it still bugs me.
3. “Change for change’s sake.” This phrase seems to come up even more often in scenarios where you can point to a text that says EXACTLY why something was changed, and yet it will just be “for change’s sake.” I don’t expect everyone to have read everything posted about a particular game everywhere, but doesn’t it usually make more sense to assume that there was at least some reason beyond just “change”, even if you don’t happen to agree with the reason?
4. “People are afraid of change.” This statement is so vague in its application to be completely useless in discourse.

Mastering the Week

This has been one of the best weeks of my life, a thought that just occurred to me tonight.

• I spent the week with my new awesome girlfriend e.
• I signed the lease to a new condo/apartment thingy in Germantown that has tons of space (including a kickass loft perfect for gaming that I can’t wait to customize) and is cheaper than the places I was looking at close to where I currently live.
• My group’s project (that came from my original proposal) won the award for best project, despite me not being there to help present it. Not only was there accolades at a ceremony, it comes with a cash prize, AND the project may have a future as an actual site.
• I GRADUATED!!!! I’m now officially a Master of Arts. Hopefully soon I’ll have a diploma to show it. As part of celebrating it, I went out with friends and family to Phillips and has plenty of delicious seafood, and on Sunday night had a party with a big group of friends in a hotel room.
• Additionally during the weekend, there was Balticon, which included two big D&D games that I ran. My writeup was linked to by Wil Wheaton, and I had an awesomely geeky conversation with him over Twitter. When I hear people bash Twitter, I can point to them that conversation and all the times I’ve been able to complain on Twitter and make things happen to prove its worth.
• e. and I went with Ginohn, TV Tom, and Petra to see a JoCo concert. I put this last so that I could embed the following video from it:

So all in all, an awesome week.

Execute

Witness… my acting debut!

I have 0 new prototypes for the Gathering…

…But still plenty to do to prepare for it. As usual, this is more of a to-do list for myself that I happen to be sharing with the world for whatever reason.

This weekend I’ll need to:

• Do taxes (more complicated now that I am a “Sole Propiertership”
• Decide what computer I’m bringing, and set it up appropriately for telecommuting. (If I do taxes first and find I’m getting a good refund, this may be the weekend I buy a Mac Book).
• Apply for the Doctorate program, at least the basic application.
• Pack! (The usual + promo copies of Get Bit + giveaway sharks… might be packing pretty light this year)
• Get as far ahead on school projects as possible, including work on the Inside Charm site and editing its materials, finish the flash project due on Monday, and do lots of work for Portfolio before meeting on Tuesday.
• Speaking of which, finish designing my logo, design my business cards, then get them printed. (It was a huge mistake last year not having them).
• Catch up on various RPG Bloggers work.

More added as I think of it! I have this strange feeling that there’s somebody at the Gathering whose stuff I’ve borrowed and I should return but can’t think of what in the heck it could be…

Getting Closer to “Internet Famous”

Hey, lookit, I’m on Amazon.

Eventually I’ll have my own page of course, but I do have a mention on Wikipedia already.

But despite the fact that my name appears in the credits of this movie, this is not me (and neither is this, which means when I do make it there, I’ll have to be an ignoble II).