Interactive LED Coffee Table

Check this out!



Check out their website at Evil Mad Scientists

Jumper The Movie - Looks Good!

Check out this movie's website for the trailer - looks awesome.

Plus it has Samuel L. Jackson.

http://www.jumperthemovie.com/

What I'm Watching Now - Attack of the Show

Probably the coolest geek show out there for me right now - G4's Attack of the Show:

Are you ready for your last taste of AOTS this week? Now, don’t garble it down like you did that cheeseburger at lunch yesterday, let it dance on your palette. That’s the only way to truly savor a new episode of Attack of the Show.

On today’s episode we’ll review hot comics in Fresh Ink, blog about celebs in BlogWatch and talk with 30 Days of Night creator, Steve Niles in The Loop. Oh yeah, we bet you're salivating already.

Attack of the Show blog

Attack of the Show hosts

Friday Night Flight of the Conchords

Life is good with FotC!

New Captain Kirk Casting News

I'm very intrigued by JJ Abram's new movie 1-18-08. The trailer for that flick is the best I've seen since the original teaser trailer for ID4 where all it shows is the alien mothership blowing up The White House.

AICN is reporting that the new Captain Kirk has been cast in JJ's restart of the Star Trek Universe.

StarTrek.com also posted news that Simon Pegg will be playing Scotty! I love Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz - should be very interesting to see Pegg play Scotty.

1880 Town in South Dakota

On our way to Deadwood last weekend we stopped at the 1880 Town to take a tour. Here I am in front of a marker pointing to how close Los Angeles is from S.D.

Seven Secrets of Inspiring Leaders

Saw this on BusinessWeekOnline - and I agree with many of the top points the author points out in inspiring leaders. Some of the best leaders I've seen have insane amounts of energy and are telling stories constantly to connect with their team members.

1. Demonstrate enthusiasm—constantly. Inspiring leaders have an abundance of passion for what they do. You cannot inspire unless you're inspired yourself. Period. Passion is something I can't teach. You either have passion for your message or you don't. Once you discover your passion, make sure it's apparent to everyone within your professional circle. Richard Tait sketched an idea on a napkin during a cross-country flight, an idea to bring joyful moments to families and friends. His enthusiasm was so infectious that he convinced partners, employees, and investors to join him. He created a toy and game company called Cranium. Walk into its Seattle headquarters and you are hit with a wave of fun, excitement, and engagement the likes of which is rarely seen in corporate life. It all started with one man's passion.

2. Articulate a compelling course of action. Inspiring leaders craft and deliver a specific, consistent, and memorable vision. A goal such as "we intend to double our sales by this time next year," is not inspiring. Neither is a long, convoluted mission statement destined to be tucked away and forgotten in a desk somewhere. A vision is a short (usually 10 words or less), vivid description of what the world will look like if your product or service succeeds. Microsoft's (MSFT) Steve Ballmer once said that shortly after he joined the company, he was having second thoughts. Bill Gates and Gates' father took Ballmer out to dinner and said he had it all wrong. They said Ballmer saw his role as that of a bean counter for a startup. They had a vision of putting a computer on every desk, in every home. That vision—a computer on every desk, in every home—remains consistent to this day. The power of a vision set everything in motion.

3. Sell the benefit. Always remember, it's not about you, it's about them. In my first class at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, I was taught to answer the question, "Why should my readers care?" That's the same thing you need to ask yourself constantly throughout a presentation, meeting, pitch, or any situation where persuasion takes place. Your listeners are asking themselves, what's in this for me? Answer it. Don't make them guess.

Learn about all seven of the rules here.

Amazon.com: Fire Them Up!: 7 Simple Secrets to: InspireColleagues, Customers, and Clients; Sell Yourself, Your Vision, and Your Values; Communicate with Charisma and Confidence

Video Player - Testing Videos for My Site

I was experimenting with YouTube's VideoPlayer system - here's one I generated as a test

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Go YouTube!

Apple iPhone - I'm a Believer

Well after thinking about it during my trip to Deadwood (more on that trip later), I went ahead and picked up an iPhone. It was actually a very good experience overall from start to finish. This morning I checked out the Apple.com website and made an appointment to see an Apple Specialist at my local mall store (Rosedale Mall in Roseville). Upon arrival at the Rosedale Store I was hooked up with my specialist and he gave me a complete run-down of the iPhone. He split his time showing my items from a showroom floor model and his own personal phone, which was a nice touch as it showed he was a big believer in what he was selling. After about thirty minutes of discusision with additional questions from my wife I was on my way out the door with my new 8gig iPhone! Once I got home setup was easy enough via iTunes and I've been playing with the phone and all of its features for a couple hours already! I went outside and snapped a photo of the Acura using the 2meg camera onboard the phone for quality considerations. The video quality is amazing and I've imported a ton of my music and videos onto the iPhone already. I'll keep you all posted as I get used to my new phone!

WoW Tacoma Toyota Commercial

Awesome commercial aimed directly at World of Warcraft players. Kudos to Toyota for really thinking outside the box with this one!

Flight of the Conchords

My friend Josh posted a couple sweet vids from the duo Flight of the Conchords. I still feel love for the Kiwi nation after so many years of covering Lord of the Rings for my old website Ringbearer.org

You can check out the official band website here.

Geek Kon - Wisconsin Geeks Gather in Wisconsin

Spotted this story in my local paper - The Star Tribune:

MADISON, Wis. — More than 600 self-described geeks are expected in Madison this weekend for a two-day convention that includes role playing, video games, and lots of science fiction.

Others might call it Revenge of the Geeks. The organizers call it Geek.kon, with .kon standing for convention. Like any conference, it's a place for people with common interests to gather.

"Your average American citizen does not know what a LAN party is, nor Warhammer, nor LARP, nor cosplay,'' organizer and panelist Jackie Lee said.

The convention at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is sponsored by Geek.kon, a registered student organization made up mostly of members of the university's sci-fi and anime clubs, and the university's East Asian studies department.

"Madison is a great place for geeks, and we hope that Geek.kon will be a place for people to experience that,'' said Louise Behnke, one of the event's creators.

If anyone goes drop me an email or comment with your experience!

EcoGeeks Get Girls

My girl Maria recommmended this post from EcoGeek - here's a selection:

This isn't necessarily what EcoGeek is about. But I figure, as a fairly romantically successful EcoGeek with quite a few tricks up my eco-sleeves, I'd bestow some of my knowledge upon my faithful readers.

Now, I know that not all of you are guys, and I'm confident that many of those who are guys are quite capable of making the ladies swoon. But as a certified husband with a certified Master of Environmental Science, I would like to think that I have a special sort of knowledge.

So if you've got EcoGeek cred with the ladies, but aren't quite sure how to convert that into some good lovin' I've got a few suggestions...

Check out more of Maria's stuff at MariaEnergia.
----------------
Now playing: Benzino Feat. Lil Kim & Petey Pablo - Rock The Party (Remix)
via FoxyTunes

Family Guy New Episodes

Have you been keeping up with the new Family Guy episodes? The Star Wars one was very funny! I've got my DVR set up to record all of em!


----------------
Now playing: DJ Felli Fel Ft. Akon Diddy Ludacris Lil Jon - Get Buck In Here (Dirty)
via FoxyTunes

What I'm Up To Right Now

Updating my Fantasy Football Team - here's a link to my league - my team is the Country Bumpkins. And would you believe it? I've started off 4-0 this season!

The World Series of Poker is on TV. I watch it every Tuesday.

John Cena - the current WWE champ suffered an injury during a match this week so a new champ will be crowned at the next Pay-per-View. Should be very interesting to see what happens!

Some Quick Links - Friends and Cousins Update Their Sites!

My friend Josh updates The Anti-Trend Trend:

Thanks to an adventurous group, our sail back was undertaken as a night sale. In watches (shifts), the crew started for Thompson island, just a few ours from Thunder Bay. Lucky for us the night also happened to by highly active with meteor showers, and filled with enough wind to make using the engine unnecessary for the crossing (~30 miles). At Thompson island we were greeted by a lovely cove. The area had been converted into a haven for boaters. There was a sauna, trails, scenic views and a playground. My favorite memory of Thompson island was running from the sauna to jump into Lake Superior. Again, I can’t imagine a much more idyllic scene.

My cuz Francis updates SuperFlewisTravels. Perhaps to be renamed SuperFlewisStudies now that she is in law school!

Another cousin of mine is traveling to Egypt!

My friends and I often joke about how we can no longer speak English. We struggle for basic words, our search for "humanitarian" results in "humanoidistic", "knife" becomes "tool use cut sandwich sharp" and so on. It's not that our Arabic has become phenomenal, or that I have taken to expressing myself in Egyptian poetry rather than bother with English prose. Quite the contrary, my Arabic is only plateauing while my English descends, placing me smack in the middle of linguistic no-man's-land. Instead of being content with this battlefront, today I decided to enter a new theatre of non-communication.

Check out Pauline's blog Marhaba!

Finally, one of Maria's posts made the front page of Digg today via her Green Options gig.

Shameless commerce: I just finished up the 2nd to last book of the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind - check out the first in the series if you're looking for a good read.
Sword of Truth: Wizard's First Rule

----------------
Now playing: Justin Timberlake - Losing My Way
via FoxyTunes

FoxyTunes - Control your music directly thru Firefox

I picked up FoxyTunes today:

The folks at FoxyTunes just added Blogger support to their Firefox plugin, which you can use to do a number of things, such as:

• Control your favorite music-playing app from your browser
• See what you’re currently listening to
• Append your current song to the bottom of new blog posts

Like this:
----------------
Now playing: Depeche Mode - Walking In My Shoes
via FoxyTunes

Joram in the Bible

Yep - my name is from the bible - but I wasn't a total good guy in the Good Book :)

On Joram:

With no son to succeed Ahaziah, his brother Joram ascended to the throne to become the ninth king of divided Israel. Although an improvement on his parents Ahab and Jezebel, Joram ultimately failed to do right. He modified some of the worship of Baal, and at times had a respectful relationship with the prophet Elisha, but Joram lived in treacherous times. The nation of Aram was attacking from the east and God had set in motion an internal plot led by Jehu against Ahab's heirs. Finally Joram fell victim to Jehu's arrow ending the evil dynasty founded by Omri. Jehu took over the throne.

Via HolySpiritInteractive

Monopoly at McDonald's 2007 Rare Piece List

I stopped by McDonald's today for a quick bite and you get Monopoly pieces you can collect and also a code on each game piece you can enter online to basically play twice with each ticket! Fun times and a good way for MCD to collect a bunch of consumer info.

Here is a list of the "rare" game pieces via Wikipedia.

Property	2007 code	2007 prize
Mediterranean Avenue	801	$50
Vermont Avenue	804	$500
Virginia Avenue	808	$1,000
Tennessee Avenue	810	$5,000
Kentucky Avenue	812	$10,000
Ventnor Avenue	816	$25,000
Pennsylvania Avenue	820	$50,000
Boardwalk	822	$1,000,000 (annuity)
Short Line	826	$100

Play the McDonald's Monopoly game online here.

Starting to think about another new toy...

Well I'm still with AT&T Wireless... or is it Cingular... no it's back to AT&T again! So I'm thinking of finally upgrading from my old-school RAZR to a new Apple iPhone! I've only heard good things and it would be pretty sweet to have a nice new piece of tech in my pocket.

I'll let you all know if I decide to get one!