Holy Chinese Mentos!

mentos_holy.jpgAnother Mentos shipment has arrived safely from China. Mentos Ambassador Stoll has done it again. The Mentos flavors themselves aren’t that unique. Two of the three flavors can be found in the U.S. (mint and fruit). The third flavor (Lime-mint) is a little more special. The thing that makes this shipment different, is first, the wrappers. You only see the double-wrapper on Sour Mentos rolls here in the U.S. I’ve never really been sure why that was. Maybe the the sour flavor needs an air-tight package to stay fresh (the texture on those Mentos is a little different than your standard rolls). Anyway, all three of these rolls have the double-wrapper. Maybe the atmospheric conditions in China make the extra wrapper necessary… who knows! The other thing that makes these Mentos special is that they are holy. Yes, that’s right. Mentos Ambassador Stoll had these Mentos blessed by the Dalai Lama. They arrived air-mail from China wrapped in a lovely Tibetan prayer scarf (the white cloth underneath the rolls). I frankly can’t think of anything better to bless than rolls of Mentos, the sweet sweet candy of the gods.

Amazon MP3

amazon_mp3.jpgToday Amazon raised the stakes in the realm of online music sales with the beta release of Amazon MP3. I know there are a ton of places to buy online music out there with iTunes leading the pack. The thing that could make this one different though is the lack of DRM. Amazon’s store will sell actual high quality 256kbps MP3’s. There’s no DRM here folks. You’re not locked to any particular player for these songs. Just about every player out there will play an MP3 file. The big question in all of this is going to be selection. According to their press release:

“Amazon MP3 is an all-MP3, DRM-free catalog of a la carte music from major labels and independent labels, playable on any device, in high-quality audio, at low prices,” said Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President for Digital Music. “This new digital music service has already been through an extensive private beta, and today we’re excited to offer it to our customers as a fully functional public beta. We look forward to receiving feedback from our customers and using their input to refine the service.”

I’ve taken a glance through the site and found several songs that I’d be interested downloading… especially at 89 cents and without DRM. Amazon even provides an optional MP3 Downloader tool that looks to be just a download manager so you don’t have keep hitting save in your browser. Given the terrible experience I had with their “Unbox” movie download service, I pray that this doesn’t take the same path. If given the choice between this and iTunes, I’d happily pay less for a better (DRM FREE) product.

Mentos ATM

There have been a lot of changes lately with my move to the desert. One of those changes included getting a new bank, and turned out very nicely. We chose our new bank for several of their account features. One of those features just happened to be custom ATM cards. Once I saw that option, I didn’t care what else they were offering. There were probably big Mentos in my eyes and I began to think about what I could be carrying around with me in my wallet. Yup, you guessed it, I made myself a Mentos ATM card. The system they use is actually pretty slick. You log into your account and upload an image, then you can crop/rotate/resize it to fit onto the with all of the different overlays (card number, name, etc.). Then you click submit, and in 7-10 days you’ve got your own custom ATM card. Now if only they would give me award points towards the purchase of Mentos… then I’d be set!

mentos_atm.jpg

(this is obviously not my name or card number)

Advanced Photo Resizing

This video has been making the rounds the past couple weeks. It is a demonstration of dynamic image resizing. Normally when resizing an image, you will get artifacts with making it either larger or smaller. This demo shows a method of making an image resizable by stretching the unimportant parts of an image and keeping the important parts (faces and primary objects the same). I can’t wait till this gets put into real software that I can get my hands on. I think this would work very well in fluid web layouts.

I think the video speaks for itself.

iCache All-in-one Credit Card

icache.jpgI ran across this cool little gizmo on CNN today. Basically what it does it is combines all the cards you have in your wallet into one little device. It handles credit cards, debit bank cards, loyalty cards. It looks like it will work with anything that has a magnetic strip on it. You load up the information on all your cards at the iCache website and then when you’re out and about, you don’t need to have a million and one cards with you. Just pull out the iCache and scan your fingerprint on the device to activate it, then chose from your list of cards that come up on the screen. It then will spit out a single-use card with that card’s information on it for you to swipe at the checkout. When finished, just stick the card back in the iCache, and it erases it and prepares it for next time. The little device only costs $99 and is supposed to be available next year. I think this is a cool idea. I guess the only question is how secure is it? If I accidentally leave it somewhere, anybody could potentially have access to all my cards. It’s probably more secure than accidentally leaving my wallet somewhere though, since I don’t have a fingerprint scanner on my wallet.

Here are a couple videos that show the iCache a little better.

Casual Gameplay Design Competition

I really like these little game developer competitions. They usually have some nice results that are not only fun to play, but outside the realm of your typical games. Jayisgames.com recently had a competition where entries were judged on repeat plays. They wanted games that kept you coming back for more. The winners have been announced. The winning games are pretty fun, but be sure to scroll to the bottom and play all the entries.

12V Battery Hack

I ran across this helpful battery hack today. It just so happens that I needed one of these little button cell batteries to bring a travel alarm clock back to life. I think I’ll probably go the cheap route and break open a (cheaper) 12V battery instead of paying double that for just one of them.

Mentos Can

mentos canBack again after a major life change… I got married on the 14th, and then followed that up with a honeymoon to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. And all you loyal readers know what a vacation to a foreign country means… new Mentos! There wasn’t too much to find in Puerto Vallarta. I looked around in the few drugstores (or farmacias, as they call them) and didn’t really see anything. They did have shorter mint rolls in our hotel (for 70 pesos) though. We hit the jackpot at the airport on the way out. In the Duty Free shops, there was a small display with Mentos-roll-shaped cardboard tubes filled with several rolls (I’ve already got one of these), and little pencil holder things filled with mini-mentos (also already have one of these). The one thing I didn’t have was the Mentos can. It is a blue can filled with individually wrapped Mentos in all flavors. They even have “mystery” wrappers where you have to guess what flavor is inside. My favorite part about the can is the lid. If you pop it down and then squeese the edges, it will launch the Mentos into your mouth (there are illustrations on top showing how to do this). I tried it in the airport and the candy smacked the back of my throat and fell on the floor. I quickly picked it up and ate it (3 second rule). I think I need more practice.

Soundwave: The Touch


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Poor Soundwave… nobody needs a Transformer that changes into a cassette player.

P.S. The Transformers movie was awesome!

SignalMap

Are you going somewhere and curious if you will have cell phone signal? Do you know a place where your signal is dead. Check out SignalMap and find out via a Google Maps mash-up whether there is signal or not. You can also add the signal you’re able to get to the map letting others know if there is coverage in your area.

Trevor, The Mentos Intern

How did I not see this earlier (thanks Rob & The 4th Way)?? Those brilliant marketing folks over at Mentos have a new website, and a new intern (named trevor) who will do whatever you tell him to do… within reason. mentos_trevor.jpgHe can’t do anything lewd or illegal. Visit the site: mentosintern.com, and you can watch him via a webcam, chat with him via the built-in chat interface, or give him a call at 857-757-1195. You can also put tasks on his schedule. I just discovered this site today, but I know I’ll come up with things for Trevor to do.

All I have to say about this site is, “I want this job!”

Find Your Best Movie Reviewer

I think movie reviewers are hit or miss, and there isn’t really one out there that I follow religiously. I have somewhat unique taste in movies. Enter “Which Move Reviews Should I Believe?”

Rate a handful of movies on this site, and a few movie reviewers will be recommended to you. My movie tastes line up with:

  • Rotten Tomatoes : 78% (this is the site I use most often anyway)
  • James Berardinelli : 74%
  • Peter Travers : 70%
  • Roger Ebert : 68%