Toothbrush and Tunes

aquafresh toothbruch packageI bouth a package of Aquafresh toothbrushes and found a code for three free songs on the package. What a toothbrush has to do with music downloads, I have no idea! The unfortunate part about it is that the music is from Sony’s Connect music store where you can only download DRM-ridden Windows Media Audio files. Plus with Sony’s recent DRM rootkit debacle, I don’t really feel like touching these things. So… if anybody wants an Aquafresh code for 3 free Connect song downloads, leave me a comment and it’s yours.

UPDATE: The music code has been claimed!

Super (Bowl) Ads

Last night was the big game! Who was playing again? I was watching it for the commercials. The one time of year when companies go all out and pay millions of dollars for 30 seconds. Here are a few of my favorites.

Hummer – Monsters
Even though I can’t stand the vehicles and participate in FUH2 every time I see one, this ad was really good!

Emerald Nuts – Druids
Weird, but funny

Sprint – Song for everything
I don’t know… I just thought this was funny.

You can see all the Super Bowl ads from Google Video, AOL, iFilm, or the NFL has put together a “Super Bowl Commercials Show” featuring all the commercials from the big game. Which ones were your favorites?

Four Things

OK, so it looks like I got tagged. I guess this is kind of the blog equivalent to chain letters. I better do it or be doomed to a life of unhappiness.

Tagged by: Tony Hill

Four Jobs I’ve had in My Life

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over, and Have:

Four Places I Have Lived:

  • Iowa City, IA
  • Atlantic, IA
  • Palm Beach Shores, FL
  • Clive, IA

Four TV Shows I Love To Watch:

  • Scrubs
  • The Office
  • Family Guy
  • The Daily Show

Four Places I Have Been On Vacation:

  • Calica, Mexico
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • Chicago, IL
  • Phoenix/Tucson, AZ

Four Websites I Visit Daily:

Four Favorite Foods:

Four Places I Would Like to Visit:

  • Anywhere with good SCUBA diving
  • New York
  • Australia
  • Europe (anywhere)

Four People I Am Tagging With This Meme:

Bubble

Bubble MovieEarlier this week, I went to the Bijou (The University of Iowa’s indie/art film theater) to see Steven Soderbergh’s new film, Bubble. I’ve been a fan of his movies for a while (Erin Brockovich, Ocean’s 11, Ocean’s 12, Traffic, The Limey, and others) so I was expecting to enjoy this one as well. Outside of the film’s director, this is the first in a series of 6 that will be released simultaneously in theaters, on tv, and on DVD at the same time. That was probably the most intriguing part of this movie to me. Soderbergh and his team have decided to break the mold and try something a very different by doing this type of release. I don’t think I’m the only one, but I like the idea of being able to chose the medium and viewing atmosphere of a newly released film instead of having to wait months (years?) to catch a film I missed in the theaters on DVD. Many theaters have boycotted the release of this movie claiming that, “It’s the biggest threat to the viability of the cinema industry today,” which is pretty crazy. I say anything that gives a viewer more choices is ultimately good. I can make a pretty good hamburger, but that sure doesn’t keep me from going to McDonald’s every now and then.

Anyway, back to the movie. Based on past Soderbergh movies and this special multi-format release, I was looking forward to seeing this film. Well… I was pretty disappointed. Let me preface this with: I have unique taste in movies (my friends will agree with that statement). I don’t think that my taste in movies is really too far outside the norm though. I didn’t really like this movie. Maybe I built up my expectations too much. One of the things Soderbergh said that he wanted to do with this series of films is use local talent, and makes them really place-specific. That’s evident with this movie; it takes place at doll factory in a small midwestern town. It was obvious to me that the “local talent” weren’t the best actors. They weren’t horrible (I’ve seen much worse), but there were several times when you felt like you were watching some amateur film, or poorly scripted home movie. I remember reading that much of the script for Bubble was improvised. At times that point is painfully obvious. Given that the acting in this film is a little below the mark, I can get by it. Like I said, I’ve seen much worse. That’s not the only area that this film falls short. The shooting also leaves a little bit to be desired. Again there were places where I wondered if I was watching a professionally produced film because it sure felt like I was watching a shaky shot that someone had made in their back yard with their wal-mart tripod. I like how Soderbergh shoots his films. He knows how to technically put a film together (quick shots in O11, the different use of colors in Traffic), but this movie just feels cheap. I can remember one shot in the front yard of the main character’s house that pans all the way around and has a little bump like someone accidently kicked the tripod as they were panning. Something like that just feels out of place in a professionally produced picture.

Setting aside the acting and shooting of this film. Yes, there were quite a few instances where both were lackluster, but both could be ignored. The story just wasn’t that great. I kept wondering to myself, when’s something going to happen? When is it going to start getting exciting? I knew (via the movie synopsis I’d read) that someone was going to get murdered, and knowing that it was only a 73 min. movie, I was getting anxious for it to happen (because I was getting bored with the poor improv acting?). Well, somebody finally died, and guess what, the movie didn’t get much more exciting. In wondering why this movie is like this, I’ve wondered if maybe Soderbergh did all of this (poor acting, poor shooting, poor story/plot???) on purpose to really hit home the slow simple life of the smaller midwestern town where this movie is set. But why would he? If that really was his intention, it really doesn’t add anything to the movie. It takes quite a bit away from it.

So… an interesting (and overdue?) distribution concept. I just hope the next film in this series has better actors/story/filming! I don’t think I’ll be able to sit through 6 Bubbles! I like being able to watch a newly released movie in whatever format I chose, but If had been watching this on TV, I think I would have changed the channel.

Pickr and Fastr

FlickrIf you build a tool off of Flickr, it apparently must end in the “er” sound spelled with only the letter “r”. Anyway, I ran across some more cool Flickr do-dads.

ColorPickr
ColorPickr is just a color palette that pulls images from Flickr based on the color that you chose.

Fastr
Fastr is actually a pretty fun game that you could waste some serious time playing. Once you join a game, it shows you images one at a time from Flickr and you have to guess that tag that those images are from. The faster you guess, the more points you get as you play against other people in the game.

Bloggie Awards

The nominations for the 6th Annual Bloggie Awards have been released. There are several categories in which the nominated blogs are judged.

  • BEST WEB APPLICATION FOR WEBLOGS
  • BEST AUSTRALIAN OR NEW ZEALAND WEBLOG
  • BEST ASIAN WEBLOG
  • BEST AFRICAN OR MIDDLE EASTERN WEBLOGbloggies
  • BEST EUROPEAN WEBLOG
  • BEST BRITISH OR IRISH WEBLOG
  • BEST LATIN AMERICAN WEBLOG
  • BEST CANADIAN WEBLOG
  • BEST AMERICAN WEBLOG
  • BEST TAGLINE OF A WEBLOG
  • BEST PODCAST OF A WEBLOG
  • BEST PHOTOGRAPHY OF A WEBLOG
  • BEST CRAFT WEBLOG
  • BEST FOOD WEBLOG
  • BEST ENTERTAINMENT WEBLOG
  • BEST WEBLOG ABOUT POLITICS
  • BEST WEB DEVELOPMENT WEBLOG
  • BEST COMPUTERS OR TECHNOLOGY WEBLOG
  • BEST TOPICAL WEBLOG
  • BEST GLBT WEBLOG
  • BEST TEEN WEBLOG
  • MOST HUMOROUS WEBLOG
  • BEST WRITING OF A WEBLOG
  • BEST GROUP WEBLOG
  • BEST COMMUNITY WEBLOG
  • BEST-DESIGNED WEBLOG
  • BEST-KEPT-SECRET WEBLOG
  • BEST NEW WEBLOG
  • LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
  • WEBLOG OF THE YEAR

The best thing about the Bloggies is that you get to pick the winners. So visit the site, explore and pick the best blogs of 2006!

New Apple Stuff

apple logoI’m a bit behind on this (for obvious reasons) but am finally getting around to the new Apple announcements. Outside of the typical “sales are good – blah blah blah – iPods rule! – blah blah blah,” three big announcements were made.

iLife/iWork Upgrades
Apple rev’ed the iLife and iWork suites. For most of the software in both of these it was a pretty usual rev. iMovie updated templates, added HD, added more transitions and title effects, and added some video podcasting ability. iDVD was similar, more themes, widescreen, and some other small bells and whistles. iPhoto added a cool feature called PhotoCasting, full-screen editing, new calendars feature and a few others. And then GarageBand added, similar to the other iLife products, some podcasting features, iMovie scoring, and some new sound effects and jingles. Then there is the new kid on the iLife block, iWeb. It’s a simple template-driven web editor and looks to include everything you need to get a simple website up on the web. It includes pretty much all the standard personal website features you’d see out there (photo gallery, podcasting, blog, about us, etc.). From what I can tell though (and I haven’t been able to use it yet), you’re limited to the Apple templates for layout. I’m curious how much customization you’ve got to change those 12 included templates.

For the most part, it looks like a pretty general software rev for the iSuites, nothing really ground breaking that jumped out at me. The one consistent thing that I like about the new versions is the noticeable addition of podcasting tools. It looks like Apple is finally really embracing the idea of podcasting (videocasting, photocasting, whatever).

Intel iMac
Well, it finally happened. Apple has switched their first machines over to the Intel processor. Their first offering is the new iMac. Outside of the new chip, there really isn’t anything too new on this machine which was just updated back in October. I guess the Intel chips, which they’re claiming are 2 times faster than the old ones are a pretty significant upgrade though.

MacBook Pro
First of all, what’s with the new name? Maybe I’m just not used to it yet, but MacBook Pro doesn’t quite have the same ring to it that PowerBook does. I guess they’re trying to move away from the PowerPC idea and get “Mac” in the name somewhere, but still… MacBook? Anyway, it looks like a good upgrade to Apple’s high-end laptop line which has needed a refresh for quite some time now. That little G4 chip could only get them so far. I’m glad they’ve moved to the Intel chips for their laptops. That’s definitely a place where Intel shines and is maybe one of the major determining factors why Apple moved to Intel in the first place. With all that said, I think they’re moving in the right direction, but I don’t think I’d get one of these new machines… yet. It just doesn’t seem like it’s quite there yet. This to me seems a little bit like a stop-gap measure to get a faster chip in the high end laptop because it REALLY needed it. Yes, it’s faster. Yes, it probably gets better battery life. Yes, it has a cool new power cord. The built-in iSight camera is kind of cool. But why is the single-layer 4X DVD drive slower than the last Powerbook? Also, will this baby and its Intel chip run windows? I think that’s the big question… that a million Mac hackers will probably answer for us shortly. I don’t have any real concrete reasons, but this just seems a little too new yet. Let’s see what happens in 6 months.

Two Cool New Flickr Toys

flickrSlickr
This is a really slick screensaver (hence the name) that pulls images from Flickr and does a nice Ken-Burns-Like fade between them in a screensaver. You can chose to only use your Flickr images, or certain groups, or just random photos (that’s what I’ve got mine set on).

Retrievr
This is just a cool little tool that lets you draw an image or shape and it calls up Flickr and brings back all the images that (somewhat) look like your drawn shape.

Year End Best-of Lists

Happy New Year! The transition to Twenty-aught-six just wouldn’t be complete without some internet best-of lists.

The best Web 2.0 software of 2005
The buzz word as of late has been Web 2.0, or web-based applications. Dion Hinchcliffe’s has put together a long list of what he calls the best Web 2.0 apps of 2005.

The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years
This one really isn’t a best of 2005 list. It’s a list put together by PC magazine of the best 50 gadgets of the pas 50 years. How many of these fun little toys have you played with?

5 Best Freeware Games of 2005
Here’s a list of 5 games… for FREE! Some of these are actually pretty fun games. I haven’t played them all, but Warrock is a nice FPS game put out by a Korean Company. It’s similar to the Battlefield series games.

Top 50 Music Videos Of 2005
This is a list of some pretty creative music videos from the past year. All of them have some sort of link to an online video file (some work better than others). I’m guessing you probably won’t see many of these on MTV (does MTV even show videos any more?), but there is definitely some interesting content!

2005 Artypapers Awards
Rebekah, over at Artypapers (be sure to dig through her site… she’s done a lot of cool stuff), has put together a nice list of best-of’s for 2005.

Well, there is my list of lists for ’05. I’m sure that barely scratched the surface of the Best of 2005 lists out there, but these are a few that I thought were kinda cool and had some good content.

Toastbags

toastbagsHave you ever wanted to make yourself a grilled cheese sandwich but didn’t want to get out the ole frying pan. Well, your troubles are over. I ran across this exciting new product called Toastbags via popgadget. These little babies make it easy to fry up a yummy grilled cheese sandwich (or any grilled sandwich for that matter) without having to try anything. The Toastbags are reusable bags that you can slip your sandwich into and drop into your toaster without getting sandwich goo all over it. You can buy ’em here. You can find more info at http://www.toastbags.de/ (not in English).

New Size Mentos Rolls

While waiting to see King Kong the other night, I ran across a new size roll of Mentos at the dollar store. They’re not the tiny mini-rolls, and they’re not as long as the regular size rolls either. It’s a special medium-sized roll for when you’re not in the mood for an entire large roll (that’s never the case for me) and you want a little bit more than the mini-roll. Personally, I think it is a Christmas gift from Mentos to me.

mentos1

mentos2