Spotcovr.com June 30, 2006
Our dutch intern just launched the fruits of his labor at Sole Technology in the form of Spotcovr.com.
From Ivo himself:
Spotcovr is a place where you can explore skate spots around the world and add your own, complete with full descriptions, photos and comments from other skateboarders.
Get in there and add some spots.
Kids on Deck, episode one June 22, 2006 4 comments
Awhile ago I wrote about my brother Mark landing his first real television gig on a Yankees kids show called “Kids on Deck“. The first episode aired a couple months ago, but I haven’t been able to see it until now. If you’re in the east coast tri-state area, or get the YES network on satellite tv, check out the show on Sunday mornings.
Here’s the edited version of the first episode, containing only the intro & Marks part (kids on Deck, episode one 58 MB, or click on the image to download the video). Here he is on Flickr, wearing his true colors at last nights Met game. God, I’m such a jock.
Listen for how many times he says “sweet” and my favorite, “This is the biggest hat everrrrr”. Well, he doesn’t stretch out the word “ever” but it’s still pretty amusing. Nice work mark. For all you Yankee fans, know that you’ve been infiltrated!
DaVinci Code June 6, 2006 2 comments
I did absolutely nothing all weekend except read the DaVinci Code. It’s only normal I think, when you’ve read only a single book in the last 6 months to then not put one down for an entire weekend. It wasn’t because I was enjoying it or anything, although I was; I just really wanted to see why the movie was getting such bad reviews, when everyone loves the book. At $10 a ticket, I made up my mind early Saturday morning that I was going to continue reading until Susan & I were ready to see it in matinee format the following day. She had finished the book just before me, incidentally also reading it at a quick pace.
I read in every room in the house, including the kitchen and on the roof. I read in the car, and while waiting for an order at in-n-out. I napped more than once, In a chair, on the couch, on the roof and on the bed. Reading makes me tired. I ate granola bars for energy. At points, I felt physically ill, but I pressed on. By Sunday, I had completed the DaVinci code about 20 minutes to 1pm, looked up show times and we were in the theatre for a 1:25 showing.
I think the movie was pretty good but I was having trouble not recreating scenes in my mind from Indiana Jones every time someone said “Holy Grail”. They may have tried to cram too many things in there. The story itself gets pretty cheesy at times and is in no way profound or foundation shaking as all the media coverage would have you think. Morning news shows devoted huge segments to people demanding Ron Howard add the words “This is a work of fiction” to the opening credits. Seems like a profound waste of time really. It’s just a good story, not much else.
etnies Girl May 24, 2006 2 comments
We launched the new etnies Girl site this week. Still a few things to do. There’s a few comments about the new site on CSS Beauty and The Colab.
Softball season recap May 10, 2006 2 comments
My first real foray into organized sport has come to a close. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. We played about nine or ten games, with our final record at 1-9. That’s one win, and the rest losses! “We Got Served” (appropriately, our team name) even had one game ending in a mercy call, as we were down by about 14 runs in the early innnings.
I played right field the majority of the time, a single game at second, and the last game in center field. Center saw a lot of action, yielding my greatest out contribution. The infield is fun as hell and I didn’t do too bad at that position. Not too bad, in comparison with our overall team play that is which as our record shows, isn’t so hot. However, I do recall robbing a base hit with a nice stab to my left at second easily overshadowing any fly balls I may have misplayed in right.
Overall, it was a great experience, the contests were never serious and everyone was in it for fun. There was never pressure for any of us to perform, and perform we did not.
Quidam April 8, 2006
We went and saw Cirque du Soleil, Quidam last night in Long Beach. I wonder if this is the only group of people who have devoted their lives to perfecting these particular talents. The guy whose life calling is spinning around inside a giant metal wheel, is he the only one? Are their other spinners in the wings in case this guy messes up, or would he be replaced by some less interesting talent should he pull a hammy?
Anyone who makes these strange, and I’m assuming rare, talents their top priority in life has got to be a fairly eccentric, slightly bizarre human being. It really makes you wonder what it’s like behind the curtains. Are the balancing statue people married? They should be. You can tell they have the trust thing down when she balances vertically, upside down atop his shoulders. They share the same presumably top interest as well, balancing atop other people. The Cirque du Soleil site reveals that they in fact, do not have the same last name. They must just be dating, or more likely, she kept her maiden name for the stage.
My skill, it turns out, is finding free event parking due to lots that are unequipped to handle credit cards. Parking like this tends to unknowingly funnel you in with no option to exit before you realize you don’t have any cash. It happened at a World Baseball classic game in Anaheim, and then last night in the Queen Mary parking lot. Just tell the attendent, “I’m sorry but I have no cash, where can I exit?” and they let you right in. In the future I plan on being unprepared for such unexpected cash expenses. If I actually had the money I’d never be able to lie convincingly, Instead I’d just shell out the $10 and fume at the high cost of parking. Knowing that you spent at least $10 less than anyone else in that Cirque du Soleil tent is second to none.
As we left for the night, we passed the trailer area, where all the talent spends most of their time, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone off the stage. You could see the empty cafeteria trailer and just wonder what it’s like when all these people gather to eat meals. It’s bound to be just as fascinating as bodies spinning from hoops in the air. It so leaves you wanting more. Does one talent think they’re better than the other? Are those diablo girls kids, or just really tiny asians? There’s got to be a documentary on this already. Go see this spectacle of talents you’ve never thought, and can’t believe, actually exist.
Kids on Deck March 10, 2006 3 comments
The YES Network is a tri-state (ny, conn, nj) area cable channel started as a showcase for the NY Yankees; it caused a stir back in the day, because all of a sudden Yankee fans had to pay to see yankee games. My youngest brother (at 18) Mark, just landed a gig hosting a Kids TV show on YES called “Kids on Deck”. I’m not sure when it starts, I’m assuming mid May because of this old press release, but there’ll be 10 episodes with the possibility of more.
I remember coming across the show in the past, the old host (seen in the photo) looks kinda like Hillary Duff and yes that’s Willie Randolph, still in Yankee garb. These people need to update their site. Mark’s heading to Florida (spring training) this Monday & at some point it’ll bring him to San Diego & the All Star game as well. Congrats to broseph on the gig, he’s pretty excited, him being a baseball (Met) fanatic for quite some time. Tell A-Rod & Jeter I still don’t like them.
So if you live in the east, or get DirecTV, watch for him hammin’ it up w/future hall of famers. I’m gonna try to get him to blog about the experience too, we’ll see what happens.
Softball, rookie game March 8, 2006 3 comments
First at bat, struck out swinging, and so began my foray into community softball.
Ground out.
Ground out RBI.
Base knock.
Ground out.
My only time on the bases, I didn’t slide into second to keep them from turning a double play. That’s when I learned of the must slide rule, and the double play was called.
My fielding in right was less than stellar.
First ball hit to me went right between my legs, little league “I’m a skateboarder, not a baseball player” style.
Had a couple balls played on a bounce, holding the runner on first. To cap the game off, last inning, I fully missed a pop fly that the ump called out anyway, just to keep the time constrained game moving along.
Thankfully, my rookie game skills were right on track with the rest of the team. Fly balls were dropped on several occasions & grounders misplayed more than once. Just a bunch of dudes having fun trying to play a sport. Can’t wait for some more softball action!
Softball February 23, 2006 3 comments
I joined my friends softball team, first game is Tuesday. This may not have been such a good idea, it’s bound to resurface all my nightmares from being a crappy little league player. I just hope that ten years of watching television & drinking beer has somehow improved my game a bit.
I’m gonna hit the batting cages this weekend to see if I can swing a bat.
Update:
Turns out, the medium speed softball cages weren’t intimidating at all, I was even able to place some balls in left or right field, as planned. I bought some cleats too, and they only set me back a mere $25! I got a good feeling about this sport.
Financially Speaking November 3, 2005 1 comment
I haven’t had a savings account since I was 16, I think. Not a traditional bank one anyway. ING Direct Orange Savings account has always had an APR that’s about 4 times greater than a traditional savings account. APR was never the main issue though. Unlike checking accounts, ING is not tied to any specific bank monopoly in any particular city. While I’ve changed checking accounts several times in the last few years, due to relocation & bank convenience, I’ve had an Orange Savings Account through them all (sure, the majority of the time it’s been hovering around zero).
Transitioning to a working stiff however, allows for a little more financial freedom. A high APR savings account is an easy way to stash some money, where it can earn more than pennies a year. Surely a real working stiff has more advanced techniques of making their money work for them, and some day I’ll take a look at those.
In the meantime, this new savings account from Bank of America caught my eye. It’s called Keep the Change. You make purchases as usual with your bank card but Bank of America rounds up to the nearest dollar and puts the difference into your savings. Sounds like a simple way to put some spare change aside. This is the part that really makes me interested:
“For the first three months, we’ll match your Keep the Change savings at 100%. That means for every Keep the Change transfer, we’ll contribute the same amount to your Bank of America savings account… and we will match 5% thereafter.”
You can’t pick & choose what transactions will be rounded up, they all are - but if at the end of the day those roundups overdraw your account, they will not transfer your change to a savings.
After all this I just read some more fine print: “The matching funds will be credited to your savings account annually”. Damn, I knew there was something I was overlooking. Still sounds pretty good though, I imagine it has the potential to earn more than a high APR savings.