tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52451362010-04-30T00:39:19.941-05:00BloggystyleWeekly blog-style updates on Terribly-Happy.comOmarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comBlogger1900125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-89359976113535120612010-04-30T00:36:00.002-05:002010-04-30T00:39:19.948-05:00Renovation<b>Renovation</b><br /><br /><blockquote>Tomorrow is Change Day around here.<br /><br />I'm taking the day off work and spending most of that time moving this blog from Blogger (booo!) to Wordpress (yay!).<br /><br />The site design has not really changed, for better or for worse, in 10 whole years. In 2004, I added the Bloggystyle section using Blogger as my content management system. The site hasn't really evolved much since then and, unfortunately, neither has Blogger. I know they have new tools and plug-ins and whatnot, but they require you to house your site on Google's servers and, sorry, but no. I'm very happy with my Web host, have been for ages, and when I called today they even assured me that they'd help make sure things on the server/database side were good to go for the Wordpress install. I'm not sure Google would have answered my phone call.<br /><br />I have no idea what Bloggystyle is going to look like after tomorrow, I just know that starting on May 1st I <a href="http://buzz.blogger.com/2010/01/important-note-to-ftp-users.html">won't have the ability to post using FTP through Blogger</a> anymore. It's forced my hand on a redesign I never really wanted, but now that I'm doing it, I'm going to go with a platform I really like and am comfortable using. Blogger, for a long time, has really not been doing it for me, but since this site has been so low-maintenance, I didn't really care.<br /><br />Now that I have the chance to really burn it down and start over, I hope to do it right.<br /><br />The plan is to install Wordpress, choose a theme that's fairly close to what's here now (or at least gives me the flexibility to keep the ads where they are and keep things neat), and move the Bloggystyle archives from Blogger to Wordpress. The <a href="http://www.terribly-happy.com/archive.html">pre-2004 journal entries</a> should stay where they are as will the rest of the site until I figure out whether I want to convert the static pages as well.<br /><br />I'll go back and tweak things later, probably try to tag/categorize entries in the archives. I will probably add comments to the site, which I've never used before and maybe some other Wordpress goodies. I'm excited and wary at the same time.<br /><br />If things go badly and I'm not able to get a working version of the site up tomorrow, it may be a few days before there's another update around here. When things are working, I'll post a quick update.<br /><br />Man, I feel like I'm going in for surgery. I feel like making the obligatory, "If I don't come out of this alive..." statement. <br /><br />So, I'll see you on the other side! When next you see Bloggystyle, it should look very, very different.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-8935997611353512061?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-34241090274943433542010-04-20T13:04:00.006-05:002010-04-20T13:20:05.743-05:00Trailers Without Pity: Knight and Day<b>Trailers Without Pity: Knight and Day</b><br /><br /><blockquote>We made a list recently of our next six <i>Trailers Without Pity</i> movies, a task we'd neglected until we had exhausted our <span style="font-style:italic;">last</span> 12-week-old list. We gazed upon the list of summer bonanzas -- action, comedy, super-hero drama (check, check, check) -- among them, we had this odd-duck movie with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. It's due out in just a month and except for a few commercials, this movie has almost no buzz.<br /><br />The press site: barren of even a smattering of images that might flesh out our idea of this movie. <br /><br />Tell me if you can figure <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/fox/knightandday/">this trailer</a> out. While I'm sure the production values will be high and the movie will be professional in its format output, I don't know if I see a movie that humans want to consume in there. Maybe I'm off and this will made $100 million+ in its first weekend, but my gut, the one that also likes gourmet donuts, tells me this will not come to pass.<br /><br />If there is buzz on this movie, it's anti-buzz, the kind that comes from a flying attention-hungry vampire insect, one that is not striped in black and yellow, but in the very colors whose lack of pigment cause you to turn away, bored.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://video.televisionwithoutpity.com/player/?id=0#videoid=1220180">Knight and Day</a></span>, folks:</blockquote><br /><br /><center><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://wgtclsp.nbcuni.com/o/483dce16aa491e3d/4bcdecef0292edd3/4bbabb48757ea4d0/24766568/-cpid/77849ec9679aa87c" id="W483dce16aa491e3d4bcdecef0292edd3" width="450" height="450"><param name="movie" value="http://wgtclsp.nbcuni.com/o/483dce16aa491e3d/4bcdecef0292edd3/4bbabb48757ea4d0/24766568/-cpid/77849ec9679aa87c" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="allowNetworking" value="all" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /></object></center><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-3424109027494343354?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-91161590433362071422010-04-20T12:50:00.003-05:002010-04-20T13:02:42.922-05:00Day cares, nannies and remote controls<b>Daycares, nannies and remote controls</b><br /><br /><blockquote>Couple of recent things -- I had a <a href="http://www.statesman.com/life/parenting/austin-entrepreneur-does-the-legwork-on-nannies-and-573637.html">story in Saturday's paper about Nurture My Child</a>, a service that helps parents navigate the world of day cares, nannies other child-care options. This started out as a Masters of Their Domains, but then we did away with that feature after a long run and it wasn't really about the Web site. So instead, it ran as a Raising Austin column.<br /><br />And yesterday, after a break of several weeks, I was on NPR to talk about the future/death of remote controls. You can <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/04/19/126108660/the-end-of-remote-controls-">find the blog entry (with the audio embedded! Nice that we can do that on blogs now) here</a>. There's <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126114979">also a transcript</a>.<br /><br />I turned 35 last week, which was a little weird. I've got some loose ends to tie up before summer, like moving this site over to Wordpress, getting Lilly potty trained and making some decisions about some summer writing projects. Nothing earth-shattering. I'm still really happy at work, really happy with the freelance stuff I'm doing (Trailers w/o Pity, NPR, etc...) and really have no complaints. It's a strange state to be in.<br /><br />I'm going to an online journalism symposium at UT this week, which I hope will re-inspire me. It's not that I'm in a rut, but I feel like I can see a rut down the road and I need to try to do some new things before I get there on my work blog and probably around here, too.<br /><br />The other big news is that <a href="http://peopledancingatconcerts.com">People Dancing at Concerts</a> got <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/91109/Dance-like-none-of-the-10000-people-around-you-is-watching">mentioned on MetaFilter</a> and some other blogs, so it's gotten a nice boost in traffic and comments after languishing for a while.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-9116159043336207142?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-37473755124813072732010-04-14T16:40:00.002-05:002010-04-14T16:44:38.371-05:00How I Zinged Glark<b>How I Zinged Glark</b><br /><br /><blockquote>A conversation about podcasting:<br /><br /><b>OMAR:</b> I was thinking we could talk about ads if that's not too out there and boring. What with the Twitter ad stuff.<p><br /><b>GLARK:</b> It is. It's NPR interesting. It's in fact NOT interesting. You can quote me on that. To NPR<p><br /><b>OMAR:</b> NPR interesting is proven to be 15 percent more interesting than most podcasts.<p><br /><b>GLARK:</b> When you do a segment on me. No doubt.<p><br /><b>OMAR:</b> You kinda blow the curve.<p><br /><b>GLARK:</b> I know.<p><br /><b>OMAR:</b> for MONEY. ZING!</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-3747375512481307273?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-61408915422619585162010-04-12T13:40:00.003-05:002010-04-12T13:51:31.401-05:00More iPad than you may want or need<b>More iPad than you may want or need</b><br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.statesman.com/life/austin-ipad-owners-say-they-love-their-new-542646.html"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 261px;" src="http://www.terribly-happy.com/uploaded_images/84762865-796092.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br><b>Photos by Jay Janner, Austin American-Statesman</b></center><br /><br /><blockquote>Last week was Week of the iPad and even without an NPR segment, it feels now like that's all I talked about recently. At length.<br /><br />First, I was working last week on setting up photos and finishing <a href="http://www.statesman.com/life/austin-ipad-owners-say-they-love-their-new-542646.html">up a story about Central Texas folks who had bought iPads on launch day</a>. You can see four of the photos above; I think they turned out great, but setting it all up was a lengthy process.<br /><br />The comments on the story, very "Get off my lawn and take yer gotdang iPad with you!" are very fun to read.<br /><br />There was also a <a href="http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1418565568?bctid=76995577001">video</a>:</blockquote><br /><br /><center><embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1418565568" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=76995577001&playerId=1418565568&viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://console.brightcove.com/services/amfgateway&servicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/services&cdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.com&domain=embed&autoStart=false&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="430" height="323" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></center><br /><br /><blockquote>Then I did a <a href="http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/digitalsavant/entries/2010/04/05/live_chat_lets.html">live chat on the iPad</a> and <a href="http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/digitalsavant/entries/2010/04/09/the_ipad.html">a full write-up myself</a> based on having an iPad in our house since Saturday. <br /><br />Lastly, Glark and I did <a href="http://ageoflasers.com/010/">a very lengthy podcast</a> on <a href="http://ageoflasers.com">Age of Lasers</a> about our impressions of the iPad, apps and the just-announced iPod 4.0 update. <br /><br />Pretty much, I'm iPadded out.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-6140891542261958516?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-64316371409404557032010-04-05T23:36:00.005-05:002010-04-05T23:51:52.786-05:00Trailers Without Pity: Toy Story 3<b>Trailers Without Pity: Toy Story 3</b><br /><br /><blockquote>How could we resist the computer-generated siren call of a Pixar movie as a Trailers WIthout Pity? (Well, all right, we didn't do one for "Up," but how were we supposed to know how good it would be?)<br /><br />We learned our lesson and will never underestimate Pixar again, at least until they jump the shark with "Cars 2." <br /><br />Here's our <a href="http://video.televisionwithoutpity.com/player/?id=1216474">Trailers Without Pity for <i>Toy Story 3</i></a>, which we very much liked.</blockquote><br /><br /><center><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://wgtclsp.nbcuni.com/o/483dce16aa491e3d/4bbabb48757ea4d0/4ba845ed2a64e576/879997f4/-cpid/9b2955de89ee7171" id="W483dce16aa491e3d4bbabb48757ea4d0" width="450" height="450"><param name="movie" value="http://wgtclsp.nbcuni.com/o/483dce16aa491e3d/4bbabb48757ea4d0/4ba845ed2a64e576/879997f4/-cpid/9b2955de89ee7171" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="allowNetworking" value="all" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /></object></center><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-6431637140940455703?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-77581802989392814062010-04-04T22:38:00.006-05:002010-04-04T23:06:50.989-05:00Easter, medical stuff, iPad<b>Easter, medical stuff, iPad</b><br /><br /><blockquote>First off: I had a couple of stories in the paper this weekend. The first was, of course, about the iPad. It was <a href="http://www.statesman.com/business/technology/ipad-arrives-today-511224.html">a remix</a> of <a href="http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/digitalsavant/entries/2010/04/01/ipad_day_is_com.html">a blog entry I did last week</a> gearing up for the launch but with a few changes and info boxes thrown in. (Some of which didn't make it online.)<br /><br />I plan to tell the whole story of how I ended up buying one -- the short version is that in December we almost bought a Macbook Pro to replace my wife's ancient, battery-dead iBook G4 and I told her to hold off and see what Apple announced in January. (We were also having a baby at the time, which made it easy to wait.) When the iPad was announced, she decided that was pretty much all she needed, as long as there was a way to print from it. (<a href="http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/04/01/print-from-iphone-and-ipad-printing-app-for-wi-fi-3g-edge/">There is</a>.) She really didn't need a $1,200-$1,500 laptop for her limited computer needs, so the way we saw it, buying an iPad instead of a Macbook Pro was going to save us about $800. <br /><br />We then decided to wait until after the hoopla had died down, but when Apple didn't send me an iPad to review in advance of the launch (long story, not worth getting into), I figured it behooved me, like a horse's foot, to get one so I'd at least be up to speed on it for my job and <a href="http://npr.org/alltech">for NPR</a>. I didn't want to be the one tech writer in the country who hadn't laid his grubby paws on one.<br /><br />So with that flimsy justification, I went to Best Buy and got one Saturday morning. The line and the wait was short and my very short review is that I'm much more impressed with it than I was expecting to be. I'm sure <a href="http://ageoflasers.com">Glark and I</a> will be talking about it at length this week and I plan to write more about it on <a href="http://austin360.com/digitalsavant">Digital Savant</a>. I think it's a B/B+ in terms of hardware, but the apps and overall operating system software are what really make it shine. It's just a damned elegant little machine.</blockquote> <br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.statesman.com/life/health-medical/four-technologies-are-helping-hospitals-better-treat-patients-518872.html"><img src="http://www.statesman.com/multimedia/dynamic/00327/OG-Hospital-Tech-1_327298c.jpg" width=300></a></center><br /><br /><blockquote>The other thing that was in the paper was a story I've been working on for months about <a href="http://www.statesman.com/life/health-medical/four-technologies-are-helping-hospitals-better-treat-patients-518872.html">four medical technologies that are new or not things you've probably heard of</a> being used in Central Texas. I've done a few round ups like this before and with all the coordinating and photo scheduling it's really like writing four separate stories for one piece. But I think it turned out well. Hey, I took that photo, too!<br /><br />The other big thing this weekend was that it was really the first time Lilly has understood Easter (Easter the egg-hunting holiday, not the religious part, but still). So she had two Easters, with each side of the family, and we're up to our balls/ovaries in plastic eggs, candy, Easter baskets and chocolate bunnies. I can't even imagine how much it's gonna multiply when Carolina is old enough to join in.<br /><br />Oh, and in one hour, I turn 35. What's up with THAT?</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-7758180298939281406?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-86339885552178883462010-03-30T13:54:00.004-05:002010-03-30T14:05:38.309-05:00iPad and other geeky stuff<b>iPad and other geeky stuff</b><br /><br /><blockquote>Yesterday, we did a segment on NPR about the iPad. It comes out on Saturday and, as with the lead-up to the iPhone, a tsunami of information keeps coming out. Moreso, in fact, because this time people know what to expect.<br /><br />There were news stories coming out right until the very hour we recorded the piece and I tried to make it as current as possible, but just a day later, it already feels like we missed some things.<br /><br />Ah well, I'll be doing more stories this week for the Statesman and <a href="http://austin360.com/digitalsavant">over on Digital Savant</a>. Still not sure if we're going to get our hands on a review unit, but we'll see.<br /><br />Here's <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125318796">the audio of the NPR segment</a> and <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/03/29/125315596/apple-s-ipad-hits-stores-on-saturday">the blog post</a> with lots more information.</blockquote><br /><br /><center><a href="http://ageoflasers.com/009"><img src="http://ageoflasers.com/media/009.jpg" width=430 border=0></center></a><br /><br /><blockquote>Over on <a href="http://ageoflasers.com">Age of Lasers</a>, Glark and I also talked about the iPad as part of a wide-ranging discussion <a href="http://ageoflasers.com/009/">for Episode #009,</a> or "The First Episode In A While Where One Of Us Didn't Completely Mess Up An Hour of Audio Recording Somehow." <br /><br />This is supposed to be a weekly podcast, but we've been beset with all kinds of problems, including sickness, South by Southwest, scheduling conflicts and the aforementioned audio disasters. <br /><br />Hey, I just now noticed that Glark redesigned the whole Web site over there! Well done, Glark!</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-8633988555217888346?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-29723926739848868842010-03-22T23:38:00.003-05:002010-03-22T23:43:04.156-05:00Trailers Without Pity: Sex and the City 2<b>Trailers Without Pity: Sex and the City 2</b><br /><br /><blockquote>So, I think what happened is we saw the word "Sex" in the title of <i>Sex and the City 2</i> and just kind of went buck-wild with it. And when I say "We," I mean mostly "me." I imagine Pablo is a little disgusted with me right now for what I helped make his poor computer churn out.<br /><br />Anyhoo, here is <a href="http://video.televisionwithoutpity.com/player/?id=1211073&dst=rss|television%20without%20pity|">our <span style="font-style:italic;">Trailers Without Pity</span> for <span style="font-style:italic;">Sex and the City 2</span></a>. I apologize in advance for the vagina trophy.</blockquote><br /><br /><center><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://wgtclsp.nbcuni.com/o/483dce16aa491e3d/4ba845ed2a64e576/4b99dd1f196314e1/fedaa145/-cpid/a783a186ac7ff592" id="W483dce16aa491e3d4ba845ed2a64e576" width="450" height="450"><param name="movie" value="http://wgtclsp.nbcuni.com/o/483dce16aa491e3d/4ba845ed2a64e576/4b99dd1f196314e1/fedaa145/-cpid/a783a186ac7ff592" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="allowNetworking" value="all" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /></object></center><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-2972392673984886884?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-62743782646330993002010-03-19T16:13:00.006-05:002010-03-19T16:27:29.808-05:0010 Ways to Annoy a SXSW Band<b>10 Ways to Annoy a SXSW Band</b><br /><br /><center><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4047/4444986547_6ff81b2908.jpg" width=425></center><br /><blockquote>Every year, thousands of bands come to the South by Southwest Music Festival to try to live out their dreams of playing in front of great live audiences. Here are 10 ways to crush those dreams (or at least annoy the band a little bit while they're in Austin):<br /><br /><ol><li>Ask, "Hey, can you guys play 'Rocky Raccoon?' "<br /><li>"Where are you playing? ... Didn't that place burn down last night?"<br /><li>"If you need to replace some clothes before your show, there's a sale at Ross this week!"<br /><li>"Didn't you guys have a song on 'Gossip Girl'?"<br /><li>"It would be cool if you were playing the main stage, where more people could see you."<br /><li>"What do you think of 'American Idol' this season?"<br /><li>Tell them nobody who lives around here wears cowboy boots, cowboy hats or bandanas until Halloween.<br /><li>"Your band sounds like flaming lips. Not the band, but an actual set of lips that are on fire."<br /><li>(To the whole band) "Are you all in town for South by Southwest Interactive?"<br /><li>"Oh, South by Southwest? Is that this week?"</ol></blockquote><center><h5>(Photo credit: <div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" about="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicklockey/4444986547/"><a rel="cc:attributionURL" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicklockey/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicklockey/</a><br> / <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">CC BY-NC-ND 2.0</a>)</div></h5></center><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-6274378264633099300?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-50857770841226945352010-03-19T00:32:00.003-05:002010-03-19T09:04:30.040-05:00Talking SXSW Interactive<b>Talking SXSW Interactive</b><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.terribly-happy.com/uploaded_images/photo-729394.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://www.terribly-happy.com/uploaded_images/photo-729390.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><blockquote>The SXSW Interactive Festival, which I cover every year, was bigger than ever and it sure felt like that in my weary bones.<br /><br />I worked harder than I ever have before at the fest and also overdid the staying out late and socializing too much. But, strangely, I didn't really feel any ill effect. I didn't get sick and I caught back up on sleep in the two days since it ended (which was on Tuesday). What really killed me was the damned time change on Saturday and my inability to skip work to go have relaxing meals or to stop myself from keeping going way past midnight each night.<br /><br />But screw it. It's once a year and I wait all year to have the opportunity to fully throw myself into a story the way I don't really get to the rest of the year. It's also a time when many old friends come into town and it's the only chance I get to see them all year. In some ways it's the only time I get to stay out late and socialize even with people who ARE in town and whom I see all the time. <br /><br />It was pretty crazy at home, even with help from both sides of the family and I have to admit, it's getting harder every year to keep up this pace with two little girls waiting at home. The night I was finally finished and came home, Lilly climbed all over me and hugged me like she never has before. She also knew new words and phrases I hadn't heard before and it went a long way toward breaking my heart a little.<br /><br />All the coverage (not just from me but from about a dozen people on our staff) <a href="http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/digitalsavant/entries/sxsw_2010/">is here</a>, including panel reviews, news write-ups and videos (I've embedded a few of them below).<br /><br />Today, I also did a segment for "All Tech Considered" about the fest with some of the highlights. You can <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/03/south_by_southwest_interactive.html">read the blog post here</a> and <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124838062">hear the audio on this page</a>.</blockquote><br /><br /><center><embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1418565568" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=71497754001&playerId=1418565568&viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://console.brightcove.com/services/amfgateway&servicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/services&cdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.com&domain=embed&autoStart=false&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="430" height="323" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></center><p><br /><br /><center><embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1418565568" 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flashVars="videoId=71715309001&playerId=1418565568&viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://console.brightcove.com/services/amfgateway&servicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/services&cdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.com&domain=embed&autoStart=false&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="430" height="323" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></center><p><br /><br /><center><embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1418565568" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=72130196001&playerId=1418565568&viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://console.brightcove.com/services/amfgateway&servicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/services&cdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.com&domain=embed&autoStart=false&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="430" height="323" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></center><p><br /><br /><center><embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1418565568" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=71870529001&playerId=1418565568&viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://console.brightcove.com/services/amfgateway&servicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/services&cdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.com&domain=embed&autoStart=false&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="430" height="323" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></center><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-5085777084122694535?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-48239509749674356062010-03-12T00:20:00.004-06:002010-03-12T00:25:24.867-06:00Trailers Without Pity: Kick-Ass<b>Trailers Without Pity: Kick-Ass</b><br /><br /><blockquote>This movie, <i>Kick-Ass</i> debuts tomorrow night at the South by Southwest Film Fest, so I'll have a much better idea about it after that, but for now, you can hear our semi-informed opinions on the preview <a href="http://video.televisionwithoutpity.com/player/?id=0#videoid=1207320">in our latest <i>Trailers Without Pity</i></a>.<br /><br />Oh, by the way, our apologies for the creepy animated Nicolas Cage. We had no idea it was going to turn out that way. But then we kinda liked it.<br /><br />Hope you enjoy!</blockquote><br /><br /><center><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://wgtclsp.nbcuni.com/o/483dce16aa491e3d/4b99dd1f196314e1/4b85a6ea117a0529/d5bdf052/-cpid/26afb1685fc9025" id="W483dce16aa491e3d4b99dd1f196314e1" width="450" height="450"><param name="movie" value="http://wgtclsp.nbcuni.com/o/483dce16aa491e3d/4b99dd1f196314e1/4b85a6ea117a0529/d5bdf052/-cpid/26afb1685fc9025" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="allowNetworking" value="all" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /></object></center><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-4823950974967435606?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-63876830347533891402010-03-11T14:46:00.003-06:002010-03-11T14:52:17.112-06:00Me on the news this week<b>Me on the news this week</b><br /><br /><blockquote>Busy, busy, busy week, so here's the short version.<br /><br />The NPR All Tech Considered this week was about wireless broadband, the FCC and a few other things related to the future of high-speed Internet. <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/03/cutting_the_cord_on_broadband.html">Blog post with lots of links is here</a> and the audio of the segment can be found in two parts: <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124464005">part one</a> and <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124455624">part two</a>. Based on how many comments we got, I'm sure it's a topic we'll return to.<br /><br />My other big news this week was that I got a sorta-scoop on Google Maps bike routes. I say "sorta" because the news was embargoed and the moment the news went live, CNET, Wired and a few other news outlets had it, too. I was thrilled to have the info early since Austin is such a big biking town, but on the other hand it reaffirmed why I hate working under embargo, especially on national news. It's usually a lose-lose situation and I always end up getting roped in.<br /><br />I <a href="http://www.statesman.com/news/austin-bike-routes-coming-to-google-maps-337051.html">worked very hard on this story</a> -- it didn't go A1, but I'm not aware of any other regional or city papers of our size that had it that early. So... yay?<br /><br />Lots of other stuff to post, so I'll be back in a bit. Gotta go get my credientials for SXSW Interactive first.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-6387683034753389140?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-11104195814791500812010-03-07T18:05:00.003-06:002010-03-07T18:34:09.743-06:00008<b>008</b><br /><br /><center><a href="http://ageoflasers.com/008/"><img src="http://ageoflasers.com/media/008.jpg" width=400></a></center><br /><br /><blockquote><a href="http://ageoflasers.com/008/">Episode 008 of Age of Lasers is up</a>. It was posted a few days ago, but there were some Web site problems that <a href="http://glark.org">Glark</a> valiantly tackled and it wasn't <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/age-of-lasers/id338357436">updating to iTunes</a> for a while. This came after we had a previous audio issue that meant re-recording almost the entire episode, so that explains a bit of the delay between 007 and 008. <br /><br />We discuss Google Buzz, Steam/Valve games on the Mac and Windows Series 7 Phone OS Mobile Microsoft Platform Handset, or whatever the Hell they're calling it.<br /><br />Enjoy!<br /><br />For me over the next week, I'll be focused on SXSW Interactive. You can follow my <a href="http://austin360.com/digitalsavant">reports over on Digital Savant</a>. I've also got an NPR segment airing Monday about mobile broadband on <i>All Things Considered</i>. I'll post a link to it as soon as it's up.<br /><br />A <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/03/an_emotional_parent_plays_heav.html">blog post I did for NPR about the video game <i>Heavy Rain</i></a> seems to have gotten quite a bit of attention. There were <a href="http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=10643211755&share_id=341745154173&comments=1#s341745154173">more than 200 comments about it on Facebook</a> last I checked (about 35 percent of them completely misinformed.). Still! Not a bad problem to ahve.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-1110419581479150081?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-10229285742156547322010-03-04T10:19:00.004-06:002010-03-04T10:42:32.779-06:00Roulette of Penises<b>Roulette of Penises</b><br /><br /><center><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.terribly-happy.com/uploaded_images/chatroulette-726567.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 233px; height: 400px;" src="http://www.terribly-happy.com/uploaded_images/chatroulette-726561.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a></center><br /><br /><blockquote>My assignment for Monday's All Tech Considered was to try out Chatroulette, which I <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/03/chatroulette_risky_revolting_r.html">wrote about in this blog post</a> and <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124210394">explained in an on-air segment</a>.<br /><br />Apart from the fact that I got to say "Male genitalia" on the public airwaves (sadly, "Dickensian" was vetoed), it was a normal segment that I thought went really well. <a href="http://twitter.com/pendejojoe">My brother</a> helped the day before use <a href="http://chatroulette.com">Chatroulette</a>, which is much less scary when you're not doing it by yourself. As happens on this service, you see a lot of penis. A gaggle of them. A flock of cocks, if you will. It's always jarring (unless that's what you're specifically looking for), but after a while you get used to the flow of people coming into your computer from all over the world.<br /><br />We had a good time, including having a talk with some guys in Tunisia who wanted us to send them some money so they could come to America. They were flashing Tunisian money (Tunips?), so I made it rain with some American money and told them that if they sent me $100, I would double their investment by sending them $200 right back. They did not fall for it.<br /><br />We also talked to this cool dude in France. He didn't speak, but he was playing some house music and set up his laptop and mic to create these cool DJ feedback loops. He was wearing a bathrobe and tiny shorts and we said, "Oh no, he's gonna go Buffalo Bill on us!" We downloaded and played "Goodbye Horses" to try to put him in the mood, but it turns out he wasn't interested in dick dancing.<br /><br />I've been writing entirely too much about penises this week.<br /><br />Speaking of something long and hard, <a href="http://twitter.com/360sxswi">South by Southwest Interactive</a> is always the most challenging part of the year for me. (Oh, also: speaking of stamina.) I did a story in the paper <a href="http://www.austin360.com/recreation/sxsw-interactive/sxsw-interactive-reaches-beyond-austin-with-fest-pre-259704.html">about South by Southwest parties in other cities</a> and have been doing <a href="http://austin360.com/digitalsavant">pretty much non-stop coverage with my work colleagues</a> in advance of the fest. That's where I'll be March 12-16, and <a href="http://twitter.com/omarg">Tweeting about it</a>, too.<br /><br />Will be doing an NPR segment on Monday, too, and probably one the week after that on the festival.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-1022928574215654732?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-48814257156307272492010-02-24T16:14:00.003-06:002010-02-24T17:46:53.783-06:00Trailers Without Pity: Iron Man 2<b>Trailers Without Pity: Iron Man 2</b><br /><br /><blockquote>This one was kind of a no-brainer -- how could we <span style="font-style:italic;">not</span> do <i>Iron Man 2</i>? <br /><br />But within that easy free-throw range, I think we did some fun stuff and Pablo's channeling of Terrence Howard whispering, "Oh, no, he flew away..." cracks me up every single time I hear it. <br /><br />So, here ya go. <a href="http://ow.ly/1aLwh">New episode of <i>Trailers Without Pity</i>.</a> Next up, we're doing <i>Kick-Ass</i> and <i>Sex and the City 2</i>.</blockquote><br /><br /><center><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://wgtclsp.nbcuni.com/o/483dce16aa491e3d/4b85a6ea117a0529/4b71d0ff2dcaef53/a54431e9/-cpid/a4368fa9fe9251fe" id="W483dce16aa491e3d4b85a6ea117a0529" width="450" height="450"><param name="movie" value="http://wgtclsp.nbcuni.com/o/483dce16aa491e3d/4b85a6ea117a0529/4b71d0ff2dcaef53/a54431e9/-cpid/a4368fa9fe9251fe" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="allowNetworking" value="all" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /></object></center><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-4881425715630727249?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-44188127583283252862010-02-22T00:09:00.005-06:002010-02-22T10:44:26.706-06:00Airplane into building<b>Airplane into building</b><br /><br /><blockquote>It'll be 13 years this summer that I've worked professionally in the newsroom where I'm now employed, and I still don't know whether I love or dread the buzz that happens when news, <span style="font-style:italic;">real news</span>, happens in our city.<br /><br />On Thursday around 10 a.m., just as I was sitting down at my desk, we started seeing the first Tweets from people who said they saw <a href="http://www.statesman.com/news/local/shock-as-friends-and-i-realize-we-knew-251657.html">a plane fly into a northwest Austin building</a> and then we were hearing about smoke and fire.<br /><br />Years ago, when I worked in Technopolis or the business section, I wouldn't have been directly involved, but now with Twitter and Facebook, a lot of the people I connect with were potential eyewitnesses. Now part of my job is to filter through these Tweets (along with our social media editor and others on the online and news staffs), knowing that there will probably be a story for me to write about the online reaction to a major event.<br /><br />My <a href="http://www.statesman.com/news/local/social-media-speeds-up-news-gathering-in-plane-251892.html">story from Friday's paper</a> was about the way that social media helped gather news, spread rumors and verify information (for us and for other local and national media). Then, the next day, we saw several Web sites related to the plane crash that seemed to be profiting from the tragedy by embedding ads in a copy of the Joe Stack manifesto. My <a href="http://www.statesman.com/news/local/suspect-s-manifesto-crash-inspired-web-game-pop-258071.html">story from Saturday's paper</a> was about that and a video game that popped up the same day as the crash, a simple, but morally queasy Flash-based Web game.<br /><br />Somewhere alone the line I got on the radar of the Alex Jones Web site Infowars and they <a href="http://www.prisonplanet.com/statesman-implies-infowars-supported-austin-plane-attack.html">wrote a blog entry about my story</a>. The comments make for some incredibly entertaining reading.<br /><br />Then, Alex Jones himself mentioned me (and mangled my last name; I thought he was a radio guy) <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-alex-jones-show/id175803816#">on his Friday broadcast</a>. My inbox has been hit with several incredibly enlightening messages that are TOTALLY NOT CONSPIRACY THEORIES! NOT AT ALL!<br /><br />I mean, check this one out: <br /><br /><blockquote><b>"How about this as a theory; The guy was murdered, his house set ablaze, his body placed in that plane, and the plane was remote controlled into the IRS building."</b></blockquote><br /><br />Dude, that makes complete sense. I wouldn't even feel right investigating it because it's so obvious. <br /><br />But "Conspiracy theory?" I'm ashamed I ever even used those words. Clearly, you guys have thought this through.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-4418812758328325286?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-79247377020725875482010-02-16T11:11:00.003-06:002010-02-16T11:22:54.510-06:00The Googlez<b>The Googlez</b><br /><br /><blockquote>Google is not really a company I used to cover on my beat so much, but just by the nature of what they're doing, how they're expanding and how pervasive they are in our lives, I've turned into a reporter who has to follow the company's moves.<br /><br />I did so yesterday on NPR <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123747135">in a segment about</a> Google Buzz, what's going on with Google in China and their recent announcement of an ultra-high-speed broadband service. I posted <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/02/googles_moves_china_broadband.html">an entry on the All Tech Considered blog</a> with lots of links to updates.<br /><br />It was the first segment I've done in a few weeks. I've been keeping busy working on a video project with my former LCP castmate Mical Trejo and Bobby Bones. We shot some video over the weekend and are finalizing a script to send out. It's been a busy few weeks, but I'm kind of amazed at how much we did in such a short time.<br /><br /><hr><br /><br />My wife is going back to work in a few weeks and Carolina is growing quickly. She'll have to go to daycare soon and we're a little worried about how that's going to play out. But worried in a very minor way because she and Lilly are both healthy and everything's going great. We're very lucky and we know it.<br /><br />A woman who works at Lilly's daycare gave birth last week and the baby passed away. We've gotten updates via notes sent to all the parents and over the weekend we knew the situation was dire. <br /><br />This wasn't a premature birth or anything like that. By all measures, everything should have gone perfectly, except that it didn't.<br /><br />Before Carolina was born, we stressed that something might go wrong. The pregnancy went so smoothly that we thought surely our luck couldn't hold out to have a birth that was so complication-free. <br /><br />I worry a lot that our luck will someday run out. I know that's not a healthy or even sane way of looking at things, but to know parents who've lost children and to see the horrible things that happen in the news (particularly in San Antonio) to infants and toddlers, I sometimes just get overwhelmed by all the trouble that's passed us by.<br /><br />We don't talk about it much, but when we do, we come to the conclusion that if anything happened to Lilly, it could easily destroy us. It could destroy me. I don't know what I would do, honestly. I've always believed myself to be a strong person, but the kind of strength I see in other parents who have survived such things astonishes me. It's otherworldly. <br /><br />I'm not sure how to deal with even the thought of something like that other than to do what most parents have to do: keep on moving, watching your kids grow, and protect them any way you know how.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-7924737702072587548?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-6566722127040355462010-02-09T15:13:00.002-06:002010-02-09T15:20:44.943-06:00Trailers Without Pity: Clash of the Titans<b>Trailers Without Pity: Clash of the Titans</b><br /><br /><blockquote>The original <i>Clash of the Titans</i> is surely branded deep in my brain as I saw it many times as a kid, but I can barely remember anything except for the togas, Medusa and the weird stop-motion creatures. <br /><br />I didn't bother to go back and watch it because I'm sure I'd hate it, and besides, we have a <a href="http://video.televisionwithoutpity.com/player/?id=1199992">whole new remake to mock instead</a>.<br /><br />This is our first <i>Trailers Without Pity</i> video since December and we're back on schedule to do these every two week. It was a lot more work than I remembered, but also tons of fun. I really like how this one turned out.</blockquote><br /><br /><center><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://wgtclsp.nbcuni.com/o/483dce16aa491e3d/4b71d0ff2dcaef53/4b134275a5a23c71/944a428/-cpid/59a2ae008f19351f" id="W483dce16aa491e3d4b71d0ff2dcaef53" width="450" height="450"><param name="movie" value="http://wgtclsp.nbcuni.com/o/483dce16aa491e3d/4b71d0ff2dcaef53/4b134275a5a23c71/944a428/-cpid/59a2ae008f19351f" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="allowNetworking" value="all" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /></object></center><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-656672212704035546?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-52483774644056283872010-02-08T16:53:00.004-06:002010-02-08T17:11:20.893-06:00Uncertain Terribly Happy futures<b>Uncertain Terribly Happy futures</b><br /><br /><blockquote>In about a month and a half, I won't be able to update this Web site the way I have for the last five or six years.<br /><br />Blogger is <a href="http://blogger-ftp.blogspot.com/">shutting down its FTP service</a>, which means I won't be able to create blog entries using Blogger and have it automatically FTP to my Web host. <br /><br />My options as it stands are to either move my entire site to a Google-hosted platform, which I don't want to do, or to move this blog to some other kind of blogging software, like Wordpress, which I quite like and have used for <a href="http://npr.org/alltech">blogging</a> on <a href="http://videogamey.com">other</a> <a href="http://peopledancingatconcerts.com">sites</a>.<br /><br />Or I could just shut down this site. That's certainly an option, but not one I'm really considering. For one thing, I have advertisers who've already paid for the text ads you see on the rails and those agreements are ongoing. <br /><br />But I like posting here, even as infrequently as it happens. It's my home on the Web. I don't post my most private thoughts (I like having a job and feeding my kids), but I do let it hang out a little more here than in other places where I write, except for maybe <a href="http://twitter.com/omarg">Twitter</a>, where I'm most off-the-cuff (within limits).<br /><br />It's hard to believe the site has been around almost 10 years and that I suddenly have to decide whether it's worth the effort to move it to Wordpress. That's probably what I'll do, but a petulant part of mine thinks, "Fuck this. I have more important shit to deal with."<br /><br />Like, say, watching a bunch of DVR'd episodes of <i>Saturday Night Live</i> and <i>Mighty Boosh</i>. So not really <i>important</i> stuff, really, just things I'd rather be doing than learning how to export a site from Blogger and import it into Wordpress. 10 years ago, I had the patience to learn how to create image maps and to use Dreamweaver and Fireworks to create this Web site, but now I barely have the patience to get my car registration renewed and toilet train my two-year-old. (I know. Priorities!)<br /><br />Part of me wishes I had the willpower to just nuke the whole site and start over on Wordpress, but I know that's not a possibility. I'm getting better about not holding onto the past so much, but I hate it when Web sites disappear and their archives go away forever. I know that's a site owner's prerogative, but as a reader it always feels like the author of a book I quite like snuck into my house and removed it from the bookshelf so I can never go back and browse through its pages ever again. I don't think I could do that.<br /><br />So we'll see what happens. I have more than a month to figure it out in between dealing with South by Southwest Interactive, working and doing everything else I do.<br /><br />I'm annoyed, but I'll get over it. Blogger is NOT a good blog platform; it's tolerable and I've put up with it for years longer than I should have because I didn't feel like migrating elsewhere, but it's sad how far Blogger has fallen behind other blogging platforms and how such a cool thing has just suffered from neglect and lack of innovation. It feels like an elephant graveyard and maybe that alone will be enough to motivate me to get my ass over to the greener grass of Wordpress, Terribly Happy in tow.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-5248377464405628387?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-7171338232338451312010-01-28T17:14:00.003-06:002010-01-28T22:54:46.774-06:00The comeback<b>The comeback</b><br /><br /><center><a href="http://ageoflasers.com/007-up-middleground-creek-without-an-ipaddle/"><img src="http://ageoflasers.com/media/007.jpg" width=425></a></center><br /><br /><blockquote>This week was like a dress rehearsal for next week, when I'll be going back to work after a six-week absence. I've been at work once a week this month and have been doing NPR and other work-y things, but on Monday, things go back to semi-normal, except that there is a really small human being added to the mix for us to worry over.<br /><br />On Monday, I did <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122956288">a very brief NPR All Tech Considered segment</a> that was the fastest I've ever been recorded for them. We did it one take, three minutes, DONE. I'm a little afraid to listen to it because it went so quickly, but I'm going to go on thinking that it was awesome and that there's nothing I could have done better with multiple takes or more time. Please don't correct me on that if I'm wrong. <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/01/nexus_one_woes_and_a_few_more.html">The blog entry that goes with it</a> took considerably more time.<br /><br />Of course, the other big thing in my world was Apple's iPad announcement. I wrote what I thought was a pretty fun lead-up blog entry about it on rejected names for the device, then I went to work on Wednesday to lead <a href="http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/digitalsavant/entries/2010/01/27/apples_big_reve.html">a live chat on Digital Savant</a>. The news was coming fast and furious and by late afternoon my brain felt melted.<br /><br />I met with my friend Mical to do a Skype video chat with Bobby Bones, whom I've worked with in the past and who has brought us on to <a href="http://twitter.com/mrBobbyBones/status/8205888453">help</a> with <a href="http://bobbybonesworkout.blogspot.com/">a new project</a>.<br /><br />Then I went home and recorded a lengthy <a href="http://ageoflasers.com">Age of Lasers</a> podcast <a href="http://ageoflasers.com/007-up-middleground-creek-without-an-ipaddle/">about the iPad</a> with Glark. It was a full, busy day and a bit of a preview of how things might be very soon. I'm also scripting new <i>Trailers Without Pity</i> episodes with Pablo G. and trying to keep up with TV, newspaper articles and RSS feeds. (And e-mail. Always the e-mail.)<br /><br />Did I mention there's a baby? Diapers, feedings, all that.<br /><br />So, yes, it's busy, but it's good. Happy, even. Yay for a busy, fulfilling 2010!</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-717133823233845131?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-53657901917301860022010-01-20T23:35:00.004-06:002010-01-21T10:25:27.699-06:00No sleep 'til workplace<b>No sleep 'til workplace</b><br /><br /><blockquote>Except for the part where four days a week I stay home instead of going to work, things seem pretty normal around here. Given the amount of time our new Carolina sleeps during the day, you could easily forget that there's a four-week-old hanging around. <br /><br />Instead she bides her time and stays up all night, grunting and demanding, keeping her poor parents up until that horrible hour in the morning when one of the has to get up to take the two-year-old to her daycare. It's almost like these two siblings haven't figured out yet how to coordinate their schedules yet to maximize the ease with which their parents might provide nurturing care for them. What the Hell, kids?<br /><br />Next week is the last week of sick leave I have left before I go to work, but that's sort of not really true because I plan to go to Austin on Monday for an NPR segment and again on Wednesday for a work day to cover Apple's very-likely tablet announcement.<br /><br />This week was my first NPR All Tech Considered piece since early December. I don't know how you might react if suddenly asked to go on a national radio show to talk about Haiti relief. My reaction was something like, "Ah. Could we talk about <a href="http://www.terribly-happy.com/2009_07_19_oldblogger.html#5933228367157635796">funny cats on the Internet instead</a>?"<br /><br />I'm so glad we <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122702626">did the on-air segment</a>, though, (and <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/01/helping_haiti_with_tech_texts.html">the blog entry, which has lots of great links</a>) because I'm pretty blown away by how concerned people have been. This is despite one or two lunkheaded comments I've seen about Haiti on the various social networks I frequent.<br /><br />I joke around a lot about everything, but my tolerance for jokes about this is somewhere close to zero. My tolerance is even less for people who have to ask why we should bother to help people in such dire circumstances when we have plenty of serious problems here in the U.S.<br /><br />If I have to explain why you should help a country where 200,000+ people may have died and which many hundreds of thousands more are, literally, on the edge of death, then you are not a person that can be convinced anyway. You are not a person I can waste my time on because <span style="font-style:italic;">you don't get it</span>. You probably won't get it, not for many years to come if at all, and I have no time for you. Haiti has no time for you. Stay the Hell out of the way.<br /><br />Another new thing I forgot to post about last week <a href="http://actiongravy.com/archive_page.php?comicID=251">is a <i>Space Monkeys!</i> comic we did about <i>Avatar</i></a>. I still haven't seen this movie, but I hope to sometime in the next few days. 3+ hours in a theater is tough to swing when you have a newborn.<br /><br /><center><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="httphttp://actiongravy.com/archive_page.php?comicID=251"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 337px; height: 200px;" src="http://www.terribly-happy.com/uploaded_images/avatarice3D-782395.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a></center><br /><br />Because of the time it takes to do our <i>Trailers Without Pity</i> videos, we pretty much put the comic on hold indefinitely. We had hoped to do a few more over the holidays, but, hey, infant. Pablo also has some things that are keeping him busy right now, so, sadly we're not able to do the comics we want to do right now. <br /><br />We love that universe, we love the characters, and we both hate not being able to produce comics regularly. We've been discussing ways to do simpler, more quick-hit comics, which I'm totally down with, but we'll see if it comes to fruition. For the time being, the <i>Avatar</i> comic will have to be a one-off holiday bonus.<br /><br />I'm really quite happy with the way <a href="http://www.actiongravy.com/images/avatarice3D.gif">the 3-D version of the comic</a> (requires red/blue 3-D glasses) came out. It was pretty amazing that Pablo taught himself how to do that so quickly. He's sharp like that.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-5365790191730186002?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-88956470616165121372010-01-12T23:30:00.005-06:002010-01-12T23:49:34.191-06:00Back on the horse, little by little<b>Back on the horse, little by little</b><br /><br /><center><a href="http://ageoflasers.com/006-ces-rambling-wrap-up/"><img src="http://ageoflasers.com/media/60510583-738x491.jpg" width=425 border=0></a></center><br /><br /><blockquote>There's <a href="http://ageoflasers.com/006-ces-rambling-wrap-up/">a new episode of "Age of Lasers" up today, #006</a>, in which Glark and I pretend (but not for very long) that we went to the big Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week. We talk about 3-D TV, devices that stream Internet content to your television, e-books/tablets and other stuff. Also, porn. I'm not sure exactly that got in there.<br /><br />We recorded it this afternoon and it was up in record time. It's the first one we've recorded since before Christmas and I was relieved to get back into it because the weeks since Carolina was born have been a weird mix of sleep deprivation, boredom, crazy excitement and activity, and little bits where it almost feels like a vacation. (Or, the dreaded word, "Babycation.")<br /><br />I took six weeks off from work because I had mountains and mountains of sick time piled up from 12 years of not really ever getting sick at my job. In truth, even taking six weeks of sick time barely makes a dent in the almost 800 hours of sick leave I'd accrued.<br /><br />Of course, you can't just take an extended amount of sick time just because; a doctor had to recommend it and because my wife isn't being allowed to drive and we have a 2-year-old in daycare, I need to be home to help for that time. We did a weird little addendum though: I'm going to work one day a week to clear out e-mails and go through packages that pile up and also meeting with my editor to begin South by Southwest Interactive planning for March. So, really, I'm only off for about five weeks.<br /><br />I've done this one-day thing for two weeks now and in that time I've completely cleared out tons of boxes and junk under my desk, organized my files, answered e-mails (anytime my inbox has fewer than 50 messages I'm in good shape) and have sent back a lot of review loan products that had been piling up.<br /><br />It's nice to be back at work but not under the pressure to work on stories or blog. Blogging and keeping up with e-mails and other communication, I've come to find, probably take up about 80 percent of my work day. The rest is spent trying to pull together stories for print and other odds and ends. That doesn't leave a lot of time for sending back packages to companies that loan us products or keeping my paper files up to date. The part of me that still adheres to <i>Getting Things Done</i> loves this opportunity I have to get my shit together.<br /><br />I also haven't been doing NPR since December and that was mostly the birth but also just luck of the draw in that the last few segments have already been pulled together without me being needed. I think I'm on next Monday, but I'm not 100 percent sure on the topic yet.<br /><br />And then there's "Trailers Without Pity" which I'm about to start working on new scripts for this weekend and another project, possibly for TV, that some good friends have asked me to help out on. <br /><br />Things are ramping up again and in two and a half weeks I'll be back at work full time and things will be crazy and accelerated all over again. We'll have new stuff to deal with like the possibility of two separate daycares. I have to keep reminding myself we have a whole other human in our house who needs attention and that it's a very real possibility that I simply can't keep up my usual pace. After Lilly was born, several things I had spent years working on began to fall away (LCP, recapping for TWoP), not necessarily because I was ready to stop but because I had no choice but to stop.<br /><br />Those decisions have worked out well, but I'm finding that my number one priority right now is finding the balance between keeping these creative endeavors going that I love so much and not neglecting my family or taking too much time away from home. I'm not sure how I'll do it all and, as I get older, simply skipping sleep like I used to is becoming less and less attractive.<br /><br />I'm hoping 2010 has as many surprises and fortuitous turns as 2009 did for us.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-8895647061616512137?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-45830344272770747982010-01-05T22:54:00.002-06:002010-01-05T23:12:15.740-06:00Overexposed in '09<b>Overexposed in '09</b><br /><br /><blockquote>I'm not sure why it took me so long to get to this post. I could use the excuse that I've been reproducing and that the past year was just insanely busy, but my life is always insanely busy and that never stops me from saying what I want to say.<br /><br />So instead, I'll suppose that I wanted to let enough time pass before I even brought up the subject because when it was all happening it seemed to weird and foreign that it embarrassed me to even bring it up.<br /><br />Now, it just seems like, "Something weird and interesting that happened last year," so here goes.<br /><br />After a series of events at work last summer, my face ended up plastered on a giant billboard on IH-35 in north Austin. And on a local TV commercial. And in some print ads.<br /><br />It was an ad campaign our newspaper did to highlight people in the newsroom and, I suppose, ingratiate us to the community a little. I was one of about seven people (some in pairs) who were part of these ads. There was a months-long build-up to it and it all started with me committing to be a part of it in the first place, which itself was a leap of faith.<br /><br />The idea, I was told, was that we'd be doing slam poetry against a white backdrop. A guy I really don't like at the Austin Chronicle had just written an article mocking our paper for a column that dealt with slam poetry and the last thing I wanted to do to open myself up to ridicule by some bitter, unloved hack at the weekly rag who already has an axe to grind with us. <br /><br />But partly because I was asked and also because a friend of mine was responsible for writing the content of the ads, I went ahead with it. I had lots of second thoughts. I freaked out a little. When I had to parade a bunch of clothes (not my own) in front of several coworkers and film people like I was shopping with mom for back-to-school clothes I wondered if there was any way I could bail.<br /><br />I felt goofy at the photo shoot.<br /><br />I felt 10 times goofier at the video shoot, even though the company that was doing it for us had a very talented director, a really professional crew and even a nice little food spread laid out for an all-day Saturday session.<br /><br />Then -- as sometimes happens in life and you have to just go with it -- it turned out better than I expected. People seemed to really like the ads. When I'd go to happy hour events, my friend Wesley would introduce me as, "This is Omar. He's on a billboard." <br /><br />If I were single, that would have been a fantastic way to meet women. I don't know why I never thought to buy myself billboard space in my early 20s.<br /><br />Seeing the billboard in person, parked by the side of the road, was so trippy I chose to just ignore it and take some photos. I felt incredibly self conscious standing there with a tripod and camera as people drove by, some schmoe taking a picture of giant picture of himself. <br /><br />The NPR segments I've been doing are a much more high-profile thing, but it's radio. I never seen the listeners. I never know where they are and, although I get lots of feedback, I don't have to see myself over those airwaves or worry about what I look like out there to people who don't know me.<br /><br />But, at the same time, I find that as I get older the opportunity to take risks and do something out of my comfort zone (that doesn't involve creating children) become fewer and fewer. I'm glad it all happened and that I took a leap of faith, but it made for a strange 2009. At least I've got lots of visuals to remember it.<br /><br />The billboard:</blockquote><br /><br /><center><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3501/3984762810_3f510b0db4.jpg" width=450></center><br /><br /><blockquote>One of the print ads:</blockquote><br /><br /><center><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2770/4249512827_22c1dd41b9.jpg"></center><br /><br /><blockquote>A banner that was near our lunch room (and which scared lots of co-workers and lunch servers):</blockquote><br /><br /><center><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2576/3990937324_7eb7945e8d.jpg"></center><br /><br /><blockquote>The commercial:</blockquote><br /><br /><center><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/G_TKSeQvxjE&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/G_TKSeQvxjE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></center><p><br /><br /><blockquote>OK, now I don't want to look at any of this stuff again until at least 2011.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-4583034427277074798?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245136.post-56143974940293950122009-12-31T22:35:00.002-06:002009-12-31T22:41:00.980-06:00The Top 10 Things of the Aughts<b>The Top 10 Things of the Aughts</b><br /><br /><blockquote>I know that many writers have been out there filing their very last story before vacation, listing their top 10 movies, top 10 albums, songs, knitting patterns, <span style="font-style:italic;">whatever</span> of the last decade.<br /><br />Well, that's really subjective and just <i>adorable</i>.<br /><br />While many of them have been doing not much more than cruising their iTunes Most Played list and typing away, I've been out on the mean streets -- pounding the pavement, kneading the dough, dotting the i's, crossing the doughnuts, pickling the peppers (it's just an expression) -- keeping a top 10 list that reflects not just art and culture, but EVERYTHING.<br /><br />EVERYTHING!<br /><br />Here, without further delay, then, is the only Top 10 of the 2000s list you'll need. <br /><br /><center><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Top 10 Things of 2000-late 2009:</span></center><br /><blockquote><b><ol><li>Cheese.<br /><li>The space bar.<br /><li>Slides.<br /><li>Raspberry lemonade.<br /><li>Very old peckers.<br /><li>Tiny socks.<br /><li>Pauses.<br /><li>The entire southern hemisphere.<br /><li>That Nathan Fillion guy.<br /><li>Boner pills. (See #5)</blockquote></b></ol><br /><br />You're welcome, '00s! </blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5245136-5614397494029395012?l=www.terribly-happy.com%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Omarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10168076394020215228noreply@blogger.com