Surfing The Web So You Don't Have To
I’m back online after avoiding my computer for a bit. I’m going through my hundreds of e-mail messages, trying to get it all sorted out, working from home this morning as I have a friend’s wedding I’m going to this afternoon (and it seemed silly to drive all the way out to Sunriver when I’d have to come back so early).
Did I miss anything of vital importance last week?
That’s why I love this video of a Super Mario Bros. speed run visualized as one long projection, superimposed on a street-scene:
If you’re an old-school Mario fan, this site is pretty sweet and includes some whole-world maps that are pretty interesting in their scale.
Note: This will probably be the last thing I post for about at least a week or so. I’m going on a much needed vacation. Would-be crooks: I have folks staying at my house, so don’t bother — there’s nothing worth taking anyway. My plan: Avoiding technology as much as possible and enjoying sleep, sun, and sand as much as I can. Mostly sleep.
As you all should know by now, I live in the war-zone near Pilot Butte, where they launch the annual Fourth of July fireworks, and my street is already packed with cars and drunken revelers ready to celebrate the holiday by finding more creative ways to set parts of the neighborhood on fire. As per our usual tradition, we plan on spending as much time away from this chaotic area before the main fireworks get shot off The Butte, where we’ll then plop on our couch and watch the show. This morning I was at work (I work every holiday, minus Christmas — one perk about working in the tourism indusry). I spent this afternoon performing with the band in an outdoor Americana concert in Redmond. There was a healthy breeze coming through the stage so we spent a good chunk of time chasing around music (despite it being pinned to our stands) and picking up blown-over stands. Now, I plan on turning on the sprinklers for a bit (as we’ve had many an illegal firework land in our yard), locking up the house, and weaving my way through the party-goers before they start getting too sloppy and stupid that they won’t let us out.
Anybody want to make any bets on how much they burn the Butte this year? With this breeze, things could get messy.
Have a safe and happy holiday, everybody. Have a designated driver. Don’t do anything stupid. And please don’t set my house on fire.
One of the great things about Netflix (we’re subscribers, love it) is its ability to have it recommend shows and movies based on what you rated. We primarily watch a ton of TV shows from Netflix as we just find them more entertaining many times (and it’s easier to watch in shorter chunks of time). I was talking to Owen at Mug Revolution the other day about Netflix stuff, and made me wonder what Netflix is introducing to everybody else. So here are a few that Netflix said we’d like and we certainly have.
That’s all I can think of off the top of my head. So what gems did you not know about had it not been for Netflix?
Jon already beat me to this, as I’ve been busy/slacking/whatever the last couple weeks, but the Cascade Winds Symphonic Band (of which I’ve been a member for 15+ years) is having their final concert on June 6 (Sunday) at 2:00PM at Summit High School. The concert is free, we’ll have loads of great music (American composers and themes this time after last concert’s Russian theme). We’ll have a few featured soloists (as well as a vocal soloist), munchies during intermission, and it’ll be an enjoyable show for everyone!
For more details, head to the Cascade Winds’ site or head over to Facebook and invite all your friends.
Like previously announced, Bend Blogs is on Facebook. Now all you Twitts Twitter users out there can follow Bend Blogs on Twitter as well. I just setup the twitterfeed this morning, so it doesn’t have a lot of content on it yet, but it’ll get there soon.
And one of these days, Bend Blogs will be designed so I can easily announce this stuff over on that site as well (it really just needs a redesign, which I don’t have time for).
While a few places can still move around, the top three places in the pick ’em have been finalized (today’s spreadsheet is here):
Congrats to all our winners! I’ll be contacting everybody after Monday’s final game.
There are still a few places that could change around in the rest of the bracket, as a few people picked Duke to win the whole thing, while nobody picked Butler. Final scores will be posted after Monday’s final game.
So I’ve gone through the effort of creating a quick and dirty Bend Blogs fan page. My goal is to have it pulling the content from Bend Blogs, posting it into the wall of the Fan page, and potentially bring more traffic to the folks who list themselves on Bend Blogs. It’s very much in its infant stages, but if you’re wanting to become a fan, feel free (primarily so I can get enough fans to get a username).
Any suggestions on how to fully utilize the page are welcome. Really, the Bend Blogs site needs a redesign to take better advantage of the various social networking opportunities I’m working on setting up. @bendblogs will be coming soon, @utterlyboring is already here, @jakeortman will never happen. I’ve come to realize that fewer and fewer folks are reading RSS feeds anymore, getting their content via Facebook and Twitter. Thankfully, there are many apps and services out there to automatically dump RSS feeds to both of these services, so while my original feelings about twitter haven’t changed much, I obviously need to let people know when new content has been written to keep some sort of ad revenue coming in so I can pay for my server fees.
If you run a Web site, and want Bend Blogs content on your own site, I do have banners and widgets for that, and remember there is a mobile version as well.
If you’re wondering why I suddenly am getting into this more, it’s because I’m working on setting up and customizing Discover Sunriver’s Facebook and Twitter profiles and pages, so I’m also using my various experiments to figure out how to do things properly before I implement them on the Discover Sunriver pages.
Update an Hour Later: Woohoo! We have the required 25 fans for a username! You can now find Bend Blogs on Facebook at facebook.com/bendblogs
Round Three of the 2010 pick ’em is over, with “Club ED” and “winner winner chicken dinner” tied for the lead, with “Capitan Jack & his Torchwood” just a couple points behind. The games during the Elite Eight (the next two days) are worth five points each, so it’s still anybody’s game (except mine — there’s no chance there).
The various upsets during the tournament has made the spreadsheet very interesting.
Scores for the next two days will be combined and posted on Sunday, when the Final Four has been set.
The SOBA Noodle punch card, provided by BOR, will be going to the “haven’t a clue” bracket. The two last place people aren’t even remotely local — one out of the country and one out of the state — and after talking to them, they said to pass it on to the next worse person. I know that person is local, so I’ll be sending them the card later this week.