Scribblings From The Public Restroom Stalls Of The Gods

A few announcements, since I’ve been asked…

• I am planning on having copies of my DVDs available at the CCAG show in Cleveland this October. There won’t be a huge number of copies on hand, because frankly, CCAG falls on exactly the same day as OVGE in Tulsa, and I just don’t have it in my budget to do a build-up of a huge number of copies for two simultaneous shows, but there will be some there. These will be at Tim Snider’s table, and all of the DVDs I’ve done so far (PDF, CGE 2K7, Best of CGE ‘03 and Best of CGE ‘05) will be available there.
• Did he say Best of CGE ‘05? Yes he did. I’m editing Best of CGE ‘05 right now, it’s looking good, and although it’s not true HD, it’ll filler yer HDTV with a great big widescreen picture. Best of CGE ‘05 will be a two-disc set, however it’ll be a buck or two more than Best of CGE ‘03 because one of those discs will need to be dual-layer, and dual-layer Lightscribe discs aren’t cheap (see also: CGE 2K7). This set will be ready in time for both OVGE and CCAG, with online ordering beginning after both shows.
• What about that book? I had been crazily trying to get VWORP! together in time for October as well, but I have to announce that it’ll be delayed until the beginning of 2010 now. There are several reasons for this: with the OVGE/CCAG weekend being the target date for Best of CGE ‘05, that’s the item that needs my attention most right now. Putting VWORP! out anytime before the end of 2009 is kind of like writing a book on everything you need to know about the New World in 1491. There’s a heap of interesting stuff happening right as VWORP! would have to cut off for an October publication date: the tenth Doctor’s final episodes, Sarah Jane season 3, the Hornet’s Nest audios with Tom Baker… it just seemed like the least desirable cut-off point possible. VWORP! will wait until January 2010, where it’ll make a hell of a lot more sense to release it.
• And the next book after that? A little thing that we around here like to call Phosphor Dot Fossils. Like I was gonna leave that off the list! Hopefully no later than late summer 2010. After the book, I’d think that the next step for PDF – aside from it being the cool web archive that we all know and love – would either be as a TV project somewhat grander than the existing DVDs, or maybe as a brand name for a line of fine cat care products. Between you and me, I’m holding out for TV.

That’s all for now. Whether you’re in Cleveland or Tulsa on October 24th, in a way, I’ll see you there!

Oh, and one other thing – today is the absolute last day for Summer Byte Bundles! Those ordering links will stop working in the wee hours of the morning. Last call!

A friend of mine sent me a link to an article about a group of scientists from Zurich using unusual means to actually obtain an image of a molecule. The story is fascinating stuff.

The comments…less so. It’s just the latest in a long line of incidents I’ve witnesses that has convinced me that the much-vaunted “Web 2.0″ paradigm has fallen short of the sales pitch on the outside of the box. Perhaps it’s less than democratic of me to take a big number two all over Web 2.0, whose underlying mantras seem to have been “let everyone comment on everything” and “rely on users to generate new content,” but from what I’ve been able to tell, the experiment has not yielded a resounding success. More »

Taxi the super-pregnant Special Guest Cat…

…is still super-pregnant. More »

Once upon a time, back in my radio days, I dramatically announced “My dear friends…”, held out my hand like a Shakespearean soliloquoy was right around the corner about to collide with me, and emitted a massive belch. I thought it was kinda funny, perhaps even a little too calculated for sheer incongruity. It sure brought the room to a halt (yes, there were other people there). More »

So, Microsoft is twisting itself into corporate pretzels (well, not really) to apologize for a piece of international marketing. Their original web site promoted a product with this photo:

But when they went to promote the same thing in Poland, they photoshopped one of the people in the picture ever so slightly:

But while everyone’s up in arms about that change, no one’s even noticed this version for yet another foreign market:

This is diabolical. Their photo editing is seamless!

Poor Taxi cat. She still hasn’t had her kittens yet, and she’s also surprisingly spry about jumping up onto the bathroom counter (she likes to flop into the sink and sleep there) and in/out of the bathtub (where I have a nice secluded spot set up for her to have her kittens). Maybe she’s not as close as we thought.

There’s a new DVD out in these parts. Like the rest of the DVDs I’ve done, they involve classic video game history – there seems to be a theme developing. This latest one goes back to the footage I shot in 2003 of the first Classic Gaming Expo I attended. More »

A quick update here on a bunch of stuff. First off, the pregnant cat update. More »