Cooking for Brevitt

More Yo Gabba Gabba!

If you remember awhile back I was lucky enough to come across Yo Gabba Gabba and my life hasn't been the same since. The characters are hilarious, Biz Markie is a regular, it was created by the lead singer of the Aquabats, they released Pick It Up - I really could go on and on!

So I was happy to see Boston.com pick up on this show with a feature this morning - Preschool and Cool. Very cool article covering how the show has evolved from something targeted to kids only and has now entered hipster status. Also very cool to learn about W!ldbrain, the company behind Yo Gabba Gabba and Kid Robot. Make sure to check out the work they have produced, think you will be surprised on how much they have put out recently.

Go read the article before I send Muno after you!

FOX News - Watch Out For The Kidz

Wow.....Fox News has always been a bit on the crazy side. You know with skewing facts, focusing on their own agenda and pretty much not reporting reality and all. So although this latest issue isn't that surprising, it's the response of the community affected that is very interesting for me to see.

Let's review!

Earlier this week Fox News produced a feature on Mass Effect - an amazing science fiction based RPG for the 360 that has achieved critical acclaim pretty much everywhere. You can read most of the details over at Destructoid, but in general - Fox News claims that you can perform graphic sex within Mass Effect with full frontal nudity. In typical Fox News fashion, they gloss over the fact on how much character development is needed to get to this stage and their facts about sex and nudity are simply false. Plus their panel of experts contained only one person who had ever played the game and the vast majority only know video games as tools of the devil apparently.

What happens next you say?

Well the interwebz pick up on this boiling piece of crap and the gaming community exploded. First were stories on pretty much every gaming blog denouncing the piece, then the publisher EA jumps up to defend their product, this is follow by more fan boy ranting, which lead to G4 jumping on the news - all of this is great, but here is the kicker.......the gaming community got has started a war against one of Fox's 'experts' via her Amazon book listings.  In particular, her latest book is getting eaten alive by negative reviews.

Make sure to check out the Amazon post as well to read them all! Some of my favorites include:

• "Take this with a grain of salt, but I heard her parents were Dracula and Josef Mengele. Would you trust that? No Just Kidding. But more seriously she likes to shoot her mouth off about things she has no experience or even research into. I'd take my above statement more seriously than anything she pens."
• "I did not read this book, I'm just gonna assume that it has nothing but garbage in it. Why should I waste time reading? I plays teh videogames. Well, I'm just gonna go play with my se-xbox. I don't recommend this book though, so take that as you will."
• "There's a new study out of the University of Maryland that says this book sucks."
• "One of the worst books I've had the pleasure of never reading"
• "Mass Effect has turned me into a sex crazed zombie. I just wish I had never played with that damnable devil-machine. I can't sleep or eat anymore... I'm up all night, craving digital sideboob. This book features no sideboob."
• "A new study straight out of Massachusetts shows that this book sucks. It contains full, frontal, bi-lateral, and subatomic nudity and sex acts between women and violent men who play Mass Effect. Keep away from children. It's so tough being a parent now a days!"

• "...I poured myself a bowl of cereal this morning, so im an overachiever too. Anyway back to playing xbox..."

Lesson learned Fox News and more importantly - look at how the community reacted. Even if you believe in what Fox was presenting and think video games rot your brain, you need to admire the power of viral groups.

As a fan of games and someone interesting in the marketing power of these actions - it's been a very interesting few days.

Back From the West Coast

I made it back to ATL after a week long trip in San Francisco visiting Macworld. It has been a pretty crazy week, so let's take a look at the good stuff!

• Mac Air: Apparently this just came out....who knew??!? Hahah!
• Snow: I has it and it followed me to Atlanta - seriously, there was a pretty big storm here on Saturday. Looked like about an inch stuck on the ground, although by Sunday morning it was mostly gone!
• New Coat: I'm digging the coat even though the material is a bit different than I thought it would be.
• NFL: Big game today for the Patriots - can they continue the push?
• Street Hockey: Picking this up with some co-workers. Actually not a big fan of street hockey, but think this will be fun. League started on Sunday, but because I brought the snow, first game is next week!
• Cloverfield: Good movie - go check it out. I'll do a full review shortly, but get there early for previews. This batch was great!
  • Iron Man
  • Star Trek
  • Hell Boy 2
  • 10,000 BC
• Chili: I've been itching for my secret chili recipe for awhile now and finally made it....so good! It's not nachos, but damn close!

Come back soon and read more!

Imma Stealin Yo Mac Airz!

I've been asked by pretty much everyone I know to steal a Mac Air when I get the chance.....ummmm, sure. Although they are quite slim, I'm still not sure how I'm supposed to slip out without anyone noticing my slippery fingers!

Alas dear friends, you will have to run down to the nearest Mac Store and purchase one yourselves.

Other good things about Macworld and SF so far.....list being generated......now!

• Cool shit! So many creative things going on here, very different than other trade shows I've been to.
• Fan boys - daaaaaaaamn! I got caught entering the Moscone just as the doors to the public were opened. Bad idea. Nothing like wading through thousands of rabid fans just trying to get to work.
• Le Colonial - very good French Vietnamese fusion food. Check this out if you are in SF!
• Kid Robot Store - damnit I missed my new coat by a few hours, but still plan on hitting the retails store later this week.

Back to work in a few minutes...so enjoy the day kidz and chat soon!

Iceland, Sox, Rain and More

Few random thoughts for the day:

• Brevitt has landed safely in Iceland as of 6:30 this morning thanks to the pilots of Icelandair who had favorable winds and decided to fly at 700mph. Although I arrived an hour earlier than I was supposed to, my driver was waiting for me which was good and away we went.
• The Hotel Cabin should be named the Hotel Closet - it has by far the smallest rooms I've ever seen.
• The Boston Red Sox won 13-1 last night! I'm excited for the team, but bummed that I'll be in Iceland the entire Series and won't be able to catch any of the action.
• It's been rainy here for days and it doesn't look like it will end anytime soon - sweet!
• I'm missing a lot of things about home right now, so looking forward to getting back to the States once this trip is wrapped up.
• The Lord and MC Winks are becoming quite good at Halo 3.
• Magic the Gathering is meant for people over the age of 13, but my deck will still kick that crap out of The Lord's deck!

Well that's it for now - it's a bit crazy with little sleep and so much going on, but check back in soon kids as I start to post a bit more.

Do You MBA?

It's a question that continues to gain more and more national attention - what is the real value of getting your MBA? I'm not going to really get that deep into the debate, but thanks to Boston.com for linking to a Yahoo Finance story today that highlights this argument.

Check out Penelope Trunk's as she weighs in with 'Are MBAs Becoming Obsolete?

There is value in any Graduate level degree, you just need to make sure you are getting it for the right reasons. There is no easy path to evolving your career and an MBA is just another tool that 'could' be valuable later down the road. I will agree with Trunk that you should only enroll full-time at a top-25 program (possibly higher than that). Once you drop out of the top programs the education is the same, but you've lost out on the prestige a big-name school will bring.

So MBA or no MBA - that is the question!

I Survived PAX 2007

Although the rest of my team still has two more trade shows to hit up in the next two weeks, due to my move to the Durty Durty my last stop for now was the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) up in Seattle. After dodging manicores and foam-core sword wielders at Gen Con the previous week, it was onto video game heaven at PAX.

There are already a ton of reviews on the show from other blogs, so I'll just cut to the parts of the show that I really dug:

• Location - every time I go to Seattle, I like it more. This show was right downtown, near food, shopping, outdoor markets, bars, hotels and Game Works......meaning - it's a perfect spot
• Wil Wheaton - the self proclaimed 'King of the Geeks' had a great speech which hit on censorship, politicians, classic arcade gaming in the 80's, the social aspects of gaming (how can gaming be anti-social when it revolves around getting people together to play games?) and the future of gaming for his generation (those like myself who grew up with the Atari 2600) and the new crop of kids weened on Playstation and Xbox
• Rock Band - I told one of the developers I would happily pay $500 for this....they can't release this fast enough
• Mario Strikers Charged - totally reminds me of when Mario Kart came out. Pure unadulterated fun...it's that plain and simple. This game is a complete blast to play
• Kane and Lynch - they somehow have got the vibe of Heat and plugged it into a FPS style game with tactical aspects as well. This was the first consumer playable demo released, so cool to give it a go - make sure to check it out when you can
• Castle Crashers - ummm, yes! Release this now as well. Love that it's coming direct over XBLA - orange knight FTW!
• Virtual Fighter 5 Arcade Box - oddly enough the local Game Works had this hidden away in a corner. Pretty surprising given this is a big release on the arcade front
• Hawk - no, not the video game, but the American Gladiator. The former NFL player and PhD (yes, he has a PhD from UCLA) was there to promote Haze. Great promotional pull-in to have him there....it worked, unlike their decision to have the game controls hanging above the men's room urinals. Still trying to figure out how I'm supposed to remember what the L2 button does while peeing

I could go on and on, but there are a ton of other sites that have some great PAX coverage, so use the webz and search around. Great show though and with a reported attendance of over 35,000 people - it's clearly shaping up to be THE consumer show in 2008.

Starcraft II, The Lich King & Everything Else

While the Lord of All was eating Onion Donuts and traveling through the space time continuum otherwise known as South Carolina, the one and only Brevitt was at Gen Con getting his goblin on! Ehhh - well, not really, but still even though I was there for work the show was a lot of fun. Although it was cool to check out what was going on in the hobby business, it was great to play some upcoming video game titles. So without further ado - away we go with my thoughts!

• Crysis - I am probably the worst PC FPS player, I just can't get used to using the keyboard and mouse as opposed to a controller, but Crysis is looking to be the game everyone thought it would be. Amazing graphics and killer game play made this a must play at the show. Some elements I really liked:
  • When running/sprinting the screen becomes blurry - think about how your vision changes when  you run....it's never in perfect focus, so this is a cool add
  • Enemies with spotlights can blind you - that's right, if you run into a enemy with a light on his weapon and it is flashed into your eyes, the whole screen is blurred by the light.....meaning, you can't see - just like if it occurred in real life
  • Smart enemies! It's about time that NPC's actually moved as if someone was shooting at them. Instead of standing there, they break into cover or try and flank you with numbers
• Starcraft II - I'm not a big RTS fan either, but I will say Starcraft II is a beautiful game! If you were a fan of the first edition, then this is a must get in once launched. Unit options, controls, sound, game play, enemy AI - everything about this game is very well put together. This is gold Blizzard.....GOLD!
• WoW: The Lich King - Being able to actually play in Northrend was a big surprise for me. I thought they would have trailers and maybe some concept art, but to be able to actually get into one of the zones and battle mobs was pretty cool. There was nothing truly amazing that I saw as it's the same formula as before, but still - great graphic updates, cool quests and all that. I will say that Blizzard is much farther along with The Lich King then many suspected. It took 2-years for Burning Crusade to come out after it was announced. The Lich King was confirmed only one-month ago and already there is a playable demo? Watch out kids...this is coming out sooner than people think.
• Conan - Ehhh.....swords and barbarians in fur shorts. Neat, but didn't really get me jazzed up to make a run at this in the future.
• Tabula Rasa - Ehhh number deuce....not as innovative as I believe people expect it to be. The combat system has the appearance of being a real-time twitch fest, but in reality it's still based on back-end dice rolling.
• PS3 Card Game - Don't remember the name of this, but the concept was pretty cool. You have a deck of cards and a tablet with an overhead camera. Load the game and play your cards against your opponent - standard stuff, but once the reader sees what cards you are playing, the game screen comes to live with actual battles between what is being played. I'm not a CCG player, but neat to see technology like this

Also props to the barbarian guy who made custom foam core swords and axes. Although I think it's kinda funny how you were beating people up with said weaponry, the fact that you had on a bear cloak, coyote leggings and homemade leather shoes the entire show was kinda neat in a WTF way.

Portable Pop-Tarts..Oh Man!

Who doesn't love food? Ya you have to eat it to live and all, but come on now - for the most part, the shit tastes pretty good! Well except that sheep face I had at Porrablot which is still giving me the creeps.

A friend of mine in college wanted to become a food photographer which I thought was really odd, but when you think about it: hot sexy pics of fruit and cereal is a real job! On the other end of the food industry are those marketers who are tasked with coming up with the 'cool' new ways to sell the same old food. Yogurt becomes Go-Gurt and healthy became Organic even if there are no real regulations on what Organic means!

Thanks to Lore Sjoberg over at Wired (seriously kid"z, read his shit more often - it's brilliant!) for a fun little article on how marketers are creating new food tricks: Manic Marketers Teach Old Snacks Crazy New Tricks. Let me pull out some of the best tidbits:

• "As I was raised by a hippie mom in the Age of Carob, I encountered much more whole grain than I would have liked."
  • For those that have never tried Carob - please don't! It was a horrible joke pulled on thousands of children whose parents embraced healthier living when that meant eating food that tasted like dirt
• Remember how it used to be so difficult to transport yogurt? When yogurt only came in 50-pound reinforced steel containers that had to be moved using federally regulated yogurt transportation vehicles?
  • Haha - this is great!
• And how many times have you said to yourself, "I would love to leave the house, but that would mean being aw\ay from my beloved Pop-Tarts"? Well, they make Pop-Tarts in portable form now.
  • Anyone know if they make travel containers for Pop-Tarts....maybe that would help here

Good stuff!

I Just Want to Buy a Phone!

This is an open letter of sorts to the kind folks at your local Verizon wireless store. Although I understand there is a process to everything and we need to keep to that protocol, can't we also look at ways to increase customer satisfaction a bit? If you are lost on what I'm talking about, let me paint the picture...

About five days ago or so, my Motorola mobile phone died. I couldn't charge the battery anymore and sometimes it turned on - others it just started and then died right away. After hoping that it would just fix itself, I decided late yesterday to run to my local Verizon store and just buy a new phone. Hoping that this wouldn't be that complicated of an adventure, off I went!

As I walk in the store, I'm greeted with smiles and asked why I'm at the store today. My reply was "My phone broke and I need to buy a new one." Seems simple enough to me, so off I was sent to stand in line with the four other people at the store. For those counting it stood five customers and nine employees. After standing there for fifteen minutes with no progress, I went back to the store greeter to ask if there was an estimated time for waiting. She asked what I was waiting for again and I replied "I need a new phone" - which she replied "Oh, you can just talk to Sales for that."

Ummm.....what the fuck was I in the other line then for?

Anyway, ten minutes later I had a new phone and was on the road again. So for those keeping count - twenty minutes waiting in the wrong line, ten minutes to actually get a new phone, nine employees, five customers, 2 employees actually helping customers. You can re-read that if you need to......

Bottom line is that although everyone understands that there needs to be a process for a store like this to push people to the right part of the store. A little care and attention should also be plugged into that equation. Remember, the easier you make it for your customers the more they will come back and/or pay for your service.

PS: The new phone is good so far. No idea how to use any of the features, but calls and texting is easy.