October 2008 Archives

October 31, 2008

I'm delighted to report that this year, we have more costumes than ever at work. We've definitely grown in size, and it's awesome to see other folks all dressed up for Halloween. Where's Waldo Justin? Renata, dressed as a ladybug... ... complete with wings, no less! Sarah, doing her best... (read more)

My Zombie Costume for Halloween

These pics are a bit rushed, as I just got done with the makeup... I'm typing this with painted hands, and I'm dirtying up the keyboard here someting awful. Here's what I did for my Halloween costume this year: revisiting the Zombie (which I did a few years back). A... (read more)

A Little Halloween, A Little Sushi

October 30, 2008

Post-work, I headed over to Wicker Park with Justin and Ben to meet up with a few friends. Turns out, Stu was in town for one night (he's working for us, doing a few photoshoots in multiple cities)... and so our dinner plans got even better. On walking from Damen... (read more)

5:00 AM Breakfast at Work: Emmis Interactive Deployment Team

October 29, 2008

Over a period of about 6 weeks or so (what we dub a "sprint"), our developers see the culmination of their work as a "Push" to our Production servers. We take all the code and development work that's been done, and move it from our Staging environment over to our... (read more)

Aaron Huey: Amazing Photos, Amazing Photojournalist

October 28, 2008

Aaron Huey is a photojournalist for National Geographic, and takes some pretty stunning photographs. The image above is part of a series called "Afghanistan Drug War" and is in the section entitled "Features 1." A portion of the images document his time with the Afghan Eradication Forces, accompanying a... (read more)

Remember When MTV Used to Play Music?

October 27, 2008

If you miss the good old days of when MTV actually played music, this is the site for you. MTvM - MTV Music has a large assortment of videos, sorted by all manner of categories. And looking at some of the view counts, the site just launched. It's odd... (read more)

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

October 26, 2008

Went out and purchased a copy of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Ages ago, I got to play the very first version of this game in 2003 (thanks to Mike). And this was back when I owned a PC, mind you. I purchased a cop of COD2 for... (read more)

One Less Cavity, One Half Less of a Tooth

October 25, 2008

Well, what started nearly 5 months ago has now (finally) come to a close. After avoiding a dentist for 6 years, I had a large enough cavity that warranted a root canal. After the root canal, I had a temporary crown put on... and really made a point to chew... (read more)

60's Psychedelic Band "Love" and Arthur Lee: Everybody's Gotta Live

October 24, 2008

I first learned about Love with Arthur Lee nearly two years ago, thanks to my friend Ben. The track "Everybody's Gotta Live" is still among my favorites, and just a great, great tune overall. I happened across a video on Pitchfork, a snippet of an upcoming documentary on the group... (read more)

Tontie, Revisited: Addictive Flash Numberpad Game

October 23, 2008

I had good intentions of waking up early to do some work, and to post something here... but I ended up sleeping in, and not quite having enough time to do either. Body's catching up to me, I suppose. To tide you over, here's a link to a fantastic game... (read more)

Colourful Echo Featured on Echo Nest

October 22, 2008

Some exciting news - my latest project, Colourful Echo, got a nice nod from the folks over at Echo Nest. They added my project to their showcase, and it's sitting next to MoreCowbell - a site they created in-house, and one of the early inspirations for me. Additionally, I... (read more)

Paul Stanley + ColourfulEcho.com: An Unlikely and Delightful Combination

October 21, 2008

A long while back, Jane introduced me to a lesser-known album by KISS frontman Paul Stanley. Actually, it's of Paul Stanley, but not really by him. It's a fan-made bootleg CD entitled "People, Let Me Get This Off My Chest: The Very Best of Paul Stanley's On Stage Banter"... (read more)

The Body is ~~Willing~~ Unwilling to Change

Apparently, I don't know how to sleep in anymore. My body is still wired to pop out of bed right at about 5 AM, which I did again this morning. Mucked around more with the recent uploads page, and got it working alot better/smoother. Additionally, I realized I was only... (read more)

Post-Launch Daze

October 20, 2008

Pretty beat today. Spent most of it recovering from a humongo day of work yesterday, trying to get my latest project up and running. In addition to sending out announcements and all that jazz, I also spent some time tweaking the overall code. Thanks to some good advice from Adam... (read more)

Latest Project: Colourful Echo - Music Visualizer Displaying Data and Colors Behind Your MP3's

October 19, 2008

I'm incredibly excited and proud to announce the launch of my latest site/project. Colourful Echo is a music visualizer that provides motion and color to any mp3 you upload. Using data from Echo Nest to determine both pitch and loudness, along with data from Colour Lovers for color palettes...... (read more)

Mastermind: World Conquerer, Flash Game

October 18, 2008

Mastermind: World Conquerer is a pretty ginormous game (it's a 17MB Flash file), but the gameplay and dialogue are pretty worth it. I had a blast with this, and lost more time than I really care to admit. I have to say, there were parts of the game that... (read more)

The Final Countdown, Played on a Baby-Piano/Kazoo/Ukulele

October 17, 2008

Internet, you are the gift that keeps on giving. What kind of world would this be, if we all were denied access to gems such as this? I'm betting this video is getting passed around, all over the US. And Europe, too. See what I did there? [via]... (read more)

Possible Jury Duty: Calling to Check Status

October 16, 2008

A few weeks back, I got another notice that I was called for Jury Duty. I'm not sure what this "Summons for Standby Jury Service" is all about. I don't know if I'm just a potential or, worse, if I might get sucked into one of those multi-week, sequestered trials... (read more)

Training Session

A quick shot of the Design Team, in a training session led by Phil (far right). Though we're all intimately involved with the site launch portion of our business (the design and html/css part of it), there have been significant changes to the BaseStation tools since we first opened... (read more)

Man Plays 36 World of Warcraft Accounts Simultaneously, Raids By Himself

October 15, 2008

Wow, oh WoW. I like World of Warcraft just as much as the next guy, but this is just lunacy. Related: Wasting Real Time in Imaginary Places (1, 2, 3)... (read more)

Typolution: Type-Based Animation

Stumbled across a great little animation a few days ago. Forgot to get around to posting this until now.... (read more)

Request for Encouragement: Liz's Upcoming Cumulative Exam

October 14, 2008

For the past 3-4 weeks, Liz had been studying pretty much nonstop for an upcoming cumulative exam. It covers much of the stuff she's learned in grad school to date (she's studying Statistics), and it's one of those pass-or-you-don't-graduate kind of exams. Needless to say, she's been experiencing a little... (read more)

JCVD

October 13, 2008

Bryan, this trailer is for you.... (read more)

Personal Venting Session: Amazon Simple Storage Service

October 12, 2008

So. A little venting on my part here. Feel free to totally ignore this. I'm writing this more for myself, really. When this project is all said and done, I'd like to be able to look back to this weekend, and remember these particular moments of frustration. Again, these are... (read more)

What Tina Fey Would Do for a SoyJoy: Product Placement in Movies and TV

October 11, 2008

Similar to the 72-Hour Party People article and the White Lobster article, I came across What Tina Fey Would Do for a SoyJoy and simply could not stop reading. I'm not all that familiar with Tina Fey, nor have I ever watched an episode of 30 Rock. But the... (read more)

We Have 100 Clients: A Small Story About a Small Company That's Slowly Becoming Not-So-Small

October 10, 2008

At the start of this year, some 10+ months ago, I was in a very different mindset. At work, we were in the transitional phase between being a small company with a limited client list (Emmis)... to a rapidly growing company, taking on an ever-growing number of clients. During that... (read more)

The Early Bird

October 9, 2008

by Ted Kooser Still dark, and raining hard on a cold May morning and yet the early bird is out there chirping, chirping its sweet-sour wooden-pulley notes, pleased, it would seem, to be given work, hauling the heavy bucket of dawn up from the darkness, note over note, and letting... (read more)

Days

by Billy Collins Each one is a gift, no doubt mysteriously placed in your waking hand or set upon your forehead moments before you open your eyes. Today begins cold and bright, the ground heavy with snow and the thick masonry of ice, the sun glinting off the turrets of... (read more)

Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament: Final Battle, AJ vs. Eddie

October 8, 2008

Shortly before 11AM today, this graphic went out to everyone at work. Today, after a lengthy and long-drawn-out process... we determined the winner for the First Ever Double Elimination Rock Paper Scissors Tournament. Many months ago, the process got started... then it dropped off. And very recently, we had... (read more)

Naked Man Dives into Tokyo's Imperial Palace Moat

On seeing this, I just busted out laughing. This is such a great photo. Purportedly, the man dove in to the moat around Tokyo's Imperial Palace to retrieve a bag that had been dropped. I'm not sure if the removal of clothing took place before or after diving in.... (read more)

Post-Work Client Party in the Office

October 7, 2008

All week this week, we've had a ton of visitors in the office. With an upcoming meeting tomorrow, a ton of our clients were in town, and gathered for a post-work party in the office. Around 4:30PM or so, people started setting up tables, a DJ arrived, the caterers... (read more)

Everyone... Meet Justin. Again!

October 6, 2008

It's with great pleasure that I get to say that Justin is back with us at Emmis Interactive. His new role with the company will be on the planning side of things, and he comes on board as a Product Desginer. After heading off to India for many months,... (read more)

Take on Me: Literal Version

This had my nearly crying. Too good, and had to share. [via]... (read more)

This American Life Podcast: Another Frightening Show About the Economy

October 5, 2008

A while back I heard a pretty great This American Life episode, entitled The Giant Pool of Money. IF you, like me, don't quite have a handle on just what's up with the housing and subprime mortgage crisis... this episode was a great overview on just what led to... (read more)

New Project, Nearing Completion

October 4, 2008

Quick sneak peek of a project I've got in the works. I made a lot of progress this weekend - just one more major bit of functionality to iron out, and then I think I'm pretty close to launching this guy. Maybe another week, fingers crossed.... (read more)

The Slide Technique: Time-Saving Trick for Opening a Bottle of Wine

October 3, 2008

Why... why did I never try this before now? [via]... (read more)

Liz and I on WTTW's Chicago Tonight (Sorta)

So last night Justin was watching WTTW, just a few minutets prior to the VP debates. Apparently, Chicago Tonight was wrapping up when he saw this: I guess we were on screen for a split second, but Justin was able to rewind and snapped a photo with his camera. This... (read more)

Hoshi Saga 3: Deceptively Simple, Rewarding Flash Game

October 2, 2008

By the same creator who created the fantastic Cursor*10 game, Yoshio Ishii recently released a third game in his Hoshi Saga series. In Hoshi Saga 3, as in all the other versions, the objective itself is deceptively simple: find the star. It's not so much an overall game is... (read more)

New Swoopo.com Auction Site: A Little Ingenious, A Little Evil

October 1, 2008

Ok. I came across swoopo.com near the end of the work day, and nearly an hour later... my mind is still reeling from the underlying business model. I'm AWED. On the one hand, it's an ingenious variation on the traditional online auction... and on the other hand, I feel... (read more)

Robert Sapolsky - Documentary on Stress

I've mentioned Robert Sapolsky before, and just saw a post on BB about an upcoming documentary of his work/research. I was so wowed by the original lecture, and cannot, cannot, CANNOT recommend this enough. It's fascinating, eye-opening stuff and I'm reminded again to review my own attitudes and reactions... (read more)