First let me say, “Whew!”
I simply can’t believe I’m running. I’m 41 years old, and while I’ve done a lot of walking (30-60 mins almost every day since 2004) and hiking in that time, I’ve done very little running. Even when I played sports, I was defense and there was still little running. However, this is the first time I’m sitting down and doing running for the sake of running. Had you asked me if I’d be running a year ago, I’d have said, “No way!” But here I am doing it.
This past Friday I feel like an era ended as Scott Johnson, creator of the ExtraLife webcomic, announced that the ExtraLife Radio podcast (ELR) would be shutting its doors. Ordinarily, there’s not much cause to write about a podcast that was or has gone away (a.k.a. podfading), but that’s not what happened here. The show was still, even in its more recent highly irregular schedule, as entertaining as it ever was. However, I really felt the need to mention that this podcast was not just one of my all time favorites, it was one of the ones that carried me through so much change in my life.
For those that don’t know, TouringPlans.com is the website for the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World (*ding*). ”The Guide” is a favorite among travelers to Walt Disney World, and the Disney online community, especially fans of the WDW Today Podcast. The greatest asset of the book and the site is the sheer amount of data that sits behind them. This is not stagnant data taken years ago that is only somewhat correct, or worse, mostly incorrect. Instead this is a very up to date set of data that is constantly being tweaked, finely tuned, and analyzed by their team to bring to us, the consumer, as accurate an experience as possible.
Back in November of 2009, TouringPlans.com announced a new web based application for the iPhone called Lines. Since that time it has grown to include versions for Android, Palm, and Blackberry devices. At it’s core, it is a means by which, from your smartphone, you can access what is generally the most coveted of all Disney Theme Park knowledge, “How long am I going to have to stand in this line?” Read More
Recently Walt Disney World held it’s 2010 Marathon Weekend – a 4 day event consisting of Mickey’s Marathon Kids’ Fest, Disney Family Fun Run 5K, Half Marathon, Marathon, and Goofy’s Race and a Half Challenge (Marathon + Half Marathon yields 3 medals). I’d chosen not to attend as a runner, but rather to go and cheer on two of my newest Disney friends Katie (kidanikatie) and Ed (superedo) as they ran in the Half Marathon. To do this I signed up to be a member of the ChEAR Squad which earned me some swag that I have previously posted about. And I just wanted to take some time to tell you about my adventures on the day of the 2009 Half Marathon.
Tomorrow I’m going to do something that I’ve never done before, and it sounds like a ton of crazy fun. I’m going to go cheer on some friends who are running in the Disney Half Marathon: Katie (kidanikatie) and Ed (superedo). It’s always nice to have a new Disney experience after close to 40 years of Disney in my life. As such I signed up to be a part of the Disney Marathon ChEAR Squad. This comes with a simple swag bag that I picked up last night at the Milk House at Disney’s Wide World of Sports. And I just wanted to present for you a few shots I took of the swag.
For my last movie of 2009 I opted to see Avatar. It is the latest in line of what are considered to be some of the best cinematic experiences of all time by Writer/Producer/Director James Cameron. And Avatar succeeds in continuing that line.
It’s not because this movie has a great story, because it doesn’t. No this story is one you’ve seen many times before. It’s a comfortable story, one you know, one with few surprises. And that’s because if this movie had a complex story that you actually had to focus on, you would not be able to appreciate the splendor and beauty of what you’re seeing before you on the screen. And that is the entire point of this movie: eye candy. Read More
Jackie Chan's House
I have to be honest with you up front, I’m a huge Jackie Chan fan. I’m not just talking the modern day “American” movie star Jackie Chan that has come about with movies like Rush Hour, Around the World in 80 Days, and The Tuxedo. No, I’m talking about classic, pirate fighting, Project A Jackie Chan. I’ve even included the picture on the left to show that I’ve whizzed past the man’s house at 30 mph on a Hollywood tour bus just to catch a glimpse. And I confess all this to you because while the cinema student in me says that this movie was only 3 stars, my appreciation for all things Jackie Chan has required me to give it an extra half star – just on principle. Read More
I’ve owned domains for a long time now. My first domain net-marks.com comes from a time when there was only one domain registrar, and the yearly cost for a domain was more than three times what it is now. For almost as long as I’ve had a site where software that I’ve written was readily available. In the pre-CMS days, I used to do all pages by hand, because that’s all we had – and we liked it. Later, on a suggestion from Cheryl, I started using FrontPage – also known as “the land of an insane amount of garbage tags in your code“.
This past Sunday I went with my wife Cheryl to go see Disney’s new animated feature The Princess and the Frog. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect. While I had seen the trailers for the movie, I really tried to stay mostly spoiler free. After all, this was a big event for Disney as it marks a return to traditional 2D animation after a 5 year hiatus from it in favor of a more modern computer animated approach. Personally I’m not one who’s particularly for one style of animation over the other, as I feel they both have a place in this world. I’m also far more story oriented anyway.
So what are the “Flash Sideways” in Lost? (a theory)
Right now everyone is focused on only one part of what’s going on in Lost and it all revolves around the “Man in Black” (a.k.a. “Man in Locke”, “Milty”, “Black Smoke”, etc.). They’re so caught up in what’s going on in this battle between Milty and Jacob, that they’ve forgotten about the other major mystery introduced in the final season of Lost.
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