Here and Now

I stumbled across this video weeks ago when I was looking for something for our Broken series - Seth Godin talking about things that are broken and why... It's  good stuff, so sit back, put your feet up and enjoy (it's like 20 minutes long:

I started this blog a little over 6 years ago for no reason whatsoever - because I had heard of blogs and thought what the heck... I know months have gone by with nothing posted and sometimes I posted fluff.  I tried some things that I thought would matter to me to just keep content coming...but most of those experiments bored even me...so... At times this has been an online journal - thoughts and reminisces about life, God, my family, etc.  And at times it's been a place to think out loud, or to promote something, or just to share a laugh (I doubt anybody has become a regular at www.dorktower.com because of this little blog, but I share what I like...) or...well, sometimes even I don't know why I write what I write. But 500 posts in 6 years - the average would be a little more than 80 posts a year - interestingly (to me) that last year was my highest post count...and probably the year with the least content I care about...go figure.  Once in a while I go ...

I started this post awhile back... So, Elie has been playing Wii Lego Star Wars a good bit recently.  She sometimes asks me to play too.  I have to admit that it used to be really frustrating playing Wii Star Wars with Elie - she would always want to be R2-D2 and have me do all the fighting... Which meant I got blown up a lot.  Or, when she was in a "fighting mood" she was pretty random in her shooting or swinging the light saber...which meant that I got blown up a lot.  Or she would go off in unpredictable directions, pulling my character off a ledge...and, yeah, I got blown up a lot. But she's getting pretty good at the stupid game.  So I play sometimes - or I watch. One thing that occurred to me while she was playing the game is that this game (and probably every video game of its ilk) encourages "out of the box" thinking to a degree.  She had a problem to solve - how to get Artoo (who can't climb anything), some Jedi (who can levitate things) and ...

So I'm a little interested in Google's experiment in social media - Google+. I tried Google Wave, and I didn't (no pun intended) catch Google Buzz at all. So now we have Google+ and if it's like facebook but better (so, that's what THEY are saying, though I'm still not sure who THEY are...) then I'm all for it. But... Maybe I'm too old (yeah, okay, I AM too old) or it's the ADD or something...but I tried hard to figure it out from  this posting at Mashable ...and I keep looking at other shiny things in the room instead... Ugh, Google+ is supposed to be "intuitive" but...I can't even get through a tutorial...sigh... Oh well...on to other things (great U2 bootleg from their Glastonbury show  here )

So I just saw this (I *think* it just came out...but I'm not sure...).  Anyway, I just saw this: Here's a  link  if you want to check it out in more detail. It's an interface to make your iPad a multi-effects pedal for guitar... The possibilities are...well, limitless, really.  Oh, AND the app to run this... FREE from the iTunes store... Sigh... Actually, I'm almost more interested in seeing how it's going to get hacked to make it even more flexible - as it stands, potential sound quality issues aside (I have NO idea how it actually SOUNDS) - the list of features makes it sound like a generic boss/digitech pedalboard.  But...I bet there's a community of app tweakers that grows up around this app that twists and turns things in all kind of amazing ways... Someday... *** Yeah, I know - I have the Line 6 POD X3 Live which is really amazing...but...this uses an iPad...you know, the toy that all the cool kids have...  :)  

So yesterday at dinner I started singing (what I could remember of) the theme song to "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" *** and my family were convinced that I had made it up (not without precedence, I do tend to make up goofy songs once in a while). So, I flipped open the laptop and, well, proof that I'm not a creative genius.***** THE THEME SONG STARTS AT 1:30 So, I've never watched the whole movie.  When I was a kid, really, really late on Friday nights (I think after Kolcheck - the Night Stalker which scared the pants off me) one of the channels ran cult classic movies (okay, they ran movies that they got really, really cheap, I'm sure).  Anyway, even at 12 or 13 or whatever, when the theme song came on and I saw it was, yes indeed, about killer tomatoes, I turned it off...but the theme song clearly stuck... *** Okay, so all I could remember was the opening line, "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" but, really, if you clicked the link you...

Heading home this afternoon...  It's been a good half a week at the beach.  Looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, though...