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Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/192 first.

Dear Mr. K. Nutpunch Ed,
Thanks so much for making my Wii crash so badly that I had to walk over it and unplug it to make it reset. I can see how you would be upset that I would back out of the music selection screen becuase I didn't want to play "Through the Fire and Flames" against a guy in the Slash Avatar for the THIRD time today.

That's great. You're the best. And while we're at it. Thanks for the quality control Actavision! You're the best too.

In case you didn't realize it, this posting is sarcastic!

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/191 first.

Here's my presentation about BarCampMilwaukee3 from Web414 last night. Hosted on Scribd, rendered in fancy iPaper.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/butt_sugery first.

What have I been up to? Recovering from butt surgery, of course.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/189 first.

In an effort to spark my designer friends to make some BarCampMilwaukee3 fliers, I've gone ahead and made a demonstration of why I'm a lousy designer.

Free to remix, redistribute, sticker, and poster. Make this better. Then I'll see you at BarCamp Milwaukee.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/188 first.

This picture made me realize that I am raising some kind of a super girly-girl.

There's certainly nothing wrong with that. I'm pleased as punch as a matter of fact. You may notice that the things in her headboard include a live animal known to most as a "cat." She calls this animal "Merm" and he lives in her room. He is an older cat that we rescued from the Humane Society.
Look at how the girl beams, and tell me you could have resisted her repeated innocent inquiries into the acquisition of a cat. You say you could have stood strong against that face? I say you are a liar.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/187 first.

I bought a game off the PlayStation Network today. I don't like their DRM any better than Nintendos, but I'm actually ok with buying software electronically, especially if it's cheap. $10 is exactly the right price for a great little game.
It's called "The Last Guy."
You play the titular guy and it's your job to run through satalight maps of cities and coax survivors of a zombie apoacolypse out of their homes and to the rescue locations. So far I've played on Fisherman's Warf, San Jose, and at Washington CD. And on Writelarge.com. And on a picture of Pete.

See! You can play the last guy on any webpage. Try it out. It's a great little game and well worth the $10. It's not horribly deep, but it's fun to play though the levels a few times and see how horrifically you stack up on the online-rankings. Last I checked, I was the 9,494th best player at level 1 in the world. I was only 2 more points shy of the 9,493rd best player. It was neck and neck all the way.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/186 first.

Got a take down notice from the Oconomowoc Enterprise at Ocono.com. I feel so grown up now.

Oh Internet, I am ready to give up on you and move to the Next New Thing.

On a totally unrelated note, I played through the first half-hour of Final Fantasy Seven again today while I was jogging in the basement. 1997 was a strange place in the video game world.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/185 first.

I check the logs on the router at our lakehouse the first thing after logging on up here.
Nobody ever uses it. I specifically leave it open because I don't really see the harm in having an open access point up here that is not connected to any computers and doesn't have a very robust connection. I guess, if you want to sit in your car at the dead end road the cabin is on and leech my bandwidth, who am I to stop you? Funny thing is, I see people parked outside the public library doing the very same thing up here all the time.

But nobody ever uses our pipes up here. Perhaps it has something to do with the network name.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/184 first.

Gaia actually asked me to put her to bed tonight. And then only went to sleep with a minimum of crying. Wow. Progress.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/183 first.

Mr. Kevron snapped this photo of the girl this weekend. Today, by the way, right about now, actually, marks the very first day in my life wherein my loyalties split between my wife and my girl for the very first time.
Three years ago was the first time wherein I was honor bound to be by the side of not one, but two people who needed me. It has been my privilege to do my best by both of them ever since. It's hard, but we do ok. I hope.
The girl spent the weekend attached to my hip, and we went to Bucketworks to help with the physical wiki weekend, and set up for Urban Scrawl. SHe painted a board that got used in the Urban Scrawl show, and she was soproud.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Gaia. Thanks for being an awesome three-year old.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/182 first.

Robot Parade from Jared Foster on Vimeo.

Love this idea. A Robot Parade at Bucketworks would be an awesome fundraiser/outreach project.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/Depression_Mind_Map first.

Got a weird assignment at work today. Had to write a postcard for people who treat depression. So, you're not really selling anything to people who are depressed, you're selling something to people who know about depression. Or want to know more. Or something.
Regardless, I was really stuck. One of the things about being a "create on demand" professional is that you have to have little tricks to get your creative mojo cooking. I like to do mind maps. Especially to songs I love. So a mind-map on Depression Treatment: Rilo Kiley's "Better Son/Daughter" yields the following results:

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/BarCampMk3-Needs_Sponsors first.

There is a lot going on these days.



BarcampMK3: We're in the hard push for sponsorships: If you have access to $200, you could do more foolish things than spend it on BarCamp Milwaukee 3. There are a couple of promises I want to make regarding this year's BarCamp:

• Bandwidth
  We will have bandwidth for all at BarCampMK3. Dammit.
• Bucketworks
  We will be at the Mighty Bucketfor this years event.

There are other promises I want to make you, but at this time, I'm really not ready to make them. I think we should have electronic check in. I'm working on that. I think we should have webcasting. I think we should have a Creative Commons Salon/lounge. I'd like to have a band. I would like to screen "Steal this Film." I would like to have a *gasp* keynote session. (Appalling, I know.)
But before any of that can happen, we need sponsors. Send us $200. You can do it by PayPal or any other way you're comfortable. We just want your money. We need your money. This can't happen without your sponsorship.
BarCampMk3: October 4th/5th 2008. Starting at 10 a.m. at Milwaukee's famous Bucketworks.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/179 first.

My buddy Mike Rohde over at Rohdesign.com often posts some amazing, incredible, super-awesome Sketchnotes of conferences he attends. While attending a few sessions at the OCF Conference in Boston this weekend, I, too, took a few pages of sketchnotes. The difference between Mike's notes and mine should be obvious to you. Mikes are beautiful works of art, are clean, legible, and done by a man who helped create the genre.
Mine, on the other hand, are illegible, childish, and any of the words you happen to make out will probably be misspelled.
That being said, I think I will post some after I can get them properly scanned. Until then, I am going to enjoy this delicious sandwich. There is a video coming about that, later.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/178 first.

Dear NowPublic,
Because my photo is already licensed under BY NC SA Creative Commons Terms, you don't need my permission to use the photos so long as you meet those terms. Any other use remains prohibited.
Feel free to use my photos under the terms I offer them without asking me to create an account on your site or agree to your terms of service.
If you feel that the terms I'm offering my photos under are too restrictive for your use, please propose a specific use and make me an offer as to the terms you'd like to extend.
Your Pal,
Gabe

Editor's Note: I'd probably be interested in getting to more about NowPublic.com, except that the strange flickrmail that initiated the above response set my Nigerian Email Scam feelers into a tizzy. Anybody know anything about NowPublic?

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/177 first.

It's a lot of work, this content creation thing. I think that creators tend to under-estimate the amount of work that goes into producing quality content-- even publishing stories where the bulk of the content creation has been done for you is a lot of work.
Case in point, I just published an article over at Ocono.com that has been on my plate since July 9. Today is July 27th. Holy crap. It's not exactly a pulitzer candidate, but it's an example of decent blog content, you know? More than a Link, less than a full blown article. It took me 2 hours to write it today.
Granted, I had some formatting troubles that slowed me down-- Evernote text cuts and pastes kind of weird-- and I was sloppy with my HTML-- but that's not the point. the point is that a small but quality article for a blog takes about two hours to produce. This is a lot of time to give away for free.
Fortunately, I don't feel like I'm not getting anything back for my investment-- so don't worry Pete, I'm not going to ask for a raise. With Ocono.com, I get value back in two parts: 1. I have a venue to put thoughts about Oconomowoc, Wisconsin-- old habits die hard that way. 2: I enjoy supporting Publisher Pete's efforts in suburban Blogging. I think, and I am admittedly biased,' Ocono.com is Oconomowoc's best online news and lifestyle magazine-- If the folks at Oconomowocfocus.com knew what they were doing online, they could take the cake, but they don't so they haven't. I enjoy that.
But free content don't come cheaply. It's a sacrifice I'm happy to make, but I feel badly that I just can't put the love and attention into Ocono.com that really needs to be put into it. Maybe it's time to expand the staff?

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/176 first.

I forgot to tell you: Last night, I dreamt that I had fallen asleep on a hole in the ground that Raccoons kept squirming out of. I assume that I was sleeping on Gaia.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/synergy first.

At my day job I work between two main computers and sometimes three. So far, I have found great success running Synergy to enable using a single mouse and keyboard between them.
With my PC set up as a server and my Macs set up as clients, I have basically configured the desktops of my computers to connect in one giant row of desktop space. The effect is so seamless that I often feel frustrated that I can't drag and drop between them.

A couple of items in the popular ordered list format:

1. Go PC to Mac. Seriously. It just works better that way.
2. On the Mac, use

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/174 first.

A few computer/technology related tid-bits that in years past would have been much longer posts.

1. Look, I really kind of like K-Meleon, the lightweight, native Windows Implementation of the Geko Layout Engine. Think of it as Firefox for Windows without the Firefox part. On the Operating System of the Future (Windows 2000), K-Meleon is the browser of tomorrow.
2. If only there were a similar version of Pidgin. I am now taking applications for the windows native multi-service XAMP client of tomorrow.
3. I am currently experimenting with Windows Live Mesh. Mesh is Windows online folder syncing, basically, except that it also syncs to a "Online Desktop," so you can always get at your synched files, so long as you have access to a browser (even KM. So far, I've got my entire allotment of space allocated and it's still uploading. Nice! I wonder what that means. They say that there is a MacOSX Client coming. It has some kind of RDP or VNC built into it, but it's flaky and doesn't work as nicely LogMeIn, for example.
4. If I could add one feature to the Windows Platform, I would add Universal Spell Checking like they have on the Macs. Hands down, Universal Spell checking is OSX's best feature.
5. I still miss you, Linux. Do something awesome and I'll come back to you. Here's a hint. It's not being sold in a box at Best Buy. Hundreds of crappy software products have been sold in a Box at Best Buy over the years.
6. You should be using Evernote. If you're not, you don't care about keeping notes. I have a Ocono.com Story Ideas notebook that I'm publishing there, but it's not about publishing, it's about having your data synced up to the web and on every computer you use. Except for Linux.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/173 first.

When you can't get to the Internet, bring the Internet to you. Trapped in a planning session with nothing to entertain you, might I suggest drawing your own LOL CATs.