Skip to content

Monthly Archives March 2007

On American Public Media’s “Future Tense”

I’m in today’s episode (MP3) of Future Tense talking about Twitter.

Producer and host Jon Gordon emailed me through my website asking if I’d be interested in talking. Why he chose me, I’m not entirely sure. We arranged a conversation that lasted about 15 minutes where I continued to stutter and otherwise sound like a Minnesotan: “ya know” “um um yeah.” He was using Grand Central from a coffee shop and we did the interview over VoIP to his laptop and Grand Central saved it as an MP3 for him. So not only does he write stories about technology, he lives it too.

When we were done with the interview, I posted this on Twitter:

Jon Gordon thought it was pretty funny, mentioned that he posted about our interview on his blog and added: “This is such a strange loop of old media / new media / blog / radio / Twitter.” When I read his blog entry, I noticed that he quoted Twitter’s entry in Wikipedia, which I happened to have edited that morning. I bring this up to him “speaking of strange loop…” and he replies: “O M G.”

Heh. He also asked me if there was anyone else he should talk to about Twitter. Without a beat, “Rex Sorgatz,” and then added how he was the self-proclaimed biggest evangelist of Twitter. I mentioned his appearance on G4’s Attack of the Show talking about Twitter the previous day.

After his chat with Rex, he joined Twitter and started using it. You should add him. He needs more friends than just Rex and I.

On a final note, after hearing Future Tense on the radio for years, it was a little treat for me to finally hear Jon Gordon say the word “shit.”

Minneapolis and Saint Paul listeners can hear Future Tense on KNOW 91.1FM weekdays at 8:20 am and 10:30 pm.

Posted 30 March 2007 § Media, Blogging and Technology ‡ Comments (11) ° Tagged: ,

Lake Street Reconstruction

East Lake Street commuters and Longfellow residents that don’t keep up with their local news or the Lake Street Reconstruction and Streetscaping site got a really rude awakening on their evening commute today if they travel westbound across the Lake Street bridge into Minneapolis. Starting at East Lake Street and West River Parkway it is now one lane each way and there are no left turns for over ten blocks.

Did it stop some people from making left turns?

Of course not.

As a result of people wanting to make left turns, traffic was backed up all the way back into Saint Paul as we waited for people to make them, most of which were onto West River Parkway southbound. The frustrating part was that if you wanted to go southbound on River Parkway, you can easily make two right turns and go under the bridge instead of making one left turn that holds up everyone else. Things would be much more smooth if there was a sign that said “Right Turn for West River Parkway.�?

After River Parkway, traffic was fairly clear but I still got held up by people wanting to make left turns on side streets even though there is this sign that sits next to you on every intersection:

But you know what? When I found an opening, there wasn’t anyone behind me and I knew I wouldn’t negatively affect any other traffic, I snuck a left turn at 40th Ave S.

I wonder how they will start enforcing these no left turns; this could end up being a real mess. I’m glad I wasn’t in a rush and was relaxed about it.

Posted 29 March 2007 § Minneapolis § Travel and Transportation ‡ Comments (10) ° Tagged: ,

Nikon D40

Thanks to everyone who commented and IMed regarding my camera shopping. I ended up getting the Nikon D40 that I was leaning towards and I love it.

Started playing with it over lunch at Maplewood Nature Center and took it up
to Mille Lacs with Christine after work.

Posted 27 March 2007 § Photography ‡ Comments (1) °

Camera Shopping

My pipe dream for camera ownership seems to becoming close to a reality: Having a decent quality camera in my mobile device for quick stuff and immediate posting and having a nice, affordable and smaller DSLR that has the features I need for higher quality photography.

After playing with Dave Lee’s Nikon D50 for a bit (used to take the photo above) and some research in the last few weeks, I am thinking about the following:

The Apple iPhone apparently will sport a 2.0 megapixel camera but there is no information about what kind of lens it will have or anything yet. Most cameras in mobile devices suck so I’m hoping that Apple will pull through. Honestly I don’t need more than 640×480 because the photos I take with my mobile device will be viewed on the internet and not printed. I hope they focus on quality instead of how many pixels they can pack. I want it to take the place of my point-and-shoot. I also hope it takes iPod-sized video. That’d be a dream come true (today I coin the term movlogcast!)

The Nikon D40 (DPReview) is really starting to sound like the right choice for me for a DSLR. There’s a few drawbacks to the camera that are overcome by the pros: No built-in auto-focus requiring it to use lenses that have an auto-focus motor but I don’t see myself carrying a bunch of lenses around. No status LCD but the interface on the LCD monitor seems to be good enough. It’s small but still comfortable. Very high quality and a low price. It has the features I need and it left out some of the things that I think I can do easily without. I recently played with Tim’s Nikon D80 and determined while it might be great for him, it is certainly overkill for me. The D40 is newer than the D50 and from what I’ve read, seems to be of a bit higher quality but with a bit less flexibility. The D40 is really an entry-level DSLR but it does everything I’d want in a camera. I’m pretty close to sold on it.

Anything I’m missing? Something else I should explore?

Posted 24 March 2007 § Photography ‡ Comments (10) °

Twitter, Chasing Windmills, Call-In Karaoke

After SXSW suddenly everyone’s talking about Twitter. It’s your new 140 character-per-post instablog from your phone, AIM or webbernet. Still not on it? Join up and add me. You, like everyone else who’s not on it might be asking yourself, “Why would I care what people are doing? Why would anyone care what I post?” Well here’s a take on it: Just post what you think someone else might find interesting and don’t post the stuff nobody cares about. It took me a while to figure that simple idea out. It’s a great way to keep in contact and it’s a fabulous service for those who make last-minute plans. You can always “leave” people you don’t want to get updates on your phone from without un-friending them. The way Twitter is going, it very well be more widely used than MySpace in less than two years. Check out twittervision for a geographical look at live data coming into Twitter.

I’m in an upcoming today’s Chasing Windmills episode again… likely popping up this week. I think I’ll be in the next episode as well. It was a long shoot on Sunday but a lot of fun. Stopped by The Bulldog NE afterwards with Amber, Jen and Rich and for the most part talked about bloggers. There’s a Chasing Windmills season wrap-up party at the Kitty Cat Klub at 8pm Thursday. As Jeremy paraphrases, “if the building blows up, it’ll be the end of Minneapolis blogging.” Come on down. Some of the real actors will be signing autographs amongst other things.

After the Chasing Windmills shoot and Bulldog on Sunday, I got a dancing part on the craziest thing on television, Call-In Karaoke. The premise of the show is that people in Minneapolis call in and are able to sing a song on live television over the phone. Karaoke Revolution serves up the songs, keeps a meaningless score and displays an animated version of the person singing and an audience on the screen. Meanwhile, Hamil Griffin-Cassidy hosts the show with chroma key to make sure people get their song set up and whatnot. During the singing, Hamil takes his microphone off the set and people dance on top of the game to distract the caller. It’s quite bizarre. This week’s episode took it a notch weirder: the people dancing were dancing live on top of a previously recorded episode that was already danced upon. Taylor and I were wrestlers for the most part. Amazingly crazy television. You can watch the whole thing on Google Video.

Posted 21 March 2007 § Media, Blogging and Technology § Minneapolis ‡ Comments (4) ° Tagged: , ,

Omphaloskepsis

I can’t get myself to complete a proper post so here’s a bit more navelgazing:

I took a trip to North Carolina to visit Ellen and Aaron. Saw Grizzly Bear on Saturday, watched the UNC vs Duke game on Sunday and joined in on the bonfires in the streets after the game. Pretty crazy weekend.

I have half of a draft done about my experience and advice on getting started with aviation in the Twin Cities. When I sat with a couple hours on my hands to finish writing it I realized that I’m really not motivated to do it. I’m not cut out for this blogging thing. If you want to know more about getting started in flying, just ask me and we’ll chat about it. If you want to talk with someone with more experience, I recommend my flight instructor, Christine. Another instructor that I’ve flown with and would recommend is Will. My final recommendation for this post regarding aviation: Do the discovery flight. It’s relatively cheap, your hands and feet are on the controls the whole time and it gives you a real taste of flying with zero commitment. It’s worth it even if you’re not interested in getting a private pilot certificate.

The other post I had in the queue was about Mobile Social Networking in Minneapolis and why in its current forms here doesn’t work so well. I ditched it after Erica posted a softball post about Dodgeball on Metroblogging Minneapolis where in the comments I realized it’s not even worth writing about because I can sum it up in one sentence: Minneapolis isn’t special and douchebags can destroy anything if there isn’t critical mass that’s actually interested in the service to balance out the signal to noise ratio. As everyone knows already, this logic isn’t specific to MSN’s. Going into a different reason why it didn’t work boils down to some technology issues that aren’t all that interesting to anyone other than the people that already know about them anyway.

I’m in today’s episode of Chasing Windmills, “Junked Auditions” where I am essentially one of the losers that can’t act. My character blindly responds to a request for actors by a group of people that can’t figure out how to make a short film. I’ve crossed paths with these people before but they deny it.

Chasing Windmills Still

People have argued that I’m not using the word omphaloskepsis and navelgazing properly. Their accusations are likely accurate in a literal sense, but I was inspired by the overuse of the word “navelgazing” from Minnesota Monthly’s overuse of it. I’m sticking with it. The always-accurate Wikipedia defines Omphaloskepsis.

No, I’m not going to SXSW. Stop asking. :-) I’m working on getting to Washington, DC very soon though.

I’m still surviving without my hiptop. There’s even a few days that have come and gone where I don’t think I thought about it once. I’m still probably going to get an Apple iPhone in June.

I said a couple unfriendly things about O’Malley’s Lucky Irish Pub a long time ago. I now rank high on Google when searching for the pub. This prompted one of the owners to email me and to try to change my opinion. She won and I was surprised. What really constitutes an “Irish Pub” (or “English Pub” for that matter) in the United States anyway? Either way, by far, my least favorite is Patrick McGovern’s.

So why aren’t we flying? Yes, you. Just ask. We’ll figure it out and go. Soon.

Posted 07 March 2007 § Miscellaneous ‡ Comments (8) °