Keeping in line with the biblical metaphor started with the release of the iPhone that some people called the Jesus Phone, the new Apple iPad was unveiled today in a worldwide simultaneous nerdgasm followed by softly weeping and feelings of regret. Chiropractors around the world rejoiced as hundreds of thousands of nerd’s heads all cocked to the left much like a dog when you call it’s name as Steve Jobs reveled that iPad was the blessed name of his new creation.
So to me it seems that there are two camps of thought on the iPad. There is the its just a big iPhone and then they begin a sting of maxi pad and tampon jokes and then there is the camp that sees the potential uses for the iPad and are somewhat disappointed that it didn’t have all the features that people like Jason Calacanis purported it to have, but are still setting aside the at least 500 bucks for the iPad. I am somewhere in the middle; I can see how the iPad almost destroys the rest of the ebook device market, and I’m more excited to see what developers do with the larger interface and I will be waiting for future releases to see what new features that Apple might add.
I think a big market for the iPad is in doctor’s offices where doctors already living the Apple lifestlye will want to move their office to Apple as long as developers are there with the software side of the solution. Also there are the possible uses in education but that will have to wait for a later post.
Last night was the beginning of for the 22nd annual Videofest. The four day event is held at the Angelika Film Center Dallas. Below is the schedule of films/events that I am planning on attending, but that will most likely change. Hope to see you there.
This weekend is the second year for Wordcamp Dallas. The two day event is being held at the UT Dallas School of Management. I didn’t go last year and I signed up months ago and have been counting the days till the geekout event this weekend. I really like the power that Wordpress gives me to mange my content and I use Wordpress on most of my sites. I think it will be a great opportunity to meet with other geeks and since its at UTD its my home turf. It will be a great networking oportunity (even though I really hate the “N” word) and hope to learn some things to help step up my game. I’ll be blogging and twittering a lot this weekend, so let me appologize right now.
It’s been almost a week since I left the awesomeness that is SXSW Interactive. In that time I have been trying to put together my plan and get focused on what are going to be the one or two projects that I tackle and and get off my ass and make a real effort in making something happen. This was my first year going to SXSW and for me on of the highlights was Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote session. I’m getting on the Hustle 2.0 bandwagon and Gary’s session was really inspiring and game changing. It’s great to see someone that really gets it and wants to genuinely help others in the space. Embedded is the session, the video isn’t great but just hearing it gives you a real sense of the energy of the room.
As part of Pepsi’s new re branding campaign and super bowl promotion, Pepsi teamed up with Saturday Night Live to produce 3 Pepsi themed commercials that aired during last night’s broadcast. There is an unofficial pepsuber twitter account for Pepsi fans. There was some outrage from people that SNL sold out, but I think that it is the kind of interesting innovative marketing promotions that advertisers need to think of in order to stay competitive in the down market. The Pepsuber ads are just one part of Pepsi’s whole super bowl weekend ad push called Refresh Everything. They are also doing the Pepsi smash concert and there is the Will Arnett hosted Refresh the Super Bowl Party online at YouTube, where they produced short clips and invite people to upload videos of their own Super Bowl parties. All three SNL ads are posted below and the Refresh Super Bowl Party ad too.
Here’s the quickly thrown together video I made of some of the cools things at Makerfaire. Quality isn’t that great and I shoot it on a Flip Ultra. Nonetheless enjoy.
This weekend is the second annual Makerfaire Austin at the Travis county fair grounds. I went last year and really liked seeing everything and whole community of Makers there. This years Makerfaire in Austin promises to be even bigger and better than last year. I’m looking forward to seeing some of the robogames competition and the eppy birds. Last year I spent most of the day walking around and visiting booths, but this year I want to go to some of the sessions.
This weekend begins the month of baseball. A time when almost every weekend I have tickets to at least one game. Next weekend I’m going to the new QT Park in Grand Prairie to see the AirHogs. I also have tickets to several Frisco RoughRiders games and one of my favorite events the Heroes game on June 28th. I enjoyed going to the Heroes Celebrity Home Run Derby and Game last year and really look forward to the game this year.
Last night kicked off with a game at the Dr. Pepper Ballpark in Frisco to see the perennially great Frisco RoughRiders square off against the Corpus Christi Hooks in the third game of this home series. It was a great game and a close one all the way till the end. Not even into the third inning when the Hooks manager and one of their infielders got tossed from the game.
Tuesday night Summer (my sister) and I went to the Stars game at the AAC. I haven’t gone to a Stars game since they were still playing at Reunion so I was really excited when I got some tickets for Christmas. Costco had a Stars package on sale where you got two tickets valued up to 70 dollars and a program all for less than 100 dollars. These were great seats. I have never got the chance to sit down on the plaza level so this was a whole new experience. We sat in row T in the corner at the goal line.
The game was something that you would expect to see in the playoffs not the regular season. Regulation time ended tied up at 2 forcing overtime. After the 5 minute overtime period the score was still tied forcing the shootout. In the first round the Stars scored and the Canucks answered. Not until the sixth round did the Stars score again leaving it up to the Canucks to answer. Go Stars
Last Saturday Summer and I volunteered at the Mardi Gras Run benefiting Captain Hopes Kids a North Texas non-profit organization committed to helping fill the needs of homeless children in North Texas. Captain Hopes Kids helps through providing resources to its 42 member homeless service providers. Each week Captain Hopes Kids distributes more than 5,000 diapers as well as many other essentials. Summer and I went down to volunteer and help out. We helped put up some banners and then went out to assist as some of the coveted “course monitors” whose main purpose was cheering on the runners and making sure they all were going the right way. I soon found out that my cheering skills need some honing as “we got spirit, yes we do, we got spirit, how bout you?” grew very tiresome.
How does one improve with my awesome cheer skills such as sporatic clapping and the occasional half hearted “whoo?” I’ll tell you how, buy Netflix’n all of the “Bring it On” DVD’s. Yes that’s right, Hollywood found it in their infinite wisedom to create not one, not two, but three sequels to the box office money machine “Bring it On” franchise. I wait with bells on and baited breath for the day a fifth film makes its straight to Dvd.
But I digress, the Mardi Gras Run benefits a great charity, Captain Hope’s Kids and the Mardi Gras parade that follows is even bigger with this year being the first for MystiQal the namesake for the big party in victory plaza. MystiQal is just another in the line of big events in the victory development that gives people another reason to go downtown. I definitaly had a good time volunteering at the Mardi Gras Run and look forward to next year.
photo credit: mattbuchanan
