Sadrhino

6May2008

Avoiding the Passion Pop Gulf

Posted by Toner under: business.

A simple, short post on the gulf between passion and pop. Easy right?
Seths Blog: Avoiding the Passion Pop Gulf

1May2008

That’s my boy…

Posted by Toner under: Life and Family.

Our son Zach is recovering from an ear infection/fever today so we had to keep him home from day care. My wife had a funeral to attend so I took a half day to watch him until she got home. He felt better today so he was up for some playing…

So, we’re on the floor playing a game that I think went something like this (he’s three so it’s sometimes hard to tell exactly what he’s thinking)…

The pirates (who hail from McDonald’s happy meals gone by) have come ashore and stolen the treasure of King Stinky Sock.

King Stinky sock, mind you, lives in a lego castle. Which makes sense as he was, in fact, a lego person.

The pirates, being pirates after all, have taken no chances and have enlisted the help of several large, hungry dinosaurs to guard the treasure.

King Stinky Sock, being one not to take guff, has sent out his two best knights to retrieve the treasure, but, upon seeing the dinosaurs, well, you get the idea…

So, I say to Zach, “What can we do? This is too much for our knights…”
His reply (without missing a beat mind you).

“We’re gonna need a helicopter… And some Jets.”

You gotta love a three year old calling in an air strike.

14April2008

Scottish schools to have games added to the National Curriculum - Strategy Informer

Posted by Toner under: Gaming; Nerd Culture.

I knew we almost moved there for a reason, (besides the fantastic pubs)… Today

Scottish schools have announced to have games added to the National Curriculum .

“”The draft outcomes for our new curriculum are intended to help teachers make teaching more relevant, exciting and engaging. Technologies are important areas of the whole learning process and we are keen to receive feedback on the outcomes from professionals.”

Imagine that!

1April2008

My Favorite April Fools Day.

Posted by Toner under: Nerd Culture.

A few years ago I wrote some freelance articles for a Web site called Charged.com. It was a content site that described itself as being dedicated to the coverage of “Extreme Leisure.”

To give you an example of what, exactly, that is it had articles about such varied topics as “building your own catapult” and “keeping camels as pets” as well as features on all the usual extreme sports such as mountain biking, surfing etc.

In this particular instance I was assigned to write an article on Tree Climbing. It was actually kind of interesting, I found out there was this whole subculture of people who are REALLY into tree climbing. There’s loads of special gear, you can even sleep in a tree tent.

Who knew?

My article had gone out March 31st 19-sometime before the dot com crash. On April 1st, the site decided to pull an April Fools joke and pretended that it had turned into a Porn site. There really wasn’t any porn, it was just things like “Kitty Porn” (with pictures of kittens rolling in string, etc.). However the design was really dead-on as to what Porn sites looked like back then, complete with pop-ups and animated gifs.

Well, one of my sources for the article, a super nice granola-type from out West who apparently did a lot of climbing with his son and their friends from church, went to check out the article and didn’t really read the headlines close enough to tell it was a joke. I’m sure there’s some saying about how “there’s nothing like a Christian scorned” (or if there’s not there should be), but this guy unloaded on me with both barrels. I mean, the cursing was truly epic. Quentin Tarantino could not have written better dialogue.

I felt really awful, the guy had been super helpful, but, also, ya know, this was really a non-issue, so I sent him an e-mail like “hey, did you really READ what was there… It’s all pictures of kittens and stuff…”

No reply…

Maybe you had to be there… But, it still makes me chuckle a little. In a really uncomfortable, icky way…

Technorati Tags: Charged.com, Extreme Leisure, Tree Climbing, April Fools

31March2008

Rush joins Foo Fighters on stage in Toronto.

Posted by Toner under: music.

Heard about this on the radio on the drive-in today. Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee from Rush interrupt Foo Fighter’s drummer Taylor Hawkins in mid drum solo for a little rendition of YYZ. Even if you don’t like prog rock, the crowd reaction alone is worth a listen. It’s a little like that Hindenburg announcer but, ya know, without all the destruction and burning helium.

Technorati Tags: Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee, Rush interrupt, Foo Fighter’s, Taylor Hawkins, YYZ, prog rock