... all excited....
cant get Habanera (link to vid)out of my head...
Carmen! yay!

So two applications I have been working on (yes the entire things were programmed by yours truly) for uLocate (technically uLocate did it for Idearc) have now been released into the wild on Android Market- Superpages and LocalSearch

YAY!!!!

ADC 2 Round 1 Scoring Complete

*crossing fingers* *hopes faeriestone made it to round 2*

So Android Developer Challenge 2 judging has begun (Official posting about judging).

For those with Android phones (TMobile G1s mainly) you can download the judging app by searching for ADC (and select the Android Developer Challenge 2 app). Once you download it, it seems to randomly select an app for you to choose to judge or not (you can skip it if you wish). If you decide to judge it, it downloads and installs the app for you. You then can play with the app, then go back to the ADC2 app to judge it. You give up to a rating of 5 stars in each area : orginiality, usage of google android specific capabilities (gps, sensors, etc), polish (how polished / finished it seems), and its usefullness (or for games, its addictiveness).

The first round of judging will last at least two weeks from today. Judging will continue until a sufficient number of votes to identify the top 20 applications in each of the 10 categories (200 apps total) that qualify for the second round.

So those with Andorid phones, go to it!

I know why they do this (prevent someone from releasing a copy on the interwebs etc but this is just over the top)...

on the main page of the amazon website there is a message from Jeff Bezos (CEO) about the upcoming release of Dan Brown (the author of Da Vinci Code) new book The Lost Symbol. the part that was just funny is the following quote:

"The book remains so deeply under wraps that we've agreed to keep out stockpile under 24-hour guard in its own chain-link enclosure, with two locks requiring two separate people for entry"

I just imagine a military grade security zone (like in Terminator 2 for instance or in Missile Silo Control etc) where two guys go up to a vault and having to each turn a key simultaneously to get access and such...

so as some of you know i just spent a loooong weekend (actually week) which culminated in last night being a exhilarating race against time. Besides the various other projects and contract/work I have about a month (technically a month and a half or so) me and my good buddy DrMikey (the guy I teamed up with to make the flash game entry we won last year) realized that Google was doing the Android Developer Contest this year. So even though we were about a month and a half behind everyone who has going to be submitting to the contest (it was announced end of May and we didnt hear about it till mid July) we decided to to submit a game. So last night was down to the wire for me as I rushed to complete the game as much as I could. What came out is somewhat satisfactory... I originally wanted to add another dimension to the product (a social aspect) which I ended up not being to put in. But that aside, it came out well. A kind of a cross between a virtual pet game, a augmented reality virtual scavenging game, and puzzle game it is somewhat akin to the the flash game DrM and I did last year (with a story and everything). So anyways the sumbission site closed at 3am EST last night and i submitted it at 2am. :) the last day hours has felt like that zone that every Hollywood Hacker movie attempts to show when the hacker kid is intently hacking away. *grins*

so anyways, its done. For those who have Android phones, onc ethe ADC2 client scoring app is available, the game is called FaerieStone. Take a look.

oh, and yes, I will be releasing a FaerieStone 2 which will have the social aspect in it (goddamnit *grins*) but thats not for a little bit...

So my home server that ive had since 2004 died last night. The motherboard has been flaky of late and it finally just refused to boot. Granted it was starting to get a bit old though- i would say that it began to become obsolete sometime last year. So tonight I get to pick up a machine and start the process of putting together a new server which will be obsolete in about 3 years :)

The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up

this is the book i have found myself recommending a lot of late. so i figured i would post it...:)

for those thinking of starting a business or whatnot, read this. It gets you right into the heart of what to think about and how.

Tokyo Cat Cafes

"I was at Calico, one of Tokyo’s increasingly popular cat cafes, where customers seeking human and feline companionship pay to sip tea and stroke one of the 20-odd resident cats, representing 17 different breeds."

Last Call for Aujourd'hui

"Aujourd'hui, the fine dining establishment at the Four Seasons, is closing. The hotel says the upscale restaurant's last day will be June 27."

Last night I hung out with cutfever103 and we happened to go into the Harvard Coop (the bookstore part). In any case, we discovered as we wandered about a new Holy Relic that was now sheltered within the great building that is the Coop.

( cut for your pleasure )

All bow to the great Holy Tissue of Harvard Coop!!!!!

A link to the photo gallery

So a friend of mine has made a LED Hoop that is now orderable.
check it out here

so i have found myself addicted to Bubble Tea. Those yummy black tapioca pearls in a iced flavored tea... mmmmmmmmmmm..... so i ended up ordering a bunch of stuff via amazon (one of the sellers Boba Tea Direct) and getting tapioca pearls and those fat straws and some tea powder... soon i will have in-home bubble tea! yay!

ahh.. the small things in life

It is nights like this that I miss the old Manray. to be able to just be within a crowd of the freaks and geeks, the beautiful and the extreme, and just observe while having a drink and listen to good music.... tonight i wanted to be anonymous within a crowd where things just felt right...

Orson Scott Card (author of Ender's Game) apparently went to Tokyo for the first time and wrote a cute review of what he thought.

- quote -
I never had any ambition to visit Japan. I was content with photographs and books. I especially had no desire to eat Japanese food. .........

...... To my surprise, I ended up loving Tokyo.....

.... It all comes down to this. If you have an itch to travel, but you never thought Tokyo would be an interesting place to visit, think again. Tokyo is one of the best places in the world to sightsee, shop, eat, get around in, and generally hang out.
- /quote -

Like I have said (jokingly of course) everyone deep inside just wants to be Japanese *grins* (and apparently an author of a really good sci-fi novel and has political views that I do not share is one step closer to this realization).

* The worst thing you can do when running a company is to believe your own PR. The moment you do that the company is doomed

* Just because you can see/watch it does not mean you control it. Nor does being able to control it mean you are managing it well. The worst thing any executive or manager can do to a company's employees is to make the mistake of believing that "seeing" == "control" == "managing well". These executives/managers are most often the reason why the company sinks.

* Creativity is not something you 'force'. You can not put it into a specific time frame nor can you dictate a specific period of time in the day that it is to occur. Most people who are creative come up with their most creative ideas outside of the normal habits of a daily schedule. Executives who think otherwise are fooling themselves and end up squashing any form of creativity in their company. Then again, maybe that is what they want- the idea that they are creative by making creative people do exactly what they are told.

So i have been finding myself using this term a lot lately....

* JAWS - Just Another Web Service

Im in awe... This is actually brilliant* . A good example of great biz sense. Makes one realize how rare it is.

* (and no it isnt sarcasm... im actually in awe)

so this is a quick 'thank you' to all those who replied or communicated their condolences to me in regards to the job loss. its bad there peeps.

anyways today is oddly busy since i have to run around and hand in paperwork and do the unemployment office thing and such again. monday i start job hunting again *sighs*

i just got hit again.... laid off from EveryZing.