It's Steve (now in blog form)

I admit it, I like Disneyland.  Ben likes to run around like an insane person, and I appreciate highly engineered experiences.  I thought I’d point out a couple of things that struck me the last time I was there.

These people are very sad- The Disney newlyweds are not uncommon. They are, however, tragically sad.  Thank god they found each other.  Now if only we could keep them from propagating…

This is brilliant- When I was in high school we had a class trip to Disneyland.  It was one of those overnight events.  The evening was notable on two fronts: gross misbehavior and the opening of the Indiana Jones ride.  Let’s talk about the Indian Jones ride.  While we waited in the two hour line, we all got special decoder cards.  They associated to the hieroglyphics throughout the ride.

Here’s the crazy part.  Do you remember the scene from “A Christmas Story” when he decodes the radio message and gets “Don’t forget to drink your Ovaltine”?  These are exactly the same.  AT&T was the launch partner for the ride.  All of the script decodes to messages about choosing the right long distance provider.

The amazing bit is that when AT&T obviously didn’t renew the promotion agreement, Disneyland just stopped handing out the cards.  They didn’t remove the ads from the ride.  They just stopped having them be decodeable.   So brilliant.  I wonder if AT&T wanted to cut another check if they’d start passing them out again.  Now that is a cool integrated marketing program.

I saw this little gem driving up Pico yesterday.  Apparently, Mr. Obama would like to offer you a brave new vision for our future, as well as a compelling variety of reptiles and amphibians.  What an incredible time to be an American.

I have never hated a game as much as I hate Spore.  This is a pretty bold statement given the number of crappy games I have played in my life time (I still don’t understand what the hell the objective was with this one).  And I say this without ever having played it.  The problem is that I CAN’T FREAKIN PLAY THE GAME!

I’ve been pretty excited about Spore for a while.  It is one of the more hyped games of the last couple of years. You basically get to play god, and you can imagine how that might appeal to me.

I have a MacBook.  It’s less than a year old.  The game’s box clearly says MAC compatible on the front.  This is a blatant lie.  First it wouldn’t install because my OS was not the super-duper most current.  Ok, EA, I’ll play your little game.  I snagged a copy of Snow Leopard and upgraded my operating system.  Consider that box checked.

Does it work now? Judging from my desire to strangle some EA monkeys, there seems to still be a problem.  My graphics card is not high end enough so the game just won’t run.  End of story.

Here’s what I don’t get.  The release was delayed for over a year.  The hardware required to play it didn’t exist at the time that this thing was coded. WTF?  Seriously, I’m pissed off that I have a $50 game that is unplayable on a 1 year old machine.

So screw you, EA. And screw you, Spore.  I’m done with this.  You have officially crapped on my parade.

Now I’m just torn on whether the correct course of action at this stage is to put the disk up for grabs to you guys, or send EA a package filled with burnt hair (yeah, that is a terrible smell).  Thoughts?

It’s 7:15 AM and it has already been a long day.  Ben decided to get up at 5:15. He doesn’t understand daylight savings time apparently.  After a bottle and fairly gnarly diaper change we settled in for some serious Curious George time (I try to let Kim sleep in on the weekends. I’m a wonderful person).  That’s when the blinking red light on my Blackberry set off my purely pavlovian compulsion to check my mail.

Wiley had texted me for a pick up.  If you know Wiley, you’ll know how sick he’s been lately.  His yet undiagnosed illness is characterized by cycles of uncontrollable vomiting that usually last 3-4 days and end with us taking a trip to the ER when the dehydration really sets in.  It is not cool. (Full details are available on his blog).

Anyway, I was prepped for some hard core puking while I drove since that’s how things go when I drive Wiley lately.  I loaded up Ben and headed out about about 5:30 AM across town to Silver Lake.  I figured I’d take the boy and let Kim sleep in.  That’s where things went horribly wrong.

About 5 minutes on the freeway, Ben pukes.  Everywhere. For a while.  There is no smell quite like semi-digested milk.  Being the good parent I am, I figured we probably had another round or two in our immediate future and continued on to Wiley’s apartment.  By the time we got there, he was covered.

When people talk about having kids, they always tell you how magical and fulfilling it is.  They’re lying to you. Or at least glossing over what it’s really like (I’m not sure if this behavior is some sort of instinctual drive to help perpetuate the species, or if all parents secretly hate/resent the childless).  I find that a lot of parenthood revolves around being wrist deep in things that are awful. And there’s screaming.  It’s good they’re cute or they’d be in serious trouble.

So I pulled up a Wiley’s and had him bring down paper towels.  Here’s where it got tricky.  Wiley is on a vomit bender and has a hair trigger when it comes to smells.  Ben is covered in baby puke which is like the atomic bomb of puke smell.  I had to quickly wipe down and strip the baby while and unsteady Wiley waited away from the car.  Did I mention that parenthood involves being wrist deep in schmutz?

The ride home was surprisingly uneventful.  Thankfully no one decided to grace the car with any more bile.  Now we’re all back at my house trying to keep it together.  Ben is watching Pooh playing with blocks after a bath.  Wiley is sacked out in our bed looking like hell.  I’m drinking copious amounts of coffee.   I’ll be shocked if there isn’t another hospital trip in our future.  Bah.

Horny Goat Weed may offer Viagra alternative
LONDON (Reuters) – A Chinese herbal remedy called horny goat weed is a promising alternative to Viagra for impotent men, Italian researchers said on Monday. Read more

A couple of thoughts immediately spring to mind here.

First, I imagine that the naming of this plant involved a very awkward situation and was retold over drinks for decades (…and that’s why Lahkschmell doesn’t work in the fields anymore. Guffaw!)

Second, Italian impotence researchers didn’t immediately focus on Horny Goat Weed in their research? Come on guys, even the goats knew that thing was a winner.

Thank god modern medicine at least has it’s priorities straight.

I’m enjoying a cocktail and wrapping up the day. We don’t having anything good recorded. As a result, you all get a shiny new blog to enjoy. ENJOY IT!

MySpace Self-Serve Ads- I’m doing some testing on the platform and it’s pretty slick (Ok, Tberg. We all hear you patting yourself on the back). The idea is that anybody can build and buy banner ads on MySpace through an automated interface. Anyway, these are the fancy ads I built for my blog. The first round got rejected. I’ll let you know how they perform.

The Way International- This may be my favorite new cult in a while. I really like the bit where the dude is possessed by the Spirit (it’s actually the spirit of Michael Jackson from Smooth Criminal, but you get the idea). Don’t miss this one

8-bit Music- How is it that I’m always the last to know about this stuff? It turns how there’s a whole subculture dedicated to 8-bit music (think the crappy music from old video games). They seem to have a pretty strong presence on MySpace. Here’s some good representative stuff. Expect to have this stuck in your head for days.

http://www.myspace.com/pixelh8
The Nintendo DS software that makes it go
http://www.myspace.com/girljoymusic
This one is pretty sophisticated, but the guy’s explanation just cracks me up.