Cocktail Confessions

More often than I would care to admit to, the usual way our department treats is weekly Friday departmental lunch selection for is like trying to figure out who Paris Hilton is dating this week.  So many times, with all us accepting the ritualized anarchy that is our decision making process, we all stand up from our veal pen like cubicles like prairie dogs and stare blankly at each other as we all begin to say “So, where are we going today?”

It rarely ever comes together smoothly, and there is always someone who inevitably will drop out or complain they don’t like the place we all hoo-humingly decided upon.  “Not that place again.” “Didn’t we just go there two weeks ago?” “Ugh, the lines are too long and I don’t have enough cash.” are just a tip of the iceberg when it comes to the myriad of complaints and excuses we all throw out in trying to agree on a single place.

I get frustrated with this practice a lot as I generally don’t care where we go, or develop an attitude that I must partake in this tired indecisive banter every week.  Sometimes we spend so much time talking over each other throwing out names of tired and not so true places that we end up wasting a good solid ten minutes of our allotted 60 minute window.

Today, we all agreed upon trying a new selection tactic.  Something revolutionary, and yet so simple in practice.  I like to now call out, “Let’s let the wheel of fate decide.” in a determined and stoic voice, my Droid smartphone held up high in the air like Moses bearing the stone tablets before his wary people. “Let us look upon the written word that is (drum roll for effect) URBAN SPOON!”

My friend Brian introduced me to this fine little gem of an app that he had previously downloaded to his phone.  Currently available on both the Android (v2.0 OS and up) and iPhone platforms, Urbanspoon, is like the old Magic 8-Ball sooth-saying toy you had as a child.  Based upon your current location (thanks to the GPS coordinates of where you are standing) you shake your phone to activate the internal accelerometer.  Like a nickel slot machine at an Indian casino without smallpox, three simulated wheels rapidly spin and soon begin to settle upon the categories: city, genre, price.  City is self explanatory, genre is the cuisine type (Japanese, Indian, German, etc), and price is ranked from $ thru $$$$. 

We all agreed today that the ‘Wheels of Fate’ would dictate our lunch plans.  We all huddled in silent anticipation around my Droid, our eyes locked and wide as I shook the phone.  Clickity, clickity, clickity…..the simulated sound began to gradually slow. 

1st up: Tustin.  2nd wheel: Italian.  Finally price: $$  Urbanspoon had selected the “Pizza Shack”….and to our mutual acceptance and nods, we all agreed, no questions asked.  The ‘Wheels of Fate’ had spoken!

With address, phone number, and a 83% favorable review, we drove off to our dictated eatery.  And surprisingly, we all enjoyed it.  Seven of us attended todays outing, each one of stating we had never once been to the Pizza Shack before albeit it was only a mere two miles from the place we had all worked for years.  Sharing four medium pizzas with traditional toppings in an atmosphere not unlike a low rent college sports bar, we all commented on how good it actually was.  Not just the food per-se, but the atmosphere as well.

With this little tale all told, I thank my friend Brian for the the suggestion and highly recommend that if your smart phone can handle it, go ahead and download Urbanspoon.  A little shake of the wrist and a little random luck can break the doldrums that is choosing a place to eat and may lead you to something new and exciting.

Arrgggghhh….I am so bummed. 

Over the weekend my buddy Brian came over from Brians4×4adventures.com and we had recorded a raw podcast that was clocking in at about an hour and a half.  We covered a range of topics including our recent visit to Stone Brewery in Escondidio, his recent engagements, past and upcoming roadtrips, a spirited discussion on the Sony Bloggie vs the upcoming Kodak Playsport for your pocket flasmedia camcorder needs, recent natural disaters, slow cooking brisket and more.

Plenty of content that could have been split into two seperate 45 minute episodes.  I was looking forward to editing last night as I had the house to myself and wouldn’t be interupted and possibly getting one of them up today and part II next week.  However, when I fired up Audacity, it appears there was a file corruption that had taken place.  While the header data is there and shows up, the actual content is not, and I cannot recover anything.

I may just record a small filler episode in the next few days or so to tide myself and feel like I am accomplishing something.  Otherwise I am traveling to Atlanta next week for business and won’t be able to update much here officially, although I am starting to settle into Twitter.  Again, you can follow me at @alonedisciple on Twitter.

This post is only used for setting up CocktailConfessions posts to Twitter.

Update: Success!  Follow me on Twitter @alonedisciple (name pending to change).

Part of me feels like I sold out to the Media Man.  I’m not exactly sure why, but I’ve been fairly proud to have gone thus far so long without jumping on the Twitter bandwagon.  There’s a couple of reasons why I never felt the need to jump on this trend, and I suppose on the technological front it was because I never had a smart phone prior to my Droid and there was no way in hell I was going to use my regular phone (sans QWERTY keyboard) to attempt and fumble through pecking out a tweet.  It didn’t help either that Verizon charges like $.10 for every text message as well if you don’t have a data plan.

The second reason was more of a social ego thing for me which of course goes both ways.  On my side of the coin, I’m not sure what I would ‘tweet’ or why I would in the first place.  I’m not of the generation where this technology is second hand nature to kids have my age.  It seems that ‘tweeting’ was the next step in evolution for teens who were already maturing beyond Myspace, and now had a mobile way to keep friends updated.  I’m pretty sure that if I were 16 again, I’d really be into Twitter.  On the flip-side of things, it seemed Twitter became all that when celebrity douche’s like Ashton Kutcher, Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton and John Mayer got on-board and felt the need to tweet about everything they came into contact with.  Soon, ‘entertainment’ news shows such as Access Hollywood and Extra started to report the often mundane and sometimes insane musings of so called celebrities and hung on every word as if the ability to tweet now turned them into wise old sages that we as a culture needed to hang onto every word.  It was no longer about what we could do or experience for ourselves, but we were more interested, (for whatever reason) in “What would Ashton do?” or “What does Brittany think?”, as if somehow we were actually no closer to them, understood them, and now could tell others we were friends.

So why did I succumb if I am so against it?  Well, like all things, even my opinions change over time.  I still think Ashton and John Mayer are douches, but I cam to realize that there are other people out there that actually do write about things that interest me.  There are people I am interested in following as it comes to discovering new technologies, new restaurants, new clubs and venues, and even news that affects my world.

So who the hell am I following then?    Funny you should ask.  For the first time, it seems I have the ability to ‘interview’ who I want to follow on a trial basis.  Some may come, some may go.  For example, I don’t think I could follow a John Mayer even if I like him because my phone would be chirping upwards of ten times a day on just him.  Now suppose I began to follow 10 people, or maybe 20, or even 30.  If they even just tweeted once a day, I’d be inundated with chirps that would drive me up the wall.

The current list I have is relatively small (10), and there wasn’t all that much thought put into it.  Some of them I added like Neil Patrick Harris, because he actually has something to say and it has content, not like Kim Kardashian who peppers here with just links and nonsensical crap like advertisements.  I looked at a few dozen random celebrities in different fields and here’s my list thus far:  Nikkie Jackson (fitness model), Catalina Cruz (Internet entrepreneur), Niel Patrick Harris (actor), Bobby Flay (celebrity chef), Denise Richards (actress, model, animal lover), Kevin Smith (director, comic buff, actor), Blair Herter (TV personality, comic geek, video games), Adam Sessler (TV personality, video gamer), Aziz Ansari (comedian, actor), Guy Fieri (celebrity chef, tv personality).

I also realize it’s a great self marketing tool.  I’d love to get more people to listen to my podcast and if I can even attract one person via Twitter over to CocktailConfessions, then by measurement, it worked.  I doubt I will be personally be ‘tweeting’ much, I mean what possibly do I have to say to the masses who don’t even know I exist?  If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get a few followers, although I suspect they will be friends and I can share with them some new eats I’ve discovered, or inform them of a new podcast, or perhaps an occasional mobile picture….but isn’t that what we have Facebook for?

On my Droid phone I installed ‘Tweetcaster lite’, a freebie version of Tweetcaster Pro.  It seemed to get a lot of positive ratings 4.5/5 and seems failry intuitive to use.  Not sure if it is the best one out there as it seems a few people said it doesn’t have the ability to upload video’s to Twitter….but do I care about that?  Maybe it will come with an upcoming patch or release upgrade?

Anyway, now I’m looking for an appropriate and easy Twitter plug-in for Wordpress.  I’ve already seen a few, but I need to decide which one will suit my needs here.  Don’t be surprised if you see one or two come and go over the weeks as I decide which one is for me.  However, in the meantime, if you so choose you can follow me on Twitter at ‘@alonedisciple’.

Finally, if you were to become a follower of me, what would you want me to tweet about?  Recipes?  Grilling?  Cocktails?  Funny crap?

Zune HD

Not that money is burnoking a hole in my pocket but sometimes I get this intense urge to purchasea shiny new gadget and it’s very hard to satiate or assuage that feeling until a transaction has been made.  Therein this dilemma lies a few various issues that bounce about within my noggin that I begin to wonder if I stumbled upon some warped psychosis of myself: 1) Do I ‘really‘ need a new gadget?  2) Do I have a mild case of ’shop-a-holic’ syndrome usually discussed by various yentas on shows like The View or Maury Povich?  3) Am I making an intelligent buying decision or do I wait for the next model?  or 4)  Do I shove this current desire deep down within and wait for something completly different at a later date…perhaps something I’m not even aware I need or want yet?

That’s where I seem to be at this point, and while I am proud I did not make fall into temptation today and make an impulse purchase while I was at Best Buy earlier today, I’m also kinda bummed I didn’t at the same time.  See, for Christmas I was gifted a new Playstation 3.  I would normally have kept this gift and be very excited about it, however, it was not a Playstation Slim.  I also own a Xbox 360 and Wii and really can’t afford to start buying yet another consoles games at $60 a pop.  And the fact that my wife purchased me a Panansonic Blu-Ray player doesn’t help my argument either.  So begrudgingly I did return the PS3 and received a store credit in the amount of $300+.

Now what to buy with it?  A few thoughts crossed my mind: 1) new Xbox hard drive and some games?  2) Use it sparingly over time to purchase some DVD’s and reduced games once I play and tire with the current games I own and haven’t yet completed?  3) Buy a Zune HD player (a few months ago I almost would have done anything for a Zune 32GB)?  4) Buy a Cisco FlipHD handheld camcorder, or now something I just learned today, 5) Buy a Sony Bloggie 360 camcorder?

Well, I learned that Best Buy doesn’t currently carry 100GB Xbox hard drives and data transfer kits, so that’s out.  I’ll have to look for that separately another time.

I think I recently changed my mind on the Zune HD 32 as well.  The price is still a bit high at $289 and I can’t help but think that over the last few years I’m lucky if I even have picked up any MP3 player.  I have an older 4 GB Rio that works just fine and I don’t go to the gym as much as I used to either.  I also have my new Motorola Droid which I can listen to LastFM, and various other audio and digital podcasts (which I currently do at work now).  The Zune 16GB ($199) may be better for me as by the time I actually fill it up to say 40% of songs, the price may drop even more or a new model may be announced.  I do like the idea of placing many of my CD’s onto it, being Droid independent, and its ability to hook into my Ford Edge’s SYNC system.  I currently use a small 256MB USB memory stick in my car that holds quite a few songs, but clearly not as nice as a Zune.  I also have a Zune account on both my PC and XBox 360 and fancy myself going back to the gym more often here in the future and being able to watch video podcasts on the run is very attractive.

FlipHD

Then there is the Flip UltraHD cam from Cisco.  Up until CES 2010 (last week) I was liking the idea of having a Flip.  Not that I video anything much now because I don’t have a portable device or an account on YouTube, but I recently discovered the use of my Droid’s video capture abilities at a trade show I recently attended and found it very cool.  I’ve been doing more on Facebook recently as well, and have ideas of including vodcasts here and another site I’m working on.  However, it’s a Cisco device and although very popular right now, I can already sense that it is overpriced by the nature of it being Cisco and I feel a new model is under development.  As a matter of fact, with Sony’s ‘Bloggie’ announcement last week, Flip has already dropped it’s price from $199 to $149 at Best Buy.

Sony Bloggie

I figure the price drop is to compete against the newest version of Sony’s Bloggie that was announced for $169 for the base model and $189 for the 360 kit.  Now that I know about the Bloggie and its superior resolution (5MP pictures and 1920 x 1080 video resolution), 4x digital zoom, rotating 270 degree lens and 360 video accesory feature, of course now I think the Flip is now out.  It also comes with a 4GB memory stick (upgrades to 8GB), editing software, and it’s ability to immediately share to YouTube, Shutterfly, and Picasa makes it very attractive for our social networking generation (Facebook, Myspace, etc..)

So I didn’t buy anything today.  It’s between my desire to possibly buy a Zune 16, a future Bloggie, or upcoming Blu Ray DVD’s and Xbox 360 video games.

DJ Hero

Eh, well, not because I’m an advocate of throw away episodes, but once in a while it’s just kinda nice to put something out there to let the masses know you’re still alive and kicking.  It also helps in remembering how to craft and use technology so you don’t forget it so easily if you don’t do it too often.

Like most things that I really get excited and interested in, it appears that putting this podcast together is a bit harder than I first anticipated.  Not so much from a  technical aspect, but more of getting actual content down and getting guests to commit.  It’s been much more difficult than I ever would have surmised to get friends and neighbors to agree on a time to sit and chat, and every time it seems we plan on something it generally gets delayed for one reason or another.

That’s not so much the case in point here.  As I stated in my last post, I’ve been under the weather as of late.  I can’t remember the last time I has such a bad cough or case of bronchitis that has more or less just put me out on my butt.  My throat has been a bit raw and I’m all jacked up on various OTC medicines…none of which seem to be doing me much good by the way.  The nagging and uncontrollable hacking at all hours has been very frustrating to me, and while I’m not 100% right now, it seems I’m finally on the tail end of a good eight day cough fest.

Episode 13 is a bit short, clocking in at just about twenty one minutes and it just informs you up on a few recent things in my life

Stone Smoky Porter

like Christmas goodies such as DJ Hero, my new Blu Ray player, some movies and Netflix we’ve been watching (like season 1 of Dexter), and of course Stone Brewery Smoky Porter (5.9%).  Speaking of DJ Hero, that game is bad ass.  As a child of the 80’s and really into old skool hip-hop/rap and more current euro dance/techno, this game is right up my alley.  Some of my friends have laughed at me spinning a plastic turntable and making up DJ names for me, like DJ Wingman (thanks Chip).  I hope the game does well enough to spawn some additional DLC because I just love it.

Show Notes:

Intro - “Come Again” by Beastie Boys & Daft Punk (as heard on DJ Hero)

2:08 - Cornocopia of OTC drugs I’m taking including Emergen-C bullshit.

6:30 - This & that and a little fluff.

7:15 - Stone Brewery and porter talk.

8:05 - Blu Ray and movie talk (Star Trek, Paranormal Activity)

11:45 - Microsoft + Xbox RROD blues 

12:29 - Dexter: clean versus ‘R’ versions for Showtime and CBS

13:49 - Xmas continued + DJ Hero

18:39 - SkurvyMonekys.com podcast discussed

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (19.3MB)

Through the miracle of digital crack addiction phenom known as Facebook, I was able to recently reconnect with an associate I knew back in highschool some 20 years ago.  I learned that he has his own podcast over at teh website: SkurvyMonkeys.  A variety show chock full of music, comedy, and random musings between two dudes. 

I’m currently listening to the episode entitled ‘A Christmas to Drink by (part 2)’, and am very impressed.  This episode has some particularly funny holiday themeds music ranging from Disney to The Kinks.  A nice change from the ever so predictable Howard Stern crapola.

Production sounds a helluva lot better than my own futile attempts (Erik, don’t mind if I hit you up on some podcasting questions at a later date).  You can find their podcast on iTunes and I’ve included the links (skurvymonkeys.com and blendedmonkeys.com) in the right margin right here.  Anyway, go check them out!

Site Maintenance:

• MapPress upgraded to v1.5.8.9
• Blubrry Power Press upgraded to v1.0.4

Update on my Ford Sync and Droid issue…

Well, the Internet is a smart thing and after a brief perusing of some forums, I see that I wasn’t the only one having issues ’sync’-ing there new Droid with MS Sync in Ford cars.  It appears this is a know issue and various reports share that there is a ‘rumored’ fix coming Dec 11 in the form of a patch.

However, after a bit more digging, I did discover there is an alernate Motorola pairing code that uses four digits instead of Sync preferable 6 digits.  The good news?  Well, after fiddling with teh menu option on my steering wheel, I discovered a ‘Special’ PIN number on my Ford Edge, and once entered into my Motorola Droid…..VOILA…it works!

Granted, I’ll feel much better when both the Droid patch comes out in a few weeks AND I get Ford to upgrade my Sync firmware to what it actually should be, and not the version that is currently installed when I bought my car two years ago.  But for now, it appears I got the Bluetooth to now work.

Well, against better financial judgement I broke down and finally upgraded my cell phone after almost 3 years of using my sturdy and reliable LG. 

I went ahead and purchased myself a Smartphone, and a new Motorola “Droid” at that.  I went with the Droid as it comes pre-installed with Android OS 2.0 (Eclair) by those nifty tech heads over at Google.  Also, being my first smart phone required me to get my very first data plan as well.  Thank goodness the company I work for has a corporate account with Verizon as it affords me a nice monthly discount as well on both voice and data.

I’m still getting used to the phone.  It’s much bigger than my LG workhorse, and of course more expensive, and most likely more fragile.  So far, I love it.  It has a lot of nifty features and I’m really digging the GPS with turn-by-turn instructions and live traffic reports.  The way it handles contacts is pretty cool tool, either via the phone interface or a gmail account, and updates pretty much on the fly.  I also enabled Latitudewhich will allow me to track and locate my friends if they so choose.  I can also update my Facebook and have access to a lot of apps, although I suspect most are junk or duplicates and up to this point I’ve never used any, so I can’t really think of too much of a need to start going app crazy now like Apple-heads do.

However, one cool app that of course made it to my Droid is ‘10001 Cocktails’.  As the app describes itself: “Put the bartender in your pocket!  Browse and search thousands of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink recipes on the shot-cocktail-recipe.com website!  Add fresh drink ideas and drink reviews and save your favorite drinks to your personal list.”  Don’t think I won’t!

As far as using my new phone as my MP3 player and viewing YouTube videos….well, not yet.  I’m still hoping to get a new Zune HD in the coming months.

The only drawbacks so far to my new toy is that battery life (when in use and not in standby mode) seems to get sucked dry faster then Motorola would like you to believe it does.  Also, the Bluetooth cannot sync with my Ford Sync yet…that may be a firmware issue on Ford’s part though.  The last 3 attempts at updating my Sync at the dealership, the machine has been ‘down’.  Ugh.  I mean the phone’s Bluetooth works great…I already paired it with my old Motorola headset just fine…I just can’t get it working with my car stereo yet.

Now in a completely different and unrelated tech issue, my XBox took a dump on me late last week.  I got the dreaded RROD (Red Ring of Death) which signifies an internal hardware error that is most likely attributed to a faulty design when it comes to dispersing the temperature inside the console.  So the bad news is my XBox has been shipped back to Microsoft and may not have it for the next 3-4 weeks….Awesome, just in time for Christmas and my holiday break where I’ll get all these new games I can’t play.  The good news is that it is still under warranty and Microsoft is supposed to fix it for free.  So it shipped out Monday this week.  I’ll just have to cross my fingers and make sure it gets back new and improved in 3 weeks.

It’s been a long time coming, but I spent a lot of the day yesterday editing this podcast episode into something I really wanted it to be.  It took a bit longer than expected to put this together as I was looking for the perfect music (thanks Limewire) for the introduction to set the mood and a great tie in to an overall theme. 

I also kind pushed myself here at a technical level in editing.  First, I used my portable Zoom H2 in the field for the first time.  It worked pretty well, although I did misplace the manual, so I had a few hiccups at first.  I have to work on the microphone gain.  For my initial recording I had set it to medium, and although we were sitting only a few feet from it with no other background noise, the recording seemed somewhat fainter than I expected, so I boosted it in Audacity.  It also took longer than I expected to transfer the raw MP3 from the Zoom to my PC.  This Podcast has a total of 3 mono tracks and 2 stereo tracks that I spliced together, remixed into a single track (to help save on bandwidth and space), faded out some entrance music and for the first time added an end trailer, and I’m pretty happy with the result seeing this is the most complex editing I’ve done thus far.

I also used Limewire for the first time, trying to find the perfect lead in bumper.  I had a specific song in mind, and I actually own a clean copy of the song somewhere but couldn’t find the CD, so I opted to download from the wild-wild-web.  The thing is, you never know exactly what you are going to get in quality or length, and sometime the descriptions don’t always match what you’re looking for so there is a few trial by fire attempts to get the right track.  Anyway, in this case, I chose “Grim Grinning Ghosts“, better known as the overall soundtrack for Disney’s Haunted Mansion.  It appears in a few various incarnations and pressed a few times in some rare LP’s and CD’s many of which are now out of print.  To me it was worth it.  For those that really like the Haunted Mansion, here’s an interesting and detailed site about the ride, it’s history, the story behind it, and its look throughout the various theme parks: DoomBuggies.com.

Also appearing in this episode is yet another libation.  The website is called ‘Cocktail Confessions’ for a reason, and so it keeping that dream alive I bring you Jack’s Pumpkin Spice Ale from Michelob.  It’s a seasonal beer (fall) that clocks in at 5.5% alcohol with hints of cloves, nutmeg and allspice.  As I explain in the podcast, this years batch didn’t taste all that ‘pumpkiny’ to me, and I might suggest you try Buffalo Bills Pumpkin Ale or even Blue Moon’s, Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale.  Both of these have a richer pumpkin and spice taste, and there are plenty of others.  If you know of any good ones you’d like to suggest, please drop me a line.

The meat and potatoes of this podcast however is the interview I recorded with my grandfather Harold.  He recently just turned 91 years old, and I kinda wanted to get some time with him before it was too late.  We’re all lucky he is still around after surviving being a tail gunner in a B-17 during WWII, having had open heart surgery, a pacemaker installed and a few other medical issues.  He’s still going strong…at least mentally.  He’s 100% Italian, being born here but his parents were immigrants.  I initially wanted the recording to be about his days being a master carpenter and working on the early builds of the Tiki Room, some of the facades on Main Street, and other contributions he made at the park, but after 40 minutes of great stories, I realized I wasn’t recording properly.  So instead of having him rehash everything all over, we just segued into his early days growing up in Wakefield, Michigan then eventually moving out to Anaheim, CA.  The actual recording was almost an hour long, and for this podcast I decided to break it up into a smaller segment I’m calling part 1, which is approx. 20 minutes long.

Finally my garage door died a loud and expensive death last week.  We had to buy a new one, and thus opted for the Heritage 3000, triple layer door: steel + insulation + steel.  It looks very nice, much quieter than the old one, and will hopefully help in reducing both our cooling and heating costs in the long run.  The really funny thing to me is how my neighbors have reacted.  To me, it’s just a garage door.  It’s white, it opens, it closes and does what any other garage door was designed for.  However, many of the men on my street have taken a very keen interest in its look, its operation, and overall functionality.  A real ‘Tim the Tool Guy Taylor’ moment where they all had to check it out and kick the tires per-se.  I personally found it very amusing that the men were all into it as much as they were.  In the end, it’s still a garage door.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (29.5MB)