GlitchNYC.com

It's a crime that I haven't blogged this yet

I really can't believe I haven't found a free moment to blog about this yet but I blame pokerroom.com and their free, Linux friendly Java client and No Limit Hold 'em tables.

When Jon was in town a few months back, he and I went exploring in the giant Toys R' Us in Times Square, the one that extends up AND down a full 3 stories in each direction from street level and has among other things, a Giant animatronic T-Rex and a Ferris Wheel inside. I have, of course,seen all these things before but it's always fun to poke around in there and see whats new, especially because Jon and I have visions of one day becoming DIY toy designers and making our fortunes.

While we were walking through the "Center display" where they feature the "latest mass marketing push" item we were stopped by a man dressed in a cross between a wizards robe and a "king" costume, deftly spinning the iTop. Of course I was impressed, mostly because the technology behind the thing had to be both pretty advanced and pretty cheap. They were selling the little device for $10.

I picked up the top and gave it a spin, and was immediately hooked. It was counting the number of times I spun it and displaying it in real time using the single row of 8 LEDS on the top. As the top whipped around, it flashed the lights in sequence, spelling out words and numbers.

Jon and I took several turns trying to beat the best score, but eventually we ran out of time and had to go.

A few months passed and I had all but forgotten about the iTop (I hadn't bought one since I was saving for the wedding) and I found myself needing to buy presents for my Groomsmen. I don't know about you, but I have no need for an engraved money clip. What I do have is an endless appetite for fun desk gadgets and challenging games.

When it came time, I bought one of the iTops for each of the Groomsmen and included them in a bag with The Open CD (which includes lots of open source tools we used to put the wedding together, like Scribus and Open Office) and a CD with all the mp3s we played at the wedding. I was worried what they would think about they toy, if they would like it as much as I had and if it was appropriate.

It turns out that I was worrying for nothing! By the end of the rehearsal dinner, we were all sitting around, trying to beat the best score and trying all sorts of surfaces to get the best spin. I think we'd just broken 900 when we finally went to bed.

The guys spent tons of their downtime playing with the tops, and by the time the wedding rolled around, they had figured out how to keep it going indefinitely by brushing their hand quickly along the edge, and had invented a new game where you spun it in the air to see how many times you could get it around before you caught it. The iTop was a hit!

The day after the wedding, we finally got home to Astoria to find a message on my cell phone. I listened to the panic inducing message nervously, as many friends were driving home that day, and with the tone of the message, I was worried that someone had been in a car accident.

"Ten" the voice on the message screamed. A chill ran down my back. I was confused by the message, but the voice was hard to read. Who was it from?

"Fourteen!" The message continued, again in that slightly panicked yell. I was sweating now. I didn't know if I was listening to a prank, if something horrible had happened, or what.

"Ten-Fourteen! 1014, new record on the iTop! Just had to call and tell you. We're up at college safe. Have a good trip."

Rye hadn't been up at school more than a few hours before they'd broken out the iTop and shattered the standing single-spin high score. He had called me out of excitement! I let out a sigh of relief and laughed. What a great little gift that had turned out to be.

Little did I know that in the week were on our honeymoon, Ryan's friends at college would make our standing records look paltry, inventing new ways to spin the top and spurring us to break the contest into separate events like the "Snap" method and the "Indian fire" method.

Meanwhile, back out in California, Jon was experimenting with different materials to spin on to try to get the best spin out of his and up in Rochester, Doug was showing his (slightly wonky one) off with his work buddies. I don't know, maybe we're all geeks in the same way, but for $10, that's one hell of a toy to me.

Way to go Irwin toys. Toys R' Us seems to be having trouble keeping them in stock in their NYC store, so I don't know if they're having trouble keeping up demand or they're just flying off the shelves. Either way, its good to see such a great product selling well, especially without a major advertising push or paying for a license to brand it with some kid-friendly logo.

If you buy an iTop:

• Beware that some of the tops are slightly off balance. So far, 2 out of 7 were just a bit wobbly. For $10, it's well worth the risk, and it's still a fun toy, but you might not beat the world record with it. Also, watch the packaging to make sure the "battery seal" is sill intact in back
• Check out the "secret modes". Switch to mode 1 and then hold both the play and mode buttons for 5-10 seconds. The flashing modes will do cool things like draw patterns and display a compass.

3:21 pm | permalink | /technology/gadgets | 0 writebacks |

Hitchhikers Guide Radio Shows for FREE!

Okay - I seriously love the BBC.

First of all, if you aren't watching Coupling already, it's one of if not the funniest show on TV. BBCAmerica runs it in syndication.

Second, they've just released audio streams of the new version of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy for free on the net. Each episode will apparently be available for 7 days after it airs.

I've actually never read the books. My only exposure to it was a game I played for the Commodore 64 (that's a link to a new version of the old game!) back in 1991 and some friends who were giant Douglas Adams fans. So far, I've listened to 8 minutes of this, on and off, and I've already laughed about 10 times as much as I did through the entire second episode of Father of the Pride. Not that that's any great bar to measure by, but that's apparently this season's best comedic offering.

I'm also amazed that they chose to do this as a radio play. As far as I'm concerned, the decision was a masterful one. My brain is filling in the effects just fine, and I don't have to worry about how crap the CG looks. I can just lose myself in the very funny story, and the production values of the audio are great. It's as if they took the money they would have spent shooting it for TV and poured it into creating cinema quality audio. Very nice.

• Audio feeds:
• Real or Windows Media
• And, good stuff from the Slashdot comments:
• Save the stream:
  mplayer -dumpstream mms://wm.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/h2g3_episode 1.asf
• Listen to "Primary and Secondary phase"
• Even though I don't know what that means, this series is apparently the Tertiary phase. So is this the third retelling, or does it pick up somewhere in the 3rd book? Or maybe it's just the third radio series? Whatever it is, it's fine to start listening right here as I did.

Ya, this was stolen from Slashdot, but it was too good to not mention again!

10:47 am | permalink | /life | 2 writebacks |

Like a Basket Full of Laundry

Thank you cards are the ultimate procrastinator-maker. If I'm not working on them, I can't bring myself to do anything else, (you know, like blog or post wedding pictures) because I should be doing thank-yous instead.

It's not that I don't want to write them, I've unexpectedly enjoyed writing them for the wedding as I've gotten to spend one last personal moment with each person through them and it's made that feeling of the wedding - the feeling of being surrounded by throngs of people you love - last just a bit longer.

The problem is, I can only write a few of them a night. I'm not just scribbling out a short "Thanks, love Eric + Sara" I'm having conversations with people here. To clarify the problem a bit - If I was writing thank you e-mails, I would be in a much better position.

You see, I can type like lightning when I know what I want to say (and have a spell checker to clean up after my typo's), but my handwriting has been downright awful since the first grade. I even changed to writing in all caps in 9th grade to try to clean it up a bit, but to little avail. I've settled for a script I like to call "stylized doctor scratch" and will only write with my easy-flowing Pilot G-2, but I rarely, if ever, engage in the actual art of putting pen to paper for anything other than doodling.

Beyond the embarrassing chicken scratch look of my handwriting and inevitable typo (write-o?), writing is actually physically excruciating for me. I just can't get my hand to move that way consistently. It's almost comical, seeing as nearly everything else I do in my life involves using my hands in some fashion, but for some reason the combination of deep thought, fine motor skills (the writing) and gross motor skills (the picking up of the arm to continue writing a line) has just always posed problems for me. I must either go so painfully slow that people have genuinely asked if I've had a stroke or have some other mental deficiency, or write like a third grader and throw in lots of big first letters and fancy strokes when possible to make it look like it's all supposed to look this way.

The funny thing is, about a year ago, my brother, father, and I all picked up pieces of paper and realized that our handwriting was all but identical, even thought my brother and I did not learn to write from my father. We all developed the "small-caps" style independently, and generally mix cursive and print in the same ways.

Weird. Maybe it's genetic? I've also found this specific pattern of writing to be an exclusively male trait. Anyone else an expert in "barely-legible-all-caps-big-T"?

12:55 am | permalink | /life | 0 writebacks |

Missed Chuck Palahniuk, but Albany Folks Can Catch Him

I missed one of my favorite authors, Chuck Palahniuk, reading in NYC tonight because I was just too pooped, but anyone up in the Albany area can catch him tomorrow night.

His readings are famous for being raucous, with space monkeys or a local chapter of The Cacophony Society coming out to heckle him and/or faint as he reads, perhaps following an implied suggestion he probably now wishes he never made.

He's written seven books since Fight Club, but the lucid narrative and penchant for the fine details of the mundane and unusual alike is a theme throughout. Chuck is touring to promote his new book Diary, which I must now find and read. If you've still only seen Fight Club, make it a point to pick up the book. It's similar to but far superior to the movie, and the book Choke is even better.

If you go tomorrow, just a fair warning - he has a habit of throwing limbs at an unsuspecting audience.

11:15 pm | permalink | /life | 0 writebacks |

Artbots show in NYC this weekend!

I want to be these guys when I grow up.

I don't usually like to repost stories from BoingBoing but this crazy "build your own wacky robot and show it off" art show is going off in Harlem this weekend.

If you're an electronics geek and in or near New York this weekend, this is the place to be. With luck, I'll be there asking tons of questions about how they did stuff, as research for a new project I'm working on.

More details on the "project" after I clear it with my lawyers...

It.s an ArtBots invasion in Harlem! The Third Annual ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show will take place on September 17, 18, & 19 from noon to 6:00pm at The Mink Building on 126th Street & Amsterdam Avenue in Harlem. Featuring the work of 20 artists and groups from seven countries, the show celebrates the strange and wonderful collision of shifty artists, disgraced engineers, high/low/no tech hackers, rogue scientists, beauty school dropouts, backyard pyros, and industrial espionage that has come to define the emerging field of robotic art. Participants include robots that sketch, carve, float, wiggle, hum, ring, grow, wander, and sing, as well a number of works the form and function of which are not yet well understood.

2:01 pm | permalink | /technology/gadgets | 0 writebacks |

Interview with Ravi "The Scorpion Mystic"

During lunch a few weeks ago I got a chance to talk with Ravi, and he did a brief street performance in Times Square while I took some photos. He was fascinating to talk to, and I was struck by the similarities between Ravi and a professional artist or musician. Succeeding in the sideshow world takes talent but, even more so, it takes the courage to put the rest of your life on hold and take a gamble on making it to pseudo fame.

GlitchNYC: Okay, lets start at the beginning. How did you get into the business? Your bio on both your personal site and the Coney Island site has a story about being stung by a scorpion when you were young. A lot of the sideshow is about misdirection and theatrics. How much, if any, of your story is true, and how much is, well...

Ravi the Scorpion Mystic: Bullshit? (laughs) Well, a lot of it is true actually. The scorpion didn't give me my abilities, but I was stung at the age of 2, lying in a hammock in Trinidad. I was really sick growing up because of it, and I was on lots of antibiotics. I had vision and hearing problems, and really couldn't be physically active until I was around 10 years old.

While I was sick, I experimented with my fingers, and between the ages of 6 and 10, I started to get a reaction with what I could do with them. I loved the attention.

When I entered secondary school at 10, I took it upon myself to learn about physical anatomy, and I started experimenting with the flexibility of the rest of my body.

Generally, if you've seen one contortionist, you've seen them all, but I try to stay original by learning as much as I can about what you can really do with the human body.

gNYC: Are you double jointed, or is your flexibility all from training?

Ravi: Because I did most of my training before my skeletal structure solidified due to testosterone at the onset of puberty, I was able to train my body to be flexible right down to the joints themselves. If you look at my hands, my knees, you'll see I have extra large joints, and it's not just because I'm a skinny guy. The joints are actually over-sized to compensate for the increased range of motion.

I can push my joints to and past normal extent of their motion (which he demonstrates by folding his hand first down in the normal direction, with his palm facing his wrist 90 degrees, and then pushes his hand down until his palm is flat against the inside of his arm) and then back other way, (which he again illustrates by folding his hand back the other direction until the back of his hand rests against his arm.)

gNYC: Before you were part of the Coney Island troupe, you were picked up by Disgraceland Family Freakshow (which performs at Korova Milk Bar in NYC at 10:30 every other Tuesday) How did you get started there?

Ravi: I have a very close friend, EL-e, at a tattoo shop, who knows Spliff of Disgraceland. One day, we were all hanging out at the shop and it was a very slow afternoon, so I free-styled a set, showing off what I could do at that point.

EL-e was impressed and got me in touch with Spliff.

Now, Spliff and Evil [Elvis] must both agree to make a decision for Disgraceland, and when I went to meet with Spliff, he called Evil right up. He said right there on the phone "You know that other kid we were looking at, the contortionist? Forget him. I've got the real thing standing right in front of me."And that was that.

gNYC: So now you're in both shows, Disgraceland and Coney Island. How did you make that jump?

Ravi: I was working Disgraceland and taking a break from my college schooling, and actually went down and auditioned for Coney Island.

gNYC: What was auditioning like?

Ravi: Well, Mr Ziggin was the only one there. It wasn't an organized audition or an open call really, it was more going to show them what you could do and sell yourself. I ran quickly through everything I could do [as Ravi had done for me during our photo shoot, walking through his tricks with complete ease, without the theatrics of the show] and, Mr. Ziggin advised me to put together a full act with music.

gNYC: So is that when you really honed your act into the show it is now?

Ravi: Well, Disgraceland had to teach me a different way of being on stage before that. My first gig was as a wrestling contortionist, which is obviously a bit different than the show I have now.

I'm a huge fan of WWE.

gNYC: Wrestling is kind of a modern sideshow, theatrical performance to add drama to the physical action, and they do have actual skills

Ravi: Exactly. Step in the ring with me for 5 minutes and I'll show you wrestling isn't fake. It's not only athletic competition, it's also a theatrical performance, but the wrestling part of it, all the hits and falls and slams, everything is real.

As far as the drama, well, the truth is everyone loves drama. For my act, I have to show reactions. It's the drama that gets them, before the actual skill catches them off guard.

gNYC: So what's next for you?

Ravi: Once I finish school, I'll definitely maintain what I'm doing. What I'm doing in school (auto mechanics) will just be another road.

gNYC: Staying flexible.

Ravi: Right. I like to be diverse. Being diverse, skill-wise, makes you more flexible in life. It gives you more choices.

gNYC: I know for many professional performers such as dancers, being flexible and maintaining high level of performance can take a toll on their bodies. Does it ever hurt you?

Ravi: Only when I'm sick or incredibly cold. Most of the time I block it out, I do a lot of Shaolin kung fu training.

gNYC: Shaolin? (Ravi looks over my shoulder)

Ravi: (Laughs) I just wanted to make sure you were spelling it right. Yes, I'm a member of the USA Shaolin temple, under Siefu Shi Yan Ming. As his disciple, I am Shi Heng P'an. Shaolin is the birthplace of all kung fu and the birthplace of all martial arts.

gNYC: I don't know that much about it, but if I'm right, Shaolin is focused more on mind and spirituality rather than defense or fighting.

Ravi: Yes, that's how I've been able to block out how I'm physically feeling. It's taught me how to call upon my chi, or my spiritual energy and allowed me to apply that meditative state whenever I need to, whether training or not.

gNYC: Lets talk about Coney Island for a second. It's the oldest continuously running sideshow in the US. Is there still much of a draw?

Ravi: It's still commercially successful. Like everything, it has its ups and downs, but it will always be there. It's like the statue of liberty.

gNYC: Anything you'd like to plug before we finish up?

Ravi: Certainly, Disgraceland Family Freakshow, which runs just about every other Tuesday at Korova Milk Bar, which has been a wonderful host to Disgraceland.

Also, of course, the Coney Island Circus Sideshow.

gNYC: All-right, I think that wraps things up. Well, thank you so much for spending this time with me this afternoon.

Ravi: No problem, and Thank you!

• See all of the pictures
• Want to run away with the circus? Sideshow school starts November 1st at Coney Island.

12:09 pm | permalink | /life | 0 writebacks |

Eric Conveys An Emotion

"Emotion Eric" (not me!) has way too much time on his hands. He'll take a picture of himself conveying any emotion (or "reasonable facsimile" of one) that you ask him to.

Amazingly stupid as this concept is, you can't help but laugh after you flip through 10 or so of these. The faces the kid makes are just really funny sometimes. For example, try to look at fear without "hearing" him make a sort of "whaaaaugh!" sound.

Unemployed (shown at right) was pretty funny too.

EmotionEric.com

11:19 am | permalink | /technology/web | 0 writebacks |

Umm, what the hell is this?

I just saw the print ad for this on the phone booth outside our offices on 8th and 35th in NYC: Mattel is turning Barbie into a fashion line.

Am I the only one who finds this wretch-inducing? How many times have I heard the mantra of "Barbie is evil" and heard her name associated with such cultural ills as a racial stereotypes, negative body image, and the tendency of her spine to break under the weight of her own boobs if she were real.

All the while Mattel has been claiming that it's just a toy, that girls won't try to model themselves after her, and by the way, look at all the good things Barbie has done...

Meanwhile, they profit off the very concept of grown women modeling themselves after their shallow icon. Perfume and makeup lines are in the works as well, along with another line of clothing for - you guessed it - young girls.

Somewhere in a corporate corner office, Matthew Bousquette is cackling like a madman.

Anyone want to take bets on how long it is until we see "Hot Wheels" brand custom car mods at AutoZone?

UPDATE: I just saw another one of the NYC posters and snapped a photo (left). I think this poster captures the essence of what I was talking about a bit better. This girl is maybe 16 but probably younger, covered in makeup to smooth her features and make her resemble the doll, and maybe it was just the angle of the poster in my photo, but isn't her head a bit large for her body?

The Mattel site has absolutely nothing about this right now, so I can't tell if this is the "With love, Barbie" teen line, or the Adult fashion line. I'm not even sure which would be worse.

9:40 am | permalink | /life | 0 writebacks |

Bedlam in the Subways

Travel in New York City ground to a halt during the rush hour commute today, due in large part to what's left of Tropical Depression Frances.

All during the night one arm of the storm, still spinning just off the Appalachians, Frances let loose on our metropolis, soaking us with 12 hours of steady rain, and 2 1/2 hours of torrential downpour.

This all added up to flooded tunnels, soaked tracks, and major delays on of the transportation systems in the city.

I got some pictures of the congestion at 42nd street between the 7 and the A C E after the N/R lines and the 1/9 lines were shut down for "water/signal problems." In particular, check out this movie of people going nowhere fast.

Seeing this many people all crunched together reminded me of the blackout, except replace the strange euphoria of that day with an angry "I'm late for work and my boss is an asshole" attitude.

That, and it was around 120 in the subway - so hot that my camera fogged up every 5 seconds. If you watch the movie closely, you can see the fog encroaching in from the corners even as I shoot.

5:59 pm | permalink | /life/nyc | 0 writebacks |

Jack and Bobby

The WB is airing a new series titled "Jack and Bobby" starting this Sunday at 9.

When I first saw the poster on a bus, my brain immediately played the word association game and shouted out "Kennedy" in my head. Upon seeing the tag-line "In 2041, one of them will be president," I was intrigued. Was it a show about the Kennedy's as young boys? How could it be if it was set in present day?

Here's the show's writeup from theWB.com:

If "greatness is thrust upon us," as Winston Churchill once said, then it's equally true that those who are destined for greatness are rarely aware of it. Take Jack and Bobby McCallister, for example: two bright young brothers growing up under the watchful eye of their eccentric single mother. Her personality is a force of nature destined to shape both of these young men's lives and secure one a place in the history books - as future President of the United States. Set in present day, with flash-forward interviews of future-President McCallister's White House staffers and first lady, it's a snapshot of a young man being molded to beat the odds and become the mid-century's greatest presidential leader.

Looks like it might be interesting.

10:09 pm | permalink | /technology/tv | 0 writebacks |

New Orleans Travel Stories: Haunted History

New Orleans Travel Stories: Our first night in New Orleans, we arrived around 2pm and immediately began our vacation.

After eating amazing Gumbo (which Sara really liked!) and a 3/4 of a giant turkey club, We ventured into the French Quarter and found ourselves on the Haunted History Tour.

Mortalis had recommended Haunted History by name after she returned from New Orleans, and I'm glad we followed her advice.

The tour was more historical than sensational, and the guide talked about hauntings with a tongue-in-cheek irreverence. One story is paraphrased below:

"One of the peculiar features of architecture you'll see here in the French Quarter is the galleries that are above you. These are different from balconies in that they extend over the entire sidewalk, and are supported by the iron columns that you're leaning against.

If you look up, you'll notice this gallery has spikes protruding all around near the top of the column. Now these are as much to keep out burglars as they are to protect what's inside, and if anyone here has a teenage daughter, you know exactly what I mean. Here in New Orleans, we have a special name for those spikes, Romeo-Catchers.

One night, at his very gallery, a man was to take out his family to dinner, but his daughter didn't feel up to it. She feigned illness, but insisted that the rest of the family go without her. You can already see where this is going, can't you?

Sure enough, as soon as the family is gone, her beau shows up, and they begin to do exactly what teenagers do when their parents aren't home... Talk politely in the study of course, or at least that's what the daughter would profess to later, because you see, as soon as the father got to the restaurant, he realized, "gawl dang it!" He forgot his wallet. So he starts on home to get it.

When you're a teenager, you know everything, don't you? There isn't anyone that can tell you anything. So the boy, in his brilliance, doesn't go out the back when he sees the father coming, no. He doesn't hide quietly downstairs no! He goes POUNDING up the stairs to the daughter's bedroom.

Well the father he comes in, and he knows something is up, he hears the noise going up the stairs, and he does what any good southern man would do in his situation... He grabs his shotgun.

His daughter wailed, and tried to stop him, she didn't want him to go upstairs and kill her boyfriend, but he simply moved her aside, and went on up the steps. Now later, the father would say that he didn't load that shotgun, or at least that's what he said in the official police report, which was in the paper, which you can find down at town hall. All of our papers were transferred onto uncatalogued microfiche, so you'll have to search, but it's there for you to find.

Now the boy had gotten a brilliant idea. He was going to slide down the gallery pole and let go just as he passed the Romeo-Catchers, and then grab back on. He was all set, and had just let go, everything was going well when BOOM! The father bursts in the door.

The boy sees that angry father, and he sees the shotgun, and he's so scared, he grabs right back on to that pole.

The Romeo-Catcher catches him in the leg, but it doesn't stop there, It tears up through his thigh, through his pelvis bone and up through his stomach, crack crack crack through his ribs, and finally breaks his collarbone, and the boy falls to the street below.

Now the head, they say it can survive 45 seconds without proper blood supply, and they say the boy looked back up at the Romeo-Catchers from where he lay and saw, streaming up from his stomach, the eviscerated bowel which had just been ripped from his body trailing back up to the iron spikes.

So if you're standing out here on a warm spring night, leaning on that very pole that you're leaning against, and feel something dripping on your shoulder, and go up to touch it, and realize that it's a bit sticky, you look at your hand. Suddenly, you begin to panic, because you realize that there's blood on your hand, dripping into your hair, and you look up and see the gore oozing down that pole, you're going to scream. You're going to run up and down this street, screaming that someone's been killed on the gallery, but no one's going to come out.

Nope, they've heard it before. Multiple reports of the same story are in our papers, dating back for ages. I've seen the papers down at the library, but I'll let you look for yourself and make up your own mind.

11:54 pm | permalink | /life/travel | 0 writebacks |