Naps looking to have a banner year in 2010.

Me / , ,

1 January 2010

 

Although early, Naps have started 2010 off with a bang. Naps are currently 1 for 1 in 2010. “There simply was no stopping us today,” remarked Naps. “Rob had a nice lunch, his bedroom was little on the chilly side, and he simply had nothing to do – that pretty much means he’s going to nap.”

Napping Trends for 2010

 

Swedish VW Ad Pronounced Most Viral Video of 2009

Culture, Found / , ,

30 December 2009

 

“Pianotrappan” (The Piano Stairs) is what the ad is named. It currently has garnered some 11+ million views on YouTube. It’s a production for a Swedish VW promotion – http://www.rolighetsteorin.se

 

Miami Hurricanes Fall To The Wisconsin Badgers 20-14 In 2009 Champs Sports Bowl

Sport / , ,

30 December 2009

 

champs-sports-bowl-2009

The Miami Hurricanes got beat for the second straight year in a post season bowl game last night. What started with a flash of the past in the form of a 90+ yard kick-off return soon turned into a slow, methodical pounding of the Miami defense. Unable to get things clicking on offense until the second to last drive in the 4th quarter, Miami played rope-a-dope throughout most of the game.

Glaring deficiencies included:

  • Zero UM pass rush
  • Hobbled QB Jacory Harris
  • No running game
  • Defense on field all night

The sun will rise another day for The U. Just not in 2009.

Coach Randy Shannon is on the right track with this team. 9-4 overall is an improvement. Miami is rebuilding and The U will rise again to national dominance – just not as quickly as this Canes fan had hoped.

 

District 9 (2009) – Movie Review

Arts, Editorial / ,

28 December 2009

 

district-9

District 9 (2009) puts us in Johannesburg, South Africa, some two decades since an alien race landed and took up residence in the city. The aliens have been marginalized by the humans and have taken up residence in a federally controlled area called District 9. They share this squalid locale with other unwelcome guests including a group of Nigerian refugees – although we are unclear as to how or why the Nigerians are in South Africa.

I found the film very enjoyable, not the least of which stemming from the irony of South Africa once again being placed in a position where they are placing entities within defined locations to cordon them off from the general population like they did during Apartheid. The bureaucratic machinery of institutionalized racism is the real star of this movie as is the parastatal multinational corporation charged with implementing the state’s plans.

 

Champs Sports Bowl – Miami Hurricanes vs. Wisconsin Badgers By The Numbers

Sport / , ,

28 December 2009

 

The 2009 Champs Sports Bowl features two very evenly matched opponents: The University of Miami Hurricanes and the University of Wisconsin Badgers.Below, find various statistics and graphical representations of for each team.

POINTS FOR & POINTS AGAINST – 2009 SEASON

points-scored-miami-wisconsin-2009

YARDS ACCRUED PER GAME – 2009 SEASON AVERAGE

yards-per-game

Wisconsin brings a much more balanced offence to the game. Miami’s success is inexorably tied to the success of its Sophomore quarterback, Jacory Harris.

NATIONAL RANKINGS – CURRENT

national-rankings-miami-vs-wisconsin

Note the massive disparity in the ‘Strength of Schedule’ which seeks to provide a visual representation of how tough a school’s schedule is.

ESPN’s Bowl Preview: http://sports-ak.espn.go.com/ncf/preview?gameId=293630275
CBS Sports’ Bowl Preview: http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/bowls/champs-sports

 

Miami Dade County Opens Badger Hunting Season

Sport / , ,

27 December 2009

 

badger-season

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
December 27, 2009

(Miami-Dade County, FL) — Today, Miami-Dade County Mayor, Carlos Alvarez, enacted public legislation aimed at abating the public scourge of badger infestation with a first of its kind open hunting season.

Badgers, are short-legged, heavy-set sausage-a-vores in the weasel family.

“They are an unwanted vermin and spread pestilence among the masses. They should be shot on sight and disposed of promptly.” remarked Mayor Alvarez.

PS – Yes, I know I suck at photoshop. But I had fun doing it.

 

Taxonomy Updates To Celebrate Jesus’ Birthday

1Peg-Updates

24 December 2009

 

robot-danceRoughly 32% of the world’s population celebrate a holiday called Christmas which celebrates the birth of the son of God. This son’s name was Jesus and in honor of his birthday, I get a couple days off from work!! And I write this with very little actual sarcasm, I can’t think of a better way to spend a nice rainy Thursday morning than tweaking my blog’s taxonomy! For an information architect like me, that’s a pretty good way to start the day.

OnePegGenius has been operational for about two years now. Over the next couple days, I will be going through the archives, post by post, and comparing each post’s taxonomy with search log data. My hope is to create a shared taxonomy for all the content on the site that will provide augmented relational content opportunities and improve the visibility for selected keyword phrases on search engines. Fun indeed.

At preset, Onepeggenius.com content is structured into the following taxonomy:

- 287 Posts
- 113 Tags
- 010 Categories

The big job I fear will be in creating the 301 redirects for posts that will in essence ‘move’ once their taxonomy changes. That’s one of the drawbacks to employing a custom permalink structure comprised of category and tag slugs for directories I guess…

 

Internal Job Tracking Transparency: CPB’s Job Tracker

Editorial / ,

21 December 2009

 

cpb_job-tracker

In my work as an Interactive Director / Web Producer / Information Architect at Mad Genius, I am often responsible for managing 15 or more simultaneous projects all at various stages of development. After dropping the ball a couple times in trying to keep the big picture delivery dates on target across 18 projects earlier this year, I decided I needed to take a step back and invest some time into creating a master project tracking document. I choose a simple Google Docs spreadsheet that enables me to quickly add projects and preliminary timelines along with man hours on a week by week basis. The result is a pretty nifty snapshot of how much effort will be required on any given week and has proven to be very helpful in providing me rationale when I tell someone in client relations WHY we simply can’t deliver XYZ in 6 weeks.

Despite my efforts, I have found that many of the internal stakeholders have a penchant for forgetting how ’slammed’ we may be at any given time.

CPB (Crispin, Porter & Bogusky) is probably the top interactive agency in the U.S. It’s based in Miami (Coconut Grove) and I always had a desire to work with them. They are the folks behind VW’s ads and most notably bringing back The King for Burger King. My friend Kala used to work for them – she worked on Zo’s Summer Groove and the TRUTH accounts.

Alex Bogusky posted recently on his company-wide job tracking app that is displayed FOR ALL to see. I really dig how this is so open in the office. It doesn’t let projects hide and assigns responsibility for all to see.

Here is a slice of the above photo which shows a more granular view. It shows the following columns/categories: Live Date, Client, Job Name, % Complete, Type, Producer, Content, and Creative. I like how they have a dedicated Content owner.

cpb_job-tracker-detail

 

Millennium Falcon Bed Is Awesome

Culture / , ,

18 December 2009

 

millennium-falcon-bedIf you’re anything like me, when you were a kid you probably wanted some sort of theme bed. I always had an affinity for the race car bed they had on Silver Spoons.

While the utility of such a sleeping apparatus may be lacking – the fun factor is definitely up. Add in the Star Wars component and what you have is geek sleep heaven.

More pics and a write up can be found at the unplggd.com site.

 

Saying So Long To Saab

Culture, Editorial / ,

18 December 2009

 

saab-900-spg-89

The Saab 900 SPG was a car I lusted for during my high school years. Saab is a polarizing brand. For years it lived on the fringes of the american consumer’s option list. For a die-hard few, Saab represented the ultimate in understated, somewhat quirky, but wholly solid Scandinavian design. Saab was one of the first to integrate Turbo into their mainstream lineup – mixing 4 cylinder engines with powerful turbo injectors gave the car modest pep.

I bought myself a Saab back in 2000 or 2001. It was the last year they made the 9-3 – Saab’s iconic 3 door (two doors and a big-ass hatch) sedan. It was a 4 speed automatic. It was silver with carbon grey interior leather, a sunroof and other amenities. It also had a turbo. And while not the fastest car by any means, I totally enjoyed the Saab turbo lag to the 10th power. I enjoyed the pronounced whirling noise that crept up from the engine as the turbo gauge went into the red zone. It was a quirky yet utilitarian ride

Alas – Saab discontinued the hatchbacks that helped them carve out a niche. The hatch space was so Gi-normous I could fit most of my windsurfing gear, a bazooka sub-woofer and tons of other stuff w/out every dirtying up the inside compartment. When purchased by GM, their designs were homogenized into a global automotive sourcing apparatus. Subarus and Opels were rebadged as Saabs and sold in the U.S.

Good bye Saab. I enjoyed you for many years and it was nice to have known you.

 

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