Geek Soap Box

As a huge fan, this test could not have regurgitated a better compliment. And here I always thought I wrote like Faulkner… I write like Chuck Palahniuk I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

There is perhaps no greater sign of impending demise in a nation than the pragmatic acceptance of the mantra “good enough.”  Rome met its end soon after its citizens stopped building great roads and aqueducts and instead focused on childish entertainment and sport, and it is a worrisome observation that the United States, poisoned by [...]

Darth Vader, the mythical character featured prominently in six separate Star Wars flicks, has an awful lot of “street cred” in today’s popular culture.  The American Film Institute ranked the mysterious and dark figure as the third greatest villain in cinematic history.  Quotations and parodies of his bad-assery abound.  Heck, I even follow the Sith [...]

I haven’t talked much of my online dating exploits in years for a variety of reasons, mostly which involve maintaining the smallest sense of personal privacy a blogger/Twitter/Facebook/Foursquare user can have. Anyway, tired of the human cesspool that is Match, I decided to give Chemistry a try; it seemed at the time like it had [...]

I’m not sure exactly what it was that led me to the point of purchase.  Maybe it was the hype and nostalgia emanating from the Cranky Conservative’s site.  Maybe it was the relatively brief number of matches featuring an interesting array raw in-ring talent.  Maybe it was just that I, also, needed the closure of [...]

Clearing out my work Outlook mailbox after the conference.  Realized I had a particularly interesting exact number of unread messages. No, my “l337″ score is not all composed of 13 thousand real, actual e-mail that I’ve blown off.  I also get deluged with messages from system error logs, new Web site accounts, bookstore purchases, and [...]

Undoubtedly, when I return to the office tomorrow, I’ll hear cries and wailing anguish from the Powers That Be about how they know so much more than I do about Web design, communications, and marketing — despite the fact that I’m the only one with a masters degree (sort of) and a decade of experience [...]

I have always had massive issues getting a full and rest-filled night’s sleep.  My anxious and over-worked mind finds it nearly impossible to wind down in the evening, and when factoring in some pretty significant issues with loud snoring/sleep apnea, it’s no wonder I’m always tired and ready for a nap. My worst sleep-related flaw, [...]

In the interest of full disclosure, “House, MD” could be my favorite television show of all time.  The combination of pithy, sarcastic humor, witty banter, and grave seriousness match my own twisted personality nearly perfectly, and I can easily watch each episode time and again, one after another, without even remotely suffering from boredom or [...]

Newsflash, for those not paying attention: I own and adore desperately my iPhone.  Without it, I feel uncertain and anxious, as if a very part of me has been unplugged from life and I struggle to maintain focus and balance.  It’s utterly ridiculous, but I guess I’m one of the people Strand Consulting is referring [...]

Seven Things I Learned While Watching 2012 1. It’s no Independence Day. I am a huge fan of one of Roland Emmerich’s previous works, Independence Day. ID4 was a nearly perfect reincarnation of the spectacular book and movie War of the Worlds, told for a modern-day audience. 2012 lacks every element that made ID4 so [...]

A few weeks ago, I received an offer from Scott Oser at the College of Association Marketing to participate in a series of Webinars tailored to the novices of the association social media set.  After a great first offering — Intro to Social Media with Deirdre Reid (with me as sidekick/color commentator) — today was [...]

The imperfect end to an utterly putrid baseball season for fans of the New York Mets has reached its bittersweet crescendo: a fall un-classic pitting the hated Bronx Bombers against the cocky, arrogant, and despicable defending World Champion Philadelphia Phillies.  What is a man, so filled with contempt and loathing for both franchises, supposed to [...]

Like my coastal, urban, and enlightened brothers and sisters, I am a proud and loyal Apple Computer aficionado, and my new-found loyalty lies like so many others in my gradual progression from the iPod > iPhone > iMac as I became more familiar with and passionate for the product line.  Just last week, my Windows [...]

…but I think “Rabbit of Seville” is so much funnier and more brilliant. The best cartoon of all time. Rabbit of Seville, featuring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd (1950) @ Yahoo! Video

Mankind is simultaneously blessed and cursed by its unending intellectual and philosophical curiosity; the grand desire to understand how things work, and why we are here, drive all of our greatest achievements — and failures. To that extent, is there any “Big Question” more interesting, passionate, and frustrating than the one concerning our origins?  How [...]

An old-school post for longtime readers… (Stolen shamlessly from somewhere on the Internets.  No, I don’t really believe this is “my life” anymore.)

It probably started off simply enough — after two relative disappointments in Donkey Kong 3 and Mario Bros., but with the quarter-sucking success of the original Donkey Kong merely a short memory away — Nintendo developer Shigeru Miyamoto and his team got together to create a new game featuring the popular plumber from Brooklyn for [...]

Does it chill anyone else out there to the very bone that NASA has started a program it tongue-in-cheekly refers to as “Singularity University?” In a spare one-room office at Nasa’s Silicon Valley campus, a small band of futurists is plotting to save the world. The means are not a revolutionary technology or a new [...]

It’s lazy Saturday here at Geek Soap Box World Headquarters after a trying week of work, so let’s all relax together with some funky recreations of classic 8-Bit NES games. How about Michael Jackson’s Punch-Out!! to whet your whistle in anticipation of this summer’s impending Wii release in the phenomenal boxing/puzzle franchise. If the traditional [...]

Few works have as much cachet of geek-cred as Alan Moore’s 1985 classic miniseries for DC Comics, Watchmen.  The story is one of a distopian present filled with worries over nuclear war and sex and pornography and a handful of semi-retired, outlaw costumed vigilantes caught up in the middle.  It is truly not your father’s [...]

After a fantastic run in the 1980s and 1990s, Nintendo suffered through tough times for the better part of a decade.  It lost the system wars two generations in a row to the Sony PlayStation juggernaut, and had unfortunately cultivated a reputation where hardcore gamers and third-party developers were taught to stay away from the [...]

Content may be king, but some eye-popping aesthetics (otherwise known as “design” in the business) always help to set the mood and get a user primed and ready to take action.  This happens everywhere: on the Web, when you enter the subway, or even when you watch the Boob Tube. That’s why I thoroughly enjoyed [...]

Never one to miss an opportunity to analyze the potential outcome of any situation in the name of preparedness, the US Air Force has made public its actual, 100%-legitimate “Rules of Engagement for Blogging.” And you know what? It positively reeks of awesomeness. Amazing, and scary-accurate as a portrait of the overall blogosphere. Let it [...]

A lot of very technologically savvy individuals — my boss immediately comes to mind — like to talk/obfuscate the Big Picture with Utopian tales of “The Cloud” and how it will revolutionize business and infrastructure. If you are at all like me, your initial reaction to all of this talk may be to glaze over [...]