Newport Folk Festival

Thanks for the reminder, Meghan!

Wish I could be there RT @nprnews: NPR Music Presents The 2012 Newport Folk Festival. Watch live all weekend: n.pr/M8ywEJ—
Meghan Krane (@meghan_krane) July 28, 2012

One of my favorite bands is playing this year (as a matter of fact, RIGHT NOW!), Brown Bird. Here’s a sample of their latest album, Salt for Salt

Deal With It

People I meet through Twitter events keep asking me why I don’t update my Twitter avatar to show my face rather than the pirate shoes.

It’s like this.

Over time I’ve learned that it’s the exceptional person who can see past my gray hair. Besides, the pirate shoes are a much better indication of the person you’re dealing with.

So, deal with it.

SuperBetter-The Game With Amazing Real Life Rewards

Not-to-be-missed TED Talk by game developer Jane McGonigal.

SuperBetter website.

(If the video doesn’t load, you can view it on the TED Talks site.)

And another perspective:

“Games are useful. Games are fun. Yet, somehow, gamification itself has become the butt of almost every internet joke I’ve heard recently.

It isn’t because games aren’t useful. They are and they can change the world. It’s because gamification is being wasted on the most useless, time wasting crap I’ve ever seen.”

via Julien Smith’s blog, We need Dungeon Masters for the real world.

Written much earlier than McGonigal’s TED Talk, there’s little here that I don’t agree with. And thanks to the first commenter, I’ve discovered Jane McGonigal’s blog, here on WordPress.com. Sadly, no updates since the beginning of the 2010, but what’s there in the archives makes up for it 10x.

Go Ahead—Add a Splash of Color

Reblogged from WordPress.com News:

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Adding Custom Colors to your blog just got simpler than ever! Now you can change your entire color scheme with the single click of a button. Color has impact: it sets context and should complement your message.

You'll find the most popular palettes and patterns from COLOURlovers are sure to delight whether you want to paint the town red or always bet on black.

Read more… 185 more words

Just so excited to see Colourlovers integrated into a Custom Design upgrade here on WordPress.com after reading on techcrunch last year about Audrey Capital/Matt Mullenweg's investment in the app. A fantastic boon for those who love color but don't know Dusty Rose from Petal Pink. :) Thanks to a comment in that thread by designsimply, you can now see the current list of themes that support the Custom Design Color upgrade. Also, you will be able to use WordPress.com's "Live Preview" in the future, but for right now you'll have to purchase the Custom Design upgrade in order to see it on your supported theme. Since the $30/year upgrade is refundable up to 30 days from date of purchase, I don't see the problem.

Book Review: A Dance With Dragons

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even though I promised myself that after listening to the BBC HBO interview with GRR Martin, and not hearing a whisper about the next book, I would set this one aside to read the last 150 pages at a later date. That promise lasted about a month.

As the author said at the end of his previous book, book #5 is a catch up with the characters that weren’t covered in the earlier book with some convergence towards the end. It did and it was a good read.

I gave this 4 stars, but really only 3 1/2 due to length. After having read several thousand pages of the story thus far, I admit that I miss the days when fantasy authors published trilogies, even 5 volume works. But like everyone else, I eagerly await the next book in the series. Do I have a choice?

View all my reviews