I hope that this sets the tone for your Monday:

Cory, Yui, and I attended the On AIR Bus Tour at the Varsity Theater on the UMN campus. A good share of the Minneapolis Flash community was in attendence but there were plenty of AJAX and other developers there too. Adobe did it up nicely for a non-exclusive free event, bag-o-swag, prizes, and a VERY good buffet dinner. Yui finished off a couple of plates to maintain his title of PUNY's biggest eater.



The actual presentations were useful though redundant. We learned how AIR handles windows at least five times. TRANSPARENT! <--- golly. At the end of the day they did a good enough job of getting us to think about using AIR to easily create cross-playform desktop applications in the same way we make web software. Cory said that he "expected not to like it" but came out of it and has been studying up despite the eBay guy taking a stab at C++ and me groaning and turning to Cory who was shaking his head and muttering "thats not true" with little c dagger daggers in his eyes.

Our biggest reaction came when they announced that Grant Skinner would be up next. Yui and I shot up... We registered for the event several months ago and didn't pay any attention to what was in store. We're big fans of Grant around here but have never met him, so here was our chance...


Yui and Grant with Cory smiling on.

It went to nearly midnight on a work night so it didn't seem like people were up for milling around afterwards...but it was a nice geeky break from the normal weeknight and we hope that Adobe keeps sending buses. We've got an AIR application in store..maybe we'll let you know how it goes.

Friend's With You's "Wish Come True" gallery show opened last Saturday at Soo VAC and runs through Oct 27.



This back-room was great, resulting in a an art opening with some geek-moshing and at least one bloody lip.

Last week we hosted a studio tour and get-together for the Minneapolis/SaintPaul chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH as well as a bunch of students from the University of Wisconsin STOUT. We (I mean Shad) gave a small talk about the kind of stuff we do, and the animation industry in general.

Afterwards, we all hung out and chatted about computers and the future and 2nd life.

Tim, Yui and I visited the happiest place on earth, west of the Mississippi...Disneyland!


In Disneyland, you can be anything...


FRIENDLY!....


STRONG!...


ENORMOUS!...


SPACEY!...


HUNGRY!...


DIZZY!...


COOL!...

Thanks Disneyland!

In honor of Shad's big day, I present this gif.

This past Saturday, Tony Christopherson and I took a trip over to the Los Angeles Convention Center to attend the Wired NextFest. It's basically a big festival celebrating future-focused technology. A lot of the exhibits were in the dark, thus difficult to photograph, but I did my best:



This is a terrible photo because you can't even see the vertical red beams of light, but this is a Light Harp. Pass your hand through any one of the laser beams and it will play a note. Very cool.


A wall of smoke that displays a ghostly image of you if you stand in front of it for long enough


Creeeeepy


Call me easily impressed, but this is one of the coolest things I've ever seen...ever. A little, spinning, cone-shaped spiral covered in a magnetic fluid that creates all these little spindlely, spiky things when exposed to rock music (and the pull of other magnets).


It spun around and looked like a tiny Christmas tree from the future!


Using a blue screen to put players into a video game where they are required to beat the crap out of Bruce Lee and George W. Bush.


It had really good, accurate motion detection




Software that detects the aggression in people's voices to know when to turn on hidden security cameras. Elliminates the need to watch hours of video tape? I guess?




A rabid Moon Rover trying to steal some dude's program


A brave soul gets run over by one of the new Mars Rovers, complete with a rocker-bogie suspension system that helps it climb over uneven terrain


Pong of the future. The ball on the screen flies toward you and you have to physically move the monitor to hit it.


This game was really neat because if you had a cellphone handy, you could participate. A bunch of people were standing in front of this screen all shouting "Grab!" into their cellphones over and over again. Funny stuff.


This sign will explain it better than I could. Apparently someone called the wrong number at some point and was screaming "Grab!" repeatedly into some poor stranger's ear.


A climbing wall with a twist: once one of the "climbing nubbins" lights up, you have to touch it to make the next one light up. How many can you touch in 3 minutes?


You physically put pieces of duct tape on a wall and then this projected game will recognize where you put the tape and treat each piece like a "level" for use in gameplay. Crazy.


A snake robot that can swim


One of these dudes is a robot. It's easy to tell which but admit it, it's still kind of frightening.


This precocious Einstein robot did a simple dance to Britney Spears' hit single "Toxic" then let me shake its hand


Tomotaka Takahashi presenting Chroino and FT: These two cuties were the hilight of the day for me


Chroino can stand up by himself from a sitting position, balance on one leg...


...cheer for himself in a rather arrogant fashion...


...and kick a ball off the table. Could he get any more adorable?


FT is his feminine counterpart and can walk and pose like a model


I find her strangely attractive






Here I am with some creepy Hanson-made robot that could supposedly recognize faces with his camera eyes and wave at them. However, there were so many people in close proximity, I think he was getting confused.


This is Keepon: another robot with cameras for eyes, although much cuter. His nose is a microphone and he would turn to look at you if you said Hello or waved your hand in front of his face. Fancy!


Lastly, here I am taking a picture of myself in front of the "YouTube mirror", an interactive video installation that uses 500 realtime YouTube videos to paint a portrait of whoever stands in front of it. Pretty cool in person, not so cool in this photo. Whoops.


Overall a very enjoyable and educational time was had by all. Also we saw JJ Abrams walking around with his kid, which was a special treat!
The most important thing I learned was: the smaller the robot, the cooler it will be. We saw a couple different "life-size" robots and they just aren't nearly as fun or mobile as the smaller ones. Hooray for tiny robots!

While in LA after the San Diego Comic Con, Yui Shad and I went out to a lovely dinner with two of California's finest animators Sara Pocock and Ke Jiang (jackie) at the Mother of all Seafood Buffets! TODAI. At some point along the way (I don't really remeber when) harsh words were exchanged that ended in a sushi eating challenge between longtime rivals of geniusness and nationality Yui and Jackie.

We arrived 7 minutes before closing and were worried that we'd missed the chance to settle our contest of chomping champions, but were reassured that we could stay and eat as long as we'd like. The only catch being that since they were closing we'd have to take all the food we could imagine eating and stack it on our table before they cleaned up for the night. So the hoarding began, as well the nightmare.

Yui was the favorite from the get go. Since beginning work with us in February, I have personally witnessed Yui devour more food than anyone in American history. At a normal lunch Yui cleans his plate, and will eat anything anyone else can't finish without flinching. But Yui had a secret that day, a secret he hid as long as he could, a secret that could spell disaster for his honor and reputation. You see that afternoon at Universal Studios, Yui ate California's largest burrito. It was a monster. Yui was scared, and I feared for him.

Ke Jiang, or Jackie as he's referred to these days is a dynamo of dynamism, an unpredictable keg of surprised packed down with a firm layer of luck and gusto. A true marvel is this man. I've never seen challenge that Jackie cannot overcome in some unprecedented way that makes you wonder how, and why he did it. This would be a night to remember.

The stage is set! The gladiators UNCAGED! EAT


Each man had identical plates of food. First to quit, or barf, loses.




Yui starts of strong, as expected and shows off for the crowd.




Yui launches to a massive lead finishing two plates and a bowl of soup before Jackie finishes one.



Yui becomes bored waiting for his opponent to catch up.



As do I.


As does Sara.


As does the referee.


Yui finishes his plates, continues to wait.


After an hour of waiting Jackie is finishing his final plate. I was forced to assemble the championship round plate out of leftovers from mine and Sara's plates.


I didn't believe he would make it this far. His head bobs, he begins to sway...


...but miraculously regains his composure and will to live!


With two remaining pieces before the championship round, Jackie ever unpredictable, does the unthinkable, trying to a avoid a piece with this nasty red stuff on it, Jackie crams that and another giant sushi piece down his gullet.


The crowd is in awe.


Upon witnessing the act Yui begins to panic. Later behind the scenes interviews reveal that Yui feared the championship plate, and could fell his honor slipping away.


Jackie swallows, he's done it. He's got Yui on the run, victory in within his grasp. But in one of those twists that ring forever in the annuls of competetive history, like Ali v Foreman, Jackie's stomach cannot handle the load, he sways and vomits upon his plate.


Being good sports the two men high five.


Secretly Jackie vows revenge! WATCH OUT YUI!

I definitely won't be missing this opening. What a great looking show.

http://www.blabshow.com/