Failed Photos for Wok In Time
Foodie blog, Wok In Time, has fantabulous pictures of great food. Sadly, my submissions didn’t meet Wok In Time’s quality standards, so instead, I share them here.
Thursday Morning Commute
While stuck in (rare) traffic this morning on the H3, I took some pics and listened to some tunes then used Storify.com to compile this.
Giving Back with the Best of Arnold
Since Wednesday was a good day for social media, it’s only right that I give back to the community. Like I mentioned, there’s no serious $$$ to be made here so prize selections are limited. What is a great epic-to-cost value is none other than the Best of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vol 2. For the first 5 fans who leave a comment naming their favorite track from this epic collection, I’ll gift the entire Amazon MP3 album to you!
Not only will you get 20 Schwarzenegger classics that absolutely belong in your collection, but you could qualify for a free 20-GB Amazon Cloud Drive upgrade for one year. I haven’t verified you get the upgrade with a gifted album, but wouldn’t you want to find out?
Name your favorite Arnold tune and win!
Wednesday Was a Good Day
Yesterday was a good day. Day after day, blogging away, I wonder what’s it all for? It ain’t for the income. Really, it’s just for me and my passions, addictions, and pulp, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that getting a perk or two isn’t appreciated. And that was Wednesday.
First, I was notified of The Weather Channel’s new show From the Edge with Peter Lik debuting today. After an email exchange, I’m hoping to get a copy of Peter’s photo book, Spirit of America.
Later in the day, I got a Twitter Direct Message about an upcoming social media tweetup for the Navy. While I might not be able to fit this event in my schedule, it feels great to be invited and to be able to extend this invitation to others.
To help the music program at my daughter’s school, we’re selling chili, Portuguese bean soup (not soap), or cookies from Zippys. A quick mention on Twitter and a cool retweet from @zippys and some sales were made. I’m still selling tickets ($7 each) if anyone wants instant ono food! 🙂
[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/zippys/status/53292000463699968″]
And to wind down the day, I see that my IRL cousin, @oahu_re_etc, got to see the filming of Hawaii Five-0 in downtown and mentioned the sale of Daniel Dae Kim’s former home.
So what’s the morale of the story? Engaging in social media ain’t about making money, but it’s for the fun, the passion, and the occasional perk. 😉
What Is Honey Sauce?
Just what is “honey sauce?” KFC gives out these packets of honey sauce when you order biscuits.
Honey is the fourth listed ingredient in honey sauce. I wonder if the gravy included with the mashed potatoes is actually “gravy sauce?”
Top Chef All-Stars Finale “I’m Top Chef”
Spoiler alert! Don’t watch the following clip if you do not want to know who won Top Chef All-Stars. It was a great series with a great finale.
Watch the video after the jump.
How Can This Not Be in Your Music Collection?
Seriously folks, how can this gem not be in your music collection? Everyone needs the Best of Arnold Schwarzenegger in their lives, and we’re talking Volume 2, not Volume 1.
This is a diverse and eclectic collection. You can romance to it with Wifeing, the Theme Of Love Conan The Barbarian and the Love Theme from Terminator. The holidays are represented in Christmas In Conneticut. When you need to engage your mind to solve a problem, queue up The Riddle Of Steel from Conan The Barbarian. Kids will have a kick with Kindergarten Cop Medley. And when you just want to let it out, go with the theme from Commando, Red Sonja, Red Heat, Predator, Total Recall, and Terminator II.
How much would a collection of this caliber cost you? $40? $30 for 20 tracks? No!! Only $2.39!!!! And if you buy now, you qualify for 20 GB of space on Amazon’s new Cloud Drive where this invaluable purchase will be stored for anytime, any place play back. This is winning! Do you see a double rainbow? Is your mind blown? This is epic.
March Madness 2011 Kicks Analysis #7: The Final Four
What a remarkable and unbelievable Final Four this is. No #1 or #2 seed is playing for a National Championship. That is a historical first. We have #11 VCU, #8 Butler, #4 Kentucky, and #3 Connecticut, and all of them belong to Team Nike.
Which Nike Air Max Fly By do you like the best?
Butler
Kentucky
UConn
VCU
Back in 2008 when all #1 seeds met in the Final Four, Adidas was represented by three teams, UCLA Bruins, Memphis Tigers, and Kansas Jayhawks.
For You, I’d Chase a Lava Flow?!
Back in the day, local music group Kalapana sang “For You, I’d Chase a Rainbow.” On Thursday, March 31, 2011 for you, The Weather Channel and photographer Peter Lik will chase a lava flow on the Big Island. The Weather Channel is premiering a new series called From the Edge with Peter Lik that captures the beauty of America in pictures.
Peter Lik is an international photographer doing what he can to take the perfect shots of the wonders of the world. His first challenge is photographing the fiery Madam Pele herself.
But patience, perseverance, and a little bit of craziness pays off with gorgeous pictures like this.
After the adventures in Hawaii, follow along with Peter, get some of his photography tips and take in the wonders of America from the edge.
- Oceanic Cable Channel 121 or 1121 (HD) starting at 2pm (HST), Thursday, March 31 and re-airing throughout the week
- Facebook http://www.facebook.com/TWCFromtheEdge
- Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/TWCFromtheEdge
March Madness 2011 Kicks Analysis #6: Elite 8
The 2011 field for the Elite 8 isn’t good for Adidas at all. Only Kansas, albeit the #1 seed in the Southwest, is sponsored by Adidas. The other competitors, Kentucky, North Carolina, Arizona, Connecticut, VCU, Butler, and Florida, all wear Nikes.
In 2008, there was an equal split, and a 5-3 nod to Nike in 2007.
March Madness 2011 Kicks Analysis #5: Shoes of Champions
What’s the link of the successful teams in this year’s March Madness? It’s the Nike Air Max Fly By.
How’s this lineup? Kentucky, Arizona, Florida, Connecticut, Butler, and Cinderella VCU all Fly Byes.
Quick Thoughts About Amazon Cloud Player
Amazon launched its cloud based music system yesterday, storing your multimedia files in your Cloud Drive and playing back audio with the Cloud Player. Kinda but not so surprisingly, Amazon beat out competitors like Apple, Google, and Spotify to a cloud based music locker to make your tunes portable.
What’s good? Amazon did a great job documenting and explaining their new Cloud service including step by step instructions. Every user automatically gets 5GB of storage for free and it’s easy to get more space. You can pay $1 per GB per year or simply buy an MP3 album from Amazon and get upgraded to 20GB for one year. And since Amazon has a bunch of deals on MP3 albums, it’s not hard to find something for $2-5 to get this one-year upgrade. Now what happens after your one year upgrade is over, I don’t know. Say I save 10 GB of music in my Cloud Drive and in one year, I revert back to a freebie 5-GB account, do I now have to pay? Amazon says no, but what then happens?
Back to the good. Any Amazon MP3 Store purchase doesn’t count against your Cloud Drive quota:
When you save your Amazon MP3 Store purchases directly to your Cloud Drive, they don’t take up any of your storage space and are always stored for free.
Uploads to Cloud Drive are speedy, and the MP3 Uploader app does a good drive scanning your computer for music files to upload, including unprotected iTunes purchases. I opted to upload a playlist of 147 songs which would take up 0.5 GB of space. The app estimates time remaining for uploads and provides good status feedback. Not too bad but…
Now for the bad. No playback for iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad. Android yes, Apple no. So far, I can’t easily tell how I upload individual songs using the MP3 Uploader app. By default, your music is grouped and displayed in playlists and by artists. I’d like another way to view my music so I can select which songs to upload. The Uploader app is tied your login status with Amazon. If something happens to that connection, the Uploader app stops working. My overnight upload stopped for some reason, and it looks like I had to log back in to Amazon’s web site before the Uploader started working again.
And my biggest peeve is the clunkiness. Yes, Cloud Drive and Cloud Player work, but it doesn’t feel as elegant as it could be. You have to install some software on your computer to playback and upload files. That’s understandable but gives a pieced-together sort of feel. Amazon’s implementation masks the different parts well, but you still get a sense of the different components working individually, not harmoniously.
So while Amazon is first to the cloud-based music locker, the battle is far from over. Apple definitely can penetrate this market with an elegant implementation leveraging the breadth of iTunes. Then coupled with AirPlay to share (not file share) your files locally, Apple could have a more compelling service. Still though, Amazon’s service is a great step forward for your music, photos, and videos. Where ever you’re connected, you can get to these files. This freedom is liberating.