Mike Flacy

I rarely post about politics, but something intriguing on the campaign front caught my eye today. A presidential candidate is advertising in Burnout Revenge. For those unfamiliar, Burnout Revenge is a car-racing video game owned by Electronic Arts.

• I enjoyed the premiere of The Shield’s final season this week.  It was a slow start considering the pacing of the previous episode, but it laid some brilliant groundwork for future story lines.  I’m thinking Shane lives, Ronnie goes off the deep end, Vic and Acevada take down the Mexican cartel in a very bloody fashion and Dutch finally goes to jail for strangling neighborhood cats.

• Finding a new place to live on Craigslist has been disappointing to say the least.  Trying to make a long distance connection with a potential roommate is somewhat dampened by the anonymity of the Internet. Ugh…

• I had some of the worst sushi in my life today.  Japanese marinated mushrooms might sound tasty, but the ones I ate were the consistency of rubber and completely flavorless.  Yelp is going to get a mouthful of unhappy words from me this week.

• True Blood on HBO was an offbeat show.  It reminded me the feeling I got when watching Carnivale for the first time.  The oddball choice of setting in the deep south is strangely interesting.  I doubt it will make it past a couple seasons though.  Entourage was excellent as usual.  Eric looks a bit like a clone of Ari though.

• I’m really crossing my fingers for iPhone’s 2.1 firmware this week.  It’s rumored to be coming out with the new version of iTunes on the 9th.  I’d love to see turn-by-turn GPS implemented, but any other super secret iPhone powers will be welcome.

• My favorite Hulu video of the week: Taco bed!

I took Chris Brogan’s advice today and beefed up my LinkedIn page a bit.  I added a bit of a summary and linked out to the RSS feed on this blog.  I also wrote a recommendation for a fellow writer.  I’ve really started to notice an increase in networking lately and I’m attributing it to LinkedIn, especially after adding so many contacts.

I’m happy with the blog design for now.  I keep tweaking it every day just a little bit, so expect to see small changes.  I’m also looking to add something new to the sidebar, but I’m trying to figure out what I should toss in there.  I’m really digging the minimalistic look right now, but I’m still missing something.

I also completed a quick video preview of Friend Book for the iPhone this afternoon.  It’s not out on the App Store on iTunes yet and it’s certainly worth checking out when it hits the digital streets.  Click the picture to the left or the Youtube link at the top of the page to watch the 3 minute preview.

I picked up my 3G iPhone last Friday.  The consumer madness was in full swing at the AT&T store.  They had 40 iPhones in stock and about 60 people in line.  I snagged the 8 gig model and spent the rest of the day checking out the applications on iPhone.  Here are some of my favorites:

Shazam: This music app is great for people who are clueless to the names of songs and artists.  It can listen to any song playing on the radio or over a loudspeaker and identify it through the iPhone’s microphone.  You can mark the song for download on iTunes, watch any Youtube related video about it or send a link of the song to your friends.

Box Office: This simple app takes your GPS location and finds all the movies / theaters in the area.  It offers the Rotten Tomato rating for every movie and can be organized by rating or title.  Most importantly, it offers fast access to the showtimes in all the nearby theaters.

NetNewsWire: This is the fastest way to read RSS feeds on the iPhone.  I can rummage through posts on 15 sites when I wake up in about 10 minutes.   Just be careful to keep up with the feeds otherwise there will be a huge number posted on the icon all day.

AOL Radio: Turns the iPhone into a radio with 200 stations of music.  You can bookmark stations and mark songs for download on iTunes later.  The sound quality is extremely good for a web based radio.  Pandora is also pretty good for specific artist preferences.

Tap Tap Revenge: It’s Guitar Hero for the iPhone.  It’s only 3 buttons and four songs, but there are four levels of difficulty and the possibility of downloadable songs in the future.  You can also shake the iPhone to hit the right beats instead of tapping the screen.  Lots of fun and it’s free!

Graffitio: This app uses the GPS to figure out where you are and looks for nearby restaurants, bars, stores, parks, events, etc.  The apps creates persistent online graffiti walls for you to write notes about the business.  You can also read notes from people who have been there before.