These guys have worked on some of my favorite games of all time, including LittleBigPlanet and Fable II, so they know a thing or two about creating some very addictive content. The “game” looks great, and has a quirky vibe that’ll definitely set it apart from other task managers.

Since you decide how many points you assign to each task, you can level up pretty quickly. Although I was hoping that there’d be some social aspects (competing against roommates for chore completion, etc) I can see how someone could easily cheat by creating easy tasks with high point values.

There’s one thing keeping me from using this app everyday: desktop integration. I currently use Things as my main to-do list manager, and it syncs with the Things iPhone app as well. I don’t really need two task managing applications on my phone at one time, and there’s very little incentive for a desktop client to use another company’s app for mobile use instead of developing their own.

The answer? EpicWin should create a full-featured RPG for the desktop that plays like a game! Yes, perhaps a little “pie in the sky,” but it would certainly hook more gamers.

EpicWin is $2.99 on the App Store.

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Dragon*Con is coming up on us very quickly! So if you’re planning to head to Atlanta, GA from September 3-6 (16 days away!) make sure you check out some of the panels that I’ll be on. Plus, there will be a pretty big TWiT / Sword and Laser crossover meetup that’s in the works for Saturday the 4th, from 6pm-8pm, at the Westin’s Sun Dial Bar.

My schedule:

Title: Podcasting Track Kick Off
Description: Join some of your favorite podcasters as we launch our fifth year as part of Dragon*Con.
Time: Fri 01:00 pm Location: 204 – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)

——————-
Title: It’s All In the Game
Description: This panel will discuss how to break into and be successful in the burgeoning gaming market.
Time: Fri 05:30 pm Location: Manila / Singapore / Hong Kong (Ed – huh??) – Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)

——————-
Title: Podcasts and Marketing to the Masses
Description: The trailblazers of podcast marketing discuss what has worked, what hasn’t, and what’s next.
Time: Sat 02:30 pm Location: 204 – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)

——————-
Title: The Sword and Laser – Live!
Description: Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt bring their podcast about all things Sci-Fi and Fantasy back to Dragon*Con with a special guest.
Time: Sun 04:00 pm Location: Crystal Ballroom – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)
Moderator / MC for panel

*photo by Roger Chang, L-R: Len Peralta, Tom Merritt, me, Felicia Day @ Dragon*Con 2009

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As I mentioned a few weekends ago, I was invited by Sony Ericsson and the WTA Tour to spend the morning hitting a few tennis balls around and chatting gadgets with Maria Sharapova. This is the highlight reel of that day, and I have to admit; my high school coach would not be amused with how my tennis form has deteriorated over the last 10 years!

Maria was great, and we talked all about how hard it is to stay in touch with your friends in family when you’re on the road (something I can definitely relate to as well). Now that I’ve got some new outfits to wear, I’m more inclined to get back out on the court and practice some more too!

All in all, it was a really fun day, although my thighs and shoulders were pretty sore for about a week afterwards. That girl is in shape!! Check out some more photos from the day below (including some pictures from my interview with Ana Ivanovic), and make sure you visit Maria on Facebook too!

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RIFFTRAX LIVE!

Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett (RiffTrax.com, Mystery Science Theater 3000) return to Comic-Con to perform another live, hilarious riff to a classic short! The panel is hosted by Veronica Belmont (host of Tekzilla on Revision3 and Qore on the PlayStation Network). Join the riffers for fun, laughs, and the latest news from RiffTrax.com, the site where MST3K-style humor meets mainstream movies, TV shows and vintage shorts. At RiffTrax.com they don’t make movies, they make them funny!

In case you missed it, I actually performed with the guys on a short last year, which is available up on their website here. Can’t wait to see everyone at the Con!!

UPDATE:

I’m also speaking on the Geek Girls Exist! panel:

The panel consists of women who represent different aspects of the geek culture and who have embraced their geekiness in their personal and/or professional lives. I will moderate the panel to discuss topics such as “when did you realize you were a geek,” “when did you decide to embrace it,” “what would you offer aspiring young females in your profession/interest,” as well as encourage anecdotes about embarrassing moments when their “geek got in the way.”

DETAILS:

The panel will be held Thursday July 22 from 5:30pm-6:30pm in Room 8.

Check out the amazing list of panelists (so far):

Morgan Romine founder of Ubisoft’s all-girl gaming team The Frag Dolls
Bonnie Burton author of You Can Draw Star Wars and Girls Against Girls
Marian Call musician inspired by Firefly/Serenity and Battlestar Galactica with her album “Got to Fly”
Sarah Kuhn author of One Con Glory
Jill Pantozzi writer for MTV Splash Page, Newsarama, Has Boobs Reads Comics blog, and Heartless Doll
Veronica Belmont technology and gaming-centric video host of Qore and Tekzilla
Kiala Kazebee writer for io9, the SFWeekly, GeekWeek, and featured extra in Felicia Day’s The Guild

Related posts:

1. RiffTrax LIVE: Plan 9 from Outer Space
2. Guest Riffing on American Thrift!

Anyhow! Tom is moving along to the TWiT Network, where he’ll be hosting a show (among other things, I’m sure) called Tech News Today. I can’t wait to check it out, and I know Leo will give him a good home (now I’m starting to sound like he’s a stray dog).

We’ll still be doing Sword and Laser, of course, and you’ll be seeing more from that in the near future as well. We’re really trying to do more episodes than once a month, and now that Tom has more free time I think we’ll be able to make it happen!

Congrats, Tom!

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Whew, that was a big trip! I went with the Qore team to Japan for two weeks for shoots, and we travelled from Osaka to Kyoto to Tokyo on a whirlwind tour of the country. This was my fourth time in Japan, but it definitely the most comprehensive (and exhausting!) trip I’ve probably ever taken!

I can’t tell you too much about the developer interviews that we did, but I’ve posted TONS of photos from the culture piece that we shot. From snow monkeys to toilets, we covered some really random and awesome stuff.

I can’t believe how much news I missed around here, too. I didn’t even know HP bought Palm until yesterday. /facepalm.

Anyhow, happy to be home! Keep your eyes open for Japan content on Qore in upcoming months, and in the meantime check out the trailer for the new episode, out today!

Related posts:

1. Introducing Qore!
2. Questions and Qomments (see what I did there?)

The cat known as Mr. Littlejeans is having his little furry moment in the sun. It all started with a photo I took of him, comfortably relaxing on Ryan’s lap. Ryan was having a difficult time finding a comfortable position on the couch for iPad typing, when inspiration suddenly hit…

Since then, LJ has been on TWiT, Lifehacker, MacLife, OS X Daily and several other blogs. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also include him on my own.

Update: Laughing Squid has us too! Thanks Scott!

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Barbie sat on the periphery; a known entity, but not one I was very interested in getting to know better. I was aware of her spectacular outfits and handsome boyfriend Ken, but at the end of the day I was far more interested in my Crash Test Dummies set or my Micro Machines.

My interest in technology, I feel very strongly, was incubated in part because I grew up in a house that encouraged it. I was allowed to tinker with my toys (usually destroying rather than enhancing) and to spend hours playing with my Nintendo or Game Boy. Kids are always going to make their own decisions about what they like or don’t like (and clearly not all of them have the advantage of a surplus of toys around the house), but I believe that one of the main reasons more girls don’t become interested in technology and IT is because they’re taught (or shown) that this is the realm of the boys.

Now, getting back to Barbie. Despite her physically unattainable body shape (which has probably caused more than one case of body dismorphia in a young female), she’s had a lot male-centric jobs in her day: an Air Force fighter pilot, a firefighter, NASCAR driver, and President just to name a few. Her latest endeavor, computer engineer, is interesting for several reasons: it was voted upon online, and won largely due to a campaign on (male-dominated) link-sharing site Reddit; computer engineering is one of the final frontiers where women are still hugely underrepresented; and finally, there’s just not a lot of romanticism involved with the profession. How many 5 year-old girls out there say they want to be computer engineers when they grow up?

Barbie’s popularity could have helped in that last area. When I say, “could have,” I mean that had this happened 10 years ago, when Barbie was still relevant to a young girl’s development, it could have had a lasting effect on the number of women involved in that career path further down the line. While Barbie sales have seen an uptick in the last year, she has a lot of new competition: there are far more interesting and flashy things for young girls to latch onto, like Bratz, iCarly, Moxie Girls, Hannah Montana, etc.

The Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering worked with the Barbie designers at Mattel to make a model that fit the “look” of a female computer engineer. I don’t know too many women in IT rocking the sparkly leggings and white leather vests to work at the office (unless… she’s from the future). Clothing choices aside, I think this is a good move. The fact that something as quintessentially feminine as Barbie is out there showing little girls that IT and computer engineering isn’t all for the boys is encouraging. It’s a small step, but hopefully one that leads other toy manufacturers to follow.

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The Zerg Overmind must be smiling down on me, because a few days after I received my StarCraft II beta invite another key popped into my inbox! The first must have been for press, while the second came from attending BlizzCon a couple of years ago. To any extent, I have one to give away!

What do you need to do to get it? Not much! Just become a Facebook fan. The winner will be picked randomly on Friday night!

Related posts:

1. Start off the New Year with an iPod shuffle [Contest]
2. Judging the Boxee Dev Challenge!

Crazy Cat Lady Hour
WoW for Fun and Profit
Find the Right Cable!
I’m on a Larp!
CSI: Hartford (Nothing ever happens)
America’s Next Top Shaman
Man vs Wild vs Belmont
Chuck’d (Each week a dumpster dive reveals what gadgets V threw out to make room for her new ones)
Deadliest Glitch
The Cat Whisperer
Bacon Today
Homemade Hipster Ham… and Friends
Devo’s Bird Watching Hour
The Awkward Situation Room
Mr Littlejeans Goes to Washington But is Tricked into a Bath
Connecticut Shore

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In the most recent episode of Tekzilla, you’ll learn that I have incredible… eye-mouth coordination? Something like that. Stick with it through the credits, there’s plenty more where that came from.

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Is Roxxxy the kind of thing that will stay very niche, or are we looking at the future of sex toys?

Roxxxy is expensive and the bar to entry (ahem) is too high for most consumers insofar as access, acceptance and maintenance, not to mention it’s made as a boutique item from a single inventor. For any sex toy to go from niche, obscurity and cult status, it must be affordable, widely distributed, mass produced, have name brand recognition, be easy to use, and achieve mainstream acceptance; the Rabbit Habit vibrator (popularized on Sex and the City) is a perfect example of this. Roxxxy in its current form will most certainly remain niche, especially as other ‘sex robot’ manufacturers worldwide have already surpassed Roxxxy on many levels. And we shouldn’t forget that RealDoll has already cornered the lifelike sex doll market while Roxxxy is little more than a cross between RealDoll and a Tickle Me Elmo.

Why are people so obsessed with the idea of sex robots?

People have fantasized about sex with robots since at least 1886, thanks to science fiction, when the first female android mate was made popular in French author Auguste Villers novel “The Future Eve” (“L’Eve Future”). In it, a fictional Thomas Edison creates a human female android for a despondent male friend who hates his real-life fiancée so much he wants to kill himself. Edison kindly offers to make him a robot replica of the fiancée, but without all that bothersome personality. Sex with robots is the ultimate manifestation for our fantasy of having sex with things that have no feeling, free of consequences.There are many advantages to sex with a human, and many things you will not get — yet — from a machine, like skin touch, smell, eye contact, tenderness, etc. Those things that humans alone can provide (so far) are only part of the sexual experience, but they are so fraught with intensity that they can often dominate the experience. Since we are socialized to not be blatant about physical pleasure, even if we’re blatant about sexuality, engaging in that kind of physical expression, and focusing on the purely penetrative and rhythmic, is liberating for many, including women.

I think it’s important that we reconsider calling an item with no robotics and no movement (or actuators) a robot. There are no robotics in Roxxxy, save for sensors that only transmit feedback for audio responses.

Would a male version of a doll like this ever work for women?

Yes, absolutely. Probably even more successfully than for men, provided she’s handy with tools and has rudimentary programming skills when her Robert PattinsonXXX Love Doll has a system crash. What’s fascinating is how openly and unquestionably women have embraced sex with machines: whether vibrators, or large-scale sex machines such as those seen as infamous machine sex websites where it’s only women, machines and authentic orgasms. According to “The Technology Of Orgasm” by Rachel Maines, women have been having orgasms with machines since at least 1860, and the first at-home self-stimulation device was widely marketed to women in 1918 so it’s proof positive that on our own, women have no inhibitions about having sex with machines. We’ve been doing it much longer than men. It’s true that a machine enables huge variations in how one conjures an orgasm, as in speed, stroke, size, vibration, steadiness, how long it all lasts — things that wouldn’t be possible with a human.

Should real women be worried about being replaced in the bedroom?

Not at all. In the same way that men joke — sort of — while buying vibrators for their girlfriends and wives that they’re worried it might replace them, it’s an ungrounded anxiety that simply isn’t true. By 2010 we’ll see toys that realistically mimic certain human elements of the sexual experience. But people will always have to suspend an element of disbelief to complete the fantasy; you can’t fool all of the senses, and sex with another person is a sense-reliant experience. For some people, and only some (not most), they are more than happy with having a fantasy lover than a real life companion or mate, but because their orientation does not suit them for intimate human relationships. These people will be happy to have a sex robot to manifest their fantasy instead of a human being, but again, these aren’t the people you’ll see at singles’ bars or dating meetups in the first place.

Despite the creator’s claims, there have been lots of sex robots out there. What makes this one different? Better? Creepier?

Yes, worldwide there have been many sex robots, and his efforts have been exceeded by many companies and manufacturers (First Android, Zoltan and Alice + Kiri, Le Trung’s Project Aiko, Kokoro/Actroid). What makes this one different is that a) unlike First Androids the body does not move, and b) also unlike First Androids, it has programmable personality programs. Roxxxy is not a robot. I’m not sure how advanced the AI is, if indeed it is a genuine ELIZA-style (AIML) AI (artificial intelligence computer entity, a program that is a natural language chatterbot). Or if it’s just a canned response ‘bot, that reacts to certain stimulus with preset phrases. We don’t know what he’s running, so we don’t know if the programming is as advanced as a ‘virtual girlfriend’ like KariGirl or A.L.I.C.E. So in many ways, it’s one step forward and many steps right in place. It’s definitely creepier, as it’s so clearly based on the face and body of one particular girl. It’s no better than a RealDoll (a high quality item), not by far, but it is a different experience. Roxxxy certainly has more hype than any other sex “robot” innovation standing — or not.

Further reading on Asylum

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Doesn’t this totally remind you of the rap battle from 8 Mile? No?

The amazing beatboxer Kid Beyond (who I first heard at w00tstock back in the fall) did a damn good job going up against Jonathan Coulton and his ZenDrum, but in the end I’ve gotta give it to JoCo. I’m a sucker for Beyoncé.

The rest of the show, by the way, was also great. Although, Paul and Storm let me down a little, with only a 12 minute long version of The Captain’s Wife’s Lament. DEJECTED ARRR!!!

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My friend Rob sent me this video, which I had somehow missed when it came out this summer. I agree with the points that Daniel Floyd and Leigh Alexander make, especially how browser-based and casual titles can lead to regular console gaming (I’ve long called The Sims a “gateway drug game”). What I really liked was how some game companies, like Ubisoft, are creating games that “appeal to a younger generation of girls,” in effect planting the seeds for them to grow up with a love for games.

Working for Qore, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of great women working in the gaming industry, such as Amy Hennig (who couldn’t be more brilliant), Tracy Espeleta, and Kellee Santiago. Coincidentially, I read today on Chris Pirillo’s Twitter feed that Sony Online Entertainment is actually offering a scholarship and internship to a girl looking to work in game design and production:

Applications are now being accepted for the 2010 G.I.R.L. Scholarship to help educate and recruit more women into the field of video game production and design. Sponsored by Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) a global leader in online gaming, and administered by Scholarship America®, a leading non-profit educational support program, applications are available at https://www.scholarshipamerica.org/gamersinreallife and more details, including official rules for entry are also available online at http://www.station.sony.com/girl/.

If you know a girl who may be interested, please pass thing along! It seems like a really great opportunity to encourage more women to become involved in this industry.

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I’ll be helping Tekzilla cover the show, of course (follow the Revision3 CES Twitter list here), but I’ll also be paying special attention to any gaming-related content on the show floor for Qore as well. That means you’ll probably see me floating around the Sony booth quite a bit. Plus, I’ll be guest-hosting Buzz Out Loud on Friday morning at 9AM PST, so if you’re around the South Hall come check it out (or listen online).

Let me know what you’re most excited about seeing at the show this year in the comments, and don’t forget to add your most coveted gadgets to your lists on gdgt!

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With that simple statement of “Hello, I’m Jim Donnelly from The Internet!” he quickly became a sensation:

After reading the story, I decided to post it to my Facebook page. After all, it’s not every day someone promotes their Facebook account via newspaper. Lo and behold, Jim paid me a visit in the comments, and so I decided to ask him a few questions to learn more about why he decided to reach out to people in this particular manner, and how the attention this week has been. The interview (and his extensive answers) are after the jump.

Tell us about yourself! What do you do for a living?

For the past 33 years, I was a TV Producer and manager of a regional Cable TV studio in New Bedford, Massachusetts under a succession of corporate banners. We produced local news and sports programs, talk shows, cooking shows, etc. My run there ended suddenly in the summer of ’09. No hard feelings. It was a good ride while it lasted.

I’ve been a tech early adopter, enthusiast and evangelist. I’m guessing you don’t remember when a spreadsheet was something made of paper that covered half a conference room table. When you changed a single budget number with an eraser and a pencil, you had to recalculate across and down, using an old-fashioned calculator with a paper roll. I helped the Cable TV company build its first computer payroll budget using BASIC code on a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A with data storage on standard cassette tape. It was thrill after thrill over the years, as the first IBM-compatible PC arrived with two floppy drives, then one with a 10MB hard drive, then a Novell token-ring network, and so on.

People today are spoiled, you hook peripherals up and they work! We used to have to send “strings” of gobbledygook characters to printers and modems to coax them to work properly.

Among the TV programs I produced was a series that ran from 1995 through 2006 called “world@your.pc”. If I may alliterate, I think of myself as a “Low-Level Leo Laporte”. Let’s be clear, I’m not worthy to shine Leo’s shoes, but I participated in the same “sport”, if not in the same league. If my data is correct, in 1995 about a third of homes in the U.S. had a computer in them and about 5% had a connection to the Internet, so “world@your.pc” was geeky cutting-edge for its time here in New Bedford.

“world@your.pc” consisted of two-minute segments within news programs, and standalone half-hours, playing in several regions of Massachusetts, as well as the Atlanta area, upstate New York and some areas in California. I dispensed computer operation tips, keyboard shortcuts, and explored useful and entertaining websites. You can see a small archive sampler of world@your.pc segments on the YouTube.

I’m unemployed now. I need to write the next chapter.

Since 2001, I’ve been posting restaurant menus on a website called Menu Joy. Now I’m trying to make a real business out of it.

Local print newspapers are screwed. Local radio and TV stations are screwed. What will take its place?

I own TV shooting equipment and editing software costing relative peanuts that can do what cost a quarter million dollars just a short time ago. And I have a connection to the Internet. Anybody with those things can create a TV channel. I’m looking to carry on what we did on the the Cable TV local channel by producing local videos and posting them on Menu Joy, with links on Facebook, to draw traffic. I recently produced a video shot entirely with one of those pocket “Handy Cams”, the Zoom Q3, one of the first with a decent built-in microphone. The video, “Free Parking”, is about a seasonal parking meter amnesty deal to coax shoppers to downtown New Bedford.

I believe Facebook is poised to be an amazing phenomenon, more so than it is already. I’ve been calling it the “Second Coming of the Internet”. I see it drawing in scores of people, including my spouse, who previously had minimal interest in Internetty things. It makes connecting with a lot of people so much easier, and fun, than ever before, from close family to acquaintances, co-workers, clients, etc. It’s so much easier than composing an eMail to keep the back and forth, keeping-in-touch going.

Facebook could become the communications grid for everyone for everything.

When you first open a Facebook account, you’re looking at a blank page. It’s empty. Nothing there. You are now like a newspaper editor, you fill your blank page with content. First you connect with your family and friends, they’ll populate your page with bulletins about their lives, ranging in significance from what they just ate to what they just gave birth to. Then you subscribe to “pages”, and “groups” that align with your interests to further fill your custom newspaper with a constant stream of content. If and when it gets to be too much to keep up with, you can use the tools, like “Lists”, to filter the content to specific things. It’s amazing how sophisticated Facebook is getting.

What made you decide to post your initial ad?

Before the “Hello, I’m Jim Donnelly from the Internet!” newspaper ad, I’ve placed a few other print ads and a YouTube Video positioning myself as a “New Media Specialist.” As a result I’m helping a few small businesses establish their Facebook pages. I’ve also asked in another ad “Do you want to be Mayor in 2012?”, advising of the need to start a Facebook presence now, as campaign season will be too late. I think I’ve intrigued a few City Councillors. We’ll see how that goes.

I’m really rolling the dice with Facebook. I’m inviting everyone I come in contact with around town to be my Facebook friend. So far, everyone’s been pretty nice.

On Facebook, I’ve developed a routine of posting the typical chatter mixed with computer tips, Facebook tips, and restaurant promos, every time Menu Joy has a new menu or a video of a restaurant opening, etc, I post it on the Facebook.

Right here I’ll share a great Facebook tip: if you want to spread a message, let’s say a charity fundraiser event that you’d like people to attend, if you do a normal Facebook “Status” post, your friends list will see it, and it will probably end there. But if you can post your promo message on a website somewhere, along with a square-shaped graphic at least 90×90 pixels somewhere on the page, and then post a link on Facebook, you have made a Facebook post with a nice attractive “thumbnail” image and a “Share” button under it, so it can be more easily spread to several levels of friends.

I want to develop a local organized network of Facebook message spreaders. You “Share” my messages and I’ll share yours. The reach could be phenomenal. That’s why I took out the newspaper ad inviting people to be my Facebook friend. Some purists might object to using Facebook for commerce like this. But there’s lots and lots of commerce going on there. Best Buy has a fan page, as do TV shows, cable news networks and every conceivable type of merchant. Musicians are using Facebook to “connect” with their fans. (Connecting = marketing.) In my case, I’m supporting the local economy by promoting the restaurant industry. I’m OK with it.

I mentioned rolling the dice. Facebook is a potentially dangerous double-edge sword. For every person I find to be a Facebook enthusiast, there’s another who’s Facebook-phobic, citing privacy concerns, Big Brother, etc. They may be very correct!!! Especially in light of what Facebook did recently, nudging users into unwittingly making lots of their content available to “Everyone” instead of “Friends-only”, and making it Google-searchable as well. I thought it was a bit disturbing when I saw the Facebook notice and its default choices, my concerns were confirmed when I listened to Leo Laporte’s “This Week in Tech” podcast that weekend, Leo, John Dvorak & Co. thought Facebook might be shooting themselves in the foot. I defied the Facebook default “suggestions” and kept my Facebook settings as they were, and I deleted some family pictures that I wouldn’t want anyone to be having fun with in Photoshop or otherwise misusing.

And who knows what Facebook will do next, what will continue to be free, what they will charge for, and how they’ll change how things work. They’re in control. If they burn their users too badly, there could be an instant exodus.

Tell me about the response so far from the ad, and how you’ve reacted.

About the opening line in the ad: my sons and I are fans of Jon Lajoie. He makes hilarious music videos and puts them on YouTube. If you’re new to Jon, start with Everyday Normal Guy. (Warning: course language.) We went to see him perform live in Boston. The first thing he said was “Hello, I’m Jon Lajoie. (pause) I’m from the Internet.” So I really just copied the concept from Jon.

The local response to the ad was a little disappointing. I made about a dozen new local FB Friends. I had hoped for a hundred or so.

Then I started getting requests from much farther away. It was confusing. One responder told me he saw it on “The Daily What”. Oh No! I only wanted local friends. Not this! I asked The Daily What to take it down, and they did. But it was too late. It had spread to other sites. Like Buzzfeed.com. My image was seemingly in the public domain. The Photoshop jockeys now had control of me. And they went to town. A lot of it was hilarious. Even the “molester” stuff, complete with local references. But the “beady eyes” thing stung a little. Maybe my eyeglasses cause distortion. I have regular eyes!!

The Internet can be pretty brutal. Has the response changed your opinion of the web in any way?

I know that people on the Internet can be very brutal. I’ve posted videos on YouTube in the past several years, and the comments range from supportive and complimentary to downright mean and nasty. I’ve seen “Epic Fail” plenty of times, (as if it’s clever to say that.) It’s “Keyboard Rage”, in the solitude of their homes, people say the ugliest things they’d never say to someone’s face. I’m comforted thinking that most people who’ve accomplished things in their life, creatively or in any endeavor, would be unlikely to engage in this type of behavior.

It’s been just about a week since the original ad ran, so I don’t know if it’s peaked yet or if this is just the tip of the iceberg. I got my first crank call yesterday, from a fellow who sounded learning-challenged, asking for help setting up his Facebook account so he could see his nephew’s pictures. It got sillier and sillier, and when he repeated his pleas for help with “Bookface” on his “toplap”, I knew I was being had. The voice sounded very familiar, and upon reflection, I swear I think it was one of The Jerky Boys, or someone imitating one of their characters.

I decided I better figure out how to ride this wave rather than drown under it. I created a Facebook fan page called: “Hello, I’m Jim Donnelly from the Internet!” Now when I get Friend Requests from out of my geographic area, I invite them to connect there.

What kind of information do you hope to give people about the Internet who respond to your ad? What are these “amusements?”

I have several sub-pages on Menu Joy for the sole purpose of creating Shareable links on Facebook, among them: Computer Tips and Facebook Tips. There are a lot of Facebook newbies, and computer newbies on Facebook. People don’t know that you can delete a post you just made if you regret it or misspelled something, or how to use the chat system in the lower right. People don’t know you can send a private “Inbox” message to someone, instead they’re posting phone numbers and extremely personal exchanges right on people’s walls where everyone else can see. When I see someone in need of help, I put the info in a sharable post, knowing that others need the same help.

The mediaman54.com page has Observations, Tips and Amusements where I can post whatever I think may be useful, informative or entertaining, whether it’s original or just a link to something I found on the web. I’m not breaking any ground here, but if people laugh or otherwise appreciate what I post, they’re happy, I’m happy.

The goal is to serve and to entertain, and to ask people to do things, like attend an event or try a new restaurant.

Anything else you’d like to add or clear up? Just making sure… you’re not a performance artist, right?

Most of what I do is clear and straightforward. I’ve made a few videos for YouTube that cause some to scratch their heads.

And if any restaurant owners want their menu on the web, check out MenuJoy.com. Cheers!

Thanks to Jim for answering my questions! For more, check him out on Facebook, or his personal website.

Related posts:

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I was watching the Nova episode called What Are Dreams the other day, and I was particularly interested in one bit of information from the show: if you practice enough, you can tell your brain what to dream about. There are some caveats, in that it only works about 50% of the time, and that you’re still not in total control of what happens.

I tend to remember a lot of my dreams, so I thought I’d give it a go. For the past three nights, as I close my eyes, I’ve thought this:

“I’m going to help Sherlock Holmes* solve a mystery. I’m going to help Sherlock Holmes solve a mystery!”

Two nights, and nothing (that I could remember, anyway). But then last night, something seemed to happen! Ryan came to bed after working late, and I woke up enough to say “Shh! I’m dreaming about Holmes!” before I passed back out again. This morning, I actually could recall several dream sequences in which I was in a Holmes mystery-solving situation of some kind. My problem is that I fall asleep almost the moment I hit the pillow, so I don’t usually get enough time to try and convince my brain to dream the way I want it to. It’s more like “I’m going to…” and then I’m out cold.

But hey, it was pretty cool! Dreams are important for helping our brain work through issues and problems from our waking life (and I’m not just talking murder mysteries), but if you can program it to work like your own personal holodeck, how entertaining would that be?

Anyway, give it a shot sometime. This isn’t some kind of weird self-help thing (Learn to ski with your dreams! Come up with your million-dollar idea in your sleep!), it’s just an interesting way to explore what your mind can do.

*I’m going through a Sherlock Holmes phase. It started with reading The Beekeepers Apprentice, then the complete Arthur Conan Doyle collection, and will culminate with the viewing of the movie this Christmas. So, a little obsessed.

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I mentioned that I was going to guest on an episode of The Gloomers, and here it is! I had so much fun recording with them, and I love how my animated-self turned out. I also did a behind-the-scenes interview with Moses the day we recorded, which you can view below:

For more Gloomers, become their fan on Facebook and subscribe to the show on YouTube!

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I loved doing the voice-acting for a character, hopefully I can work with them again sometime. The Gloomers are also on Facebook, so if you like what you see become a fan.

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I’ve done some software giveaways before, but I actually have a physical product to send out to a fan this time: a Flip Mino HD! I’ll pick a winner randomly this coming Monday morning (the 9th) from the fan page, so if you haven’t already, sign up below! If you win, I’ll send you a message asking for your shipping address.

Good luck! Oh, and Pure Digital (the makers of the Flip) are in no way affiliated with this giveaway. This is all me!

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