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Here’s my first stop-motion animation test. Actually, it’s my second but the first one is unwatchable since I was holding the iPhone in my hand while recording the frames. I call this “Blistex and Chocolate”.

I’ve been listening to an audiobook about the American Civil War and recently heard the chapter describing the economic differences between the North and South. The South, which was reluctant to give up the antiquated (not to mention immoral) institution of slavery was behind the curve of the industrial revolution. The North took full advantage of the industrial revolution and were able to out-produce the South in both agriculture and munitions. Plus, the North had a much better infrastructure to move people and goods around.

I’m wondering if there’s a parallel to be seen here regarding today’s large entertainment and telecom organizations. Many of them are holding onto an antiquated business model while the world is changing around them. Those who ride the wave of change will prosper while the old guard will continue to complain about falling revenues and will eventually die. When they do it’ll be their own fault. Sure, there’s risk in anything new. There’s risk in change. But there’s far more risk in refusing to adapt because that leads straight to stagnation and death.

After performing the daily Hanging of the Jackets I noticed the “west” wall already under attack after last week’s cleaning. The invaders include a box of Kirkland Kitchen Garbage Bags and a table top pad thingie. These will have to be dealt with. The reclaiming project is also under attack from another front. It’s crunch time at work. Which means less time for cleaning for the next four weeks. Still, I will do my best to end each day with the office cleaner than the day before. Even if it’s only by picking up one item and putting it in it’s place.

Today’s goals were modest. Simply clear the surface of my desk so I can actually put a computer on it again. Mission accomplished. Here’s before and after pics.

This evening begins the first day of my effort to reclaim my office and turn it from a garbage dump into a useful space. It will be a monumental effort. But it must be done for the sake of my sanity and productivity. I’ll try to keep this blog updated with progress reports. That’s my 2010 resolution.

Update: The “west” wall is done. The mail station has been cleaned out and organized. Stuff on the floor next to the wall has either been moved to where it belongs or to the other side of the room for now. It’s modest start but it gives me a sense of accomplishment and the motivation to keep it up.

Even with all the rides at Disneyland I think this is the most raw fun the kids had all day. Especially for the babies Adelynn and Timothy.

Here’s an abbreviated version of Tyler’s Jedi Training. I’ll post a more complete version soon but I wanted to get an easy to digest video available as soon as possible.

New version of iTunes is out today. One of the things it does is “Genius Mixes” where it creates 12 endless playlists of songs that go well together. It just generated my 12 playlists. Let’s see what genres iTunes has picked out from my library.

1 – Metal
This was expected.

2 – Alternative (90’s Seattle Scene)
Stuff like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice and Chains, etc.

3 – British Alternative
Stuff like Radiohead, Coldplay, Oasis, Keane, etc.

4 – Lighter Alternative
A less heavy variety of alternative music from the 90’s or bands that were popular in the 90’s. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, No Doubt, Foo Fighters, etc.

5 – Progressive
This is hard to classify. It has a lot of the instrumental guitarists I listen to as well as Queen, and Tom Petty. Looks like it’s music by musicians that other musicians really like.

6 – Modern Alternative
The Killers, Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse, etc.

7 – Children’s Music
Ya, I have children’s music in my library because I have children.

8 – Soundtrack Music
All those Lord of the Rings and Star Wars soundtracks albums I have.

9 – 70’s Rock
Van Halen, Billy Squire and bands like Queens of the Stone Age and Wolfmother because they’re very 70’s influenced.

10 – New Age
Enya, Enigma and for some unknown reason Trans-Siberian Orchestra. That’s a head-scratcher.

11 – Nu-Metal
Linkin Park, Korn, Papa Roach, Rage Against the Machine, etc.

12 – Rock with mostly Female Singers
Sheryl Crow, Stevie Nicks, Jewel and… Billy Joel? Yes, I said Jewel. Her first album was pretty good.

I figured it would be appropriate to spend Labor Day actually performing labor. It was a pretty productive day and I’m very happy with how it turned out. Here’s how it went.

1. Finished installing Snow Leopard and supporting applications on Emily’s old MacBook Pro and delivered it to Emily’s dad. He’s in serious need of a new computer. One that doesn’t have issues with anti-virus/malware software or overly restrictive firewalls that won’t even let you print, or Flash plugins that don’t play sound. He needs a computer that just works and this one should just work for him.
2. Picked up Cali’s (our dog) poo from the back yard.
3. Emptied garbage cans in the house in anticipation of garbage pickup tomorrow. However, there was a nap happening upstairs so I avoided those for fear of waking up a sick little baby. You have to let sleeping babies lie.
4. Stapled the cords to two decorative wall-lights in Jillian’s room. One is a green ladybug. The other is a pink flower. I needed to make the cords straight so they weren’t hanging lose against the wall.
5. Cleaned Jillian’s art easel. Her and a friend painted the entire easel red last week. I finally got around to cleaning it today.
6. Finished importing all of our home video tapes onto one big external hard drive. The price of 1TB drives is now to the point were it makes perfect sense to have one. With this drive I can fit all 40+ tapes we’ve recorded over the last six years with room left over for about 40 more. Unless, we go HD at some point in the future.
7. Trimmed the vines on the sides of our house. It’s one of the few pieces of vegetation that looks pretty good on our house. But every few months it grows shooters that get out of control and need to put trimmed. That was today. The kids helped with their little scissors as always.
8. Installed new porch lamp. Emily bought a really cool porch lamp from Home Depot a few weeks ago. I got it installed today. Without shocking myself either. It looks really good lit up at night. However, we might want to replace the 100 watt bulb that came with it with something a little less bright. The light extends all the way out to the street with what’s in there now.

If you follow World of Warcraft at all then you probably already know about the newly announced expansion, Cataclysm. If not, then you really should check it out. Before I share my thoughts on Cataclysm, let’s rewind to Blizzcon 2008. My brother and I were talking about how Blizzard might continue doing expansions in the future. I didn’t think they could keep repeating the formula from past expansions. The talent system would crumble under its own weight. A whole new continent with each expansion wasn’t going to remain feasible. Adding new hero classes brings up all kinds of balance and overlap issues. I put forth the idea that at some point the concept of what an expansion is would have to change. With Cataclysm we’re starting to see that happen.

Blizzard really wants to go back and redo the 1 – 60 experience to bring it up to current standards. This is a good thing. They have learned much over the last five years and I’m glad to see them applying that knowledge to the old world. Compared to the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, plain vanilla WoW seems crude, unpolished and boring. If Blizzard can make the 1 – 60 game just as good as Lich King then everyone who starts a character with one of the new races will have a reason to keep playing it past the starting zone. They may also be trying to entice yet more new users by making it so you don’t have to wait until level 60 and Outland to get to the “good” stuff.

The talent system is being simplified. Character and gear stats are being simplified. These are extremely positive moves. The new races sound cool. Wait, let me re-phrase that. The Worgen sound cool. It’s highly likely the starting zones and quest lines for the new races will rival that of the Death Knights which is one of the best experiences in all of WoW.

Even with the re-tooling of the old world, the new high-level zones and new instances this expansion does feel a bit less ambitious than the past two. I have a suspicion this is Blizzard’s strategy for keeping the expansions coming on a regular schedule. A while back before Burning Crusade a Blizzard executive said they intended to release an expansion for WoW every year. That seems like an impossibly ambitious goal now but if they cycle between “minor” and “major” expansions they might get a little closer to that goal.

So when it Cataclysm going to hit? When Wrath of the Lich King was announced the Burning Crusade was barely eight months old. Wrath was then released a little more than a year after it was announced. Wrath was about 10 months old when Cataclysm was announced last week. If the past is any indication of the future I’d say we’re looking at getting our hands on Cataclysm in the later half of 2010. Of course, that may also depend on when StarCraft 2 drops. No one really knows including Blizzard.

One more thing. Why would anyone go to a Blizzard convention and get up to the mic to ask a question at a panel and completely *waste* their question by asking about a release date? Seriously.