Disneyland

Today we went to Disneyland. Here’s the order of battle:
Space Mountain
Pirates of the Caribbean
Haunted Mansion
Splash Mountain
Tom Sawyer’s Island
Honey I Shrunk the Audience
Space Mountain
Star Tours
Space Mountain
Light crowds and cool weather. Perfection.

And so it begins

Yesterday the phone rang and I picked it up.
It was a boy, calling for my eldest daughter.
I handed the phone to my daughter and a big grin crossed her face and she twirled in place as she put the phone to her ear.
“Hello, I’ve been waiting for your call…”, she said into the phone, while motioning me away from her.
I knew this day would come, but didn’t really want to arrive just yet.

Wii is for us

Thanks to wonderful and generous Cousin James, we now have a Wii in the house.



The girls and I played all day and it is better than I would have hoped. Truly innovative and enjoyable by the whole family, I doubt the PS3 can compare to Wii on the broadscale. The PS3 has some promising capabilites for the hardcore gamer, but the Wii is the console that literally anyone can play and enjoy.

Bad Design at the LA Times

Last week the Los Angeles Times revealed their new design. Here’s a snippet of the press release:

The A section of The Times will sport an arresting new format beginning Oct. 22 aimed at providing a compelling snapshot of the day’s most interesting stories via skybox spotlights and a bolder index on the front page, as well as expanding the use of larger headlines, photographs, color, and information graphics, such as sidebars, back story boxes, maps and diagrams. It also will include the Opinion pages, Monday through Saturday.

Well, as one of the rare readers of the newspaper every morning, I have to say, it sucks.
Every morning I walk outside and pick up the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. Even in this day of internet news, I still feel that for good in-depth reading, an actual newspaper is best. You might even see something that you want to read that wouldn’t normally search for… *gasp*


What are there, eight or nine different fonts and sizes. Geez, what a mess. The LA Times does a great job with their photos and especially their graphics, but this plethora of typefaces is just plain annoying.

Take a look at the right hand side. Now, the bullet sub-heads are informative, but what’s with the font change? The mix of sans serif and serif is strange. Using sans serif for headlines is pretty typical, switching to serif for the actual article. But why mix the two styles in the sub-headline bullet items?

Sliding over the the left side of the page, we find even wider use of the pull-downs in the newspaper design software. Left = ITALICS. Again, why can’t their be a little consistency here? Does the italics mean something special here? Do italics mean ‘don’t take this article seriously’ or ‘salacious stuff here’?

On the next day, take a look at the right column. Yep, we are back to the sans serif/serif battle. But what’s this, a question the in the headline? Really, news stories are supposed to be telling me the news, not asking me a question in the headline. This isn’t talk radio trying get you to make an irate phone call, it’s supposed to give me an impartial reporting of the news.
The second sub-headline reads ‘Pink light, Disaster Aid’. What exactly is that trying to tell me? There is no verb or even an obvious connection to the headline. Are these supposed to be tags? Are the editors trying to trick me into reading the article or are they trying to inform me?
I love the newspaper, but I hope the LA Times revises this design choice and refocus on the news rather than trying to mimic web sites.

Halloween 2006

Having had a good experience with it last year, we again gave away full size candies for Halloween.


This year, Zoe and I got our costumes from China. The world is truly flat that we can reach to the other side of the world to get a specific costume.

Zoe is dressed as Hinata Hyuga, I’m dressed as Kakashi Hatake , both from the Naruto TV show, and Mira is dressed as a 1920s Flapper Dancer.
As has become tradition, we kept a detailed record of all the costumes that appeared at Cruft Manor.
Kids Costume
9 Witch
8 Scream Mask
6 Monster Mask
5 Jason Voorhees
5 Nothing (lame…)
5 Power Ranger
4 Baby
4 Bee
4 Cat
4 Little Red Riding Hood
4 Ninja
4 Samurai
4 Spiderman
4 Superman
3 Devil
3 Evil Jester
3 Fairy
3 Knight
3 Snow White
3 The Devil
3 Trash Bag Head
3 Vampire
2 Darth Vader
2 Fireman
2 Girl Fairy
2 Half Angel/Half Devil
2 Normal Kid
2 Penguin
2 Skeleton
2 Spa Lady
2 Zorro
1 A Girl
1 A Guy
1 Adeliene
1 Alien
1 Angel
1 Barney & Betty Rubble
1 Baseball
1 Batgirl
1 Batman
1 Bee from Mexican TV Show
1 Belle
1 Bionicle
1 Buzz Lightyear
1 Chewbacca
1 Clown
1 Confused
1 Corpse Bride
1 Counter Strike Guy
1 Cousin It
1 Cow
1 Cowgirl
1 Crazy Girl
1 Crybaby
1 Dalmatian
1 Dead Fairy
1 Doctor
1 Dog
1 Dora the Explorer
1 Dorothy Gale
1 Eeyore
1 Egyptian Dancer
1 Executive Lady
1 Extreme Sports Dirt Bike Guy
1 Farmer
1 Female Cop
1 Freddie Kruger
1 Gandolf
1 Gangster
1 Ghost
1 Ghoul
1 GI Joe
1 Gothic Fairy
1 Graduate
1 Grecian Goddess
1 Halloween Business Man
1 Harry Potter
1 He doesn’t know
1 Heavenly Devil
1 Hobo
1 Hula Girl
1 Ice Princess
1 Incredible Hulk
1 Jailbird
1 Jasmine
1 Johnny Storm
1 Ladybug
1 Laker Cheerleader
1 Leatherface & two victims
1 Mad Hatter
1 Mafioso
1 Mark
1 Mexican
1 Mexican Jedi
1 Military Ninja
1 Mom of cat
1 Monkey
1 Monster
1 Mulan
1 Newspaper
1 Not Scared Girl
1 Nurse
1 Nurse walking dogs dressed as witch and dinosaur
1 Old Lady
1 Osama Bin Laden
1 Pajamas
1 Patrick from Spongebob
1 Pebbles & Bam Bam
1 Pierre the Frenchman
1 Pirate
1 Princess
1 Pumpkin
1 Punk Skull Diva
1 Purple Cow
1 Ragdoll
1 Robot
1 Rocker
1 Sally from Nightmare Before Xmas
1 Singer
1 Skeleton Bride
1 Skull Mother
1 Skull Warrior
1 Sleepover Girl
1 Sleepy Girl
1 Snake Handler
1 Solider
1 Stormtrooper
1 Student
1 Superwoman
1 The Black Knight
1 The Reaper
1 The Tooth Fairy
1 Tiger
1 Tinkerbell
1 Tomato
1 Undead Hobo
1 Undertaker
1 Urkel
1 White haired old chinese guy
1 Wings
1 Winnie the Pooh
1 Wolf
1 Woody
1 Zombie
That’s 225 different people that came to our door this year. Compared to 163 last year, that’s a significant increase.
The traditional scary costumes still top the list, but as you can see, pretty much every genre is represented. I found it quite fun to ask each child what they were dressed as and hear their response. That baffled look on their face as I hold a full size candy in front of them, waiting for their answer is great.

Jones Soda Limted Edition

A few weeks ago, I was at Target with the girls when we saw these sodas.


Obviously, I bought a four pack of each. It was until this weekend that I had some time to test them out. Jones Soda does of lot of interesting things like letting customers submit photos for printing on bottles to creating limitied edition sodas of various flavors.
This year’s Halloween set includes Gruesome Grape, Berried Alive, Candy Corn, and Spider Cider.

Gruesome Grape
Color: Greyish-black
Flavor: Just like grape soda
Comments: Besides the black color, nothing special here

Berried Alive
Color: light whitish-blue
Flavor: blueberry flavor, very sweet with a hint of citrus tang
Comments: Zoe & Mira’s favorite of the set

Candy Corn
Color: bright, almost flourescent yellow
Flavor: amazingly like candy corn
Comments: The flavor was dead on and I expected the waxy aftertaste from the real thing. Subtle, not overpowering flavor.

Spider Cider
Color: pale yellowish-orange, almost like iced tea
Flavor: Noticeable apple flavor, but a little overpowered by the sweetness
Comments: While still very sweet, less than the others. Michele and Michael’s favorite.

While I was testing and taking pictures, Mira insisted that we ‘experiment’ with the soda. The experiment was to mix the Candy Corn with Berried Alive.
Experiment Flavor
Color: khahki greenish
Flavor: horrid
Comments: Made Mira happy to see the new color, made me queasy drinking it
Overall, I feel that Jones Soda is making an effort here to do something different than Coke and Pepsi, taking chances with new ideas and flavors in soda pop. We’ll continue to buy and try the limited editions as they come out.
So if you want to have some fun this Halloween with the kids and need to give them a little more sugar, head down to Target and pick up four pack or two.

Potpourri

A few tidbits for Loyal Cruft Readers
Space Food Sticks
Eric Lefcowitz, Grand Poobah of the Space Food Sticks Preservation Society writes to tell me that”

Believe it or not the new Space Food Sticks are out! Chocolate and peanut butter. I thought you’d like to know it since your blog alerted so many people to the old (inferior) imported sticks. You nearly ruined me!! Nearly. Just kidding of course. Anyway the ongoing saga of bring back the fabled astro-snack continues at spacefoodsticks.com with vintage TV commercials and all sorts of fun and ephemera. Please alert the masses!

Previously I reviewed Space Food Sticks at Cruft Labs. You can see what the hub bub is about at SpaceFoodSticks.com and even order them for your own space missions.
Vox Launch
I was lucky enough to get into the beta of Vox.com a while ago and have really enjoyed it. Vox made posting videos and photos incredibly simple. I also love the Question of the Day. You can see what I was up to at cruftbox.vox.com.
Vox has now launched and you can join as well. I suggest you go sign up for a Vox account right now! Congrats to Ben, Mena, Anil, and the rest of the SixApart crew on the launch.
Craft Magazine Launch


Today the entire family went to attend the Craft Magazine Launch Party. I had given Michele a copy of Craft and she loved it.

There were stacks of Craft magazines to be had and all kinds of neat stuff including pizza and…

CRAFT CUPCAKES, which made the girls quite happy!
I got a chance to meet and chat with Mark, editor of Make Magazine, and that lead to Michele and Carla, editor of Craft, to look at Michele’s felt work and embroidery of ‘Toxic Jellyfish’. Here’s a close-up of the toxic jellyfish and also the felted skulls.
We had a good time at the launch and Michele even decided to attend Felt Club the next time it rolls around.

Significant Personal Transformation

Many weblogs dwell on the inner thoughts and feelings of individuals, allowing readers a glimpse into the psyche of the writer as they move through life. Cruft has never really been a place to talk about my life in such personal terms, mainly a place for Cruft Labs research and other whimsical thoughts. Prepare yourself for something just a little different here.
Today I write about a significant personal transformation for myself. I’ve had this issue for years but few knew about it. Only those deep into the subculture could relate to my dilemma. Even my wife was unaware of what was going on. Recently, I’ve taken the tough steps to rectify the situation and approach normalcy.
Please don’t be shocked by what I reveal here, though it may make some of you queasy.
Enough of the preamble, onto the story. It’s been a tough three weeks for me, but I’m past the worst of it now.
I’m sure surprising to many, I broke my habit of using ‘ASDX’ for movement in games and finally switched to ‘WASD’.
Yes, I can admit it freely now that I used ‘ASDX’ for movement in video games for well over five years.


For those not deep into the video game subculture, most people use the traditional ‘WASD’ to move around.

For some reason, lost in my troubled past, I began using ‘ASDX’ instead. Oh the trouble it caused…
Imagine my shame at going to E3 and not being about to pwn newbs since the ‘WASD’ default setting was in place on every game. Sneakily, I would reassign the controls and hope no one would notice my ‘problem’. I mentioned it casually to a few co-workers, hoping someone would help and see my pain, but all I got was rolled eyes and few ‘Dude, that’s just wrong.’ comments. At home, my daughters would ask about the keys and I would lie and say, “That’s simply the way it is…”
Recovery
A little over three weeks ago, a corrupted Windows registry led to me deciding to do a clean install of Windows on my desktop. As a result, I had to reinstall my games. I loaded Battlefield 2 and World of Warcraft and was ready to play. It was at this point I mustered all my courage and refused to change the key bindings. Oh, the horror of getting pwned over and over and my fingers tried to learn how to move again. Time and time again, I’d futilely hit the Q and E while getting mowed down. I really wanted to give up and give into the call of ‘ASDX’. Instead, I drank a nice glass of scotch to steel my nerves and continued to endure the pain of ‘WASD’.
Steadily I kept at it until my very muscles relearned their tasks and I began to pwn again.
Today I feel much more comfortable with my new habits and no longer want to give up and go back to ‘ASDX’. To anyone that is trapped in the world of ‘ASDX’, I can offer hope that you too can get through your issues and find some peace in ‘WASD’.
Thanks to you Loyal Cruft Readers for your support as I continue through this significant personal transformation.