TAM4 stands for The Amaz!ng Meeting 4 and it’s going on right now (January 26th to 29th) at the Stardust in Vegas. It’s essentially a skeptics convention put on by the JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation).

Guests include James Randi (of course), Penn & Teller, the Mythbusters, Phil Plait, Murray Gell-Mann, Ellen Johnson… a huge range of people that I’d love to meet and listen to speak.

I wasn’t paying attention to when TAM4 was scheduled, but I REALLY wanted to go. I thought it was much later in the year. I’m seriously bummed. I’m going next fucking year. >.<

dammit.

Ok, I delved into Second Life briefly about 8 or 9 months ago and found it interesting. I thought it had potential. The concept is great. However, there wasn’t much draw to stay there without other people I knew in the game…

Side note: Game isn’t the right term for Second Life. It’s the closest thing to a metaverse in existence, so far.

… but now Eric is in Second Life, and has quite a bit of building going on, so I’m back in and looking around. If you happen to be in SL, friend me or send an IM or something. I’m Zero Division there. Right now, I’m still messing with my image but Eric said “you’ve got an undertaker of the devil thing going on” and so I know I’m on the right track. heh.

It’s what I call a good day.

We got up to the city and parked at the Metreon (which will be my place to park for MacWorld from now on, or at least as long as it’s at Moscone) and decided to have lunch at Sanraku (that’s a yelp review link, join the site, be one of us, gabba gabba hey, we accept you, one of us) before heading over to the show. That meant sushi, nigiri and some excellent Suishin sake served in masu boxes.

A note on masu: If you like-a da sake, then this is the best way to have it, I think. The server comes out with saucers and places them on the table, then she places these boxes (called masu, in case you haven’t grokked that yet) on the saucers. Then the fun part begins when she begins to fill the box; and then overfill the box so that it flows into the saucer. (Apparently there’s a way to do this with sake glasses and smaller boxes as well. Shown here.)

Then we headed over to the MacWorld Expo and met up with Annette’s friend Chris and chatted briefly before hitting the exhibit hall floor. The most impressive things this year came from Apple, in my not so humble opinion, but there was other cool stuff to see too. Of note, the number of cars (photocred:ericriceofericricedotcom) at this years show doubled from last year. It also seemed like there were considerable more bags and iPod accessories.

We were checking out the iSkins booth. Their eVo iPod cover is really pretty cool. Annette ordered one of their cases a while ago, but it hadn’t arrived yet. While she was lamenting this fact, Eric came up and took a picture of the back of her head and offered props on the thoroughness of her dye-job. Heh. So, we wandered around with Eric for a while until we decided we needed a beer before we went to stand in line for TWiT. (I wasn’t impressed with a lot of stuff, but I also realize that I managed to somehow miss the Games section as well as the EFF booth. :( )

We were on the waiting list for the live taping of the This Week In Tech podcast. It’s one of my favorite podcasts and if you’re into tech at all and haven’t heard it, you should check it out. Fortunately we got in, because they filled up the Zeum theatre to max capacity. I’m happy we went. The taping was a lot of fun. Leo Laporte, Amber Mac, John C. Dovorak and Patrick Norton were all in rare form. The panel was about twice that, but those were the key players for me.

Then it was dinner at some place I can’t remember and a drive home. I crashed on my couch at around 23:15 I think. MacWorld is draining. I have to spend the day in a crowd of people and bite my tongue a lot. heh.

Off to MacWorld up in SF, shortly. If any o’ youse are going up today, give the cell a ring.

“What’s an Intel chip doing in a Mac? A whole lot more than it’s ever done in a PC.” ;)

Howard Stern says there’s no content for the iPod. Specifically, he says, “I believe that people will pay for radio– it’s everything iPod can’t be. IPod [sic] can’t give you content and we can.” Eric, Kevin, Leo, Swoopy, Keith… time to pack it up. There’s nothing to see here. Move along. Oh, and take Soccergirl with you.

Hmm. I don’t think Eric Rice believes him. My nearly full 60g video iPod doesn’t believe him either.

Oh, Howard. I’m a fan, but I have to say that sometimes your grasp on technology and trends is a couple years behind. How long did it take you to actually embrace the web? When did HowardStern.com launch? Anyways, don’t take aim at podcasting (because you’re not going to be able to hit a million targets) you should be more worried about terrestrial radio like Free FM. Cuz they’re aiming at YOU.

Pedantic Gripe: The iPod can’t give you content… it’s a device, not a medium. YOU give the iPod content and it serves it up all nice and pretty for you.

No, seriously. Stop reading it. I’d hate to annoy you, accidentally.

See, that’s cuz it’s now a federal crime to annoy people on the intarweb.

2005 seemed to be the year of Social Networking sites and Web 2.0. Lots of cool sites popped up (or rose from obscurity) and some of them were even useful. (Digg and del.icio.us being my two favorite examples.)

A new social networking site has come to my attention: Yelp.

It’s a simple, yet brilliant use of the social networking concept. It’s just reviews of local businesses (of all sorts) but the reviews are written by your friends and other local folk. So you can easily find out about cool places and spots to avoid. It’s like citysearch meets digg meets myspace. Well, without the myspace.

Anyways, there are lots of people there already and tons of reviews… but it will only get better the more people that join (especially the more friends you have that join) so go sign up! And find me at my very own special URL (r3v.yelp.com) and add me as a friend.

Rarely do I invite people to a site, or pimp one, as much as this… I really think this could be a very useful tool.

This is the funniest thing I have seen all year. Ok, so we’re only a few days in… but still. Follow the link, then click the WATCH THIS MOVIE link. Go, it’s worth it.

The music is fantastic. You can get a copy of just the song here.

It’s been storming here off and on for a couple of days. However, since early this morning the winds have become fierce. Cable (TV & Internet, both) went out once already this morning. Fortunately it’s back for the time being…

But at any rate, if I’m chatting with ya on IM or in WoW or something and disappear… well, my apartment building may have gone airborne and snapped the cable.

Update: And now the power is flickering too. >.<

We went and saw Chronicles of Narnia last week. Completely awesome. If you’ve any fondness in your heart for that book from reading it so long ago, this movie will not let you down.

The director, whom I’ve never heard of before now, really delivered. (Andrew Adamson, in case you were wondering. And it seems that this, plus Shrek 1 and 2 makes up the entirety of his directing resume.)

The effects, especially on Aslan, were stunning. Very well done and nearly all the animals were perfect. Liam Neeson voicing Aslan was also perfect.

Tilda Swintno, the woman who played the Ice Queen, was perfect. C.S. Lewis may have invented the Ice Queen, but I have to give Disney props… they know how to do villains. She was evil and regal. (With a wardrobe befitting a classic Disney animated villain.)

That brings me to my last point, the movie is pretty dark and scary. Some of the scenes can be pretty intense. One couple with a very small child had to leave the theatre when he proclaimed the movie too scary. The girl next to us buried her face in her dad’s arm a couple of times, but stuck it out. Those with kids should keep that in mind when going.

But do go.