stutopia.com

Using MapMyRide.com iPhone app, I was able to utilize the GPS chip and track my bike ride on April 19, I was able to log the distance and the exact path I took coming home. It’s free and pretty neat. The only downside is it used up a ton of battery. So not recommended if it’s your emergency phone. I’ll try and post my other rides when I get around to it.

• RT @jeffcannata: Wow! Disney animators were… lazy?! http://is.gd/rh9f #
• Road my bicycle around Mountains Edge and feeling pretty good about it. Need to get wifey to come with next time! http://twitpic.com/3m641 #
• RT @ryanblock: Did a little research to quantify The Oprah Effect: Twitter’s added over 1.5m new users between Friday and today. Damn. #
• @advnetlab what happened to Haggis? in reply to advnetlab #
• Why is Vegas weather so inconsistent this week? http://twitpic.com/3qehw #
• Rides are ready. Space saving ceiling hooks installed. http://twitpic.com/3qwp1 #
• @darleneho Yes, I cannot wait for this weekend! in reply to darleneho #

This latest sprint commercial is one of my favorites. It claims that 26% of the viewers of the commercial do not know what twitter is and that the most popular text message subject is diapers. All of which makes me think that these numbers are loosely based on actual data. But that’s advertising for you, right? I guess it’s the one of the first campaigns that mentions bringing the nation’s first wireless 4G network. That makes me excited as I have a small part of that working for Clearwire. Fun times!

I’ve just broken a year of being a twitter user according to twitterholic.com. Since then the top-followed twitterers have evolved from internet celebs to hollywood ones. I’d say with these two recent events, twitter has really ascended into the mainstream spotlight:

• Ashton Kutcher reached over 1 million followers [link]
• Oprah has featured twitter on her show [link]

I don’t follow these new world celebs for a couple reasons. One is they are not interesting or don’t really have anything of real interest to say. I’ve heard and can reasonably guess that some PR assistants are managing these folks’ social networking sites like facebook or myspace. My guess is that most celebs are interfacing with twitter more directly than traditional mediums. Sure, celebs are real persons too, but for some reason, their twitter feeds do not seem anymore interesting than the next person’s. The idea that a million strangers want in on this stream-of-randomness is a bizarre concept. Maybe the same driving force behind the tabloid sales drive flocks of followers to these celebs. They want whatever they can get straight from the source.

Twitter really is the delicate art and science of microblogging.  You following someone is like subscribing to their RSS feed. It’s personal.

Reason two is I believe they have hijacked a service that was once personal and have pimped it out myspace-style. I don’t even think businesses joining twitter was a disservice. In fact it proved to make some companies add a personal touch to their customer service. I feel like we have sacrificed something here when the news-media’s perception of twitter has become a followers-race. Although Ev Williams has not sold twitter to Google yet (like he did with blogger), one cannot help but feel like twitter has already sold out.

I am glad that that such a business can thrive in these times. Web 2.0, nonetheless. I guess I feel that twitter was one of those web applications that brought you closer to people and not farther away. With the twittersphere expanding out to the stars, so to speak, maybe that cozy pond feeling has been lost in an ocean.

• @preciousmt it was last minute. Next time. =) in reply to preciousmt #
• Was called “mushu” by this drunk chick who was insistent on passing out her biz cards last night. I gave her card back. #
• Today is can’t get comfortable in my office chair day for me. Just another distraction like twitter. #
• Teabaggery in Las Vegas on Sunset and Eastern http://twitpic.com/3dphd #
• @darleneho bad boy! Why did mommy give that to you? in reply to darleneho #
• RT @interop_events: Meet the engineers building the InteropNet for #Interop LV in the NOC Yearbook: http://bit.ly/17Ypv Neat! #
• I’m getting a plethora of short movie movie reviews waiting in line to return a redbox movie. *sigh* #
• RT @amazonmp3: 4/17 Friday 5: The-Dream for $5 http://bit.ly/AMP3 It must be your day Dar! #

Looking forward to calling my health benefits provider on my only day off this week (please note the hint of sarcasm), I was sorely disappointed that my Ooma phone system was down. The status tabs were blinking red on both the Hub and the Scout. I thought that my crap-connection Cox provides us had gone down again. After the fact, they posted a brief explanation of it later on their blog. It was your generic RFO with some sand-castle projections:

Rest assured that we are taking this outage very seriously. Discussions have already started on how to make the service resilient to a similar event in the future. ooma currently has one data center located in west coast. We have planned to light up a second data center in the midwest or east coast this year, and this outage has served as a stark reminder for us to get moving on that. This has also served as a good opportunity for us to re-evaluate our contingency and business continuity plans.

This makes me a little happy as I have not heard much press about my phone company. If they are, indeed, planning to add an additional data center then it would seem that the company is doing okay. You never know with these tech start-ups.

• Sweet baby Jesus…it’s been a long-ass week. So glad for weekENDS. #
• At IKEA in Covina doing a bit o shopping. http://twitpic.com/2vijc #
• Daikokuya for a late lunch. Hot broth ramen in no a/c joint was worth suffering for! #
• Waiting in line for @kogibbq http://twitpic.com/2yzi4 #
• Wait in line was 2 hours. There was a $10/person limit. We tried one of everything except for burritos. Yum! http://twitpic.com/2z1if #
• Coffee down the hatch all before I got to work today. Batteries fully charged for training today. #
• At Blue Martini right now. Wasn’t planning on drinking, but am thoroughly toasty right now. http://twitpic.com/34wrs #

• Baby got a bath. Daddy did it all by himself. http://twitpic.com/2k92e #
• RT @DannyTRS: This commercial will warm ur heart… http://bit.ly/BPkQ #
• RT @kevinrose: RT @loic: This video is priceless… http://tinyurl.com/d32yf8 maybe this satire on twitter could save john mayer #
• At UNLV today. Much has changed in 5 years. Parking has not. Student union bldg looks pretty nice. This one too http://twitpic.com/2m7v2 #
• Looking forward to the comeback of 4-day weekends! But not the 12-hr shifts. #
• Trying out Kobe sushi happy hour tonight… #

Over the past month, I’ve picked up reading a small graphic novel series named “Scott Pilgrim,” by Bryan Lee O’Malley. I’m in the middle of book 4 at the moment, and am loving it! The story is a romantic-action-comedy where video games are a superb cornerstone. When I heard there was going to be a live-action movie made based upon this story, I was estatic. When I read that Michael Cera would play the hero, Scott Pilgrim, I was completely sold. So I definitely encourage any of you with some spare time to pick these up and read em. I feel like I’m @levarburton doing my own Reading Rainbow plug, but don’t take my word for it.

• @dballecer Using an older intel mac mini on the tv and it works great! Rocking DVI to HDMI. I have yet to try boxee on it. Hulu does fine. in reply to dballecer #
• Hitting the gym. Hoping it doesn’t hit back. #
• @dballecer audio out of mac mini using 35mm-to-RCA to the receiver. in reply to dballecer #
• Going to eat at pho so 1. Num yummy! #
• I slappey de bass. I love you, man was good fun. Full of familiar akwardness it was scary. #
• Last night, when I fired up coffee grinder my son got spooked while sitting down in play area. He fell over like one of those small goats. #
• Two finger typists annoys the heck out of me (types the guy using only thumbs on his iPhone). #
• So how does going to sleep later equate to waking up earlier than usual? FTL #
• @darleneho remind me to never let him drive us ever again. Maybe for a bank heist though as he exhibits great getaway skills. in reply to darleneho #