Well, it's about time. I was looking for the 2 train at the 14th street station and came across these signs via the L. A copy of D.C.'s wonderful subway system, these signs tell you when the train will arrive and in what direction. This is really useful because when you're standing around waiting for a device, be it an elevator or train, 3 seconds can sometimes feel like 3 minutes. I really hate elevators that don't indicate what floor they're on, which is useful information of whether I should stand and wait or just use the stairs. I remember Tom's first pComp assignment (2005), and our group (Matthew Burton and Cory Forsyth, both very cerebral) proposed to improve the subway system. Ahhh, brings back memories of passing surveys around to subway riders at the Union Square station.

Only saw these on the "L" train.

As part of OneWebDay, Matthew Burton is coordinating a Q&A session with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Dan Phiffer will be presenting ShiftSpace and Fred Benenson will be presenting Free Culture NYU on Creative Commons.

Noon-2:30pm
RSVP
721 Broadway, New York

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On the subject of wikis, under Tom Igoe's recommendation, I tried wikidot, kind of like the wiki version of Blogger. You can customize and make your own wiki without learning how to code.

This was one of my favorite sites in Hawaii. We almost missed it. We only wish we could've stayed to see the stars. It looks a bit futuristic and science fiction-like. If you go up, take a 45 minute break to get acclimated to the climate and pressure. This is suppose to be one of the tallest mountains in the world if you include sea level, 14,000 feet high. This is as close to the clouds as you can get without the window seat in an airplane.

For more photos, click here.

I just went to Digital Life on Saturday. There are some cool new products, and "wait until they come up with the next model" products. Btw, if you are going to buy and M-Audio product, you could receive 20% of all their products if you buy through Amazon.com using this discount code: MAUDIO20 by October 5th.

I really don't understand the appeal to these digital frames, and it just isn't environmentally sensitive to the use of power. I wasn't to impressed with the resolution and color of these photos. I would stick to print photographs.

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I also wasn't impressed with the Nokia knock-off of the iPhone. The N95 is still bulky, but has a 5 megapixel camera and free GPS. But don't most phones have free GPS. I think I'm going to hold on to my Blackberry Pearl for another year. And the o/s interface wasn't impressive either.

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Microsoft has a new mobile phone, which has a touch interface, but it's not as smooth as the iPhone. The os might appease PC users though. One model is quite bulky, but it is still lighter than the Nokia.

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This camera seemed to impress everyone. The size of it is similar to a mobile phone, but it takes digital video, takes 12 megapixel photos, and plays mp3's with a 3 hour battery. If only they could stick mobile capabilities. Manufactured by Panasonic. Uses interchangeable SD cards, and works on both MAC/PC os systems for a reasonable $328.

The new SIMS game looks a bit like Second Life (3D graphics):

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This is called Headplay, and it's basically a visor that you wear that plays movies from a compact flash card. Pretty pricey, $500. It is more immersive than most players, but the quality of the movie looks less stellar than iPod quality. Difficulty with focus features. It's funny when people where this, it looks like they look up. Not sure about audio, if you have to wear that separately.

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I was really excited about playing Ms. Pacman, but became quickly disenchanted playing this game on an iPod. Maybe I'm old school, and used to a joystick controller, but I couldn't get into this game. The circular sensor gives this game an awkward feel. Even up, down, right, left arrows would have given a lot more satisfying experience. Maybe it's better on a mobile phone, like Nokia.

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I was pretty impressed with the hardware design of "Xyber Technologies Fan-less Cooling System." The electrical components are embedded in a gigantic heat sink, and there are metal tubes to carry the heat away from hotter chips. The only thing is, will users get used to leaving their computer or stereo systems on, using more energy? The rep did say they left all four demos on since Thursday to prove their point. I can imagine several ways of carrying heat away from high-powered LED lights.

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Novint Falcon is a 3D console joystick. The x and z-axis movement was pretty impressive. Slightly uncomfortable, but Nick really liked it. Maybe it's a girl/boy difference.

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WowWee robot moves pretty smoothly, and the controls are just as smooth. Was going to take video of it, but I ran out memory. I could see how kids could get engaged with technology playing with this bot.

My friend Andrew Famiano just sent me this link... option for a faster phone (that's what we've been waiting for—speculation that this will have a 600MHz processor, just like one of the second generation of PCs. Hope it comes out before next September when my contract for the Blackberry Pearl ends.

post from BoyGenius blog

Well, reserve online. This system is like the Zip car, but for parking spaces instead of cars. Found the ad for this on the subway. Not sure if it's mobile-compatible. The video demonstration is helpful, and be aware of fee for oversized vehicles, which I don't think in included in the initial search results. The subway ad promotes theater parking, $10 for up to 10 hours, so maybe look for parking in midtown around 42nd street.

Here's the link: http://weparknewyork.com

For more photos, check out my Flickr account.

Touch screens and credit card machines implemented in New York cabs. This system allows you to see your route, watch the news, and pay the fare with your credit card with pre-calculated options for tip (nice option for people who have to write this expense as a tax-deduction instead of collecting receipts).

For more photos, click here.

WOW! $1.5B for 10% ownership of Facebook, which will make Facebook worth $15 billion. Google and Microsoft battling for 10% ownership. Who will win?

Anyway, I just added the Google News app. It's pretty cool. You can either choose from a set of topics or enter your own keywords. We'll see how often it refreshes. I had an issue with the "Yahoo & Google Hot Trends" app. It didn't seem to refresh often enough or those people are still the current trend. I'm going to note that Yahoo posts "National Boss Day" and Google posts "deborah kerr." I'll check tomorrow. Del.icio.us and Flickr apps pose these same issues.

Oops, just checked and the Yahoo & Google Hot Trends app is current. Deborah Kerr died. She was in The King and I, great movie.

:(

I tried this new hand dryer in the women's restroom at the AMC theaters on 42nd street. The sign read that this was economical (didn't use that much heat) and hygienic (and I'm guessing that you don't have to press the button to turn it on, clearly for people with OCD, but then what do they do when they touch the door handle?)

I would wait to buy Leopard. Apparently they released it on Friday, and they didn't have tech support on Saturday.

According to Nick:

Apple:Leopard::Microsoft:Vista

Glad I didn't buy it and install it. Nick has to reinstall all of his programs again, and reconfigure his Ruby on Rails. Almost a 2 day process. I think they need to realize that people's time is worth $$$. Wow, I'm becoming disenchanted in with Apple.

Last December I went to the Apple store because I had Apple Care, and I distinctly remember the woman standing next to me who brought her laptop in to get if fixed. She admitted to the "Apple Geniuses" that she might have spilled some coffee on it, and ten minutes later, the Apple Genius voided her Apple Care. Her computer was less than a year old, and she purchased Apple Care at the time of her purchase (learned from her experience to wait to buy Apple Care after the first year). Then the Apple Genius proceeded to go on with a story about how another guy brought his computer in, and they found a whole Dorito chip in the keypad, which I didn't think was helping his situation with this woman. Then she took out her iPod Shuffle, and asked him to look at it. And he started to ask these questions like "do you use a case when you exercise with this?" because if your sweat affects this Shuffle , he has to void the warranty on that as well. And she said "yes," but he mentioned there were rust marks. I could tell this lady was getting really irate.

I haven't bought any Apple products since DVD Studio Pro 4 came out. I had DVD Studio Pro 2, and there was a file that was consistently working until 4.0 came out, and then all of a sudden when I wanted to burn it, that file had an error. When I tested that file on someone who had DVD Studio Pro 4, it worked. I thought it was a sneaky way to force people to buy the new version. Anyway, I think Apple has grown so big that they're starting to neglect their customers.

Poor Nick, he's starting to bang his computer.

Yay! They finally updated my Scrabulous stats on Facebook.

I've been consistently playing this game online for 2 months, and I haven't gotten tired of it. I have multiple one-on-one games open with many different friends. At first, I lost a lot of games, but now I'm starting to understand some strategies of the game, like certain letters command more points or certain tiles will double your points, etc. At one point, they weren't updating my stats and points because I wanted my wins to reflect, so I wrote to Rajat Agarwalla and Jayant Agarwalla, the game designers, and they apologized because it was some kind of server issue. I would like to explore other games on Facebook, such as chess and poker, but this game really sucks you in.

My advice is never play a copy editor or column editor for money.

In this new age, of "stickiness" (read about this term in Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point) is more important than clicks, I celebrate these apps.

Love these new apps. I never got into blog aggregators, but I really like Google Reader. The interface looks similar to the gmail interface so it's really easy to scan through relevant articles. There's an auto-feature that after you click on an entry, the entry drops so you can read more of the summary, then it'll mark it as read. If you want to read the rest of the article, there's a link that will open the article up as a separate tab. The one thing that's fabulous is that you can share feeds. I haven't tried that yet, but I hope it's less cumbersome than opening up my gmail account, searching for an email address, copying and pasting into the form box, and sending the article. Hopefully Google Reader addresses these issues. It's like for:anne tags in Del.icio.us, but this is for rss feeds/subscriptions/articles (?) Oh well, sharing is great, and if there's away not to clog my email, even better.

Also a plus, there are NO ADS, YAY!!! We'll see how long that lasts, but I hope it stays this way because ads are extremely distracting when you want to READ, my $0.02.

Love these apps in Facebook, Google Trends and Google News. Google News is fabulous because you can personalize news feeds by keywords.

Like the content of Google Trends, however it doesn't update/refresh automatically when I login to my profile page. I would probably read it more if it did.

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Tinyurl.com is pretty brilliant. It shortens the long url and gives you a short one with their domain name in it. This tool is becoming more and more helpful, as URLs get longer and longer. This is more helpful when sending email to people who are confused when they copy and paste text-wrapped links.

Can Yahoo! compete with Facebook? I'm not sure if their site offers any novel uses for "networking." Here's the article. If you want an invite, go to this link. I'm not networked out, since I just joined Doostang (a combination of FB, LinkedIn, Monster), but I don't want to join if it's going to be an exact replica of Facebook, which seems like what Sean P. Aune is saying. I'll pass for now.

So far, I really like Doostang. I'm reading more of the discussions. So far some interesting topics are "how to obtain a venture capital technology job" and "seeking your opinion for two job offers." The jobs offered on Doostang are targeted for business people, but they're higher-skilled jobs as oppose to Monster, such as "buyer for some major retail store" or senior analyst positions, all requiring MBA's. Some of these jobs require you to be in some kind of group, which requires you to add 20 friends to your network, which seems to be a bit of a paradox (since the community felt the small world network). Anyway, I have yet to explore this site.

A blog aggregator to their tech section on their site. I wonder how many clicks their getting, if any. I'm not sure if I'll use this tool yet, since I'm subscribed to newsletters and using Google Reader, which pretty much does the same thing, except I get all my tech and business, design and art news from the NY Times, Los Angeles Times and other blogs. Second, would I add my subscription to BlogRunner? Probably not, since most of the stories in tech and business from the NY Times overlap. I don't need a third subscription to overlap. LESS IS MORE. There are a lot of blog aggregators out there, but maybe they're trying to tap into the market of business execs that don't know if blog aggregators exist. My take on that, is that you're late, and you should focus your energies on retail on a slower market.

Really enjoyed reading the comments on this story from the ReadWriteWeb site. I agree with the first commenter (point taken), the second one goes on a superfluous rant and at the very end, plugs his blog (blah blah blah).

Aside from Mash, Yahoo created Kickstart, which is kind of a little bit like Facebook and LinkedIn. I filled out my profile, but now what? How do I interact with others?

Aside from the subways, I'm assuming this is probably one of the last pay phones in this city, since almost everyone has a mobile phone. In subways, there is little cellphone reception, so I can see the need for it I guess.

On my way to the 4 train on Lexington and 42nd Street, I walked through Helmsley tunnel, and saw these ads. Interesting how they piece together four parts, and it's run on some pulley system. Didn't see it run though (weekend?) but it may not be animate anyway.

It's THAT difficult to find pillows, believe it or not...

Just recently, I had to shop for pillows, so I bought four from Macy's that were branded Ralph Lauren. I must say these pillows were awful. Every morning I would wake up, and all four were on the floor. I was going to return them, but couldn't find the receipt because I probably threw it away, intending to keep these pillows.

I visited Macy's web site to search for information on their return policy. Low and behold, they have a fabulous one. All you have to do is go to their store, and they scan your credit card and your item to find the transaction. So you, don't need a receipt. The downside of shopping in-store is that they don't have the variety that you see on the web or customer reviews, although when I was reading the reviews, all the products seem to be positive, even for the styrofoam-like pillows from RL, which seem suspect. They were also having a promotion that if you write a review, you win a $1000 gift card:

First there was spin in the news, and now there is spin in reviews
So I decided to login and write a review. First of all, it seems that ANYONE can login or sign up to write a review. The problem is that people who didn't buy a product can review it anyway, which to me seems like, either the brands can hire people to write positive reviews about their own products, or people who want to win that $1000 gift card are trying to increase their chances of winning it. The difference in Amazon reviews is that you can only review a book after you purchase it. Of course there are some authors out there that promote themselves by buying their own book and writing a positive review about themselves under a different screen name. I tried cross-referencing products from Macy's, Overstock.com, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Linens-N-Things, and Costco to Amazon's reviews, but this was extremely difficult because some of the brands sell the same product under different names and change the product just slightly to appease their retailers (e.g. thread count, fill power, "ecodown," feathers, etc.) Some manufacturers trademark their process or design, so you don't even know what they're really selling (e.g. confusing illustrations) or what the product is named at say Macy's versus Linens N Things (e.g. "The Hotel Collection" or "Hotel Down Pillow"), which look similar except for the label on the bottom right corner and the price. Case in point: Kaboodle (a shopping community where people recommend and discover new things), and although I was able to find some pillows, most recommendations seem to be about self-promotion (e.g. Designer recommends their designed pillows) and targeted at the youth market, where sleep is less important.

Early on, I had Googled "nytimes, pillow, review," and wasn't able to find any articles, but when I changed my search from "nytimes, pillow, recommendations," I was lucky enough to find this review by the New York Times (2004). Ms. Joyce Cohen wrote about the same frustrations in shopping for a pillow that I had. I ended up going with DownFactory.com because of the owner's knowledge that was stated in the review and that's what Ms. Cohen ended up going with. I will later post if Ms. Cohen's review is current. I checked every link mentioned in her review, and most are current except for this site, idfb.org (acronym for International Down and Feather Bureau, but is now a parked site).

I was also convinced with DownFactory because their designs were used in a couple of Olympics and because they've been in business since in 1932.

ADDENDUM:
Okay, I just received two pillows, and was kind of worried about them, when I saw it arrive in a small box.

Luckily, they have a warranty that when a pillow is squeezed, it can only be reduced to 20% of their former size.

So far, they are comfy.

I saw a lecture by Ms Sparacino at the Center for Architecture. Her presentation, ‘Interactive Media Environments & Architectural Machines’ uses sensors and camera-tracking to make physical spaces interactive.

She worked with a lot of famous architects, and was responsible for creating the technology infamous in the scene from Minority Report. More about her work on my design conferences wiki/notes and my Flick'r account.

PETA does a spoof on the Olsen twins. On the PETA site, they are the Trollsen twins, Hairy-Kate and Trashley, yikes! You can dress them in fur outfits, persuade someone not to wear fur (by sending them a prewritten email), watch a reappropriated video of Full House on the Tanner Family Crisis, buy t-shirts, and download free banners. Interesting that they are targeting the youth market. I wonder what happens if they do stop wearing fur, who will they go after next? Now all they need is a Facebook app.

I just flew on Virgin America, and was pretty impressed with their cool technology. They have a new media system catered to the youth and the hipsters.

1. There safety video is an amusing animation, which is slightly sarcastic in humor, fun to watch, even twice (JFK<>LAX).

2. While some airlines have customizable screens, what is really refreshing is that you're not limited to the conventional channels like CNN, which is also offered. You can watch some indie shows, like Current TV, clips from Boing Boing or cable shows Dexter and The Tudors.

3. Another option is to buy a movie. You have a choice from the new releases, indie and foreign films. I didn't see a lot of people use this feature because they were either watching a movie on their laptops or iPods. The people sitting next to me brought their own portable DVD player and headphone jack splitter.

4. Not that I'm a parent or anything, but if you are, and you're worried about your kids watching violent or explicitly sexual content (e.g. while watching Top Model, VH1 broadcasted some lengthy ads that may be sexually explicit, Rock of Love), you can control that here.

5. You can order food with your credit card. While some airlines encourage their passengers to bring exact change or have their passengers wait while the flight attendants find change, Virgin America has a system where you can order food and pay with your credit card. This is such a convenience. The other nice thing about this display is that you can watch continue to watch your show, while you select your food. I would say to order early because when I tried to order potato chips during the latter half of the flight, they were all out (dynamic/real-time tracking). I watched a lot of people use this feature.

6. This system records what shows and songs you listen to, so let's say if you dozed, and wanted to continue watching the shows, you can easily find them here.

7. Interesting controller. One side has the controllers, similar to a remote, just in case people are timid with the touch screen interface. The side of the controller has a magnetic scanner for your credit card, and the back is a full key pad to facilitate chatting between seats, and browsing the internet (not yet working). The keypad feels slightly awkward to type on because of it's elongated shape, and you have to hold down the blue button while simultaneously typing the symbol (I wasn't used to this because my BlackBerry shift button stays put).

8. Another cool feature is the chat between seats. At first, I really didn't understand why anyone would use this because one of the journalist on Current TV boast about meeting that cute dude in aisle 8. And actually the journalist tried several times getting people to chat with her. When I tried the chat room, and I was the only one there. On the flight back, I happen to bump into a friend of mine who was sitting in a different row, and we chatted for awhile. I don't think there is a way of chatting while simultaneously watching a show, but anyway it's a novel feature.

9. I'm not sure if this is a feature yet (multi-player), but it would've been cool to be able to play a game with my friend. I tried playing the clown game three times, but then had to reboot it 3x as well (at least they use Linux). The only thing that I thought was awkward about the game controller is the way you have to press the red button to "start" and the green button to "escape." Other than that, it looks pretty slick.

10. Last but not least, Virgin America promoting cool brands like Google, and Method soap (found in the bathroom). Also, their design of icons have that "web 2.0" aesthetic.

For more larger resolution pix, checkout my Flickr site later. Btw, you can only check in one bag, any additional bags cost $10, which is still relatively cheap, even for an oversized weirdly-shape package.

No more tracking scores with paper, this interface keeps track of all the scores of all players and shows a 3-dimensional replay with even a humorous graphic if you knock all the pins down.

I was pretty impressed with how progressive ABC network was with their broadcast of the New Hampshire Debates. In an effort to get the youth involved, they integrated Facebook into their program. At first, I thought it was because Microsoft owned NBC that they were involved with Facebook, but I don't think they own ABC. Nevertheless, I watched both parties address issues. My only criticism was that the moderators should have asked the same questions to all candidates of both parties, even though their intention was to bring up questions that posed weaknesses to each of the parties. Anyway, it was interesting to watch the Facebook polls on television, a convergence with traditional media with the web.

For some reason, I thought Ron Paul presented the strongest arguments, and I thought Mitt Romney appeared superficial. I agreed with Bill Richardson's strong stance on Pakistan, and second Hillary Clinton's views on foreign policy. In any case, my vote will probably go to the candidate who best addresses the national health care issue, and issues that affect aging Baby Boomers. That's because my mom is paying ~$800.00 per month for insurance, which seems pretty excessive.

When I was in San Francisco, I just wanted to do the offbeat and non-conventional tourist activities like visit the fortune cookie factory, the Exploratorium, and Audium (found in Fodor's under off-beat activities).

Audium is a theatre of sound-sculptured space.

I'm going to attempt to describe this experience. You walk into this space and take a seat with 40 other people. And the light dims to complete darkness, and Stan Shaff, who is the composer, plays random sounds of various objects and environment, and electronic sounds that scatter throughout the space through 136 speakers. It reminds me of when you're laying on the beach, and you can hear the sounds of the surroundings around you (i.e. kids playing, conversations, crashing waves, the water guy selling water, etc.)

Anyway, it was a one of a kind experience, and I would recommend it to anyone. Also after, check out the Stan's setup. They look analog with a lot of knobs, which is pretty cool for any electronics guru or techie. Also, after the performance, there's a Q&A session with Stan.

Audium
1616 Bush Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
Friday and Saturday, starts at 8:30pm
BUT get there at 8:00pm (there's free coffee in the lounge so you can chat with your friends), they don't take anyone who's late.
Admission: $15

Compositions and Performace by Stan Shaff
Equipment Design by Doug McEachern

I recently went to Kshitij, a 3-day conference that is organized by students. Program is similar to ITP, but heavier on the engineering side. Here are some student projects:

Braille Keyboard

Networked Vending Machine

Agriculture Device

Wireless Military Bot

Robotix is a popular competition among IIT Kharagpur students. There are 390 entries, and over the course of three days, the 390 are eliminated to 32, then 2, and then 1. Most of the competitors stay up overnight tweaking their bots.

This parking structure is converted to an all-night bot lab.

Students tweak their bots on this practice route.

HP sponsors the preliminaries.

The finals...

The terrain (e.g. water, sand) is revealed on the same day of competition. The bots are timed on 2 laps with a 15 second pit stop in between the laps.

Also at Kshitij, Nick Sears exhibited UltraOrb, which was his thesis project:

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Globe4D exhibited was this globe where you can move through a fourth dimension, time. Makes learning about climate change engaging.

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Pyromania is a really amazing Israeli dancing team that uses fire in their acts.

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Jimmy Wales (one of the most influential people) of Wikipedia introduced the Wikia.

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Magician Jason Latimer performed some unique tricks using laser technology.

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Astrophysicist, Professor and Author of The Physics of Star Trek, Lawrence Krauss. Interesting theories that challenge some of Einstein's theories.

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Dr. Eric Drexler, an expert in the field of nanotechnology, encourage the use of sensors and computing in materials (i.e. roads that are composed of solar panels).

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Robogarage exhibited robots that move almost as smooth as humans.

I attended this conference because of Bill Buxton and Sigi Moeslinger, and was amazed with their presentations. I was also impressed with Malcolm McCullough, who teaches at the University of Michigan, and spoke of his research with culture and ubiquitous computing.

I also enjoyed a presentation on "fieldwork and sketching" from a Ph.D. candidate, who interned at Intel, Matt Jones who founded Dopplr, Regine DeBatty from "We Make Money Not Art," Alan Cooper ("An Insurgency of Quality") as well as another one of his rep who talked about his processes in design, and Dan Brown, who lectured on Concept Models. I hope to put my notes, but it might take a long time to transcribe. In the meantime, please check out my flickr photos.

This was a phenomenal exhibition. I'm going to it a third time, and even bought the catalog, which is beautifully designed by Irma Boom (if you like typography, check out the cover and title page).

Lots of ITP alumni and adjunct faculty, and a lot of current information visualization designers like Brad Paley, Sep Kamvar, Jonathan Harris and Jason Wishnow.

ITPers:
Lisa Strausfeld and James N. Sears, NY Times cover
Dimitri Tyler, Hypothetical Drawings
Dan Phiffer and Mushon Zer-Aviv's pcomp project: Atlas Gloves
Christian Schmidt (ITP adjunct faculty) and Lisa Strausfeld's OLPC's operating system, "Sugar"

Probably more ITPers' works that are not mentioned here.

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Artists/Designers (left to right): Sep Kamvar, Jonathan Harris and James N. Sears

Paul Graham boiled it down to an analogy with food and explanation of the economies of scale:

An obstacle downstream propagates upstream. If you're not allowed to implement new ideas, you stop having them. And vice versa: when you can do whatever you want, you have more ideas about what to do. So working for yourself makes your brain more powerful in the same way a low-restriction exhaust system makes an engine more powerful.

Mediocre hires hurt you twice: they get less done, but they also make you big, because you need more of them to solve a given problem.

In other words, work at a smaller company or your own start up. To read the whole blog post, click here.

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His post about "How To Do Philosophy" is funny, as it reminds me of some people who fit the stereotype.

Yesterday, a friend of mine invited me to join a pool for March Madness. I've never heard of March Madness, let alone ever watched a basketball game, so I decided to check this event out.

To begin with, CBS's Bracket Manager allows you to feel confident in making your decisions. When you mouse over each school, there is a call-out box that gives you odds and a little blurb-summary about the team (e.g. all team members are freshmen or the team has a new coach). And you just pick for each region, until you get down to 4, then 2, then 1.

So when I logged in to my fb account, CBS already asked if I wanted to add their app. The primary profile page (i.e. first image below) lists the top 5 favorite and despised teams. Fortunately, you can see how many fans, but the flip-side is that 3 out of the 6 schools are on both lists: favorite and despised. They are named by the team and not school, but the brackets are by state, not team, so you do have to click on the link, which takes you to the school/team's page. Each team/school has their own page (i.e. second image below), which lists all team members, stats, scoreboard, schedule, trash talk, etc. Unfortunately I wasn't able to brag about my brackets because of technological difficulties (maybe a broken link between CBS brackets with fb account?)

This page updates dynamically to tell you which schools played, which schools won, and even a photo of some plays.

I found out that Barack Obama picked North Carolina to win the NCAA championship on this page.

If you're involved in a pool, you can see dynamic updates as to who is in the lead, the estimated best score, etc.

How has this changed my behavior? Well, I spent about a half an hour trying to transfer my brackets from my account in CBS to my fb account. Then I was simultaneously watching two or three games at a time, and refreshing my brackets and standings page. I've been looking up how I could HAVE increased my odds (Vegas bets--this is too late, of course because these brackets closed at noon Thursday).

And LAST, more importantly, I am engaged. This photo is just...

I've seen so far is KÀ. One of Nick's clients recommended this show, and it is fantastic. I've seen Mystère, which was impressive, but KÀ is probably the best I've seen so far. The stage rotates, so the dancers look like they are climbing a wall while dancing at the same time. The set design, and tech is amazing (which took approximately 2 years to develop), but what makes KÀ better that some of the other shows is the story. It kind of has a manga look, and it's a story about a brother and sister who are separated. This is the newest of the Cirque Du Soleil shows, and is playing at the MGM Grand. I also recommend getting the documentary, which isn't sol on Amazon. It's about the making and production of this show.

This will probably be the next one I see. I hear it's in water. Btw, we saw poker pros Daniel Negreanu (@ Bellagio) and Phil Ivy (@ The Mirage).

I would skip the Mirage (since they're renovating), and stay at the Flamingo. If you get a gold card, you can bypass the long registration line (probably about a 20-minute wait) and get a free upgrade to their spacious suite on the highest floor, which had a view (approximately ~600 square feet).

We paid $150 for this room, and it came with a king-size bed, and a queen-sized sofa bed. The redesign reminds me of the Standard Hotel in Los Angeles, where you would have a unique experience. For instance, the neon pink lighting in the bathroom. There's even a television embedded in the bathroom mirror, so if you want to take a bath while watching your favorite movie, you can do so here.

There were two flat screen televisions (rarely used) and an empty refrigerator for cake or BYOB (for college students on spring break). Prior to staying here, we stayed at the Mirage, and incurred a $40 charge just for opening and closing the fridge 5 times, and we didn't drink anything. We just used it to store our cake. Anyway, I really like how their rooms are catered for the youth, and how they thought very hard about who would stay there. I can visualize a bachelor party or spring break, f-u-n!

For $3.00, you can charge your phone for 30 minutes. Found this kiosk/vending machine at the airport in Vegas. I've seen free chargers at LAX advertised by Samsung or Sony. Owned by the company renting out luggage carts.