tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495782.post-1123176401018503902005-08-04T13:26:00.000-04:002006-11-04T18:55:29.274-05:00<li> It's vacation time and what better place to go than sunny California. I'm spending the week hanging out with Jason, Shannon, Ben and Tosha. I flew in on <a href="http://www.flysong.com"target="_blank">Song Airlines</a> thanks to a great deal from <a href="http://www.priceline.com"target="_blank">Priceline</a>. <br /><br />When I got off the plane in L.A. I ran into WWF great <a href="http://www.hulkhogan.co.uk/"target="_blank">Hulk Hogan</a>. He looks the same as he did when I was a kid going to see WWF matches at the Rosemont Horizon with my dad. I guess the Hulkster is trying to make a comeback with <a href="http://www.vh1.com/shows/dyn/hogan_knows_best/series.jhtml"target="_blank">his new reality</a> show but Mackenzi put it best when she said Hulk's TV show is none more than <a href="http://www.mtv.com/onair/dyn/osbournes/series.jhtml?_requestid=123740"target="_blank">The Osbournes</a> redux (with fewer drugs/profanity so why bother watching).<br /><br />I had some monster margaritas during Happy Hour at a place called <a href="http://calendarlive.opentable.com/rest_profile.aspx?rid=2096"target="_blank">Toppers</a>, named as such because it's on the top floor of the trendy Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica. We had a nice view of the ocean and the Santa Monica / Malibu mountains. After happy hour we went over to Ben and Tosha's place for Hippy Hour, which as always was quite fun.<br /><br />Wednesday Jason and I went to the L.A. Convention Center for <a href="http://www.siggraph.org/s2005/"target="_blank">Siggraph 2005</a>, an entertainment technology expo. We saw lots of cool stuff. I even went virtual hangliding over Rio Di Janiero. We saw a screening of some animated short films. One of the films called "<a href="http://www.supinfocom-arles.fr/Films/2004/True color.wmv"target="_blank">True Color</a>" was really cool. There was also an interactive Art Gallery but I think the Emerging Technologies section was the best. They had a huge room full of people showing demos of some of the coolest new technologies. This is where I did the hangliding. There was a really neat robot from Carnegie Mellon University that we chatted with for a bit. Also this cool thing... They put a strip behind your ears and someone has a remote control. When you walk and someone turns the remote control to the left, it makes you move to the left. Kinda weird but cool. Another use of this tool was in a car racing video game. By moving / tilting your head you could control the driving of the car. There were also a lot of 3D sculpture makers. You could make a 3D image in a computer program and send it to this machine that actually molds a model out of plastic or wood or other materials that looks exactly like your computer image. There was a booth with Holographic (3d) television screens, no 3D glasses necessary. They were very impressive. We also saw something called the <a href="http://swamp.nu/projects/spore4.html"target="_Blank">"SPORE" project.</a> The idea is a Rubber Plant was bought from <a href="http://www.homedepot.com"target="_blank">Home Depot</a> who offers a 1 year replacement guarantee on all of their plants. The plant is hooked into this computer controlled environment that monitors Home Depot stock and based on the performance of the stock the plant may or may not get fed. The idea is about sustainable corporate growth, whereas if the company grows too fast the plant gets too much water and dies, if it doesn't do well enough the plant gets no water and dies. So far the project has not had a plant last more than a year and Home Depot has replaced each of their dead plants for free.<br /><br />After Siggraph we went over to Jason's friend Scott's place for a weekly poker game. We had a 2 table tournament with 15 people. I started out a little rocky and even when I had a good hand I got beat. After the break my game started picking up and when we combined tables I was still in. I managed to pull off some great hands and suckered a lot of chips out of some people. I eventually ended up 4th and got my buy-in back. My ending hand was Ace, 5 of hearts and I lost to a guy with and Ace, 9 unsuited. He pulled off a pair of 9's.Franklinnoreply@blogger.com