Quirky and Inventions/Product Designs

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I recently submitted a product design of mine to Quirky.com and have realized that it’s not quite the end-all service that it claims to be. Here’s what I have gathered:

No matter how good or bad your product, it has to be a power strip or a container. Has it been done before? Doesn’t matter… unless they don’t understand your product’s value, then they will use that excuse as to why they can’t produce it.

Does it matter that your design would sell a billion units? No. What matters is that you get granny to vote for it… then it matters that you may be up against another power strip.

Speaking of power strips, my design was actually something akin to a power strip. I figured I had a chance with them right out of the gate. Well…. I found that their site doesn’t work well on the stock android browser (at least for Gingerbread), so no one who had a slightly older phone was able to vote with their phones. (Who uses a big computer anymore? Me.  LOL) So, there went half the votes. Android is now the biggest operating system out there, so… who is in charge of their web design? It isn’t like it takes much code to straighten it out, either. So, my opinion of their technical savvy went out the window.

I luckily got the required number of votes. Thought I was in the door! But wait… then they called me. The person with whom I talked to didn’t understand it. What?? They were in NYC… ahhh… a sliding glass (pet door-esque) insert isn’t something most NYC’ers would know exists. They don’t have a lot of balconies there… or backyards for that matter.

So, after I spoke with this person, I still thought I had a foot in the door. Nope. In three days, they had discussed it and decided to go with a box to put pencils in. Whaaaa? Actually, I don’t know what they went for that week, but they said to me that “there are quite a few items on the market that deal with outdoor power supplies. WHATTTTT?? A company that keeps making different versions of the same “new products” thinks the market is saturated with something????

So, here’s what I do think is good about their “service”… You at least have a major place to show your design and claim it as yours.

Here is the mock-up I put on Quirky:

http://www.quirky.com/invent/618308

I got some really good feedback and lots of people stating they would buy one… especially here in South Florida!

So I am going to try to make one myself soon. I will update when (and if) I do.

Rush Hour Law “8956” Broward County I-95

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Every day between 8-9am and between 5-6pm, the traffic on I-95 in Broward County is horrendous! I have noticed a lot of the problems come from trucks that have 3 or more axles.  They either cannot keep up with traffic, or they are backing up traffic and in a lot of cases, they cause people to wreck because they are trying to go around them.

So, I propose that Broward County enact a law that states that all vehicles that have more than 2 axles must pull off I-95 between the hours of 8-9am and 5-6pm, Monday-Friday. That’s why I am calling it the “8956” law.

Less traffic during rush hours.

Fewer accidents.

This would decrease most people’s commute time as well.

Patio Power – My New Product Idea

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I have been sitting on this idea for a long time, and decided to try to get it “out there” today. Similar to pet doors that you insert into sliding glass tracks, this is a power strip embedded in the insert. It has USB plugs along with outlets.

Vote for it on Quirky.com!

http://www.quirky.com/invent/618308

It only takes a few minutes to vote and I need at least 200 votes! 🙂

Get The Hell (Out Of My Life) – My New Single

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So I got on a Cocorosie kick a few weeks ago and had them playing on a loop. Near the end of my fascination with them, I realized that my demos sounded similar to some of their older stuff. Not in melody/music, but in the way they were recorded, very raw. I decided that I was going to start releasing my old demos as is, without the constant attempts at having someone update them. Here is one, this is just the vocals (all three voices are mine – no autotune, either) and the beat. I have been using this song to try to find musicians who would update my old stuff.

Recipe for Bob Hope Nachos

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Bob Hope was a legendary entertainer and to honor him (and appease all those Girls Will Be Girls fans) I have created this recipe for Bob Hope Nachos. Enjoy!

Tortilla chips. the white ones, since his humor was geared towards white america.

since he loved golf, meatballs added.

he entertained the troops, so there must be a war in your stomach. add in some hot peppers.

he was known for his nose, so add something that is pungent. how about some garlic?

top it all off with cheese and gravy (in honor of Varla).

 

 

Netflix’s Arrested Development 5 Stars!

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I, just like many other people, have been waiting for this new season of Arrested Development since the live ending of the last season. So I chose to sign up for the free trial and devour the whole season within a week. After about 3 episodes, I would have given it 4 out of 5 stars, but then a stroke of brilliance in the filming and writing hit me and I had to bump it up to 5 out of 5!

First, my opinion of netflix. I was actually a member back in 2002 and enjoyed their home delivery service. I eventually cancelled when a few discs were lost in the mail or I no longer had the time to watch the movies I rented. A few years back, I tried their streaming service but they didn’t have many good movies to stream. So I didn’t expect much when signing up, other than the new season of Arrested Development. Looking through the streaming movies, it looks like the same old indies and tv, so I am not really impressed. I will have to congratulate the individual who suggested to the higher ups that a new season of Arrested Development would bring in thousands of new people. Whoever you are, thank you immensely!
Now for AD. This is season four and if you are unfamiliar with AD, this show is a twisted comedy filled with intelligent, fast humor. A prime example from the first episode: Lucille (the matriarch of the family) and her adult daughter, Lindsey, are on a boat watching another boat go by that has flamboyant gay men on it. The daughter says, “I have that same blouse…” and the mother quips, “It looks better on him.” The show is filled with surprises and tongue-in-cheek stabs, but in the end, it’s always the same message-no matter how bad you think your family is, they are still your family and you should love them. A little history on the show-season three, the last season, was their last season as they were notified they were going to be cancelled. So, they wrote into the script little hints at Showtime and HBO to pick them up. Well, maybe not so little hints… BIG hints. This was part of the intelligent humor.

The final episode was promised to be a live ending and here’s what they did(according to my wavering memory): all throughout the show, they kept saying, “stay tuned for the live ending”… pretty soon, it was so close to the end that you started wondering when it was actually coming. At the last minute, the show had someone ask a question to Lucille and they went live and she said, simply, “yes”. The live cast and crew went crazy with applause. Classic!

The new season started out with a feeling of seeing old friends. Surprisingly, the ENTIRE cast was back! Even Liza Minnelli! I thought for a few minutes that Lindsey (Portia de Rossi(sp?)) was someone different, but it appears that Ellen has been starving her. I was concerned at her weight but delighted that they mentioned it and took jabs. I didn’t find too many laugh out loud moments but part of this kind of show is major storyline, so I allowed some time for that. I love it when shows break the fourth wall and they did this so many times. Especially with Liza!

Now for what changed my mind about the show. A few episodes in, I noticed that they were spotlighting an individual character in each episode. Good idea. Then I noticed something… each episode is actually tying into the others. Very clever. Then the kicker. Each episode is going on in the same time frame. Extremely interesting. Then, I realized that it was all tying in to being filmed at the same time, different places, characters going in and out of scenes from one episode to another. Things that mean something in one episode meant something different in another. It’s hard to explain, but I will give an example. Michael was almost hit by a limo in one episode. In a following episode, the limo turns out to have been driven by his brother Gob. Going back over these, the filming appears to have been done with a thousand cameras!

Ben Stiller shows up as a gay magician and the storyline between he and Gob was extremely touching. I wanted so much more, but I will have to wait for the next season, which was probably filmed at the same time, seeing how brilliant the writers and actors were.

I have to mention Liza once more. A new character, her brother on the show, was introduced. The actor was Tommy Tune. I am not too familiar with him, but I know he’s a big broadway star, which made the fourth wall crumble! They mentioned in one of the last few episodes that Liza(‘s character) only used her car to get to hip replacement surgeries, which made me laugh out loud. They also brought up something-Michael Cera (Michael’s son on the show), had never met Lucille2 (Liza). On the show, she lives across the hall from Lucille and has been involved with them a long time, apparently. This was a fourth wall reference, as he had never had any scenes with her on the show. Liza looked good, by the way. At one point, they showed her shoulders and damn are they wide! I couldn’t stop staring at them! If you have an “in” with Liza, please tell her I would like to court her! 🙂

So I will have to give this season 5 stars, not only for the acting, but for the storyline which had to be a nightmare to integrate! I can now forgive the long wait as it was absolutely perfect as a whole!

“Hello darkness, my old friend….”

Temple Run 2 – Great Game, but…

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So I got really good at Temple Run 1 right before Temple Run 2 came out. I read the reviews before downloading and saw that a lot of people were having issues with the tilting. I downloaded it and tried it out. My first impression was the nice rolling landscape (wish I could watch someone else play it so I could take in all the scenery!). I immediately saw what people were talking about with the tilting. You literally had to tilt it a long way.

I took that as a challenge and stuck with it. I was unlocking stuff all over the place and going through the tasks and then one day it hung up at the zooming in screen. I could hear the beast roar, but never started running. Then, I started getting some weird glitches.

At one point in the mine, I tilted too far and the whole screen turned upside down, was entirely black except for me in the mine cart – which was still rolling along. I was racking up some major mileage by just holding still. Then, the screen flipped back upright. Still going without any landscape. Still completely black, but I could see the points adding up. The monster then jumped on me. Aww… only 2 million points from that! 🙂

Then a couple of days later, I open the game and it wanted me to go through the training tutorial. Huh? I did it, thinking that I must have chosen the main guy again (after playing with Karma Lee). Then when I died, I went to the options to choose Karma again and she was locked! All my coins were gone. Everything was reset.

I saw that there was an update available so I downloaded it, thinking it was going to give me back my stuff, but it didn’t.

So, I would say download the game and back it up every day if you’re serious.

The rolling landscape was a nice change from Temple Run 1. Once you hit around the million mark, though, some of the things you have to jump over are placed so you cannot avoid dying (like three things back to back). I understand random code, but there also has to be fail-safes.

Tips:

The fire is closer than it appears. If you try jumping it, do it early.

Coin magnet doesn’t last long enough to really rack up coins like in Temple Run 1.

If you come to the broken path area, try jumping immediately and then tilt to get on the edge where it’s safe. The tilt feature is hard, so jumping gives you time to tilt.

Get some kind of app backup (Titanium) to save your progress.

Temple Run for Android and iPhone -cheats and tricks

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I am not the type to sit around and play video games, but I needed a diversion recently and found Temple Run for android. I am a fan of the Mario games for wii, so this gave me the same jumping action I liked. This is a bit darker,though.

The premise of this game is that you are taking an idol from a temple and have to escape the monkey like creatures. One problem. You won’t.

It’s an endless trek of jumping, sharp turns, grabbing coins, tripping over roots and monkeys on your back.

Here are some of the tips I have come up with:

  • Don’t concentrate on the coins. Sometimes they are placed so you will make a wrong turn
  • If you bump into the wall instead of tripping over a root, it won’t count as tripping and will slow you down some
  • If you slow down too much, later on in the game, you may not be able to jump as far as needed
  • When you get to the broken walkway, try jumping and then tilting to jump onto the edge
  • While invisible, still jump when you encounter objects, sometimes running through things throws you off when you become visible again