We recently went cold turkey and cancelled our satellite service. The price was getting close to gouging range and we were increasingly finding that we were just paying for a lot of crap. We recently redeemed our $40 government coupons for our Digital TV Converter Boxes and discovered there’s a 24 hour TPT Kids station. So that was the final straw…we no longer needed to pay DirecTV to babysit and instead of paying DirecTV, we can toss a few more bucks TPT’s way.

So, we’re going to see if we can get by on OTA TV and NetFlix.

NetFlix is great, but we tend to forget to watch what came in and it sits there for weeks. The online video selection is OK, but we’re stuck with the laptop for that.

RedBox is great, but we tend to forget to return the movie we get, so that $1 soon creeps up to $4-$5.

It seems like there’s potential there for a great partnership or outrright merger. Add the $100 Roku box for your TV and it seems like NetFlix could easily corner the market…RedBox instead of Blockbuster, Roku instead of iTunes, and NetFlix instead of cable/satellite. Hmmm…

Occassionally something is posted there that I feel like sharing with the interactive community. And I think this is a pretty good one.

What a way for Yahoo! to advertise. Seriously.

Enjoy!

Search Engine Smackdown 

 I promise not to make posts that were this far off topic often, but this was really interesting to me and I think others might be interested as well.

My Cousin and her many of her friends over at eightandfive.com got together last weekend and did a Blind Taste Test of Cheap Beers available in the Twin Cities Area.

 http://eightandfive.com/2006/11/20/what-is-the-best-cheep-beer/

Some of the results were very predictable, but others were somewhat unexpected.

 

This exhibition focuses on the design and planning of culture and civilization. It is very powerful in its message and it raises many questions about how we view and interact with space and how we live in our world.

When I saw this show in September, I thought out loud, “I always wondered why no one is designing anything really useful. I guess I was wrong.”

A few highlights and observations I made of the show:

1. In one particular room, I loved the overwhelming graphic quality of words/phrases covering every inch of the walls. I didn’t feel the need to read everything. In fact, I took away an appreciation of all the text for its graphic quality and design. Its placement at the beginning of the show is also foreshadowing. It set up a mindset that even in chaos there is order.

2. I enjoyed the interactivity of sound incorporated into the show. In another room, there were boxes suspended from the ceiling that stopped about 8 or 9 feet from the floor. When you walk under one, it starts an audio recording. I loved this simply for the fact that it was information available to me when I asked for it. I hate walking halfway into videos in museums. This presentation solved that problem.

3. The final room of the show includes a series of 2 sides to an argument. For example, one issue talked about designing better food to provide more food worldwide. Each issue has 2 large plexiglass boxes. One is labeled “Yes” and one is labeled “No.” In the middle is a stack of yellow pieces of paper the size of Post-it notes. Viewers are invited to answer the question: “Do you agree?” to each issue by putting a piece of the yellow paper into either the Yes or No box. It’s visually interesting to be surrounded by stark white walls and see 2 clear boxes filled with yellow pieces of paper. In a way, you feel like you’re taking part in the massive change.

4. This show changed my opinion of all the building of condos that is currently happening in Minneapolis and everywhere else. I realized it’s a good thing that it’s happening. By condensing our living space and leaving open spaces for the environment, we can leave a positive imprint on our world.
Check it out. It’s very relevant to today.

We’ve been looking for the best way to get our two kids around as a family on our bikes. We have a bike trailer. And that works. OK. But really hard to get two kids squeezed in and then the kid is still way back there getting mud kicked in his face the whole time.

We could get a bike seat for him, but I never trusted those things since my brother and I had some ‘iffy’ experiences with those as kids.

And…that’s about it. Not many other options. In Europe, however, they’re decades ahead of us when it comes to getting around on bikes.

A Danish company, Winther, has come up with he ultimate kid transporter. The Kangaroo:

Their website also features a variety of other clever kid transporters. Another favorite of mine is the ‘Mini Ben Hur’.

This is big. Ikea big. If you’re not familiar – Trader Joes is like Whole Foods with out the crazy price tags, lots of great store brands, interesting labels and packaging, inexpensive wine & beer, plus a strange Jimmy Buffet/Caribbean motif.

Sarah at MNSpeak broke the news to me.

Might as well make the best of it. One great thing to do is to shop locally. Helps the local economy, often leads to some unique finds, and lets you avoid the massive headaches of the strip malls in December.

There’s going to be a craft show this weekend in North Minneapolis. I know, I know…the dreaded *craft* word. But the No Coast Craft-O-Rama is putting a different spin on it. No toaster cozies. No hand knit mittens. But, rather, some trendy and hip art and accessory products made by local artists.

Where’s your favorite local gift source in the Twin Cities?

I’ve been having this tools discussion with many of my colleagues lately, (local and virtual). Well the a really good (and might I add free) solution was right under my nose.

It’s called NeoOffice. It is an incarnation of something called OpenOffice which Sun contributes to the creation of as they are very good community and open source supporters and contributors. I started using OpenOffice, but it requires x11 and it’s slow. I found NeoOffice about 4 months into my employment and was thrilled, but didn’t think it would make sense as a tool. I found out I was wrong.

So it’s free, it’s compatible with Microsoft Office and it’s for Macs. It can also do html pretty well, so you might be able to ditch your Dreamweaver too. !

Go get it: http://www.neooffice.org/

Al Franken is coming home to Minnesota. Looks like Norm might have an opponent in ’08.

Arianna Huffington appears to be forming a blog posse.

PacifierOnline is a new modern children’s store in Minneapolis. Nicely priced kids furniture alongside overpriced kids clothing.

Smoking Marijuana may be less damaging than email overload.

The Living Green Expo is this weekend.

Some more additions to my list of ‘color picker’ tools: Steel Dolphin’s Color Scheme, Well Styled Color Scheme, Behr’s Paint Color Chooser, IDEO’s 5k color visualizer, Infohound’s Color Schemer, ColorSchemer.com.

The Typophile Forums will be shut down for a week for their long overdue upgrade to a new forum system. Re-launching 05/05/05.