The Brain of Shawn

No update from Penguicon yet, largely because I had to get the following video done! Enjoy:

New video review. Enjoy.

Remember a while back I mentioned I was going to be on television as a caller on The Lab with Leo Laporte? Well, episode 157 aired on Thursday, and I snagged myself a copy of it today. It only airs in Australia and Canada, but they offer torrents of the show after it airs, so I don’t feel bad about downloading it. Also, I posted the snippet with me on YouTube. Here ya go:

This week brings a really fun Linux Journal review. It’s especially cool, because Kate Baker agreed to do some voice work for the video. Thanks Kate!!! (PS: It helps if you’ve seen the Tom Cruise video, and/or the Jerry O’Connell parody)

The title is a spoonerism. I love me a good spoonerism. New review video is up, and ripe for the watching.

Enjoy! (Oh, and here’s where the video lives on the Linux Journal site — there’s lots more information there, and since I “point” to a link during the video, it really looks best from their site… )

We took the kids to see The Spiderwick Chronicles last night. This movie was significant for a couple reasons. The first, is that all the special effects (of which there were many, and well done) were all done with Linux. This, needless to say, makes me happy.

Second, we just read, as a family, the whole Spiderwick series. There are 5 books in the set, and they are a very quick, very fun read. They are the sort of book that just begs to be read out loud to kids. Thankfully, it’s fast paced and fun — so it’s fun for the whole family, even our youngest. (She just turned 7)

Something that tickled my fancy, but was sort of a bummer for the kids, is that the books are WAY better than the movie. They noticed this. Very quickly. Also, they noticed how drastically different the movie was from the book. Again, all wonderful things for children to realize, because now they might actually see the advantage to books.

Don’t take that as a shot at the movie. The movie itself was awesome. Great special effects, great plot, fast action (no boring beginning, the action starts pretty early on). The kids, and their parents, truly liked the film. It might be a bit scary for particularly young children, but it’s not TOO bad. Nothing a hug from Mom wasn’t able to make all better during those scenes.

Looking at the credits, the 2 book authors were (I think) executive directors, or producers, or one of those fancy “we’re involved” titles. I think that’s really good, but it must have been heartbreaking for them at the same time. They had to butcher the books quite a bit. I don’t think they made any bad choices (apart from Hogsqueal, his character in the book is done soooooo much better), but lots of changes were made.

Anyway, I heartily recommend the movie, and forcibly urge you to read the books. If you have kids, read the books out loud to them. They will like it, and so will you.

My recent game review got a review of it’s own. It’s funny, because the critiques are a bit odd (especially suggesting that using the stable version was the wrong choice?!?!)

There’s no such thing as bad press, so I’m not complaining. And it wasn’t really a bad review review, but I thought I’d share anyway.

New review is up, this time of the game, “The Battle for Wesnoth”

Here’s the link to the Linux Journal site, if you want to comment there, and possibly suggest future game titles for me to review.

Something I’ve noticed since I’ve been doing video reviews, is that speaking in public (well, sorta) is a bit different than writing. I know some of you do voice work professionally. Dear Lord, the thought just occurred to me that what *I* do might be considered professional. Heh. Anyway, it amazes me how much I struggle with pronunciation.

I’m talking about more than tomato and tomato. (See? It doesn’t really translate to text) But product names, company names, etc. can be crazy. Add that to regional differences, and I either sound like an uncultured hick (largely true), or a snooty Yankee (eh, not so much).

Have you ever thought about pronunciation? It’s a funny beast.

I’m sure you all feel somewhat unsettled, and you’re not quite sure why. Let me reassure you, yes, there hasn’t been a new gadget review for 2 weeks. I wasn’t sure if the “reviews” were going to keep happening, as my original arrangement with Linux Journal was for a 2 month trial. We ran out of gadgets just as the 2 months came to an end. So, I was thinking it was over. There was sadness.

THEN, more stuff started coming my way, along with new orders to review a wider variety of things! This week, for example, I’ll be reviewing a video game. That’s right, I’m getting paid to play a video game. Every 10 year old child’s fantasy. The problem? I really stink at video games. I don’t plan on silly little things like “facts” deterring me, however, so review the game I will!

Details and review video coming in a day or so. I’ll post it here, and you can all sleep better at night again.