David Lubar's Blog, page 24

Weeeeeee?

I know I was impressed when I saw the early demos of Kinect, the motion capture controller for the Xbox. But every time I see the Kinect ad on the top of the EB Games page, I laugh. Instead of a samurai or a Porsche, we see a dancing avatar. Rather than put the image here, I think you need to get the full effect the same way I did (and contemplate the crushing of millions of hearts as hardcore gamers realized that there was a dis-kinect between their hopes and Microsoft's plans). Go to th...

Inetria 1, Lubar 0 (i.e., inertia won)

So, I kept thinking about going to ALA until it became too late to actually go. (Theoretically, I could still go, but that would be really boneheaded.) The problem is, I'm close enough to DC to be able to get there fairly easily, but far enough that it would take a bit of effort. It's a 4-hour drive. I could take a train from Philly (two hours), but Philly is a 90-minute drive. I could fly, but the airfare kept going up, and hit $650 this week. Pretty expensive for a 40-minute flight. ...

Interia 1, Lubar 0 (i.e., inertia won)

So, I kept thinking about going to ALA until it became too late to actually go. (Theoretically, I could still go, but that would be really boneheaded.) The problem is, I'm close enough to DC to be able to get there fairly easily, but far enough that it would take a bit of effort. It's a 4-hour drive. I could take a train from Philly (two hours), but Philly is a 90-minute drive. I could fly, but the airfare kept going up, and hit $650 this week. Pretty expensive for a 40-minute flight. ...

Summer!

All things converged yesterday. It was the first day of summer, I had my last school visit of the 2009-2010 school year (in Manasquan, NJ), and my daughter had her last day of the year at the high school where she teaches. She came up on Father's Day, bringing Kira (a rescue dog), who has made amazing progress from being a scared of everyone to romping and frolicking on the couch. For those rare folks who actually prefer pictures of dogs over those of cats, here's a shot of the critter.



Now...

Happy father's day

If you are the father of a child under the age of 13 or over the age of 18, I offer my congratulations. If you have a kid in the excluded range, I offer my sympathy, and the promise that things will get better. Now go enjoy your new toolkit/wallet/tie/uzi.

Just for kicks

This has nothing to do with anything I usually blog about, but it is just plain fun -- an ad combining soccer with the tango. Oops -- I mean fooootbawl. Thanks for the link, Hilda.

Shopaholic

Isn't that what you call it when writers get together to talk shop and have a couple drinks? Jordan Sonnenblick was kind enough to take me with him to NY, where he was meeting some other YA folks for drinks. Given that we live about 70 miles from Manhattan, that's a lot of kindness. I saw some familiar faces (David Levithan, Gordon Korman) and also got to meet Barry Lyga. Somehow, our paths had never crossed before this. He's twisted in a good way. It's nice getting together with other ...

Thirty years before Columbus

My books tend to have Amazon sales ranks that resemble the zip codes of places somewhere between the Carolinas and Indiana. This doesn't mean the books don't sell well. They just tend to sell at a steady rate without any surges, while the Amazon system is highly weighted toward the moment. However, for the last week or two, Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie has stayed pretty much below 4,000 in sales rank with dips as low as 1,462 (I just checked). While I can rarely explain these things (it's ...

I feel moved

I never thought I'd praise Microsoft (and perhaps the praise goes to their ad agency or some guy they overheard in a coffee shop). But I have to applaud the name they chose for their motion-sensing control system (called "Project Natal" during development). They just unveiled Kinect. What a perfect coinage.

As for the device itself, I think it will appeal much more to casual gamers than to fanatics, addicts, and the game-obsessed (a party to which I'm a card-carrying member). Sure, it wi...

Plucked

Imagine you love fruit more than almost anything. You eat it every day. You seek out new and unusual fruits. You've grown some of your own, and sought out fruit when you traveled. Maybe you even went to a fruit show at the local convention center. And then, thirty or forty years after your first taste of fruit, someone hands you something you've never seen. You take a bite. Your mouth explodes with unbelievable flavor. "What is it?" you ask. The answer: a strawberry. How could you g...