July 2005

The Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet is not only free but it’s outstanding! If you’re in the Boston area then you really should go see it between now and August 7, 2005. I have a short attention span and don’t sit still very well and I managed to make it through the three hours just fine. There’s a short intermission about 70 minutes into the play. I’m not sure how early you’d want to get there during a weeknight performance but on the weekend, it’s best to show up at least 90 minutes early to grab a decent area near the stage. The chair rentals are essential and a bargain at $5 (you give them $10 and they give you $5 back when you return the chair.) And as an added bonus, they are extremely efficient — you won’t have to wait very long when returning the chair afterwards. If you have free time and can help out as a volunteer they’ll give you a seat in the VIP section. Or you can get that seat by making a $100 tax-deductible contribution as a Hamlet sponsor.

It probably only takes about five minutes on sooz.com to figure out I am a music fan. One of the best things about organizing my own events is being able to pick the music. I put together a playlist of tunes for Game Night @ True Grounds on July 20th. iTunes seems to have about 23 of the 50 songs. Here’s the iMix if you’d like to sample and/or buy one or more of the songs. Good stuff!

SoozMix Volume 5: Game Night at True Grounds
[requires iTunes]

1. Driver Education - Amy Ray
2. Ship Out On The Sea - The Be Good Tanyas
3. Rolling Suitcase - Rose Polenzani
4. The Luckiest - Ben Folds
5. You Know So Well - Sondre Lerche
6. Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing - Stevie Wonder
7. For Me This is Heaven - Jimmy Eat World
8. Far, Far Away - Wilco
9. I Love My Boss - Moxy Fruvous
10. Beast of Burden - The Rolling Stones
11. And if Venice is Sinking - Spirit of the West
12. Just Like Honey - Jesus & The Mary Chain
13. Little Bones - The Tragically Hip
14. Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk - Rufus Wainwright
15. Love Spreads - The Stone Roses
16. Life, In a Nutshell - Barenaked Ladies
17. Ingrid Bergman - Billy Bragg and Wilco
18. You Know, I Know, You Know - Bleu
19. Don’t I Hold You - Wheat
20. Falling Into Place - Mike Viola and The Candy Butchers
21. Me, Myself & I - De La Soul
22. Driver 8 - REM

If you’re in a bad mood (maybe it’s the crazy heat?) you really need to check out the “Do Your Worst” photo pool over at Flickr. Instant smile and laughter … guaranteed!

The next Boston Wi-Fi Meetup that I help organize is coming up on Wednesday, August 10th at 7PM. We’ll be meeting up at Panera Bread in Arlington Heights at 1398 Massachusetts Avenue. They’ve got free Wi-Fi so feel free to bring your notebook computer. There’s free parking at Panera and the 77 bus from Harvard Square and Porter Square runs regularly along Mass Ave — its last stop is Arlington Heights across the street from Panera. Panera Bread closes at 9PM so we are meeting at 7PM sharp.

The Wi-Fi Meetup is an informal/social event. We spend the two hours talking about Boston Wireless Advocacy Group projects, Wi-Fi news and projects in Boston plus other related discussion. If anyone was at the recent Cambridge meeting about municiple W-Fi, it would be great if you could make it to the Wi-Fi Meetup to talk about it and share your impressions.

RSVP at http://wifi.meetup.com/3/ or send me an email.

In related news, the Boston Wireless Advocacy Group (BostonWAG) user group that I helped organize has its first birthday at the August Meetup. Last summer I met up with Michael Oh and Patrick McCormick to talk about ideas to do something with the lingering Wi-Fi Meetup and give it more of a purpose. The group has grown to 119 members. Our initial projects include an up-to-date Boston no-fee hotspot directory, hotspot reviews (more contributions needed if you’d like to help out!), Wi-Fi Etiquette Tipsheet and we helped Councillor John Tobin’s Wi-Fi Advisory Team plan the Boston Wi-Fi Summit on May 19, 2005. I’m looking forward to what the next year will bring for the group.

I’m in New York City for TypeCon, a conference for type designers and type aficionados. The conference runs July 20-24, 2005. Type designers Joshua Darden (who I work with) and Christian Schwartz designed the identity for TypeCon.

Each summer, the non-profit Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA) presents TypeCon in a different host city. This year, SOTA has partnered with the Type Directors Club (TDC) to present TypeCon2005: Alphabet City. SOTA’s seventh annual conference will be held July 20-24, 2005, at Parsons School of Design in New York.

NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg has declared July 18-24 to be Type Week in New York because of TypeCon and related activities.

I’ll be in town for a couple extra days and would like to get a group together for dinner Monday, July 25th, somewhere along Smith Street in Brooklyn. If you’re in the area, send me an email or join my event mailing list and I’ll send out a note soon.

I’ve organized two events that are coming up on July 20th and July 30th.

Game Night at True Grounds in my neighorhood of Ball Square is happening this Wednesday, July 20th at 7:30 PM. It looks like we will have a fun selection of board and card games. There’s more information on the game night event website.

I’ve also organized a picnic dinner and gathering for the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s production of HAMLET on Saturday, July 30th. We’re meeting at 7:15 PM for a picnic dinner on the Boston Common and to grab a good area in front of the stage to see the play that starts at 8PM. If you want to join us, RSVP on the event site to receive our meetup location.

Sometimes we all need to get away from our weblogs for a little while. With that in mind I think we need some sort of weblogger vacation fund. Whoever gets the most nominations is awarded the funds that must be used towards a vacation. No online access while on this vacation — completely unplugged! I think Pete should be the first recipient. ;)

Long-time web guy and fellow SXSW Interactive Festival participant Halcyon is working with a group of people on a new television network called Veoh. Looks interesting! He’s set up a pre-launch blog and also a mailing list for anyone who wants to stay informed. They started out as TvDrive and are in the process of moving things over to Veoh.

A few tidbits from Veoh’s FAQs include:

What is Veoh?

VEOH is a new type of TV network. And YOU are the one controlling the programming.

VEOH allows anyone to broadcast TV grade Show to the world. IN essence, the technology is finally here to allow YOU to become your very own TV Network. You can broadcast single shows, an ongoing series, or many of both!

Using the VEOH distributed computing technology, there is no cost to Publisher or Viewer, regardless of bandwidth use. In fact, in the next release, you can *make* money if your shows become popular. Are you ready for the revolution?!

How Do I Become a Publisher?

EASY! Just sign up (free) to be a member of VEOH and start uploading your shows. The VEOH “Publish” tab will walk you through the process of submitting your Shows electronically.

You simply need a digital version of your Show, a broadband connection, and ownership of the necessary rights (including copyrights, trademarks, rights of publicity, and any other relevant rights for your content. Adult content requires some additional documentation).

To make sure that your Show is submitted properly, please read below about preferred file formats and our approval process! (Don’t worry…it’s as easy as watching a Show about pie!)

I just sent an email to my event newsletter list and mixed up the numbering on the “URL Takeaways” section. If you noticed this error … oops. I can actually count to six. That’s what I get for not having a second set of eyeballs look it over first. If you’re not on this little list of mine, perhaps you’d like to sign up? When I’m active with my event hosting persuits I send out an email 1-2 times each month.

Amazon.com is running a wish list shopping spree contest in conjunction with it’s ten year anniversary. I put together a photography wishlist for my Nikon D70s. It’s unlikely I’ll win; but everything on my wishlist are things I’d love to have in case anyone out there in sooz.com readerland wants to share the love and buy me that oh-so-fabulous Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED Autofocus VR Zoom Nikkor Lens for $1,429.00.

I suppose if I did win the top prize I’d have to do some pruning of the list since the top prize is for “only” $5,000.