You’ve probably heard this sportscaster utter the famous phrase. He went on Letterman and mentioned that he’d been saving the phrase for the right time. He picked the perfect time to during a near flawless sportscast.
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I can’t stand keeping track of programs or games that come on CD-ROM. They get left out, scratched and misplaced. If you own a program or game that has to be in your CD-ROM drive in order to work I’ve found a nifty solution. This will allow you to create an image of your CD programs which are stored on your local drive. So now, instead of fumbling for the right CD someone around your house, you can using Daemon Tools to emulate a CD-ROM drive and mount images of your programs and games.

1. Download LCISO Creator
2. Put the program or game CD in your CD-ROM drive
3. Launch LCISO Creator and click “Create ISO”
4. Create a folder on your local drive to store the soon to be created ISO file
5. Now download a program called Daemon Tools
6. Install Daemon tools (be careful to install only core program files)
7. You’ll probably need to reboot your machine before or after installation
8. Run Daemon tools which you should now see in your system tray (red with lightning)
9. In system tray, right click on icon and chose Virtual CD/DVD/Device 0/Mount Image
10. Find ISO folder you create and select the ISO.
11. The program will not think it’s been loaded into your CD-ROM.
12. You can now launch your game or program from the start menu or sometimes by clicking on virtual CD-ROM drive in Windows Explorer

Oh for coolness. I love coming across a simple tip that speeds up my connection to the net without any software. By using OpenDNS you can speed up your connection and add some cool features. You just change your DNS to point to the following DNS server at either the local machine our router level:

* 208.67.222.222
* 208.67.220.220

If you step by step instructions checkout their website.

I’ve been listening to a number of very good podcasts lately. Here’s a list of my favorites which I’ve kept on my iPod for a number of months now.

1. This Week in Tech – Consistently the podcast I look forward to most.
2. IT Conversations – Lots to chose from here.
3. Inside the Net – Very good interviews of leaders in tech
4. The Onion Radio News – If you like the website, you’ll love this podcast.
5. Business Week Cover Story – Wide array of subjects focused on cover story of the week.
6. ESPN Radio Dan & Keith – This guys are hilarious even if Keith is a bit arrogant at times.
7. The Body Odd – MSNBC health editor chats with the wacky authors of “Why do men have Nipples”
8. Mitch in the Morning – Seattle sports radio morning host has some great interviews.
9. Slate’s Spoiler Specials – An irreverent look at the movies.
10. NPR – Koppel in the News – A familiar and reasonable voice discusses latest news.

I like how the old school mouse’s 3 buttons match the stripes on the show. Sweetness!
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Over at IGN, they review games for every system imaginable. I went through the ratings for the major platforms including Playstation, Playstation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Gamecube, Dreamcast and N64. There are only two out of hundreds of games on all these consoles that earned a perfect score of 10. One of the games I would have guessed. I would have thought that either Gran Turismo 2 (9.8) or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (9.9) would have scored a 10.

But the only two games to earn a 10 are Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the N64. I’m not much into the fighting games but remember being blown away the first time I saw Soul Calibur. It was so much better looking than anything else at that time. And has any game since Ocarina been released with such high expectations still exceeded them? In my opinion, it’s the best console game ever released. It’s still the game by which all games are measured when I chat with friends who are console freaks. The first time I played Ocarina I got sucked into it’s world for days. It’s an amazing game even today.

Not too far from our house there’s this small mom and pop convenience store. This store looks like any other convenience store that’s been around a few decades. But I only recently noticed their sign out front which includes the store name and what I assume to be their two big draws: “Milk and Adult Movies”.

Whenever I see the sign now I can’t help but laugh to myself. I just imagine some guy getting a call on his way home from work as a reminder to pickup the milk….and the movies. It just seems like such a wierd combination for a tiny store. Or maybe adult movies moved into the mainstream enough that we’ll start seeing them sold in vending machines alongside the Snickers and Fruit Pies.

I recently made a purchase at Fry’s for myself and an item I needed to expense for my company. I asked the cashier to ring up each separately. The first transaction went smoothly. But when I handed over the same credit card to purchase the supplies for my company, the cashier took my card, shook her head and said, “I’m gonna need to get my manager”. So I wait another five minutes for her manager to come over and check me and my card out to ensure I’m not trying to pass a stolen credit card. I guess showing my Washington State drivers’s license wasn’t enough proof.

At Nordstrom this situation wouldn’t happen. They wouldn’t assume I’m trying to pass off a stolen credit card just because I made back to back purchases with the same card. Fry’s has an outdated, idiot policy that made me feel like a crook. All because the employee at the end of the org chart didn’t have the authority to override a very stupid policy.

Do your employees have the authority to make changes on the fly when it comes to putting your clients and partners first? If not you could be pissing off some of your best customers.

I always feel uncomfortable when I see splashy ads created to recruit young men (hardly any are aimed at women) into the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines. One ad stands out which looks like a first person shooter video game. A buff warrior ascends a large metal contraption and comes face to face with a fire breathing lava creature. He pulls a huge sword from the floor and slays the beast which causes the crowd to roar as if you’d scored the winning touchdown. It’s powerful. It’s inspiring.

And it’s total B.S. If only wars were as simple as finding the magic sword.

But that’s not what I find most interesting about these ads. What I find interesting is how a young recruit decides that he wants be that hero who slays the beast. The payoff appears to be as much psychological as it is financial. A few years back the focus was less about the excitement of joining a large video game and more about getting your college paid for. Maybe it’s worth doing a cost/benefit analysis for joining the military.

Benefit:
Excitement
Learn valuable skills
Money for Education
Feeling of purpose
Chance to experience new country, cultures, people

Cost:
Possible death
Likelihood of major limb loss

For me, the many benefits do not outweigh the costs. Anything that may cost me my life I’m going to think twice about. I wish the military would show actual footage of fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan so these young recruits don’t think they are joining a big video game.

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Kathy Sierra has another excellent post about how marketers can build product that get “the nod”. That’s when one user recognizes another user or owner of a like product and gives that sly nod letting the other person know of his/her approval. She mentions how MacBook Pro users and Mini Cooper owners often get the nod.

This started me thinking about products I’ve purchased where I got the nod. No question, the Mazda Miata that I drove for barely a year provided a lot of nods although some people hated it and flipped me the bird about as often. I never received the nod for just carrying around my black iPod video. But the minute I put it in a Vaja leather case, I started to receive a lot of nods. When I returned from Germany in 1989 and wore Birkenstocks before they become the craze, I received many nods. Several people gave me the nod when I wore Grado headphones on the train connected to my iPod. My Timbuk2 messenger bag was another item that a lot of people asked me about and was found to be nodworthy.

But without a doubt, the product that’s brought on the most nods is the Xootr scooter I drove around downtown Seattle back in the dot com age. I had the least expensive model with wooden deck. But I couldn’t drive it a few blocks without getting the nod.