My flickr pictures
gomattolson...

Thursday, August 30, 2007

I'll Take a Bowl of Split Plea Soup

Just had to make a last-minute plea on behalf of my friend to ask you to send an email off to SNL to request tickets for the upcoming season. Emails need to be sent by end-of-day August 31st. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please read this.

And if you know where the title of this post comes from without having to Google it, kudos to you.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

I'm a Nobody

I volunteered at the Minnesota State Fair today for MPR's The Current. I thought it would be a great people watching opportunity, and not to mention a free ticket into the fair. Part of my job was to go up and greet anyone that approached the booth, talk to them about the fair (eat anything on a stick?), MPR, and hand out various freebies (buttons, magnets, etc).

One family briefly stopped in front of the booth and I knelt down to ask the little girl if she'd like a button. The mom started to walk away, pulling the girl behind her. The little girl looked up at her mom and asked, "Who was that?" Without looking back, the mom flatly said, "That's nobody, honey."

Sweet.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Cinque Terre


My 3rd painting, of Vernazza in the Cinque Terre -- top 2 favorite places in the world. This one took me wayyy too long. It could still use a little more work, but overall I'm pretty happy.

My next painting goal is to simply put more paint on the canvas and worry less about lines and shapes.

5 Minutes of Your Time

My friend needs your help -- he's been dreaming of seeing SNL in person for as long as he could stay up past 10:30pm. Every year he sends out this email to all of his friends, asking for their help in requesting tickets to the show. The email needs to be sent before the end of August -- just 10 days from now. Please take the 5 minutes to do so, and if you are so lucky, it would seriously make his year:


Aloha!

Hi, it's that time of year again when I have momentary hopes of finally seeing sketch comedy performed in Studio 8H of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York. I'd like to see a taping of Saturday Night Live and I would love 1 minute of your time to assist me. The tricky part is that tickets are distributed for the whole season by a lottery system and ticket requests are accepted ONLY in the month of August for the coming season.

What I ask of you is to copy and paste the brief message at the bottom and email it to:

snltickets {at} nbcuni.com
(I removed the @ sign in hopes of deterring spam-bots)

Please remember to add YOUR NAME at the end of the message, send in the request only once, and don't send this email as a forward to the NBC address.

If your name is drawn for two tickets, you'll get an email in September or October informing you. Then, you'd let me know and you will receive a very big thank you for your help and a New York souvenir of your choice. Thanks for your assistance!

Hello-

Please enter me in the 2007-2008 Saturday Night Live ticket lottery.

Thanks,

YOUR NAME HERE

Monday, August 20, 2007

Brains of Steel

Want a rockin' noggin? Go for a run.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Beef, It's What's for Dinner

When you think of beef, do you think of grilling out hamburgers on a hot summer day? Perhaps a thick juicy steak at your favorite restaurant? Me? I think of Japanese baseball.

Ok, so maybe I don't, but the US Meat Export Federation does. That's why they sent Nolan Ryan over to Japan last month to "win back the hearts and stomachs of the Japanese".

I know the Japanese enjoy baseball, but I thought that was just really weird. That is, until I stumbled across Nolan Ryan's Guaranteed Tender website.

Who knew?

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Picnik Lives Up To Its Name

Take lots of photographs? Wish you had an easy way to remove aunt Mildred's red-eyes? How about crop out your unkempt laundry hamper? Or perhaps make your pasty-Norwegian-white skin not so transparent looking?

Look no further than Picnik. It's free (for the time being). It's super easy to use. It offers the features that 90% of consumers need. It can integrate seamlessly with Flickr and Facebook. It's online. You don't have to download a thing.

And possibly most impressive of all -- once your photo is loaded, editing with Picnik is done super-fast in real-time. No waiting for the page to reload. No annoying banner ads (for the time being).

I wanted to give it a whirl, and edited this photo. I uploaded it straight to Picnik, made a few incredibly painless tweaks, and chose to post the new and improved photo straight to Flickr. By doing so, I also chose to link my Picnik account to Flickr. I heart collaboration and APIs.

You know I couldn't resist...Picnik is a picnic.*





*Although Picnik is a great photo editing tool, the name is not. I forgot if it was picnic.com, piknik.com, picknik.com, etc. It took me 10 minutes to find the thing.

Friday, August 10, 2007

iBird and the Bee


I think Apple should have a theme song. And I think they should go with the Bird and the Bee's catchy tune, Again & Again.

In case you haven't heard, Apple just released a new version of its increasingly-popular iMac. And like all things Apple, its thinner and sleeker than its previous siblings.

I'm a fan of the famous ipod mug-me-white color that has graced so many of Apple's products, but I'm excited to see this beauty in person. Do it again Apple.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

FlickrWalk in Nordeast


This past weekend I attended my first Flickr meet-up photowalk. We met at the ever-cool looking and sounding Pierre Bottineau Library up in nordeast Minneapolis, and as you might have guessed, simply walked around and took photos.

It was a great experience, and I will definitely do it again. It is helpful to look at everyone else's photographs and see what subjects they photographed, what perspectives they used, how they composed their pictures, and (hopefully) learn a few things along the way. Not to mention meet some cool people that share a similar hobby (oddly enough, in a city of >4 million, I ran into one of the members the following day. Not odd, however, is the fact that she was taking pictures).

Sunday, August 05, 2007

You mean...it's free?

This past Saturday I sat outside of the SLP Byerly's, volunteering for my very first 89.3 The Current event with Mary Lucia and another MPR staff member. We were spreading the word about this Tuesday being National Night Out day, and handed out free cases of water, free flowers, and a random helping of The Current "swag" -- apparently the hip term for free little merchandise handouts like stickers, buttons, and magnets.

The day presented us with a gloomy drizzle, but it didn't matter. We (or at least I) had a lot of fun joking with each other and interacting with the day's grocery shoppers.

It was so interesting to see how people were very skeptical of the word"free". Surely there must be a catch. What did they have to sign up for? What survey did they have to take? What type of donation were we looking for? What do you mean it's completely free? Oh, and by the way, could you help me carry it?

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Unbelievable


Completely shocking. The I-35W bridge that crossed the Mississippi River near downtown Minneapolis collapsed tonight at 6:05pm.
I don't even know what to say.

(more pictures from the Star Tribune)

KG is Kuh Gone

Do you think you would feel like any less of a man/basketball player if you were one of the five players (plus two first round draft picks) traded for just one tall dude?