The Computer of Tomorrow, er, Today

In case you haven't heard...just today, Microsoft came out with Surface (check out the link for cool demos), a touch-screen computer that looks more like a modern coffee table than your typical box plugged full of wires.

Will it revolutionize computers as we know it? Change our lives for the better? If you ask me, it looks pretty promising, and I'm excited to see one in action. However, if Surface's user experience is anything like its marketing campaign, then it's just going to be one expensive foot rest.

Compared to Apple's iPhone, whose campaign had everybody talking and immediately plotting how to get out of their non-Cingular contract, Surface has stayed underneath the radar. In fact, I was shocked when I visited Microsoft's homepage. I thought for sure it would be some full-page flash advertisement for Surface. Instead, they had a pathetically small link 3/4ths of the way down the page (click the image below for a larger view):



6 years of secret development, and this is the big hurah? If I were Bill Gates, I'd get me a new marketing manager.

p.s. Bill, if you read this (as I'm sure you will), I'm willing to talk.

Living Art?

I'm not much of a gardener, but I feel that slowly changing. As of late, I've spent quite a bit of time buying and planting various flowers, vegetables, and herbs. I realized there is definitely an art to creating an attractive garden and landscape. In fact, it's much like painting -- picking out colors, planning the layout, going for big or little shapes -- but what's exciting about gardening is that your "painting" changes daily. And not only that, but it can reward you with tasty fresh food as a bonus.

My parents have been gardening for most of their lives and I wish I would have paid more attention growing up. Hopefully I'll develop that green-thumb gene after all.

Happy Syttende Mai

Happy Syttende Mai everyone. Go Norwegian Independence! Lefse and kringla for everybody!

A Prairie Home Companion Weekend

My parents visited this past weekend for what turned out to be a very productive (notice the recent theme?), tasty, and fun weekend.

Productive: major yard work. It's never looked so good. I think my parents should open up a landscaping / garden consulting / sweet corn operation when they retire.

Tasty: good food. We ate at my favorite restaurant in the Cities, 128 Cafe. We also checked out Cafe Lurcat. Lurcat was just ok in my opinion. I got the feeling that they were trying too hard to be a high class establishment. And they seriously need to fix their acoustic issues. We weren't in the bar. And it's not a club -- it's a restaurant. Why am I shouting? You hear me Lurcat? No? That's right -- fix your acoustics. We finished the high-calorie weekend at Edina Creamery and Yum! (appropriately named if you ask me).

Fun: Everything was fun, but the topper was seeing Prairie Home Companion (click the link for audio clips and pictures from the show), with special guest Wilco. The show overall was great. Wilco was awesome.

For those of you unfamiliar with the show, about halfway through it Garrison will read off various "greetings". They range from "Happy 90th birthday Francis", to "Congratulations Franky on getting your drivers license. Don't crash my car." Upon entering the theater, they provide you with scrap paper and pencil, and you have a minute to come up with a sentence that will hopefully be creative enough or sentimental enough to reach Garrison's hands.

In my haste, I believe I wrote, "Hello to [my parents], who after 30 years of marriage still sleep next to each other." We rushed to our seats, and upon sitting down I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I realized I had written down the wrong anniversary number. I considered running back downstairs to change it, but figured it would be nearly impossible to find my slip of paper amongst the hundreds of others. And besides, what are the chances that Garrison would read my note?

Funny how things work out.

About halfway through the greetings he read my message. My jaw dropped, and my parents looked at me in startled confusion, asking was that their name he just read over live radio to his millions of faithful listeners. Yep. Funny how things work out.

Mr. Productivity

Do you ever go through a period at work where you get absolutely nowhere? You might as well have been golfing, sleeping, knitting, or catching up on Lifehacker? And then all of a sudden you have what might possibly be the most productive day in history? That was my day today. I've been working on a project for a few weeks now without getting anywhere. As if a light bulb went off today, I switched gears and accomplished in 9 hours what I would have estimated to take two more weeks given my current pace. I love days like today. Anyone else ever experience this?

G&H Heating & Air Conditioning

In case you live in the Minneapolis area and are in need of any HVAC / electrical / plumbing work, I highly recommend G&H Heating & Air Conditioning. We replaced our air conditioning unit this past weekend by G&H and were very satisfied.

G&H's quote was very reasonable, and Michael, the owner, was incredibly friendly, straightforward, and knowledgeable. We'll definitely use him again for future fixes and upgrades, and if you're smart, you will too.

Butter. Pure Butter.

I've played with the same set of golf clubs for the past 14 years. They've treated me pretty well, but I've lost faith in them these past few years.

A coworker told me about 2nd Swing, a golf store that only sells used clubs, as the name implies. After demoing a few different models of Callaways and Nikes, I ended up bringing home a set of Callaway Big Bertha Fusions.

More than I wanted to spend? Yes. A nicer club than I deserve? Yes. But let me tell you, all questions and doubts floated away as I swung those irons.

If a golf club could feel like butter, then this is it. Pure butter.

Go Local

If you've been a faithful reader, then you may recall a post I made last August about Organic vs. Local. Anyway, I stumbled across a nifty website called localharvest.org. Type in your zip code and, according to the website, "find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area, where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies."

Yaaaaaay produce!

I Heart SOX

There's nothing I'd rather do on a beautiful spring Friday afternoon than sit at my computer and trudge through fileshares, SAP Transports, and countless emails all in the name of Sarbanes-Oxley. Oh Sarbanes-Oxley, how I love thee.

If I ever make it to Congress, I'm going to change the acronym to SUX.

Minnesota = Golf

I played golf tonight with fellow blogger Bradley. About halfway through the round I came to the realization that the game of golf is a lot like Minnesota, particularly Minnesota's weather.

Golf can be a very frustrating sport. You can play for 4 hours straight and hit 4 hours worth of bad shots. But then you have that one shot that just simply feels right. I mean, it was perfect. All of a sudden you forget about your prior frustrations. You think to yourself that maybe golf isn't so bad. Not only do you enjoy it, but you feel like you're pretty good at it too. You can see yourself playing golf for a very long time.

Minnesota can be a very frustrating state to live in. You can have 5 months worth of winter and be ready for spring 4.5 of those months. But then the ground thaws, the geese return, and the weather is just simply perfect. Suddenly, you find yourself loving Minnesota. Why wouldn't anyone want to live here? The winter wasn't so bad after all, was it? You can see yourself living here for a very long time.

cheddarvision.tv

Have too much time on your hands? Looking for a new hobby? Wish you could experience Britain? Then join the nearly one million viewers of cheddarvision.tv. Yes, cheddarvision. Yes, it is just a webcam showing a block of cheese aging. Yes, people do in fact spend time watching it. Why, I do not know.

What Happened to all the Weddings?

For a period in my life it seemed every summer weekend was filled with wedding activity. Here a friend, there a friend, everywhere a friend of a friend was getting married. It was like going to dozens of mini reunions. Everyone was happy and all had a bright and promising future.

I don't know what's happened since then, but that pace has dropped dramatically. Perhaps I'm getting older. Perhaps the early bloomers in my group have all said their vows. But lately my reunions have come from less fortunate circumstances.

One of my good friend's mother passed away this past week. Today was the funeral. It was a sad occasion, yet good to see my lifelong friends. It still amazes me to this day that I could go a year without speaking with one of them and pick up as if we had a beer together the day before. My friend's mom suffered from Alzheimer's disease, just as her mother did.

I'm not really a poetry person, but I was moved by the poem included in the funeral bulletin today, and wanted to share...

Heart Memories
by Louise M Eder

I remember you with my heart
My mind won't say your name
I can't recall where I knew you
Who you were
Or who I was.

Maybe I grew up with you
Or maybe we worked together
Or did we bowl together yesterday?
There's something wrong with my memory
But I do know you
I know I knew you
And I do love you
I know how you make me feel
I remember the feelings we had together.
My heart remembers
It cries out in loneliness for you
For the feelings you give me now.

Today I'm happy that you have come.
When you leave
My mind will not remember that you were here
But my heart remembers
The feeling of friendship
And love returned.
Remembers
That I am less lonely
And happier today
Because of the feeling
Because you have come.

Please, please don't forget me
And please don't stay away
Because of the way my mind acts.
I can still feel you
I can remember with my heart
And a heart memory is maybe
The most important memory of all.

Mobile Clubbing

I just recently read about a mobile clubbing event at Victoria Train / Tube Station in London. The event was orchestrated through word of mouth and the web. The idea is pretty straightforward:

1. Go to a specified location and bring a personal music device
   
2. Don't do anything out of the ordinary, yet.
3. At the specified time, cue up your music, get your groove on, dance as if you were at a club

Photo of the event snagged from Micheeky's Flickr photo set.

Awesome.

Blu Dot

A few weeks back Addie and I had the opportunity to visit Blu Dot's headquarters up in northeast Minneapolis. One of Addie's friends got a job there recently and invited us over for lunch and a tour of the facilities.

I first learned about Blu Dot when I stumbled across this shelving unit back in Decatur while I was shopping for furniture. Too bad it costs more than some small automobiles (i.e. Nowakowski's bug).

Office space, photography studio, warehouse, and prototyping workshop were all crammed into the same building. It was cool to see the space of such a small yet influential modern furniture company. Bummer that I didn't get to bring home any samples.

Easter Weekend = Lots of Fun

• Friday night - Pieta Brown at The Cedar, followed by a stop into Palmers
• Saturday morning - 5th bed delivery attempt. It was finally delivered correctly (almost)
• Saturday day - worked outside in the cold, finished our backyard fence (almost)
• Saturday night - Neko Case at First Avenue
• Sunday morning - service at a Danish Lutheran Church over by Minnehaha Academy
• Sunday noon - Easter lunch and egg decorating
• Sunday afternoon - Sunny but chilly jog
• Sunday night - "Heavy drinking" with Anders' family

iTunes + Local Concert Listings = iConcertCal

I recently found out about iConcertCal, a super cool plug-in for iTunes. According to their website, "iConcertCal is a free iTunes plug-in that monitors your music library and generates a personalized calendar of upcoming concerts in your city."

I haven't installed it yet, but definitely plan to. I will try to remember to give a recap about how accurate/useful it is after a few weeks of use.

I got 99 problems

The timing of this is definitely not ideal, but it's the funniest thing I've seen in a while and provided me a much needed laugh, and therefore wanted to share. For those of you that aren't familiar with Jay-Z (mom, dad, others), I apologize.

I found this when I stumbled across Au$10's blog (one of Decatur's finest CD salesmen and Paste contributor).

goconsolidation

I've come to the conclusion that I need to consolidate my web presence. Ol' Bradley has pointed out that having a unique name has proved helpful when searching for people that quote, reference, or use your work. Taken from Luther College's canoe derby about 6 years ago, I'm proposing to use "gomattolson".

Speak now or forever hold your peace...

Yours,
gomattolson

Quick, Quick, Look Quick.

As you may know, not only does Wikipedia change often, but it changes fast. That's why you should check out the current Wikipedia entry on Minneapolis. An editor recently emailed me and mentioned that he would like to use a couple of my Flickr photos for the entry.

One is under the Geography section, and labeled Autumn, Lake of the Isles. The other is under the Sports section, labeled Twin Cities Marathon (a photo in which you can see Robbie's right arm trying to take a picture, and Amanda cheering on their friend Colbey.)

It's no gallery, but it's better than nothing, right?

More March Madness

This weekend has brought another meaning to the phrase "march madness". Perhaps it is springtime just around the corner. Perhaps it is just when Nowakowski visits.

Last night we went out for St. Patty's day and found ourselves hitch-hiking across the Mississippi River at 2 in the morning.

The night before we watched tutu clad girls on rollerskates race around a track pushing, punching, and elbowing each other.