A lightning bolt

My 10-year high school reunion is in August. I don’t know why I’m getting excited about the event, but for some reason I’m eager to see my classmates and learn what’s happened.

Of course, I went to two high schools (Roswell then Poway) and would like to know what happened at both of them. I might have to resign myself to going to just the one in San Diego, but hope springs eternal.

Since I’m a reporter — a seeker of knowledge and storyteller — I want to start the experience now. With the Internet, there are plenty of tools to do it (MySpace, e-mails, Web pages, etc.). With the rise of podcasting, there’s a terrific tool to relay conversations and photos to a scalable audience. “Scalable” is a word I’ve learned in the past 10 years. 😀

Anyway, here’s a letter that I wrote to my classmates. It refers to a previous letter where I encourage a classmate on the fence to come and share his experiences with others in August.

As I said in the other e-mail, I’m a writer and I love hearing good stories. Hopefully in August, we’ll be able to meet in person and share our experiences.

However, that’s months away. What do we do now?

I say we should do something now to start sharing our stories and recalling growing up in suburban San Diego in the mid-1990s. This Yahoo! Group is a start, but one of the first graduating classes with the Internet should be able to do better.

Let’s do a weekly podcast.

There’s so much ground we can cover each week. These are our experiences, and who would be better equipped to help share them than us?

We can catch up with old classmates and our favorite teachers. Whatever happened to Most Likely to Succeed or Best Dressed? Let’s track them and others down and hear what their recollections and what’s happened since then.

We can do a segment remembering what was big 10 years ago. TV, radio, computers and more — there’s so much ground to cover.

We can keep it relatively short, but we can reach out to so many people before August.

So who would be interested in helping out?

I’m willing to do a lot of work to pull this together. But perhaps I’m not the best person to do it — I’m a bit out of the loop in Northern California. I also readily admit I was a bit of a loner dork in high school and don’t know my class as well as I would like.

I don’t think the podcast has to be overly involved or over-produced. I hope each week will be an interesting chat about the people and our times building up to the actual reunion itself.

Cordially,
Ryan Olson
Chico, Calif.
my.rtomedia.com
530-321-4114 (cell)
poway -at- rtomedia.com

Duet nite – 4-12

Tonight seemed like duet night at The Maltese. Four of the five songs I sang were with others. It was pretty cool although I probably need to work on singing in harmony with others. At the same time, it sounded all right and I had a good time. That’s what counts, right?

Oh, I want to thank my mom for listening to the love song radio station. I remember constantly being inundated by these duets like “I’ve had the time of my life” while we drove to clarinet lessons on a backroad in Georgia. While it’s not always my cuppa, those were some good times and it really prepared me for singing with others.

Here’s the rundown:

  • Picture (with Alice). The fun part is screaming “I was off to drink you away” at the top of my lungs.
  • End of the World. OK, that’s the one non-duet, but I’m practically required to sing the song. As always Ronnie sang backup. I thought it was rocking tonight.
  • Summer Nights (with Colleen). I still enjoy the end where the duo sings “NIGHTS” in the most off-key way possible.
  • Whip It (with Heather). Not really a duet in the strictest sense of the word, but we sang it together. I practiced my “dynamic” dance moves.
  • Seven Spanish Angels (with Colleen). Colleen and I helped bring it home with this ballad popularized by Ray Charles and Willie Nelson. She wanted to sing a Disney duet, but I’ve been wanting to sing this song for a long time. It’s cool when people dance with the music.

So that was Wednesday. Maybe I’ll post the 26-song playlist when I dominated the mostly empty stage in Marysville two weeks ago.

Video examples from still cameras

It’s probably an oxymoron, but it’s possible to capture video with most consumer-level digital cameras intended for still photography. Here are two samples from my Connecticut colleague who shot these clips with her digital camera:

A steel-drum musicial group practicing its instruments:

A softball game:

What comes around …

How weird is it that BBC America is airing Ed Vs Spencer when GSN has aired its father — Kenny Vs Spenny? Some explanation — Kenny Vs. Spenny originally aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. but the creators have sold the format to other countries (incl. apparently the UK).

Both shows seem familiar — two friends are challenged to be the best at a certain task (like lose weight or pass as a woman). The UK’s Ed refers to his opponent as “Spenny.” Even the presentation of the title graphic and promo materials are similar.

In KvS (as the hipsters refer to the series which now airs on the Canadian channel Showcase), Kenny cheated while Spenny tried to remain on the up-and-up. The loser, in most cases – Spenny, would be forced to endure a “humiliation” which was usually pretty childish and sometimes funny.

So we find ourselves in a situation where both the Brit clone and the Canadian original will have aired in the United States. I guess there are similar situations (like Food Network simultaneously airing Iron Chef and Iron Chef America, TLC airing the UK’s Scrapheap Challenge as a part of its own Junkyard Wars), but those are most often an American take on the original format. How often do we see a Canadian show and its British knock-off airing on American television?

Of course, some GSN fans loathed Kenny Vs. Spenny. I wonder what sort of reception their Brit cousins will receive?

Springfield meets Slough

I’m pretty psyched about tomorrow night’s broadcast of “The Simpsons.” Ricky Gervais, best known for his work as crummy boss David Brent on “The Office,” wrote the episode and will guest star.

I don’t know what to expect. Most of my experience with Gervais has been with the cringing humor of the British sitcom. I’m curious to see what he does with Our Favo(u)rite Family. It will be interesting to see his take on the American version of “The Office” when he writes an episode next season.

Bonus cool — Sunday’s broadcast will include the live action opening credits developed by Sky One as a promo. The Simpsons take human form, if only for a few brief seconds.

Not-so-bonus cool — It’s a bummer that last week’s rumor that “Futurama” is coming back for a full season didn’t pan out (yet). Happy to see the DVDs seem to still be on track, but it would’ve been sweet to see the adventures of the Planet Express crew.

Belated first look: MacBook Pro

Apple’s latest Intel-based notebook computer has been out on the market for a few weeks now. I was able to get my hands on a demo unit briefly during January’s Macworld Expo in San Francisco.

It’s impressive to say the least. Sure, there are concerns about running older software on the new computers, but the Intel chip has put some speed back into Apple’s notebook lineup. My conclusion is based on my very basic testing method — movie playback.

The Apple employee helping to demo the machin loaded 3 high-definition movies into QuickTime Player. The computer played all three simultaneously. The playback looked quite smooth even as I used Expose to zoom the playing movies in and out.

Compare that performance to the sluggish time a G4 PowerBook had playing one HD movie. It’s a powerful indication of where we might be going with this new processor.

Aside from the Intel chip inside and the slight redesign of the MacBook Pro (which suceeds the PowerBook line), the operating system and the overall experience remains consistently Mac-like.

A list!

I know I’ve done it before, but here’s a list of things that I’d like to write about or expand upon in the coming weeks. I still want to write about most of those topics on the older list too.

Feel free to add a comment if there are other things you think I should get to.

– Expand “Drunk is when I say ‘I love you'” if possible.
– Grannypoppers!
– The surprising disappointment after losing a karaoke contest.
– Working out a silly podcast.
– Writing to my friends and family.
– Recapping my travels over the past few years.

Deal or No Deal?

No, I’m not talking about the TV show (which I’ve yet to see). On Tuesday, I was faced with a decision and I chose to make a deal. Just not with those cheezy costumes from the ’80s.

Let’s hope I don’t find a barnyard animal behind curtain number one. I’ve stunk things up enough so far.

LostUP: Blasts from the past

Lost on the U.P., Part 4 — A quick post tonight as I fondly reminisce about posts past detailing the missing or misaligned Upper Peninsula.

Back in June 2005, I noted the Visited States Web site which omitted the Keweenaw Peninsula (the thumb of the U.P.).

Map showing my travels through the U.S., except the Upper Peninsula

They still haven’t fixed their mapmaking program.

In an October 2004 broadcast of CBC’s The National, host Peter Mansbridge notes the crew painting the 50 U.S. states onto the Rockerfeller Square ice rink initially omitted the upper portion of the Lower Peninsula and had to repaint it.

Missing Lower Peninsula

I don’t know where that post went although I knew I wrote it. Oh well. It’s back know.