Seven years ago today...

...this is what we were doing:

Here's to many more years of wedded bliss!

Marvel's got a plan - they spell it C-O-N-T-I-N-U-I-T-Y

LIFE IS AWESOME

I am told this video is going viral. I can understand why.

Another reason my friend Mark is awesome

My friend Mark is awesome for many reasons. He's one of the most friendly and caring people I know. He's a connoisseur of fine comic books and video games. And he gives the best gifts.

I received this week in the mail a birthday gift that made me — the Marvel 2099 fan that I am and ever shall be — squee with joy. Mark commissioned for me a sketch of Dr. Doom as he appeared in the futuristic Marvel Comics series. And who did Mark get to draw the sketch? None other than Pat Broderick, the first and finest artist to ever draw the "Doom 2099" comic! Mark, who crossed paths with Pat earlier this month during SpringCon in Minnesota, even got the artist to sign the sketch to me. It was a wonderfully thoughtful gift and a huge surprise to receive. I regard it as highly as my irreplaceable sketch by artist Mike Wieringo. It's that cool. And Mark is that awesome.

Piracy update

Months preparing for audition: 4
Auditions: 1
Rehearsals: 6
Piratz Tavern performances: 4
Crew votes: 2

...and after all that, I am officially official as a member of Pirates for Sail. Full-fledged, with all the rights, privileges and inevitable hazings included therein.

If you haven't had a chance to yet, check out my crew bio on the website!

So now that I'm a full-fledged member of the band, why not show your love?

• Buy our music on iTunes
• Buy our CDs on CD Baby
• Buy some merchandise
• Become a fan on Facebook
• Follow us on Twitter

How to transition from a Facebook profile or group to a Facebook fan page

My latest ramblings on Small Act's blog.

Facebook fan pages are great for getting your nonprofit’s message out and engaging with supporters. They’re built for mass communication: messages, photos, and videos you post on them will show up on people’s news feeds.

Unfortunately, a lot of organizations have set up their Facebook presences as profiles (like what individuals have, with friends as opposed to fans) or as groups (which are more discussion-oriented and not as viral as fan pages), and now they find they need to transition.

It’s not easy or quick, but here’s how you go about changing an organization’s profile or group to a fan page:

(Continue reading)

It wasn't all 'Lost' on me

You might think it foolhardy to watch the final episode of "Lost" without having seen any episodes since 2004. And you'd be right.

But bathed in ignorance, watch it I did. I also — fortunately — watched the series recap that proceeded it so that I wasn't completely uninformed. As a result, I was left with three spoilerific impressions:

1. While emotionally satisfying, the series finale seemed rather disinterested in bringing much logical conclusion to many of the show's dangling plot threads. Had I been a longtime viewer, I would have found that more than slightly maddening.

2. I think the producers failed to follow through on their pledge not to "snowglobe" the audience. That half the episode was dedicated to some fundamentally unexplained afterlife construct that culminated with an "and they all died, the end" twist seemed a snowglobe ending to me.

3. By comparison, the oft maligned final episode of "Battlestar Galactica" seems so much more sensical now. Was Starbuck an angel? Did she simply ascend to heaven? Did the circumstances surrounding her disappearance signify something else entirely? Who knows, but that's the only significant head scratcher "Battlestar" left us. "Lost," on the other hand, is about as easily deciphered as the New York Times crossword puzzle.

But I'm trying to see the forest through the trees. Like I said, the final episode of "Lost" was emotionally satisfying, even to someone who hadn't watched the show in six years. And while the details escaped me, I'll applaud the writers for crafting a finale that, ahem, wasn't all lost on me.

I wonder when our printer at work will do this...

From Epic Win FTW

Rollerskating FTW

Earlier last week, a friend texted me to say he had a yen to go roller skating. I thought this was a fantastic idea, and quickly found a roller rink within driving distance (about 40 minutes away). I couldn't believe they were still around! With the mighty power of Facebook, we gathered a group (which, unfortunately, ended up not including the friend who suggested it in the first place, due to a scheduling conflict), and yesterday we headed out for some nostalgic fun.

This is the place. It looks like it hasn't changed much since rollerskating's heyday.

The rental skates were a little skanky, but actually fit well and were surprisingly comfortable.

Our friend Missi brought her own rollerblades. Though
shortly after this picture was taken, she ended up renting
skates because the ones available for rent worked better.

Kenny and Diana responded to the invitation on Facebook,
and were very excited because Kenny had basically grown
up at that particular roller rink. It was so great to have them
there (and dig the pompons on Diana's skates! So cute!).

Aww, we're adorable.

Here's Josh, all ready to skate.

And there he goes!

Here's me with my skates on, wearing
appropriately '80s apparel.

And there I go!

Afterwards, Erin, Missi, Josh and I went to the Panda Express for some food, and we were randomly inspired to
portray certain monkeys.

New look at ThinkLynsen.com!

I finally got around to messing with Blogger in Draft at the behest of Rick Klau, my buddy at Google who works in the Blogger division. As a result, viola, we have a new design!

Things you'll notice:

1. The design is wider, to accommodate those darn widescreen YouTube videos that I previously had to manually edit to fit.
2. There's a pretty background image now.
3. "Ask Us Anything" is now its own page, and you can find it in the tabs just below the header.
4. The overall look/feel is a bit cleaner and slicker.
5. We have buttons at the bottom of each post that allow you to easily share our posts on Facebook and Twitter.

(Email subscribers, to see the changes, visit www.thinklynsen.com.)

Let us know what you think!

Flipping amazing video

And now...CUTE KITTY ATTACK!

OMG WANT.

Stupid question? Let me Google that for you

I had a total fangirl moment last week when I realized our two awesome developers at Small Act were also the guys who created Let Me Google That For You, a site built for creating snarky/passive-aggressive responses to stupid questions that could easily be answered by a quick Google search. A colleague of mine introduced me to it over a year ago, and I thought it was brilliant...now I know (and work with) the guys who made it!

Learn more about Let Me Google That For You.

Galvatron, the 'Kingdom Hearts' villain?

When it comes to "Kingdom Hearts," I'm pretty much a slobbering fanboy. Say what you will about the series, I love it. Unabashedly.

So if you heard a giant record screech earlier this week, it's because my mind could not compute the casting of Leonard Nimoy as the main villain in the upcoming "Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep" video game. In a new trailer for the game, Nimoy uses the same voice for Master Xehanort that he used for Galvatron in the animated "Transformers" movie. Don't believe me? I submit for your consideration Exhibit A and Exhibit B. It's bit uncanny, isn't it?

I'm not entirely sure I can take "Birth by Sleep" seriously if my eyes are going to be darting around, looking for Galvatron every time Xehanort speaks. But I've got a few months to get used to it. The game doesn't release until Sept. 7.

An avatar is YOU

No, I'm not going to talk about the movie "Avatar." I haven't even seen the thing. Instead, this entry is about online avatars, AKA profile pictures, and why they should be pictures of YOU.

Yes, I know we're all obsessed with privacy, and especially on Facebook, it seems like at every turn they're seeking to broadcast all our personal stuff on CNN or something. But I hate to break it to you...there are already pictures of you on the Internet. And posting one picture of yourself on the Internet will not be the one fateful mistake that gives the Mad Corporate Demons access to your soul. If you're on a social networking site, they pretty much already own it.

So why should your avatar be a picture of you? Because most social networking sites display your contributions as part of a conversation, effectively a quote in a word bubble coming from your avatar. When I look at my Twitter or Facebook stream, I see a list of people saying stuff. And when the pictures of people saying that stuff are children, pets, or inanimate objects, it's just jarring and unnerving. It doesn't make sense. You are the one posting the information - don't put words into your kid's/dog's/mailbox's mouth. It's not fair to them. (It is, of course, fine to have them in the picture with you. But you should be in the picture somewhere. And you can post copious amounts of pictures of the people and things you love in your photo albums. I'm only talking about your main profile picture here. Calm down.)

Hate the way you look in pictures? It's OK. Your friends are your friends because they like you. If they had a visceral, Elephant-Man-esque reaction to you whenever they saw you, they probably wouldn't be your friends. Find the picture you find the least objectionable and post it as your avatar. Or mess with it in fun ways on Photoshop, with a tool like Mad Men Yourself, or with a site like Photofunia.

There are a few exceptions to the rule, of course: If you're posting on behalf of another person or on behalf of a company, or if you're posting as a persona of some kind, of course your avatar shouldn't be a picture of you. But generally speaking, especially on Facebook, you're representing yourself. If you're nervous about your boss finding you or something, you can play with your privacy settings to help prevent that. You can make it so non-friends can't see anything you post. Or you could just opt to only post things that won't damage your career if your boss discovers them.

My point is, if you're on a social network (unless it's one where anonymity is actually encouraged), be yourself. Seeing pictures of my friends in my Facebook and Twitter streams makes me smile. Embrace who you are, take a deep breath, and make your avatar a picture of you. Your friends will thank you for it.

Monday treat: Conan at Google!

For the five or so of you who haven't seen this yet, here is Conan O'Brien's outstanding performance at Google HQ. It's 45 minutes of pure joy and awesome.

Annie finds an anime she actually likes

Those who know me well know that my taste in anime is, well let's just call it "extremely limited." Being a geek, I've been exposed to no shortage of Japanese animation, most of it widely considered to be good, but it usually just doesn't grab me.

The stuff I've enjoyed, for the record, includes:

1. Slayers
2. El Hazard
3. Ah! My Goddess (though I prefer the manga)
4. Ranma 1/2

But I've never enjoyed them so much I thought, "I need to go buy/rent more of this series." I was content with my original exposure to a disc or two. And I flat-out disliked most of the stuff I was exposed to, like "Neon Genesis Evangelion," "Akira," "Ghost in the Shell," and a bunch of other stuff I can't even remember.

Lately, though, at the urging of one of my old bosses, I've been delving more into the works of Miyazaki. I was initially put off his work by "Spirited Away"...I just didn't get it. At all. I thought "Princess Mononoke" was OK, but not as great as everyone was hyping it up to be. Then, at my boss' urging, we checked out "Castle in the Sky," "Howl's Moving Castle," and "The Cat Returns." (Next up: "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.") We really enjoyed all three, but especially "The Cat Returns," which was super charming. That one's so great I want to buy it and have it on hand to watch whenever I need cheering up.

Then, last night, I was drawn to a bizarrely-titled anime on a friend's shelf. It was called "Panda! Go Panda!" and with a name like that, you just have to find out what it's all about. So we popped it in, and I was summarily delighted. Miyazaki wrote, rather than directed, these particular short films, but the sheer cuteness and quirkiness of them won me over almost instantly.

Here's the plot, loosely summarized...a young girl's grandmother goes away, leaving her home alone. When the girl gets home after seeing her grandmother off at the train station, she finds a baby panda and instantly loves it. Then the panda's dad shows up and compliments the bamboo field outside the girl's house. The father panda then offers to be the girl's dad, which she gleefully accepts, and then she (oddly) offers to be the baby panda's mommy. (Have fun making that bizarre diagram.) Wacky adventures ensue.

I've embedded the intro video below to give you a flavor for it. Check it out!

Wonder to behold

I almost posted this sweet video when it first made the rounds online, but I could no longer resist sharing it with you after learning its creator is in talks with Columbia Pictures to bring his concept to the silver screen.

This could easily become the best movie inspired by video games ever. Not that it, er, it has much competition.

Hollywood's 3D mistake

The enjoyable but somewhat uninspired "Iron Man 2" took in about $130 during its opening weekend. Not bad, right? Wrong.

Hollywood analysts spent much of Monday opining about how the receipts could have been so much larger had the studio released a 3D version of the flick alongside the traditional, 2D rendition. All this talk made Entertainment Weekly ask the key question: Would you have paid extra to see it in 3D? My answer: No.

Despite the unexpected success of "Avatar" and tentative plans by George Lucas to re-release the "Star Wars" movies in the format, I'm not convinced that 3D movies are anything more than an unnecessary fad. Aside from a few examples, the 3D application often does nothing to better a movie. In fact, it sometimes does more harm than good.

But aesthetic arguments aside, I simply would not have paid any additional money to see "Iron Man 2" in 3D. With matinee prices at $9 per ticket at my local theater, Hollywood is very quickly approaching the point where I can no longer afford to see movies in the theater. Long gone are the days when Annie and I might casually opt to see a movie on some lazy Sunday afternoon. We're now better off spending that money to buy our DVD of choice — or extend our Netflix subscription another month.

Hollywood's rush to (again) embrace 3D technology does little, if anything, to advance the art of filmmaking. It really serves just to dig deeper into our pockets. And that's a mistake. Because this push to get another dollar or two from my wallet only makes me stay home.

What's a birthday without cake?

So that I don't have all the fun on the occasion of my 33rd birthday, I wanted to point you toward this fun game for gamers.

There are 100 cupcakes at the link above, each representing a different board, video or tabletop game. The lineup includes Mousetrap, Dig Dug, Dominoes and 97 more.

The depictions vary between blatantly obvious and downright challenging, but the effort and creatively are undeniably awesome. My complements to Robin Dahlberg for creating the game — and most of the cupcakes. How many can you identify?

New Small Act website is up, and an awesome new video, too!

Last week was a flurry of fun and excitement at work, and this week is continuing that trend. Our new website, which I've been guiding since I started working at Small Act in February, is finally live. And it looks good! We're getting tons of great feedback on it.

In addition to the website, I produced a very low-budget video to promote our software, which you can see below.



(For those who are curious, I took the characters' names from my sister, my husband, and my friend who lives next door, respectively...though the characters bear no physical or personality resemblance to those people.)

More awesome is still to come! Stay tuned.

Another reason why I do what I do

Socialnomics has updated their groundbreaking video on why social media is not just a fad. Check it out.

Piratical reflections

A lot of people have asked me how to this whole "piracy" thing is going. So I figured I'd give you an update.

To date, I have attended three rehearsals and two performances Piratz Tavern, which means that my "probation" period is nearly at an end. I'm pleased to report that all experiences so far have been very positive. Though I still get pretty nervous at the prospect of jamming with one of my favorite bands (especially at rehearsal, where people are paying close attention to how I sound), I am starting to loosen up a bit and am overall pretty pleased with how I'm sounding, especially when I mentally compare it to how I sounded when I started preparing for my audition a few months ago. I am, however, eager to start my singing lessons again once my singing teacher is done with her maternity leave. I still need a lot of work if I'm ever going to be comfortable with singing anything solo.

My favorite part of the experience so far has been hanging out with the people in the band, though. They're all really nice, really funny people, and as an adult it's nice to "belong" to a group. I can't even count the number of laugh-out-loud moments there are at each rehearsal! Sometimes it's like being in the writer's room of a sketch comedy show - we keep trying to crack each other up. But at the same time, everyone is really committed to what we're doing, to getting the music to sound good and to coming up with new gags to amuse the crowd.

Performing at Tavern has been interesting. The worst moments for me are when we do a song I don't know, at which point my only option is to smile and sway/step to the music. The songbook contains over 100 songs, and by my estimation we're working on about 20 of them now, about a third of which I know. But we also get requests for stuff at Tavern that I really don't know, or I sort of know, and then I kind of have to wing it. My crewmates are patient and understanding, thank God, and they can carry the songs in those instances, but I can't help but feel a little embarrassed in those situations.

I'm also deeply fortunate that my boss at work is really jazzed about this whole thing. He thinks it's awesome that I'm in a pirate band, and has been flexible with allowing me to work from home Wednesday afternoons to make getting to rehearsal easier. My coworkers keep asking when they can come see me perform, and I always tell them "once the website is launched and I've established myself as a competent and professional employee." The former just happened (more on that Tuesday) and the latter has hopefully already happened...now I just have to get comfortable with the idea of singing about drinking, stealing, and sex in front of people I work with every day. Hmm.

If you're interested in seeing me perform, I plan to be at Tavern this coming Friday and the Friday following. Just bear in mind I'm still getting up to speed with everything!

(Photo credit: Melissa Cichantek)

NPR spoofs "Telephone" by Lady Gaga

Oh, wow, this is fun. I now have more respect for Ari Shapiro and Robert Siegal.

Alas, poor Jetfire

A friend made me jealous and more than a little bit nostalgic the other day when he bragged that he owned an unopened Jetfire from the original Transformers toy run.

That particular toy, which I think I received for my eighth birthday as this photo is dated June 1985, was the largest and most spectacular Transformer that I owned in my youth. He came with a set of detachable battle armor, a detailed sticker sheet and a rifle that was longer than most my other Transformer toys were tall. His complex transformation sequence took a while for my young hands to master, but it didn't matter. Jetfire was the coolest. Lacking an Optimus Prime, he was the default leader of my small Autobot battalion, and often the commander of my combined "good guy" forces when I pitted all my heroic toys against my villainous ones.

That my friend owns an unopened Jetfire made me wish that I'd kept the toy — even if it had become battered and incomplete. I imagine, though, that I'm not alone in this feeling. What favorite toy from your youth do you wish you'd kept?

Too ambitious for its own good

As an afterthought to my post earlier this week about my phone's plusses and minuses, I want to make one more point.

My phone, the T-Mobile My Touch, is too ambitious for its own good. It desperately wants to display full versions of web sites for my viewing pleasure — despite their long load times. I think this might have something to do with web sites not recognizing my phone as a mobile device. I find it rather difficult to believe that Wired and IGN, for example, don't offer mobile versions of their web sites. So what is it about my phone that's confusing these sites? Why does selecting the "auto-fit pages" option in my phone's browser settings do nothing to fix the problem you see in the picture here? And why does my phone not have some "check for mobile version" browser setting? Is the coding too complex?

Of course, it could be that titans like Wired and IGN are lagging behind simpler web sites, such as Kotaku, and not offering its audience a dedicated mobile version. But that's a bit tough to believe.

Next up: Robots that can do your taxes and your laundry!

I thought this was super cool: A robot that balances on a sphere and rolls around smoothly, even with weights added to it. What will they think of next?

Free Comic Book Day's highs and lows

I never did get to this weekend's Washington Comicon, but I got my comic fix nonetheless. Such is the glory of Free Comic Book Day.

As it has been since 2006, my destination for the day was Alliance Comics in Silver Spring. The store wasn't as busy this year when I arrived at noon, partly because the store wasn't as generous this year with its giveaways. In previous years, Alliance has made available for free piles of unbagged back issues. It was a good idea, serving to clear out some stagnant stock and give people the feeling they were digging for buried treasure. But not so this year. The only free items were the comics bearing the Free Comic Book Day logo.

And the store wasn't handling that change very well. Having previously trained people that the free comics were downstairs, at least one heart was broken when a boy grabbing several manga volumes perceived to be free was told no, in fact, you have to pay for these.

I believe another misstep was Alliance's decision to move the free comics behind the cash register. Although it was clear to veterans such as myself that no purchase was required, the unspoken inference to newcomers was that some purchase was required to receive a free comic. While that might be good for business, it's certainly against the spirit of the day.

To the store's credit, they were doing their best to welcome new customers. It seemed that all hands were on deck for the event as several employees mingled with customers. And the 20 percent discount on all regularly priced merchandise was spurring sales. I bought the new "Star Wars Omnibus: Boba Fett" volume, which I'm greatly enjoying. Sure, I could have got it for $5 less on Amazon, but I wanted to do something to support my local shop.

The free comics I grabbed were of varying quality. The free "G.I. Joe" issue I previously discussed was indeed a fun throwback to the original series. The "Doctor Solar/Magnus" combo preview issue was less enjoyable, striking me as two stories that were simply going through the motions. Another selection, the local comic "Bamn," failed to grab my interest.

Still, it's good to see the Free Comic Book Day tradition continuing in this rough economy. Here's to better times — and a better event — next year!

Another call bites the dust

Annie's comprehensive review last month of her Nexus One got me thinking about my own cell phone's assets and liabilities.

Generally speaking, I like my T-Mobile My Touch. It's every bit the workhorse I need with its easy texting capabilities and robust social media prowess. Its excellent GPS and camera have come in handy on more than one occasion, too. But as a phone? It could be better.

It's an unusual day if the phone doesn't drop at least one call. And when you're working from home and conducting time-sensitive business, that's more than frustrating. It's embarrassing. I've grown weary of calling people back and having to blame yet another "hiccup" on my phone. I stay with T-Mobile because I've got a good plan, but their performance hasn't won them any converts among my coworkers. In fact, I'm pretty sure most of my coworkers would actively avoid T-Mobile at this point in any comparison shopping.

My service situation could probably be explained away as the result of living on the 14th floor of an apartment complex that used concrete as one of its main ingredients. (It's worth noting that at ground level, my phone's performance is much better.) A statistics analyst also would readily note that the more calls I place and receive at home, the likelier I am to drop a call at home.

But if perception is reality and my phone is perceived to be one step above a tin-can-and-string setup, well, methinks T-Mobile could do better.

Hollywood is after my money again!

Do you remember the busy theatergoing summer of 2008, when we got "Dark Knight," "Iron Man" and the new "Indiana Jones" flick? It looks like that was just a warmup.

I'm going to have to start saving today so I can buy tickets to all the movies I want to see during the summer of 2012. The untitled sequel to "Dark Knight" is hitting theaters July 20, 2012. That's just after the second of the new "Star Trek" films hits theaters (June 29, 2012) and not too long after the "Avengers" assemble a bunch of crowds (May 4, 2012). Also of note: The rebooted "Spider-Man" flick debuts July 3, 2012, and our sequel to "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" is expected to hit the same season. If that's not enough, don't forget that the sequel to "The Hobbit" is scheduled for a December 2012 release and a remake of "The Neverending Story" is tentatively slated for an undated 2012 release.

I wonder how I can talk my local theater into some kind of frequent buyer's program…

An exhausting 24 weeks

Can I be honest with you? I'm tired. It's been an exhausting week. Much like the last 23 weeks.

Let's take a moment to recap, shall we? On Nov. 16, Window Media dies, closing the Washington Blade and leaving me jobless. Word of the Blade's closure makes international news. Encouraged by an outpouring of support, many of the former staffers band together and start DC Agenda as volunteers. The first issue is published in time to match the Blade's old publication schedule without missing a beat.

I write that we've reached the finish line. I couldn't be more wrong. The marathon is just beginning.

Reality hits: We're starting a business during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. My initial feelings of panic subside, but a sense of urgency remains. Some people share it. Others do not. Mistakes are inevitably made. We curse. We cope. We forge ahead.

Window Media's liquidation gets expedited. The Blade's name and assets are put up for auction. The owners of DC Agenda bid and win. Discussions begin about resurrecting the Blade name. Varied opinions are voiced. Readers are polled. A decision is made. A flurry of work ensues. Twelve hour working days become common as plans are brought to fruition. But finally — miraculously — the Blade returns on April 30. The photo above is proof.

Never, I daresay, has so much gone into 64 pages.

It's been an emotionally tumultuous and physically straining five months. Anyone truly involved in this venture who tells you otherwise is mistaken. Of course, the undertaking has not been without rewards personal and communal. I've again secured a steady paycheck. And the steadfast support from readers and advertisers has been amazing. So many people refused to let the Blade die — and every one of them contributed in some form to the publication's return. This shared victory is simply astounding and something I'll always treasure.

So where do we go from here? We go back to normal. Or at least to what passes for normal these days. Our offices at the D.C. Center will soon be displaced as the building is demolished. New accommodations must be found. Plus, we're just five weeks out from the start of Capital Pride, our busiest time of the year. We're about to face a whole new set of challenges.

But you know what? After these last five months, I'm not worried. If we can bring a newspaper back from the dead, we can do just about anything.