Vote for me?

I've been nominated in the "Favorite Social Media Geek" category for the D.C. Tweeps, hosted by the Washington Post!

You can vote for me here (look for @thinklynsen) through 11:59 p.m. EST Dec. 31.

There are lots of other worthy peeps to vote for, too. Go check it out - it's fun!

Merry Christmas to all…

…and to all, a good night.

Just like last year, Annie and I are going to take a break from blogging during the holidays so that we can fully enjoy our down time. We hope that you, too, are able to relax and enjoy this happy season.

Grab a friend and play a game. (We'd really recommend Carcassonne.) Find a quiet corner and read a book. (Annie is currently enjoying "House of Leaves.") Or just pop in that holiday CD you love.

Oh! And if you get a chance to tour the White House, like we did, you should totally take it. It's beautifully decorated for the season. Thanks again to our friends Bryan and Jeremy for the opportunity!

No matter how you spend the holidays, though, we wish you all the best and look forward to seeing you back here again in 2011!

How to get next year's Christmas shopping done in one day

I did my Christmas shopping in a day this year. From my couch. In November.

Yes, you may now commence hating me.

But wait! I can help you do the same thing next year!

Meet my new best friend...Wishpot.

Wishpot lets you add products on the web to one central list. I started using it for my own wish list, and then realized how incredibly handy it was for gift ideas, too. You can make your lists public, visible only to your Wishpot friends, or only viewable by you, so it's easy to set up a private list just for gift ideas for other people.

Wishpot has a special button you add to your browser, so whenever you're looking at stuff online, you can just click that button to add that item to one of your lists. Simple.

So throughout 2010, whenever I saw something cool and thought, "Oh, somebody I know might like that," I would just add it to my gift ideas list on Wishpot. By the time Thanksgiving came around, I had approximately 30 gift ideas in there, all of them easy to buy online from the comfort of my own couch.

The other trick up my sleeve that makes Christmas shopping painless is a simple spreadsheet I created in Google Docs for Christmas gift-planning. (You could use any spreadsheet program, like Excel, but I find Google Docs helpful because I can access it anywhere - like if I get a random idea at work, for example.)

The columns in my spreadsheet are:
Name
Relationship
Budget
Gift idea 1
Gift idea 2
Gift idea 3
Gift Purchased
Gift cost
Shipping cost
Purchased?
Wrapped?
Shipped?

Then I just fill it in with all the people I'm planning to buy things for, and track the status of the gift with the final three columns.

Finally, I also discovered a great website this year to find fun gifts: PerpetualKid.com. Lots of fun stuff to be had there, and a flat, $5.99 shipping rate, no matter how much you buy. Love it!

So save yourself some agony next year - start planning early by having some web tools at your disposal, so Christmas shopping is a breeze.

Happy holidays!

Making it to the second draft

My hat is tipped today to the new Books Ngram Viewer from Google Labs, a neat utility that shows the rise and fall of any word's use in printed volumes.

Among the many reasons this utility is cool and should steal a few moments of your time is because it showed me that my old Washington Blade articles have been referenced in at least five books. It's true! The utility indicates my articles have been cited in the "Handbook of African American Psychology," "Radio Cultures: The Sound Medium in American Life," "Queer Inclusions, Continental Divisions: Public Recognition of Sexual Diversity in Canada and the United States," "Dishonorable Passions: Sodomy Laws in America," and "The U.S. Military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Policy." It's possible that my works have been referenced in other books, too, since the Ngram Viewer only reflects books in the Partner Program and Library Project. I might have to check back in the future to see if any other books become indirectly tied to my name.

Although I know nothing about these books, it's rather neat to see my articles find a second life in their pages. This also goes to show you that the old saying about journalism being the "first rough draft of history" is true. That some of my work is making it into the second draft helps justify those many late nights.

iOS game sale rocks my socks

One of the things I love about digital game distribution is the tendency of publishers to run crazy good sales. Like the one going on right now at the iTunes App Store.

Electronic Arts, Sega, Square-Enix, THQ, Konami and other publishers are making the most of the few remaining days before Christmas to offer what looks like their biggest sale of the year. Some of the biggest deals are coming from Electronic Arts, which is offering more than five dozen of its biggest games for 99 cents each. Top-tier titles like "The Sims 3," "Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit" and "Command & Conquer: Red Alert" are among the many apps on sale. The publisher is describing this event as their "biggest sale ever," with discounts in some cases topping 90 percent.

But Electronic Arts isn't alone. Sega and Square-Enix are close behind, offering many games at reduced prices. Arcade and console classics such as "Altered Beast," "Shining Force" and "Super Monkey Ball" are just 99 cents each. "Sonic the Hedgehog" is $2.99 and "Final Fantasy" is $3.99. Also discounted are two RPGs made specifically for the iOS: "Song Summoner," down to $4.99 from $9.99, and "Chaos Rings," down to $5.99 from $12.99.

THQ and Konami are also joining the fun, which means games based on the beloved Star Wars, Castlevania and Metal Gear franchises are on sale. The addictive "Star Wars: Battle for Hoth" and adorable "Star Wars: Cantina" are just 99 cents each, as are "Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night" and "Metal Gear Solid Touch."

But if indie games are more to your liking, fear not. The Indie iPhone Holiday Sale has you covered. Here you'll find the likes of "Canabalt," a game that I played and heartily enjoyed in its Flash version, and other superb titles. You can learn more about each of the six indie games that are part of this coordinated sale here. It's also worth noting that 1/3 of all profits from the Indie iPhone Holiday Sale go to charity.

So what are you waiting for? Fire up iTunes and go bargain shopping!

Alas, you can't program spirit into 'Tron'

Much has been written of the many failings of "Tron: Legacy."

USA Today noted the film's story is "impenetrable, often nonsensical." Roger Ebert described the plot as "a catastrophe, short-changing the characters and befuddling the audience." And James Berardinelli of ReelViews astutely noted that "they had 28 years, and this is the best they could come up with?"

But the review that most resonated with me was the one written in 1982. The analysis Ed Naha penned of the original "Tron" flick for Starlog magazine applies just as eloquently to "Tron: Legacy." Consider the following snippet:

Prior to its release, all those connected with "Tron" promised state-of-the-art visual whammies, never-before-seen computer-dictated perspectives, dazzling light displays and marvelous scenes of video games come live.

"Tron" delivers all that.

No question.

What "Tron" never delivers, however, is a sense of spirit, a sense of human drive, that intangible something that allows an audience to root for the hero and hiss the villain, that invites us to participate both emotionally and mentally. In "Tron," the audience is reduced to voyeurism — transformed into an amalgam of passive types who are asked to watch the largest video game in existence but are never invited to play.

The excerpt is no fluke. Here's another segment that applies just as much to the sequel as it does the original:

It just seems a shame that, with all the money, the care and the time poured into the motion picture's visuals, nobody bothered to develop an emotional storyline that would match the intensity of the computerized end of things, a storyline involving people you care about.

It's fascinating to me that a review published in November 1982 can be reiterated word for word in December 2010. It's as though the sequel's writers and director were so focused on remaking the lightcycle and disc battles that they forgot to read the justifiable critiques. This misstep gives you, me and others craving a new and improved "Tron" merely half of what we sought.

And it's debatable how much good came of the new.

Yes, the special effects are quite good and the soundtrack by Daft Punk is truly a highlight. But there's little spirit and decidedly less sense in this new film. It lacks focus, splitting its attention too severely between the heroes and villains. It also lacks creativity, letting viewers detect its twists far too early.

Perhaps worst of all, though, is that "Tron: Legacy" lacks the story I wanted to see. The story that's danced around, but never fully told. The story that I've taken to calling Tron 1.5. I won't spill the beans, but I will say those plot allusions and brief scenes left me wanting to know more about what happened before the movie. It was akin to the feeling I experienced when Obi-Wan Kenobi first told Luke Skywalker about the Clone Wars.

It's probably inevitable that we'll learn the full story of Tron 1.5 at some point. I know the new "Tron: Evolution" video game explores that time, as do some "Tron: Betrayal" issues from Marvel Comics. It's unclear whether the upcoming animated series "Tron: Uprising" also falls into that era.

But that's beside the point. The point is that I wanted to see a good, standalone movie in "Tron: Legacy." I didn't get that. Instead, I got a sequel that was visually superior but, in many ways, emotionally inferior. When the credits rolled, I left disappointed.

Which is too bad. Because just like Ed wrote back in 1982, the movie could have been so much more.

This just in...Mobile ThinkLynsen.com is now available!

Thanks to the wizards at Blogger, we were able to quickly and easily create a mobile-friendly version of Think Lynsen.com, which should come up automatically now when you access our site from a mobile device.

Woot woot! Enjoy.

Japan Trip Highlights: The Remix

What happens when you take a few days worth of video and photos from Tokyo and Kyoto, drop it all in a blender and hit mix? You get this summary of our trip to Japan. Enjoy!

Japan Trip Highlights: Nishi Honganji Temple

Our first stop in Kyoto was the Nishi Honganji Temple. It is the head temple of the Jodo Shinshu organization and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, according to our tour guide and Wikipedia.

To be honest, I don't remember a lot about this temple except that the tour guide kept telling us the monks were afraid of fire because part of the temple burned down one time.

Anyway. Pretty pictures follow!

Japan Trip Highlights: Restaurant City

It's not just an addictive game on Facebook. It's a place you can go in Ginza, which is the really classy part of Tokyo. And probably the only thing in common is that the dragon fruit is really expensive.

Japan Trip Highlights: No, ONE number SEVEN...oh, never mind.

I'm going to preface this story by telling you two things:

1. As I've mentioned previously, before we left on the trip, I studied Japanese.
2. I once took an entire class called "Field Experience in Intercultural Communication" (which could've been more accurately titled, "Two Community College Professors Want an Excuse To Write Off a Trip to Italy and Greece." But still).

Despite facts 1 and 2, miscommunications occurred during our trip to Japan. It was inevitable. But one of them was a doozy.

On the day we took the bullet train to Kyoto, we left so early that no place was open for breakfast, except a little place in the train station right before we boarded the train. They sold about 20 different bento boxes. Like McDonald's, you can order by number. Simple, right?

I walked up to the counter. I wanted a number 7, Josh wanted a number 12. I smiled at the shopkeeper and held up seven fingers. He smiled and nodded and grabbed a number 7. So far, so good. Then I held up ten fingers, then two. He began stacking more number 7s until there were 12 of them on the counter. He smiled triumphantly.

Um, no.

I desperately tried to pantomime that no, we wanted ONE number 7 and ONE number 12. Confused, he began removing the number 7s, then put about six of a different number on the counter, looking at me for approval.

Behind me, the line grew longer. I began to panic. "Eggo-ga wakarimas ka?" (Do you understand English?), I asked in desperation. He smiled and shook his head, pointing at the bento boxes, nonverbally asking if I was happy with this enormous stack of stuff I didn't order. I shook my head, holding up two fingers. We only wanted TWO bento boxes.

So he quickly grabbed a number 2 and added it to the stack.

*facepalm*

Finally, through a wild series of hand gestures, his smile fading and impatience growing with each one, he offered us two bento boxes: a number 7 and a number 2. Sensing the line behind us grow more impatient with my every communication misstep, and realizing our train was due to leave imminently, Josh and I nodded, thankful we'd avoided paying for 72 bento boxes, paid, and left. As quickly as possible.

I did get the number 7 I asked for. Josh's incorrect bento turned out to be a box of tiny sandwiches. Each one filled with a different mystery condiment. Oh well. It could've been worse.

My bento was pretty tasty.

Josh's sandwiches were, um, edible.

For the record, I did share some of my fried rice with him.

Japan Trip Highlights: Tokyo Tower

Perhaps you know it from "King Kong Escapes" or "Sailor Moon." Maybe you saw Godzilla destroy it once or twice. Or you might simply recognize this Eiffel Tower doppelgänger as the landmark it truly is.

Tokyo Tower, a communications and observation structure, is one of the city's most important sites. Broadcasting signals from more than one dozen local television and radio stations, the tower remains a key part of Tokyo's infrastructure more than 50 years after it opened. Standing just shy of 333 meters, Tokyo Tower is the tallest completed structure within Japan. Only an unfinished successor tower, the Tokyo Sky Tree, is taller. But the title loss hasn't deterred visitors. Annie and I had to navigate sizable crowds during our guided visit to the tower. It remains a prominent tourist destination, offering spectacular views at 145 meters above the ground of the surrounding cityscape. This bird's eye view of the sprawling metropolis gives you a better appreciation of Tokyo's immense scale. Everything from modern skyscrapers and sports fields to ancient temples and gravestones can be spied from the tower's main observatory. And for those who are interested, there are two "look down windows." Do you dare?

In this cityscape view, the 42-story Mori Tower is the tallest building.

An early morning soccer practice was had on this field wedged between buildings.

Several temples and cemeteries are viewable from Tokyo Tower.

This unusual building is apparently the religious headquarters of some order.

The view from one of Tokyo Tower's "look down windows." Please, glass, don't break.

Tokyo Sky Tree was under construction during our visit. It's scheduled to open in 2012.

'The Princess Bride' + lightsabers = awesome

Happy Friday and enjoy the weekend!

Green Hornet looks crazy awesome

When I saw "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1" for the second time, there was a "Green Hornet" trailer in front of the movie.

Before then, I knew nothing about the Green Hornet other than the fact that he was one of the too many superheroes who have "Green" in their name (Green Lantern and Green Arrow among them), and I knew the movie had been through development hell so I really didn't have much interest in it.

But the trailer changed that. Man. It reminds me of "Iron Man" because it has FUN with the superhero mythos - always a big plus in my book.

Check out the trailers and let me know what you think.

Nine days and counting…

"Tron: Legacy," which includes a soundtrack by Daft Punk, hits theaters Dec. 17.

Wizards of the Coast transform their offices into Betrayal at House on the Hill

I'm way, way late on this, but I just discovered it and it's awesome enough to share off-season.

For Halloween, the Wizards of the Coast sales team transformed their office into Betrayal at House on the Hill. Each cubicle was a different room from the game. It's pretty awesome. Check it out:

Wii Speak: Doomed from the start?

There's much that Nintendo does right. Publisher of fantastic games? Check. Giver of gifts? Check. Refuge for wayward New York travelers? Check.

But the company doesn't exactly have the Midas touch. It's not infalible. And its track record with system peripherals is particularly spotty. From the Nintendo Entertainment System's laughable Robotic Operating Buddy to the Game Boy Advance's cumbersome e-Reader, it seems there are more misses than hits among the company's many attempts at system peripherals. For every NES Advantage there's a half dozen Super Scopes. So it didn't exactly shock me last week when news came that the Wii Speak microphone is on its death bed. That the company practically gave the thing away earlier this year with copies of "Endless Ocean 2" was sure sign that it would inevitably join the DK Bongos in the pantheon of overhyped peripherals.

But there are larger questions to ask here. Was the Wii Speak peripheral doomed from the start? And what can we learn from this? To answer those questions, consider how the deck was stacked against the item even before it hit stores:

• Wii Speak was revealed during Nintendo's media briefing at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 2008, an event widely chided as the company's worst E3 showing in years. The briefing so failed to resonate with gamers that Wii Speak and other products highlighted at the event, such as "Wii Music" and "Shaun White Snowboarding," were ultimately disregarded in the marketplace.

• Wii Speak was compatible with one game when it released. And that one game, "Animal Crossing: City Folk," was hardly a killer app. Wii Speak needed something far more enticing to drive sales.

• The next game to use Wii Speak, "The Conduit," gave hardcore gamers a reason to heed the device. But the game came seven months later — long after most potential customers had deemed Wii Speak worthless. And even then, it could only be used to chat with fellow team members. There was no way to smacktalk opponents.

• Only a handful of games would go on to support Wii Speak. None of these games were built around the device, so gamers continued to see Wii Speak as little more than an optional afterthought. That provided no motivation to purchase the $30 peripheral.

• Nintendo's last big Wii Speak push, packaging the peripheral with "Endless Ocean 2" and touting its compatibility with "Monster Hunter Tri," was too little, too late. With purchasing decisions long since made, consumers had made it clear they weren't interested.

So don't try to tell me you were surprised when Nintendo threw Wii Speak overboard. Even if you were a user, you had to know this day was coming.

But what can we — as increasingly cash-strapped consumers — learn from this? A few things. First is that if you haven't noticed it already, Nintendo has a history of throwing a lot of peripherals at the wall and seeing what sticks. Being an early adopter is risky. Second is that you must realize a peripheral can be abandoned as quickly as it debuted. Despite enticing assurances to the contrary, there's no guarantee that future games will support it. And third is that unless you learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it. Before you buy any Wii Motion Plus device or the forthcoming Wii Vitality Sensor, truly consider how much milage you'll get from it.

Or just shout into a dead microphone. It's your choice.

Font Conference

Not to oversell it, but this may be the greatest video ever put on the Internet.

If you are a font geek, writer, or tech geek, you must watch this.

2010 in pictures

In lieu of a holiday letter, we Lynsens prefer to save a little paper and get our multimedia on! Enjoy our 2010 retrospective, and happy holidays to all our wonderful friends, family and readers!

Japan Trip Highlights: Noodles!

I'm a little ashamed to say that I only had noodles twice during the entire trip. I'd heard all these stories about cheap noodle carts outside the train stations, but darn if I could find one when we were hungry. I had some noodle variety box from a department store in Ginza that was sadly unimpressive, but on our very last day, just before we boarded the bus to Narita Airport, we found a noodle place in Belle Vie, the little shopping area in Akasaka, near our hotel. They sold Atsumori, which is a noodle cooked, then dumped in cold water, then served with soup to dunk the noodles in.

I know this because they had this helpful sign outside the tiny restaurant:

It looked like this:

Josh, who was just getting the hang of chopsticks, had a bit of a challenge with the whole noodle dunking-eating process, but he did OK.

I resolved to  be sloppy. Other patrons were loudly slurping, so I did too.

Verdict? Tasty stuff, and it kept us full for the long journey to the airport and through security. Atsumori for the win.

Japan Trip Highlights: Tokyo Metro

I chuckle now when I hear people describe Washington's subway system as complex. You want complex? Go to Tokyo.

Boasting a map that must be seen to be believed, the Tokyo Metro is to the Washington Metro as "War and Peace" is to "The Cat in the Hat." Tokyo's subway is more complex and imposing than virtually any other system in the world. But the sprawling network — which covers 121 miles, features 179 stations and serves more than 6 million passengers each day — is also surprisingly accessible and not nearly as frightening as some videos would have you believe.

We naturally avoided Tokyo's subway system during the morning and evening rush hours, a move that left us traveling with a more relaxed and forgiving crowd. It also helped that we got good tips from our travel books, hotel staff and tour guide on how to best enter and navigate the system. So how is it done? Fairly easily, all things considered. Entrances are clearly labeled and machines to purchase your ticket can be easily switched to display English instructions. Although it's possible to purchase cheaper, one-ride tickets, it's simpler to buy a PASMO card. Comparable to the Washington Metro's SmarTrip card, the PASMO card is rechargeable and automatically subtracts your correct fare when you transfer between lines or exit the system. And because the PASMO card collects your name and contact information in case of card theft or loss, you'll return home with a personalized souvenir!

Riding the Tokyo subway system is fairly akin to any other subway time you've experienced. Passengers are generally quiet and polite, ignoring the many ads surrounding them and heeding only their own book or smartphone. Automated signs above subway car doors track your current station and direction; arrival announcements are made in Japanese and English. It's really only the Japanese print and dialogue that distinguish the riding experience from what you'd find in D.C. or New York.

But at the system's larger stations you'll see some significant differences. Here are an array of underground shops, restaurants and other worthwhile facilities, such as public toilets. (In case you're curious, the toilets I used were always clean and familiar in style.) Line transfer stations offered the largest lineups of eateries, which were great for grabbing a quick sitdown meal at reasonable prices. One foodcourt that Annie and I patronized was so well designed and its tables so isolated from the nearby hustle that I briefly forgot we were in the subway system. And the food was good, too!

Of course, our time in the Tokyo Metro wasn't entirely without complication. We made a few wrong turns as we walked through the underground station corridors, were befuddled by some of the posted etiquette signs, and distracted a few native passengers. But I'm happy to note that we never felt unsafe while using the system — and we always found our destination.

Japan Trip Highlights: Nijō Castle

We walked around in our stocking feet a lot in Kyoto, as the temples and castles we visited require you remove your shoes before you enter. I felt bad for an Australian girl in our party, who wasn't wearing socks and whose feet were blistered and covered in Band-Aids. It wasn't a warm day, and I bet her poor feet were freezing and sore for most of it.

One of our stocking-feet adventures was Nijō Castle, which was my intellectual highlight of the trip. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any photos or video inside the castle. There were even signs prohibiting sketching. They are very protective of the artwork inside, according to our guide, and don't want people making and selling postcards of it.

Nijō Castle, or specifically Ninomaru Palace, was fascinating. Not only was there opulent artwork everywhere, painted with gold leaf and jade, but the building itself was specifically built to demonstrate hierarchy between the shogun and his visitors. There were separate areas for the shogun to receive different guests, depending on their stature. One room in particular was interesting, as it was a split-level floor, and the shogun was to sit on the lower half to receive news from the emperor's messenger, who stood on the upper half, to represent the authority of the emperor over the shogun.

In the shogun's private chamber, only he and his fifty wives were allowed, but the wives all carried swords, as they were the last line of defense in the event of an assassin and were expected to protect the shogun.

The coolest part, though, was the palace's security system. The floors were constructed in such a way as to squeak when walked upon, to prevent people from sneaking into the palace undetected. (Learn more here.) You can see how this looked beneath the house in the video below.

The gardens of the palace were also quite beautiful, though we only saw a small portion of them.

Below is a video showing the exterior of the castle, as well as the "security system" and the gardens.