On iRacing

Over the past few weeks, I've been enjoying my delve into iRacing.com, an incredibly realistic driving simulator that has quite the physics engine backing it.



If you're at all interested in motorsports or fancied being a racecar driver at some point, I highly recommend you give it a go.

Now testing - Lively

Just a quick note for you guys to remind me to review Lively. Lively, is Google's response to Second Life, though it seems a lot campier. I downloaded the Beta last night and will give it a week or two before I post a full review.

Here's the promo video



I've actually never tried second life, so I'll need to get into that as well. What has me wanting to try Lively? To be honest, I like to try EVERYTHING Google puts out into the general market. I really enjoy the openness of their platforms and love the idea of adapting all of these free Web tools and services into a business and marketing environment.

Can't wait to get started on this. Do you have experience with Lively? E-mail me your thoughts.

On Digital Strategy, Powerpoint

I work at an agency that loves its "decks," which is a really dumb way of saying Power Point. I find deck writing very frustrating - mostly because the people you'll inevitably present the deck to have no desire to sit through 20 to 50 slides of what you're already telling them anyway.



Sure, strategy is really important, and I'm of the opinion you shouldn't even bother creating concept creative without it, but there is a point where you just need to tell a client what the hell you're going to do for them.

I learned this first hand during a recent presentation to a group of people that I would classify as "light-tech" clients. I believe you can classify people in the modern business environment into three tech categories:

*Non-Tech Adopters
*Telecom Adopters
*All Tech Adopters


I, unfortunately, was presenting a very long, strategically sound deck for an "all tech" audience that was very clearly a group of Telecom adopters. How do I know? They were all furiously typing away on their Blackberries, as I presented on some very cool Web 2.0 applications we planned to use to build their brand. Not to mention, when I asked how many of them knew what a "blog" was, only two of the 10 in the room raised their hand.

So, we ditched the deck after five slides and proceeded to wing it on the strategy. In the long run, it went very well. Maybe I need to ditch the deck more often.

Cooking and Recipe sites anyone?

Last night was my last night of carbs for another two weeks.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that I've put on an additional 10 pounds since my wedding and that I'm probably getting to be in the worst shape of my life. This is very disappointing to me as I'm sure you can imagine.

So, last night, I made one of my biggest guilty pleasures - an all olive pizza that takes on a significant Mediterranean flavor. But last night, I did something different. I finally got brave and grilled my pizza.

I'm happy to report that this experiment turned out fabulous. I used a pre-made crust for my first attempt. After brushing the crust with a healthy dose of olive oil, I dusted the entire crust with herbs and a light coating of cracked black pepper and garlic salt. I made my own tomato sauce from scratch and then added Colossal Greek Black Olives, Kalamata Olives and Cracked Sicilians.

It was fantastic. The flavor of the olives penetrated the crust and the sauce... and the cheese melted very evenly. Creating unique and different pizzas is something I've started to take very, very seriously. Thankfully, I'm not as obsessed as this guy. Ask my wife, every one of my pizzas is a little different, whether it's the sauce, the seasoning of the crust, or the length in the oven. Every one is different, because every one is influenced by my mood.

But now, it's back to South Beach, which means I'm back to lots of lean meats. So tonight, I'm continuing my Mediterranean tour and plan on prepping a Tuscan-style grilled steak.

Here's the marinade, which I got from the boards over at Chow.

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh oregano leaves
1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary leaves

So,Chow is my go to for new recipes. Other than the Food Network Site, do you guys have anywhere you surf for new recipes.... I'm a little out of practice. Happy eating.

On Organizing Digital Music Libraries

One of the things that has always bothered me about utilizing my numerous MP3 players is that they never seem to be able to port album art from MP3 player to MP3 player and system to system.

So, needless to say, it's frustrating when synching from one iPod to another and so on. Thanks to Lifehacker and a few of my own tricks, I've been able to find album art very, very quickly when I find holes in my cover art library, whether it's on my Shuffle, my Nano or on my various iTunes library at work or at home.


One of my favorite sites for finding art very quickly is Albumart.org, which serves as a search engine for album art. It indexes everything from blogs, to shopping sites and random web pages to find high resolution art for album covers.

If you're an indie music buff like me Slothradio.com has a nice library that Amazon and the others may not have.

Happy hunting and happy listening.

Sorry for the Hiatus

I'm back... and I can honestly say that I'll probably be back to regular blogging again. I had no idea how much work planning a wedding, doing a wedding, going on honeymoon and pitching new business at work would be. Needless to say, it was quite a ride. But now that weddings, Vita's medical boards, and a lot of other drama is behind me, I can get back to my cynical take on life, marketing and the web.



A reader recently asked me why I don't have a blog roll. I guess I've just never been a huge fan of them. I don't go seeking too much traffic with this site, and really maintain my URL to maintain a good snapshot of who I am on the web. I posted about that very topic a while back. But, thanks to the encouragement of some friends who also maintain blogs, I've been considering getting back into the regular foray and may endorse a few blogs that I frequent.

So, look for more topics, more stuff and more fun.

Also, if you want to read some thoughts from someone I've been reading lately, check out Ken Burbary's blog on web business. The handful of posts I've read so far are intelligent and well written.

Thanks for putting up with my constant absence from this space. Stay tuned folks, there's lots of changes on the horizon. Oh, and if you do care, the wedding was lovely. Here's a photo.

On Yahoo's: Shine

I've been meaning to review Yahoo's new portal for women, Shine, for some time now. After spending about 15 minutes a day on it for the past two weeks, I think I'm ready to pass judgment.



Here's the rundown:

Shine is in essence Yahoo's first target of a specific audience as opposed to its usual topical approach (Sports, News and Entertainment), but operates under the same principles.

What you get with Shine is an aggregation mash up of original blogs, user generated content and content from major publishing partners including Conde Nast, Hearst, and Time.

Yahoo's press release says:

The idea is to provide women between the ages of 25 and 54 with information "most relevant to their daily lives.

So, how well is the mash up executed?

Average at best. This is yet another attempt by marketers to tell women who they are as opposed to allowing them to tell the brand who they are.

While I like the cleanliness of the design, the massive font is distracting and looks unprofessional. Navigation, sucks it, big time. When you click on a content channel like, say Love and Sex, a secondary navigation bar opens with Related Topics. The thing is when you click on one of them in any channel you are taken to a list of posts in that topic back on the front page design and the topic navigation goes away. Changing the design colors and taking users off channel is a big no no for me and most designers who want their users to actually be able to find their way around. This seems typical for Yahoo though.

Content is dull. Many of the topics and bloggers write in an incredibly sophomoric style and focus solely on gossip, avoiding being overweight and the proper way to leave your husband if he's cheating. Sigh... I realize that I'm not a woman, but they have to be interested in more than Hollywood, affairs and soap operas.

Don't get me wrong, I like my fair share of "lifestyle" and "fluff" content every once in a while, but Shine isn't doing anything new here. It's just boxing it different and front paging some really terrible advice from its users.

Granted, I'm not in the demographic, but if this is who real women are, I'm glad my fiance isn't one of them.

Go back to the drawing board Yahoo! Retool this beast, get away from dedicating prime real estate to the perfect pair of jeans, the next chick flick and get a little substance. Either that or go with a new masthead that says Yahoo:360 - Desperate Housewives Edition. This just doesn't show any innovation. It has potential but needs a soul.

On Visual Search Engines

My mom sent me a link to Searchme.com yesterday. I had heard about this being in secure beta testing, but wasn't aware it was now open for regular viewing.

If you've never checked it out, it's probably worth a quick test drive. It's not necessarily anything revolutionary, but it caters to those who love to browse through something more visual than a big list of hyperlinks and meta descriptions.



The Likes:

• It's just plain beautiful. It's fast on my G5. The icons to sort subjects that can be taken in many ways is both helpful and beautiful.


• I dig that it highlights your search term right on the actual screen capture. It's something I've not seen with other visual search providers.


• I enjoy the iTunes like presentation style and like that you can skin it to a light or dark setting.


• The meta description data still pops up if you hover over the visual window.

The Dislikes:

• I get that it's still Beta, but there are clearly problems with the search algorithms within this search engine. As I normally do with any new search engine I get a look at, I used my last name as the initial search test. I was sort of shocked to see that a lot of the results were really old... digging up stuff that I was connected to in the late 90s and early part of 2002 and 2003. It only had one connection to my recent work - which was my editor's letter in Cobalt Mag. I get that it's beta, but it didn't even pick up Danieleizans.com.


• I'm left underwhelmed with the use of flash. It's nice, but they could have jazzed it up and done something at least a little bit different than the same cover switch that iTunes uses. The visual style is not impressive enough to make me want to ditch Google. I do love the use of icons to narrow the search down though. That's quite impressive.


• Finally, I'm left wondering why they didn’t partner with Google to drive the queries. It's not as if that wheel was broken. It seems it would have been just as easy to put the pretty paper on the best tool out there.

Overall verdict: I'm reasonably impress, but won't switch my daily engine, but this is nice for people who might not remember anything about a site aside from what it looked like. It's stunning in the way it gives me ideas for digital magazine presentations and for anyone who wants to have more fun with a search engine, but I think these visual search engines are a bit campy.

On Digital Magazine Design

I was cruising LinkedIn this morning when one of their Question and Answer topics caught my eye. There was a woman in India looking for advice on how to promote a digital newsletter.

Having just a little experience doing digital publications for several Chevy vehicles, I offered up my recommendations for setting up a method to virally promote the publication.

Then I got a look at it.

Her magazine, Architectural Evangelist needs a pretty big overhaul in my opinion.

It seems clear that the publication was designed solely in flash. Doesn't appear that they're using any of the big magazine, magalog programs.

I'm fine with having to click through to read the type closely... but the font is barely readable even in the sub head sections.

Good design for newsletters and magazines online must be taken into account... otherwise, there's no point in producing them.

Love the tabs on the AE newsletter and I like the interactive graphs, but this needs a serious overhaul from a useability standpoint. If you were the quality assurance engineer on this project, what would you flag first?

On the new Modernista! site

A few days ago, someone referred me to the new Modernista! Web site. For those of you who aren't familiar, Modernista! is an agency with offices in Michigan and elsewhere. The new site is bold, very bold actually.

It totally embraces Web 2.0 by utilizing Wikipedia as the background. They've created layers to have their Wikipedia entry and all of the links to portfolio work go to other Web 2.0 applications like Flickr and YouTube. They've also embraced 2.0 link labeling and allowed for even their flaws to become a part of their site.

It's nice to see an agency putting their money where there mouth is.

On Google Sky

Not that long ago, I posted on Google Streetview.

Yesterday, thanks to the folks at LifeHacker, I started checking out Google Sky. Basically, you can get the same satellite views you're treated to in Google's Earth application. Skywatchers and astronomy geeks rejoice.

I'm also partial to Google Moon, which allows you some fun facts on the various Apollo missions in addition to letting you check out all the moon's nooks and crannies. It's a nice little distraction.

Embedded Google promo video below. Yo.

The French Love My Web Site

Though I have no explanation for it, the number of visitors from France to danieleizans.com is up %600 from February. After I spend a little time with good ole' Google Analytics, I'll be sure to let you all know why the spike has occurred. In the meantime, I hope my French visitors (all 56 of you) are enjoying the site. If you are one of the returning French visitors I've been able to identify, what has you interested? Comment or grab me by one of my contact me.

On Hulu

News Corp. and NBC Universal launched on Hulu today.

The goal of Hulu is to attract marketers by offering a richer experience than Google's answer to the online video craze (maybe you've heard of it?) YouTube.

Supposedly a lot of marketers are very interested in the program. Marketers already working with Hulu for beta testing -- which allowed users from media executives to journalists try out the site -- included Cisco Systems, Intel Corp., Unilever, General Motors, Nissan and Toyota.

It will be interesting to see how many other companies jump on the streaming media bandwagon. Limited commercial interruptions within streaming media can be quite obtrusive. Personally, I go online to avoid advertising. I go out of my way to block it (thanks AdBlock Plus!) and want my shows uninterrupted. That's why I was incredibly upset to hear that NBC and others were abandoning the iTunes route.

I'll blog a lot more on this topic as I surf Hulu and get my bearings. I can't believe I wasn't asked to be a beta tester!

I wish...

Google Maps would have done my Google Streetview on a day when the corner of my lawn wasn't dead.


View Larger Map

That is all.

On Online Persona Managment

What happens when you Google yourself? If you click that link, you'll see what came up when I did it. Thankfully, my personal Web page hits the top of the organic listings. I chalk it up to proper meta tags, title tags and clean code. I've also gone out of my way to try to properly manage my online persona.

Admittedly, as a young twenty-something in the Internet age, not everything that you'll find my name attached to is necessarily something I'd want everyone, let alone potential clients, vendors or employers to see. Now that I'm a late twenty-something, with a considerable amount of material that I either wrote in my newspaper days or that I was responsible for coding in my Web editing days, I have a nice body of work with my name attached to it.

So, when prospective employers Google my name, mostly the good stuff shows up. Sure, my foodie profiles pop close to the top, but I don't necessarily see them as detrimental to my reputation.

Lifehacker, recently posted a feature on managing your online reputation. While I think it misses out on a few social network identities that are an absolute must to grab, I think the post is informative and has a lot of good suggestions.

As a side note, I was an early adopter of Twitter, abandoned it, and have since come back. After I left, someone who I won't name, assumed my identity and did some pretty good damage. A lesson learned. I've since grabbed it back, if only to manage it. I'm still not sold on Twitter yet.

Re-launched and re-dedicated

Well - I'm officially redesigned, streamlined and back with Danieleizans.com 2.0. For the most part, I'm really happy with it. I have a little work to do with the sidebar on this page. I've had a bit of difficulty removing the need for unordered lists within Blogger's template rules. Once I tweak it a little more everything should be up to speed.

What I do like about the site, is the redesigned navigation, the absence of the sub-pages and the direct linking to portfolio items. I've done away with a PDF version of my resume. I'm still trying to decide if I'll put that back up or not. I also incorporated two color links to maintain better usability. I'm curious to know your thoughts. Let me know.

In other news, I'll get back to talking about articles, things I come across and work related stuff.

I'm ready to get back into the swing of things, with a redesigned site. Thanks for the patience gang.

Redesign coming along

My redesign has been coming along quite well. Part of what has been slowing things down has been the fact that the last time I updated my portfolio section was some time in 2006. I've completed quite a bit of work since then that I'm actually quite proud of. Therefore, figuring out a way to organize everything has been a little challenging.

I've been surfing around and looking at different photographer and ad exec portfolio pages. And while they're very nice, flashy and pretty, they're not me. Warning: Life rant ahead.

I've always thought of myself as a linear creative. I LOVE really nice clean lines, basic gradients and colors and subtle background patterns.

I'm not sure where this grew from. I always dated artists (until Molly and Vita), and most of them liked crazy patterns, bright colors and bigger, bubbly type. For some reason, I always like to paint myself into the background. I don't like to pop too much with my online presence.

K... Back to redesign.

If it's really possible, the site is getting smaller. By smaller I mean more compact. Somehow, I've managed to increase font size (a common complaint of the current design) and still make things more compact. I'll chalk it up to the fact that I've been doing wireframes and skinning for Chevy I guess.

More later. I have a few articles to sift through and three magazines to plan before 11 a.m.

Danieleizans.com 2.0 - yo.

Hi.

Last night, I began redesigning the site. I couldn't sleep, and was feeling a bit off, but I did get the general look, feel, colors and layout of danieleizans.com 2.0. I really like it. I don't think it will be as clunky as some of the areas are here, and it certainly shows off how I've grown as a designer.

But never fear - it's still simple, standards compliant and CSS based.

I should have it done by the weekend if I continue my planned pace.

More later.

Flashback

So, I'm back to testing software. I'm currently taking a look at the ModX CMS platform for a project I'm helping pitch with Work.

I've also been busily getting ready for the holiday season. Thankfully most of the shopping has already been done. Vita and I are simply in the stage of getting ready for the flurry that will be visiting our extended family. We'll be spending some down time together as well before she hits the general surgery rotation.

Aside from all that business, we're charging ahead on the wedding. And if I can commit to one of the several templates I designed for a mini site a few months back, I could finally get a mini page up to replace our spot over at The Knot.

I'm also toying with redesigning the old danieleizans.com. This thing will be 2 years old in June, meaning it's almost overdue for a redesign.

Just a quick update. Look for my ModX templates soon.

Once upon a time...

On the iPod "The Storm" - The Doves

Once upon a time, there was a young man named Daniel. Daniel was a young, hopeful journalist with aspirations of one day reporting and editing for The New York Times. Daniel began his professional journalism career in Grand Rapids, MI. He wrote about lots of things, from murders, to fires to human-interest pieces. Daniel was happy in Grand Rapids. Not too long after he began his career, Daniel took a job in Monroe, MI at the Monroe Evening News.

He became a beat reporter, covering police, courts and fire. After two-years, Daniel became tired and slightly burned out.

The tired journalist then tried his hand in Detroit at Crain’s Detroit Business. It was here he grew into a programmer and code slinger, running the publication’s Web site.

Still, Daniel wondered when he would finally feel like his work would mean something to the world. He began looking outside the narrow world of newspapers and magazines.

In May of 2007, our young fulfillment seeker took a new position as a digital editor with Campbell-Ewald, the nation’s sixth largest advertising agency. Daniel believes this new opportunity will allow him more time to write, more time to be creative and hopefully help him find the fulfillment he has been yearning for.

This is Daniel’s story. This is Daniel’s newest beginning in a history of new beginnings.

On On Demand Video, on and on.

On the iPod: "Alec Eiffel" - The Pixies

Now, I fully understand that online video is becoming more and more niche oriented. There have been a ton of YouTube knockoffs springing up like weeds across the net. One that Al Tompkins over at Poynter, tipped me off to is GodTube.

Now, I have no problem with Christians or anyone else who practices a religion in the least. I applaud certain forms of evangelism and even plan on making my support. My very best friend and his new bride are two people who I think do it right.

My problem with services like GodTube is the tactics under which these "evangelists" are presenting their case. They're being no better than those terrible heavy metal bands with their slick media presentations. People, especially the people online video sites are aimed at, are impressionable. And this site is full of videos that bash homosexuality, evolutionary theory and free thinking. While some of these clips present some interesting theory, they go no further than scratching the surface and presenting guilt laden trickery to sway the minds of the weak.

My biggest problem is the lack of logic that goes into these arguments. Even evangelists, priests, and other clergy should have some sort of basic training in discourse. Wouldn't it be better to show both sides and then pick apart? Wouldn't that make your argument seem stronger. Instead of filibustering on about how homosexuality is immoral or say that you can't understand how a human can evolve from a primate, so it can't possibly be true, make an argument. Give me some proof. At the very least, back it up with some real premise. And for Christ's sake (pun, very much intended) back it with something other than, The Bible "says so." Take the time to support this almighty faith you have. I'll respect you more for it. Have blind faith, but have the reason to back it.

John Brownlee over at Wired, presents a well-stated vision of some of the problems with this site. I tend to agree with him for the most part. I haven't had the time to fully explore GodTube yet, but plan to out of my newly renewed interest in faith, religion and theology. Look for a full report in a few days.

I'm digging for fire.

On the iPod: "Do You Remember?" - Jack Johnson

A user (a Texas A&M Computer Science major named Cole) instant messaged me last night and conducted an informal interview. One of his questions was as to why my bio page was so thin.

Well, I suppose that's because I've done my best to try and keep this page as business as possible, despite the occasional rambling about my engagement, wedding planning or my thoughts on books and film. While it was something I once enjoyed, I don't really care to be the center of attention too much these days.

But since Cole asked me an interesting mix of computer geek and art/music/culture geek questions, I'll go ahead and make that public. Cole and I conducted this little chat via Google Talk yesterday. Here's the transcript, which he graciously allowed me to repost. Thanks for the interesting conversation Cole. Note: Spelling has been corrected, grammar has not.

Cole: Hi Dan. I'm a computer science major in Texas (Texas A&M actually). We're doing this project on CSS in my Web design class and I came across your page thanks to a template you posted in an open source forum. I'm using your personal site as one of five in my case study.

Me: Hi Cole. That's a pretty big compliment, since design is more of a hobby of mine. My job is really content management and programming related.

Cole: Yeah, I saw that on your bio page. I like the design of your site though because it's simple. I was wondering if you could answer a few questions for me about the site, and some of the things that interest you?

Me: That sort of depends. I'm not big on sharing too much about me.

Cole: Well, I have a theory that a Web designer's personal page is heavily influenced by the media they use and by the Web sites they visit. Would you be willing to answer some questions about that?

Me: Doesn't sound like it will be overly painful. Fire away.

Cole: Awesome. It's pretty apparent that you like music. A lot of different music. Can you give me a top five CDs?

Me: That's like asking me which of my children (not that I have any) I would kill first, but I'll make an effort. (1.) "Pet Sounds" – The Beach Boys, (2.) "A Rush of Blood to the Head" – Coldplay, (3.) "The Moon My Saddle" – Chamberlain, (4.) "Jersey's Best Dancers" – Lifetime, (5.) "World Waits" – Jeremy Enigk/"Aja" – Steely Dan.

Cole: Same kind of list, but with movies.

Me: The Big Lebowski, Pulp Fiction, A Waking Life, Tape, Kill Bill Vol. 2, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Stagecoach, Melvin Goes to Dinner, The Burbs.

Cole: The Burbs?

Me: Tom Hanks man... his best work ever. Forget Forrest Gump, Philadelphia, Big... The Burbs is fantastic.

Cole: Never heard of it.

Me: That's unfortunate. Go get it.

Cole: Any books stand out?

Me: I read non-fiction mostly. Mostly philosophy books by Immanuel Kant, Aristotle. Lately I've been delving back into medieval philosophy though. My fiance can tell you I have an obsession with Thomas Hobbes at the moment, mostly because I think his argument for the State of Nature has a lot of validity to the present state of our world. She'll also probably tell you that she hates whenever I utter the words state of nature.

Cole: Any fiction?

Me: Vonnegut... Salinger, probably all of those insightful writers that most post graduates read to feel liberated, edgy and angry at the world around them. I wasn't all that different than a lot of other upper middle class suburban kids trying to "find the meaning of it all." I was really big into poetics in high school and my first year of college. Frost, Ginsberg, the beats. I was your typical wannabe trendy, arts guy.

Cole: Does that mean you didn't play a lot of sports?

Me: No, actually, I love sports, both playing and watching. I may have been that guy in the coffee house talking up girls with my guitar, but I was also the guy who played every intramural college sport I could get involved in. I also coached soccer for a while. I believe I was really good at one point. I'm a bit more stationary these days, but I do love sports.

Cole: Are you playing any right now?

Me: Does walking my dog count? Ha, no I'm not at the moment. I've been looking at getting back into drop-in hockey, roller hockey, and I'll do a lot of camping/hiking and paddling this summer if I follow through on my plans.

Cole: Outdoorsy then?

Me: Absolutely, I love being outside. I'm big on camping, paddling rivers, in canoes or kayaks. I spent a lot of my summers in northern Michigan, fishing, hiking and getting into trouble. My brother does extreme outdoor sports. I'm much more laid back about it. I enjoy recreational top-rope climbing, some sport climbing, fishing and paddling.

Cole: What are some web sites you visit a lot?

Me: Pingmag.jp is a big one for me. I also visit designobserver.com, typofile.com and a lot of newspaper web sites.

Cole: Any other media we should know about?

Me: Actually, I dig video games too, though I don't play them nearly as much as I did in high school or college. I haven't gone so far as to get an X-Box 360 or a PS3. But I do play my PS2 from time to time. I also have an old Sega Genesis and an original NES that get dusted off from time to time.

Cole: What games specifically?

Me: I play a lot of sports games. Boxing, Hockey, Football and Track and Field. I also like some war strategy stuff. I'm a big fan of the Metal Gear series. Anything that's semi-tactical, I really enjoy.

Cole: Thanks a lot. I'll send you a copy of my report when I'm done.

Me: My pleasure.

I guess we're really doing it.

On the iPod: "Black and White Town" - The Doves

So. I suppose that I know have to get married for sure. The wife-to-be created a wedding page on theknot.com. It's officially, official now.

The templates the knot offers seem to be heavily bride-focused, catering to the pastel pinks, oranges and greens that dominate the MySpace set. I haven't seen all of the templates just yet, but I think the finance picked a decent template, even if I'm not a huge fan of vertical stripes.

We also put the deposit down on our wedding site and are fairly confident that we have a few other pieces decided. Thankfully, we get to be a little dormant for a while in regard to the planning, allowing her to focus on her studies and finish up her last three months of medical school before she returns home to the Mitten for rotations.

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned that my fiancé is in medical school. I'd have to look back through previous posts.

At any rate, here's what's been determined for sure:

• The Date: June 1, 2008


• The Location: Waldenwoods (Heartland, MI)


• The Format: Non-religious and outdoors

Anyway, I have more rants to talk about. For my fellow wine fans, I have three new wines I reviewed over the weekend. See the wine journal to your right.

Quick post, site reviews

On the iPod: "Cartwheeels" - The Reindeer Selection

PingMag did a really nice piece on the beauty of infosthetics, earlier this week. It sort of gets you thinking about how even hard data can be made beautiful if you do it right.

In net applications, I'm testing a few of Google's new personal web home themes. I guess i never expected Google to jump on the cutesy theme bandwagon that Yahoo! has been doing for years and years.

The one I'm testing at the moment is below.



This one is called starry night and it changes throughout the day with the change in the weather and time. You enter your Zip code when you add the widget so that it can monitor sunup and sundown.

More later.

Some great foodie Web sites

On the iPod: "They Know Where You Live" - The Joy Circuit

I covered foodie sites in my column today. See below.

---

I won't lie to you. I'm a foodie. And I blame it all on my mother's stellar cooking.

This passion has become so severe that I am now striving to find the best corned beef, the tastiest recipe for French onion soup and the most unique way to incorporate pomegranate arils with my salmon. And I'm doing all of that online.

So, if you're looking for a new spot for a business lunch locale, a new recipe or even if you're just looking to read up on some new wine, try these links out.

Chowhound.com is a site I visit daily. There you'll find message boards, recipes, restaurant reviews by region and a host of other tidbits. Thanks to chowhound, I'm now a fan of smoked porters, pickled red onions and Autumn squash ravioli with sage brown butter sauce. One day I plan on trying to make my own pancetta.

If new wine is what you seek, I highly recommend Wine Spectator's site (thanks to my boss Chris Crain for that one). Even if you’re a little new to wine (as I am), there is a wealth of information to get you started. At the very least, you can learn how to fumble your way through a presentation during your next business meeting. There are also some great videos about various regions. My favorite so far is on the art of champagne sabrage.

Finally, I give you my favorite local foodie blogger. Lisa Leutheuser (the Kitchen Chick) is an Ann Arbor resident. Here you'll be treated to some fantastic food reviews, great pictures and some real insight. She has totally turned me on to Biwako Sushi in Saline, thanks to this review.