December 2007

Cute baby video. Click to view it -- don't want this clip loading every time I refresh anymore.

http://widgets.clearspring.com/o/46928cc51133af17/477ec4c089aa3bb

Recent Xbox Live Issues May Be Result of Attack : Primotech

http://www.primotechnology.com/2008/01/03/recent-xbox-live-issues-may-be-result-of-attack/

10 Smart Hacks for Google Reader - Lifehack.org

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/10-smart-hacks-for-google-reader.html

Google Delivering Porn-Like Message - Google Reader is the one to look at - Softpedia

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Delivering-Porn-Like-Message-72426.shtml

Boing Boing Pirates "toddler" toy

 

 

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Boing Boing Pirates "toddler" toy

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on 12/28/07

Genius babies sells a toy called "Boing, Boing, Pop'n Pirates" -- "Pirates will delight toddlers who are fascinated by cause-and-effect play. Three wooden pirates (each with a patch on his eye) fit into three slots in a sturdy red ship, then pop up and down on springs when pushed by little fingers." Delight toddlers? Hot damn -- this thing delights me! Link (Thanks, Justin!)

 

 

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GameTunnel's 2007 Games Of The Year - The Whole Caboodle

 

 

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GameTunnel's 2007 Games Of The Year - The Whole Caboodle

via GameSetWatch by editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless) on 1/3/08

Excellent indie site GameTunnel has just finished up its 2007 (Indie) Games Of The Year countdown, and there's now a full list of charts posted on its site - with admirable continuity, since there are game of the year charts back to 2002.

The two charts posted since we last mentioned this are the Special Awards, and in the Player's Choice category: "Wonderland Adventures has mobilized their way to a great victory for this very addictive adventure/puzzle game. For anyone who loves logic puzzles, like those found in the dungeons of Zelda, Wonderland is your game." Haven't seen this game discussed too much, but it's well worth perusing.

In addition, the overall Top 10 Indie Games Of The Year chart is a really excellent countdown - infused with Game Tunnel's sensibilities as much as TIGSource and Indygamer/IndieGames.com also have their own particular slants on the indie scene - but as near to canonical as I've seen so far in terms of smart independent titles. Nice to see a familiar face in the top spot, too (not giving it away here)!

 

 

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The Trouble with Virtualization - Cranky IT Staffs

 

 

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The Trouble with Virtualization - Cranky IT Staffs

via Slashdot by Zonk on 1/3/08

lgmac writes "A new survey on the results of Enterprise use of virtualization shows that the process is seeing wide and appreciative use. Technical hurdles are obviously the biggest problem facing corporate IT shops. Just the same, political squabbles among IT staffers fighting for turf after being forced to work together in new ways seems to be a going concern as well. 'Technical woes rank higher--to be expected when CIOs deploy a new technology such as virtualization. However, the politics pain many of you. Remember, virtualization not only asks people to cede some control over their physical server kingdoms, but also asks IT experts from different realms to work more closely together.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

 

 

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Bloglines - Where Boys Were Kings, a Shift Toward Baby Girls

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NYT > Home Page New York Times > Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

Where Boys Were Kings, a Shift Toward Baby Girls By CHOE SANG-HUN In South Korea, once a rigidly patriarchal society, a centuries-old preference for baby boys is fast receding.

Bloglines - Cyber-sympatico?

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Electric-Escape.net Information Superhighway Rest Area #10,184

Cyber-sympatico? By Robert Jung on About This Site So, is it merely a coincidence that this web site goes down on the same weekend that I get sidelined by a severe cold?

Bloglines - Naked Before God

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Electric-Escape.net Information Superhighway Rest Area #10,184

Naked Before God By Robert Jung on Sex Christian nudists hit the church—and the hot tub—for three days of wet and wild worship in the backwoods of Tennessee by Elizabeth Ulrich, The Nashville SceneAugust 2, 2007 It's unusually cool for a June evening at the Cherokee Lodge, and the nudists have finally covered up. They sit at round plastic tables under the pavilion's tin roof, drinking $3 cans of Miller High Life and watching a 60-something in a teal thong shake her deep-dimpled ass to some Top 40 song. Every once in a while, she spins to reveal quick snapshots of her nipples peaking out of a fishnet top that sparkles under the disco ball and Technicolor spotlights. Soon the sweaty DJ spins the "Electric Boogie" as a herd of middle-aged and elderly bodies, sagging in painful ways, begin to move mechanically to the electric slide on the dance floor. Some of the more practical women wear blouses and sweaters with no panties, others wear tube tops that they wriggle down and over their breasts, which sway freely to the beat. The men, some donning only cowboy hats and dingy pearl-snap shirts, terrycloth robes or nothing at all, rock their hips -- and subsequently, their dangling genitals -- with complete abandon. They all shimmy from side to side, tilting forward and snapping their fingers in the most bizarre display of jiggly, full-frontal nudity. When a slow country song wafts through the night air, most of the 40 or so nudists couple off. Rick, a financial analyst from Kingsport, Tenn., who asked that we only use his first name, seems to be the only eligible bachelor at the nudist resort's Saturday-night dance. He and I sit alone, swilling overpriced beer and talking about his divorce, the days of disco and how he's usually not very social at these things. Rick's wearing a "Watch Out!! I'm Here to Raze Hell" T-shirt, which covers a boyish upper body with no tan lines. He's managed to avoid the round belly and love handles common among the midlife nudist set. You might not notice him at a bar in the city, but here, at a party in the thicket of the Cumberland Plateau nearly two hours east of Nashville, Rick's a silver fox. A few women do, in fact, ask him to dance -- an older, 5-foot-tall woman almost as round as she is tall drags him onto the cement dance floor for a Shania Twain song. And the leggy brunette bartender who mans the beat-up beer fridge in the corner gets Rick smiling big toothy grins as they dance to a disco beat. She's sporting nipple rings so elaborately coiled around her small breasts that you can't help but stare. Neither woman is looking for any action, but Rick doesn't care. He's here for Jesus. He has joined more than 20 others for the Christian Nudist Convocation, a semi-annual gathering of salt-of- the-earth folks whose dedication to being nude whenever possible is rivaled only by their love for Christ. "May the Lord protect our nudity from the sight of those who will not benefit, and may He allow us to be seen by those who will.... Amen," goes the prayer from one of the nudist's websites. In three days, they'll hike, swim, barbecue, have sing-alongs and, of course, praise Jesus au natural. Some won't put as much as a shirt on all weekend. For most, the convocation is a respite from their churches, neighbors and families -- the prudes of the clothed world who are scared to high heaven by the thought of bare butts on church pews. For others, it's a coming-out event, a safe place to test the waters where "Christian nudist" isn't considered an oxymoron. For now, Rick's the only CNCer on the dance floor. Two of the convocation's couples sit and watch, but the rest of the Christians are minding the children at the campsite or stewing in the hot tub, which sits in a small cabin made of weather-worn wood. The Christians have cornered an atheist in the Jacuzzi, and it's time to get to work. All this late-night drinking and dancing is not quite their scene, even though tonight's party is devoid of the grinding and dry humping you'd see at most nightclubs. They came here to learn how to be better Christians, to discuss how Jesus jibes with nudism and to enjoy the hot tub jets without swim trunks. But they've got a higher purpose. They're here to let the rest of the nudies know that Jesus loves them. And he doesn't care what they're wearing. The CNCers make up a good percentage of this weekend's Cherokee Lodge clientele, who have made their way off Interstate 40 to a wooded area just outside of Crossville, the golf capital of Tennessee. More than 100 people occupy the campsites, cabins and RVs littered across the nudist resort's 240 acres -- not counting the few dozen others who have taken up permanent residency in trailers on the lot. This isn't exactly a big showing for Cherokee: the ladies in the main office say quite a few of their beer-drinking regulars decided to stay home when they heard the Christians were coming. But after all of the flak the CNCers get in their hometowns for their nudist ways, they've decided their divine mission is here. And it isn't an easy one. Many of their fellow nude vacationers are looking for an empty lawn chair, a good buzz and an even better tan, which leaves the CNC crowd torn between two worlds: the Christians who think their nudist ways are crazy, and the nudists who don't want to be bothered with all this Jesus talk. "We're foremost Christians, but most Christians don't want to accept that," says Kevin Moore, the CNC's Saturday worship leader. "In a church, if someone finds out you're a nudist, you're condemned. And nudists have a poor view of Christians because they bug them when they're here [at the resort]." He gets a host of "amens" from the congregation. This morning they've forsaken the pool and taken over the outdoor pavilion where the disco ball hangs in wait for the night's festivities. Cherokee Lodge does have its own chapel, the Little Church in the Wildwood. It rests between a pet cemetery, which is marked by a smattering of silk flowers crammed into the packed dirt, and a whole mess of trees. The rustic church is home to Cherokee's own weekly service. The untreated, rough wood pews are usually spotted with resort regulars on Sundays -- even when the CNC isn't it town. But the church is small and sweltering. It doesn't have electricity, so this morning's convocation moved to take advantage of what's left of the cool night breeze. Other nudists stare as they walk by, making their way from the outdoor showers and heading toward the pool, carrying towels they'll use to line lounge chairs and bar stools as they belly up to the snack shack for beer and a hamburger. Meanwhile, Kevin's leading a discussion titled, "Where are we going? And why are we in this hand basket?" Only one guy laughs at the joke, but they all get the gist. "Isn't that what a lot of Christians think about nudists? That we've got a fast track to a warm place in hell?" They're thinking a lot more than that. Many consider nudist resorts the anti-church and, of course, orgy central: hotbeds of lust where loose women, exhibitionists, hedonists, perverts, child predators and the like assemble to roll around in a big stinky pile of sin and vulgarity. And they can't see how good Christians could fit in -- or why they'd even want to try. The CNC crowd has gathered this morning to take notes and talk scripture, to prep fortified biblical explanations for naysayers who think that God would never sanction social nudity. They do, in fact, believe God led them here -- to their own Garden of Eden. For the most part, the morning's conversation is typical church talk: they were created in God's image, and what he made was very good. Jesus died for their sins, and so on. Then they get into this summer's Christian nudist theme, the stuff that they've been reading in the stream-of-consciousness posts that CNC organizer Boyd Allen has plastered on his website. "But of course we cannot possibly continue in this life perfectly without sin," one post reads. "Then what do we do? We grab the nearest bush and hide from God, right? No, no, no.... That was what Adam and Eve did, remember? We don't want to do that again!" Allen continues, "We run to God as we are and ask him to forgive us and not just cover our sins but to wash them away and we will be clean spiritually. Jesus [the] Christ washed away our sins.... We have been restored to our original state to where we can come to God in the garden, walk and talk with him 'just as I am.' Then why do we still insist that our bodies are shameful?" But wasn't it God who clothed Adam and Eve? If the eye rolling and the groans are any indication, the CNC's Saturday morning congregation has heard plenty of that before. As Allen puts it, all God says to a fig-leaf-laden Adam and Eve in Genesis is: who told you that you were naked, and have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? "Whoa here," Allen writes. "That sounds more like he was displeased with their discovery. Now we all know that God did indeed clothe them, but was that to cover their naked bodies in shame, or was it to protect them in their new environment?" The CNCers adhere to the latter. Nudity is righteous, but at certain temperatures, cavorting without your pants on becomes a little silly. Today, as the session drones on in the sticky heat, even Kevin leads worship totally nude, baring an upper body shaved to appear near prepubescent. It's apparent that if the CNCers lack anything, it's body shame. They adjust themselves in plastic patio chairs that leave horizontal marks between their shoulder blades. Some are squished so tightly into the dirty seats that their flesh presses into the armrests and spills over the sides. Kevin's gone through the Bible and marked every reference to nakedness, give or take a few. He talks about how God spoke to Isaiah and told him to walk barefoot and unclothed. How Peter fished naked near the shores of Galilee. And how Jesus was nude when he washed the feet of his disciples. "But there's nothing in there that says nudity is inherently wrong," he says. For much of the weekend, their dialogue centers on such nude biblical references. One woman sits facing the congregation. She's clothed only in a pair of thin cotton shorts with an elastic waistband hiked up almost to meet her large, heavy breasts. She takes hold of one breast, lifts it off her stomach and covers the flesh underneath with a thick swipe of deodorant. She moves slowly and deliberately. No one seems to notice. If anything, the group would be hard-pressed to understand why an outsider might find it offensive. Why wouldn't you want to sit at the dinner table with your plate of Cherokee's famous barbecue and come face-to-face with a passerby's penis as you gnaw on a drumstick? Why would you elect to keep on your top in 90-degree heat? Within the first half-hour of meeting the CNCers, three men asked why I was the only one wearing clothes and whether I had any intention of taking them off. Later another offered to pay my Cherokee day fees ($25 plus tax) if I'd visit some other day -- and fully participate. With his freckled face and eyebrows so blond they're near invisible, Boyd Allen looks a little like an overgrown Opie. It's fitting for a country boy who grew up on a 40-acre farm in Florida. When Boyd was 13, he gave into a simple, compelling urge that burned inside him: he needed to be naked. He would undress and sneak off into the woods to run and explore. It wasn't what a good Christian boy living in a strict household was supposed to do. So he didn't tell anyone. Nearly a quarter of a century later, he picked up a book about family naturism in a bookstore. "It was what I was thinking, what I was feeling, and I thought, 'This is beautiful,' " he says. He marched over to the magazine section and flipped through an issue of Nude & Natural. He came back a month later for the new issue, where he found some biblical talk about nudism. "I bought the magazine and started looking up the scriptures. I started writing my thoughts down because it was beginning to flood my head. I just kept writing on and on." It's that zeal that helped him become the CNC's new leader. He was elected to take the helm when the convocation last convened a couple of years ago at White Tail Resort in Virginia. CNC creator and nudist humor author Allen Parker asked Boyd and Kevin to be the CNC torchbearers after the convocation fell short of his expectations. Parker started the CNC in 2003 to unite a handful of Christian nudist resort chapels with the hope that they'd confederate and start churches in nudist resorts across the country. Instead, he says the CNC morphed into what it is today -- more of a social outing, a place for meeting, greeting and fellowship time. For Boyd, it's a godsend. He used to show up 15 minutes early to his telecommunications job so that he could pray over his co-workers' cubicles -- imploring God to give them a good day. Now he's found his calling. Today, Allen's 4-year-old daughter darts from tent to tent at the CNC campsite, just as happy as she can be. Allen's wife, Gwin, grills hamburgers and hot dogs for the group cookout. Her breasts hang dangerously close to the sizzling meat as smoke encircles her body. This is the family life of Boyd's dreams -- a wife who disrobed before he did at their first visit to a nudist resort outside of Greensboro, N.C., and a daughter who can run free and nude, without the shame and secrecy that marred his childhood jaunts. But the family's nudist life hasn't been all that easy. Boyd doesn't talk much about their struggle to stay nude and happy. But Gwin does. She sits at the picnic table, her cookout duties complete, and talks about how Boyd would move the family to Cherokee tomorrow if he could. It would certainly make nudity easier, but Gwin isn't prepared to isolate her family from friends and relatives who'd never step foot in such a place. It's not that they live in secret. Most of their neighbors know. With Allen walking outside without as much as a bathrobe to grab the morning paper, it would be difficult for them not to. It wasn't until a stranger caught sight of Allen mowing the backyard in the buff that a cop came knocking. Gwin felt a familiar fear: they're going to take away my daughter. "All you need for something like that to become a problem is one zealous social worker with not a clue as to what this is all about -- and no desire to find out. That's all it takes. I know what we're doing isn't wrong. I know what we're doing is a good thing," she says, as her daughter scampers up and asks for a "drinky." The officer let them off, but it didn't put Gwin's mind at ease. Her daughter will start pre-K in the fall, and it's hard to teach a 4-year-old to keep quiet about the nudist lifestyle, especially when it's all she's ever known. "It's annoying that I have to teach [my daughter] very strongly that we do this -- it's OK -- but understand that there are places and people who don't get that," Gwin says. "And in her little mind it's, 'But why, mommy?' And what do you say? Because that's the way people are." It's difficult to convince people that subjecting a child to so much nudity doesn't make you a pervert. Just ask Cameron Bennett. This is his first CNC, and he's brought his wife and two kids along for the ride. After all the hell they've been through with their home church, they're considering joining the Little Church in the Wildwood. They attended the Church of Antioch until Cameron got candid about their lifestyle. He told his Bible study group that he attended worship service at a nudist park, and things quickly began to change. He tried to volunteer in the church's nursery but was turned away. "I was urged during the business meetings, 'Don't volunteer anymore. The ladies are nervous -- they don't want you in there,' " he says. "They were afraid that I was going to molest a child. Let's face it, when I would check my daughter's diaper, I would touch the diaper to make sure it wasn't wet. Well, touch in an area down there, some people think you might be molesting, too." He withdrew his membership from the church and asked God to lead the way. He found the CNC. "Maybe this is where I return to the Lord...," he says. Cameron and others believe children are natural nudists. They think that kids, much like Adam and Eve, should be free to run nude through the garden, to live their lives without knowing shame -- that it would take Satan, or a prudish parent, to plant the idea of shame into their hearts and minds. A pack of CNC kids run around the resort, fighting over Thomas the Tank Engine and playing with flashlights. Except for the occasional pair of pull-up training pants, they're nude. They scribble with pink sidewalk chalk that smears across their rears and bellies. No one cares if the kids get dirty. They'll get hosed off later. And they appear to be very, very happy. They don't seem to notice anyone's nakedness -- especially their own -- and don't as much as stare at the fattest of the CNC crew or leer at all that sagging. CNC parents think these kids will be better-adjusted adults for it. They subscribe to the mantra that nudism demystifies the body, satiates curiosity about the opposite sex, curbs premarital sex and combats poor body image in children. Many of the CNC women wish they'd had such a childhood. They huddle together in a corner of the pavilion for a women's-only session and gab about everything from their own bouts with bad body image to uncomfortable bras and The Tyra Banks Show. It's a buffet of breasts, seven pairs to be exact, ranging from A to DD. Most were lured into the nudist lifestyle by their husbands. Myra Moore, who is married to Kevin, says her husband's desire to explore the nudist community floored her. "I said, 'There's something wrong with this. I can't accept it.' Being a Christian, I said show me in the scripture...wrong, right, indifferent, where is it?" And Kevin showed her. It took six months to get Myra to a resort, but Kevin didn't push. He knew it was delicate. Myra was molested at age 6 and had lingering issues with her body. "He was caring enough and he was Christian enough to think about me and what I'd been through," she says. "He waited until I was ready and he showed me how to trust him, trust in God and go to a resort." Another woman chimes in. She was molested from age 3 to 11 and dreaded being nude around her husband. When she agreed to dabble in social nudity on her delayed honeymoon, she was terrified. "When I got there, I saw that the people weren't looking at me as a piece of meat; they treated me just like if I was wearing clothes -- in fact, better than that. They just accepted you for you. It's really actually helped me in many, many ways.... I can be around my house nude, around my husband nude and it doesn't bother me. It's done a lot of healing." All of the CNC women nod. The nudity-as-a-healer theme is a common one. It's a good time for Gwin to bring up her master plan. She hopes to bus anorexics and bulimics to nudist resorts, where she'll minister to them with the help of her fellow CNC women, eating disorder experts and, of course, God. "As naturists, we're in a position to say, 'Here's our body. We're not ashamed. We're the normal size -- and it's OK.' " The CNC women agree that the nudist resort is one of the few places where they aren't judged by the size of their breasts or the style of their clothes. But that doesn't explain why, even here, some of them have traces of eyeliner on their lids, artfully feathered hair and nether regions waxed -- in some cases, full-Brazilian style, which is to say, bare -- to high heaven. For the most part, however, they're a fairly plain group whose beauty regimens consist of little more than a smear of sunscreen. They consider themselves to be a modest bunch. It's the other women, the clothed ones with cascading cleavage and push-up bras -- the ones with the lustful "look at me" intentions -- who are immodest, they say. They know that many a Christian would find the nudist idea of modesty laughable. And all of those claims about nudity for the sake of body acceptance? They know some would say they're twisting the scripture to justify their desire to let their goodies out for all to see. But at Cherokee, no one seems to be looking. The CNCers give good eye contact because it's considered poor form to look down. Besides, they say they wouldn't want to, at least not for the purpose of lusting after your wares. When Kevin asks the congregation where lustful thoughts come from, several of the women say Satan. "The Book of James says it comes from within our own heart. You're making it someone else's problem if you're saying you can't be naked because it's going to generate lustful thoughts in me. You're putting your own weaknesses on them." They believe that not all nudity is created equal. It's a notion that's difficult for most in our sex-soaked society to comprehend, they say. If the only time we're exposed to nudity is in a sexual context, then we'll think that bare bodies at a nudist resort must be sexual. The CNCers don't see clothes as lust deterrents. Even Gwin confessed to the women's group that she has "always found that clothing, if it drapes on a man just right, is more provocative than 100 naked men." See, they think of their lifestyle as "chaste nakedness." And even a dance floor full of gyrating nudies can't make them lust. They've got Jesus in their hearts. No matter how much scripture the CNCers have in their hearts, they know there's no way to ensure that all that bare chastity won't turn somebody else on. They call it "lust of the eyes." But it's not the kind of transgression the CNCers can sense, or really bust you for. If it were, the mere presence of Lonnie Kimble would've had my ass packing before the first devotions. When Kimble, a CNC newbie, straps on his acoustic guitar (and nothing else), it's an image ripe for the cover of a romance novel. He plays "Jesus Loves Me" at the morning sermon, probably without an ounce of lust in his heart. He's got the toned, beach body of a surfer, with tousled, sun-bleached waves that tease his broad shoulders. He looks like Jesus with a tan and access to modern grooming. He's the one in the group who is difficult not to look at, though admitting as much to any CNCer would have landed me in the much-feared group of the spiritually weak who, even when faced with such chaste nakedness, have a hot case of lust. As sinner's luck would have it, Cherokee Lodge is not a bastion of fitness. The hottest thing you'll see is a pair of pierced nipples. But more often than not, they adorn breasts that have long since moved southward. There aren't any lithe co-eds bouncing playfully on the beach volleyball court. In fact, the whole experience is more like an unfortunate lesson in the anatomy of the aging. Cameron puts it this way: "I've seen some of these ladies. They look great with a shirt on. Take that shirt off -- eew. I didn't know they sagged that far down." The place is virtually sexless. And the folks at Cherokee Lodge want it that way. The rule sheets disbursed at check-in offer these warnings: no dirty dancing, lap dancing, lingerie or overt sexual behavior. There's even a surveillance camera in the hot tub. This is no swingers club either. If it were, Rick, CNC's resident disco-dancing bachelor, wouldn't have it. He does admit that, during a prior Cherokee visit, one woman started talking dirty in the hot tub. He reported her to management and she was banned from the resort. "There are singles clubs. But if you want something like that, go to Nashville or Knoxville, OK?" he says. "But it's not here at Cherokee.... That's not what nudists are here for." Even without the hot sex (and with all that self-policing), the Jacuzzi is still nudist Mecca. To an outsider, the thought of steeping in a tub where swimsuits are strictly disallowed with a whole slew of sweaty strangers is unappetizing. But to the CNCers, it's just another tool in their master plan to proselytize the nudies. "To most Christians, this resort would be the end of the world.... To me, it's Jerusalem. It's our own backyard," Kevin says. He calls nudists modern-day lepers who "most Christians don't want to touch with a 10-foot pole." Enter the hot tub. The Bible describes God's voice as quiet, Kevin tells the congregation. When nudists aren't at the resort, they're at home with the kids, the TV and all that noise. "You can't hear God as easily. Here, you can hear a little more." And in the Jacuzzi, they're relaxed and easier to approach. When Kevin burns through his long list of biblical references to nudity, some of the CNCers take notes. Sure, they're here to get closer to God. But, at the heart of it, they know they have lots of explaining to do. "We have a calling to teach the average Christian that naked does not equal bad," he says. But they all know that's a tough row to hoe. For now, they'd rather gather an arsenal of explanations they can use to tell nudists why God sanctions social nudity. That night, as the droves of nudists danced the night away, the new CNCers got a trial run. God put that atheist in the hot tub, and the crew channeled Kevin -- and all that scripture -- and gave it their best. There's no telling if it worked. Come Sunday morning, the CNCers can't even remember the man's name. The nude bodies filter into the chapel. They arrange their towels on the pews and settle in for service. It's a big day for Pete, the only CNC worship leader who's got his own clothed congregation at home. He asked that we not use his name (in fact, he wouldn't give it) or any indication of his age or where he lives. He even asked that we refrain from describing his body in great detail. "If they found out, I would lose my church, my kids, my family, my life," he explains, his 20-something wife slinking behind him in the pews, cradling her stretch-mark-laden stomach in her arms. You can't help but wonder if "they" means his congregation, who undoubtedly would be outraged and awed to learn that their pastor's been preaching the good word to a small congregation tucked away in the Tennessee backwoods -- with his penis peaking out of a silk navy robe. This is the first time I've seen Pete clothed. He slipped on the robe while walking the rocky path that leads hikers past a cluster of travel-trailers to the Little Church in the Wildwood. But he couldn't have chosen a worse time to suit up. It's still far from noon, but when the heat from 20-plus bodies meets the damp morning air inside the chapel, it's steamy, and the group starts to smell a bit sour. Kimble has just slipped his guitar strap off his shoulder after leading the fellowship in singing "Amazing Grace" and "Awesome God." The baritone voices rocked the rough pews into vibration, and everyone's in the mood for some more soul shaking. Pete delivers. He starts his sermon so hard and loud, it's frightening. Soon he's howling, "You don't have to be afraid of God anymore!" And you're afraid. He rants in dramatized near-delirium about "Jeee-zus!" and his "guh-lory." Before long, you're begging him to breathe, and he does sporadically, with the deep grasping breaths of a swimmer emerging from the water. When he moves on to the "Book of Isaiah," he's pacing and gushing Bible verse so fast that he's hard to follow. The sweat has started to trickle from his short sideburns as his silken robe sticks to his pale skin and begins to work itself open. He tells of how the prophet Isaiah fell to the ground when he had a vision of God and cowered in fear, his sins exposed. But the angels purified him and God said, "You will go and speak for me." "And Isaiah gives one of the best answers you can ever give God," Pete says. "Isaiah says, 'Here am I. I'll go.' " It rings true for Pete. When God drew him to the nudist ministry, the former heathen head banger was ready. "I really feel that God laid this on my heart, that this is a ministry that he wanted me to do," he says. "You know, of all the missionary-type endeavors to do -- some people get sent to Africa, some people get sent to South America -- and the Lord was like, 'I want you to go to nudist resorts.' And I'm like, 'Wow, what an assignment.' Aren't I the lucky one, you know?" Ever since that faithful calling, Pete has prayed over it -- hard. He's asked God to stop him from disrobing, from traveling to Cherokee, if it wasn't his way. But God's only reassured him, even as Pete dog-paddled in the lodge swimming pool Saturday night. As the cool water slipped over his bare body, Pete asked God what he should tell a church full of nudists. And you've got to wonder why God didn't answer with something more original. "God especially wanted me to tell you this morning to remember that you were created in his image," Pete tells the churchgoers as he gets into the same we're-not-ashamed-of-what-God-created spiel the group has been pushing all weekend. They end the service in prayer, asking God to claim the nameless, hot tub atheist for the kingdom. To extend Cherokee's borders and to increase the Little Church's anointed. And then they pray for their nude brothers and sisters who will be continuing the Lord's work the next weekend as the convocation moves on to Show Me Acres nudist resort, a little slice of heaven about two hours outside of Kansas City, Mo. They eat some burgers and rush to break camp, to roll up their tents and corral the kids as the thunder begins to clap and dark clouds form overhead. Gwin tries to pawn off leftover baked beans and weenies on the travelers, but she ends up walking the dirt road to the resort's main office, where she offers the food to the women inside. These are the same women who gossip about how the whole CNC lot scared off the camp's heavy drinkers. Some CNCers begin to dress outside of the open doors to their modest cars -- one marked with the license plate "NKD B4GD" -- as a few fat, stray raindrops find their way to the group's naked skin. Many of the men dress in the same pair of clothes they arrived in. In fact, it's all that most of the men packed. That and a towel. The women climb into the passenger seats, reluncantly clothed but without a bra if they can help it. And they'll ride that way, all the way home -- where they'll quickly disrobe and once again feel free.

Bloglines - The Forbidden City of Terry Gou

Bloglines user JindoFox (Bloglines@jindofox.com) has sent this item to you.

Electric-Escape.net Information Superhighway Rest Area #10,184

The Forbidden City of Terry Gou By Robert Jung on Technology His complex in China turns out iPhones and PCs, powering the biggest exporter you've never heard of By Jason Dean, The Wall Street JournalAugust 11, 2007; Page A1 Past a guarded gate on the outskirts of this city sits one of the world's largest factories. In dozens of squat buildings, it churns out gadgets bearing technology's household names -- Apple Inc.'s iPods and iPhones, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s personal computers, Motorola Inc. mobile phones and Nintendo Co. Wii videogame consoles. Few people outside of the industry know of the plant's owner: Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. With a work force of some 270,000 -- about as big as the population of Newark, N.J. -- the factory is a bustling testament to the ambition of Hon Hai's founder, Terry Gou. In an era when manufacturing has been defined by outsourcing, no one has done more to shift global electronics production to China. Little noticed by the wider world, Mr. Gou has turned his company into China's biggest exporter and the world's biggest contract manufacturer of electronics. Hon Hai's revenue has grown more than 50% a year in the past decade to $40.6 billion last year. It is expected to add $14 billion in revenue this year. That is roughly the equivalent of Motorola's adding, within a year, the sales of CBS Corp. Throughout his company's rise, the 56-year-old native of Taiwan has maintained a low profile. Publicity, he says, risks helping competitors and alienating customers. "I hate that I [have] become famous," Mr. Gou said in a recent three-hour interview at Hon Hai's Taiwan headquarters. It was Mr. Gou's first interview with Western media since 2002, following more than five years of requests by The Wall Street Journal. "We are so big we cannot hide anymore." Hon Hai, and its massive Shenzhen plant, provides a window into the sometimes-secretive world of manufacturing in China. Confidentiality is a selling point for contract manufacturers, whose customers count on them to shield their products and plans from outsiders. Secrecy has also been a central issue in China's recent tainted-product scandal, with the often-quiet relationship between U.S. companies and their suppliers complicating regulators' hunt for the source of defective goods. Recently, citing ongoing investigations, Mattel Inc. took nearly a week to identify its Chinese provider of toys believed to contain lead paint. [inline-right:3] Hon Hai hasn't been involved in such scandals, and analysts and industry insiders say Mr. Gou has combined discretion with a solid record of quality control and competitive pricing to build a booming empire. The $43 billion market capitalization of Hon Hai -- a public company listed in Taiwan, which uses the trade name Foxconn -- is equal to that of its 10 biggest global rivals combined. Mr. Gou and Hon Hai control additional affiliates that report revenue separately. Mr. Gou is currently worth about $10 billion, a Hon Hai spokesman says. The company guards its customers' identities, although some of them are named in its Chinese-language filings to securities regulators. Hon Hai and its affiliates make products not only for Apple, Nintendo, H-P and Motorola, but also cellphones and parts for Nokia Corp., PlayStation 2 sets for Sony Corp. and computer parts for Dell Inc. Those companies did not dispute their relationship with the manufacturer. Hon Hai is also currently the exclusive supplier of Apple's iPhones and one of the few makers of iPods, Taiwan-based analysts say. Apple acknowledged that Hon Hai is a supplier but declined to comment further. At the center of Mr. Gou's empire is his walled Shenzhen facility, the Longhua Science & Technology Park, which covers about a square mile. Aside from customers, few outsiders set foot inside. A reporter visiting Longhua was barred from viewing protected areas or taking photographs of more than a few scenes. In addition to its dozens of assembly lines and dormitories, Longhua has a fire brigade, hospital and employee swimming pool, where Mr. Gou does early morning laps when he is there. Restaurants, banks, a grocery store and an Internet cafe line the company town's main drag. More than 500 monitors around the campus show exercise programs, worker-safety videos and company news produced by the in-house television network, Foxconn TV. Even the plant's manhole covers are stamped "Foxconn." James Lee, a heavy-smoking former banker whom Mr. Gou tapped to run the plant in 1998, is Longhua's de facto mayor. Mr. Lee frets about how to provide more than 150,000 lunches every day in the 10 cavernous employee canteens (that's about 10.6 metric tons of dry rice per meal, at one bowl each). He oversees landscaping, uniform buying, dormitory building and hiring as many as 3,000 new workers a day during peak periods. His administration employs more than 1,000 security guards to keep order and prevent unauthorized visitors from sensitive areas. Administrators also battle what he calls new employees' tendency to litter. Gadget Maker Some major customers/products of Hon Hai & its affiliates. Apple: iPhone, some iPod models Dell: Desktop PCs/parts Hewlett-Packard: Desktop PCs/parts Nokia: Cellphones/parts Motorola: Cellphones/parts Sony: PlayStation2 videogame console, PSP handheld game unit Nintendo: Wii videogame console, DS game unit Source: WSJ research "I have to resolve every single small problem on this campus, with the exception of production," he says over a "Foxconn Coffee" at a company restaurant. He jokes: "Would you want this job?" Now the plant's space is running out. "We never thought we would expand so fast," says Mr. Lee. The founder's personality permeates the site and company. A charismatic man who inspires intense loyalty among his lieutenants, Mr. Gou runs Hon Hai with the power of a warlord. On his right wrist he wears a beaded bracelet he got from a temple dedicated to Genghis Khan, the 13th-century Mongolian conqueror whom he calls a personal hero. "I always tell employees: The group's benefit is more important than your personal benefit," Mr. Gou says. Mr. Gou has combined a competitive drive with a business model that lets the company build much of its products in-house, saving money on parts. His zeal for cost-cutting prompted a fellow executive to quip several years ago that Mr. Gou is "worth about $2 billion in nickels and dimes." Longhua's workers tend assembly lines, in shifts, around the clock. They earn wages that seem meager by developed-world standards but are enough to keep new recruits streaming through its gates. The most basic assembly-line jobs pay about 60 cents an hour -- the legal minimum -- although workers can earn higher wages for overtime. Meals are subsidized. Most workers live rent-free in company dormitories inside the walls or off campus. Last year, a British tabloid alleged poor treatment of Longhua's workers, specifically those who make Apple's iPods there. (At the time, Apple reported that nearly one-seventh of Longhua's workers made Apple products.) The British account was followed by criticism of the company in the Chinese press. Apple sent a team to investigate, and found a handful of violations of its Supplier Code of Conduct, including over-crowding at three off-site dorms, according to a report the company issued last August. Apple, which asks suppliers to limit workers to 60 hours of labor a week except in emergencies, estimated that one-third of Longhua's workers exceeded the limit. It did not find evidence of forced overtime. Overall, Apple found Hon Hai to be in compliance with its guidelines "in the majority of areas," it said in the report. Apple declined to comment further. Hon Hai executives say conditions for their workers are better than the average in China, which helps them attract new workers. They say they have built new dorms at the plant and taken other measures to address Apple's concerns. Mr. Gou angrily dismisses the critical coverage. Mr. Gou started what would become Hon Hai in 1974. He borrowed part of the initial investment of $7,500 from his mother, who with his father had fled to Taiwan in 1949 during China's civil war. In a facility near Taipei, he began making plastic channel-changing knobs for black-and-white television sets. In the early 1980s, he expanded into the PC industry just as it started to take off. His first products were connectors, the relatively simple but ubiquitous parts that join components in a PC. Though he spoke little English or Japanese, he soon began traveling to the U.S. and Japan, seeking out customers. During the 1980s and 1990s, he says he logged so much time driving from city to city in the U.S. that he memorized the menu at Denny's. In 1988, with orders surging and costs soaring in Taiwan, Mr. Gou set up his first factory in China, where land and labor were cheaper. Decades-old tensions between Taipei and Beijing were starting to wane, and China was a decade into a massive economic overhaul. Mr. Gou chose Shenzhen, a city next to Hong Kong at the forefront of China's market reforms. He used his small-but-fast-growing Shenzhen operation in his sales pitch to prospective customers. In 1995, when Michael Dell was visiting southern China, Mr. Gou offered to arrange meetings with local officials he knew in return for the chance to drive the 30-year-old American to the airport, says Max Fang, who was then Dell's head of procurement in Asia. On the way, Mr. Gou made an unscheduled detour to show off his factory. Dell then wasn't one of the world's top five PC vendors, and Hon Hai didn't yet make parts that Dell bought directly. But Mr. Gou "knew that Michael Dell was a star of tomorrow, so he wanted to meet him," says Mr. Fang, who has known Mr. Gou since 1979. Today, Hon Hai is one of Dell's biggest suppliers, analysts and industry sources say. Mr. Gou keeps a photograph of Dell's founder on a shelf in his Taiwan office. That same year, Mr. Gou secured a larger plot of land that would become Longhua. When Mr. Fang visited a year later, it had fewer than 1,000 workers. Executive offices were housed in 20-foot shipping containers. But Mr. Fang was impressed. At the time, Dell and other PC companies tended to buy parts from several suppliers and ship them to their own factories for assembly. Mr. Gou had created a production line that let him do most of the process himself, from procuring the raw steel for PC casings to putting together the finished product. Global Presence Global manufacturing locations of Hon Hai and its affiliates. TaiwanHeadquarters: Tucheng (greater Taipei) ChinaShenyang, Liaoning ProvinceYingkou, Liaoning ProvinceQinhuangdao, Hebei ProvinceLangfang, Hebei ProvinceTaiyuan, Shanxi ProvinceTianjin CityYantai, Shandong ProvinceShanghai CityWuhan, Hubei ProvinceNanjing, Jiangsu ProvinceKunshan, Jiangsu ProvinceHuaian, Jiangsu ProvinceHangzhou, Zhejiang ProvinceShenzhen, Guangdong ProvinceFoshan, Guangdong ProvinceZhongshan, Guangdong Province WorldCzech RepublicHungaryMexicoBrazilIndiaVietnam Source: The company Over the years, Mr. Gou has expanded his portfolio to include a growing share of the PC's insides. Making its own components lets Hon Hai undercut competitors on the price of its finished products without reducing its overall margins, says Adam Pick, an analyst at iSuppli Corp., a market research firm in El Segundo, Calif. By 2000, Hon Hai's work force neared 30,000 people and its revenue topped $3 billion. Mr. Gou was expanding his soup-to-nuts strategy to more products. That year, Hon Hai set up a subsidiary called Foxconn International Holdings Ltd., now the world's biggest independent cellphone maker. In 2003, Mr. Gou launched a company that is now a leading maker of flat-panel LCD monitors. Last year, Hon Hai bought a major producer of digital cameras. Now, in some cases, Hon Hai builds much of a product and ships it to its client for the finishing touches. In others, it ships the final products directly to retailers or consumers. In all, more than 450,000 workers are now employed at Mr. Gou's plants across about a dozen provinces of China. Thousands more work in facilities run by Hon Hai and its affiliates across the globe -- including Hungary, Mexico and Brazil -- as the company sets up plants closer to its customers' operations. The company is one of the biggest exporters in the Czech Republic, where Mr. Gou bought a castle several years ago. Hon Hai is also adding operations in Vietnam and India and expanding into other sectors, including auto parts. As Hon Hai grew too large for one person to manage directly, Mr. Gou fostered a culture centered on his personality. Around Longhua, his image can be seen in large framed photos of him with Chinese officials, and on the Gou biographies stacked in the factory book store's window. Executives say he leads by example to keep products coming out on schedule and to customer specifications. Known for his 16-hour days, the founder for years would cruise the Longhua campus late into the night in a golf cart -- modified with a large bicycle horn -- stopping to spot-check production lines or help repair equipment. Company managers are expected to read and remember a document called "Gou's Quotations." (No. 133: "The important thing in any organization is leadership, not management. A leader must have the decisive courage to be a dictator for the common good.") At meetings, Mr. Gou often stands, and illustrates his ideas with black marker on a giant white paper pad. He encourages discussion, but if someone says something he considers foolish, he may order the person to stand at attention. "He'll say, 'I'm not punishing you, because I'm standing, too,'" says a senior Hon Hai manager. [inline:2] Industry executives and analysts say customers often start outsourcing one product line to Hon Hai and then shift more there. "You get addicted," says Mr. Fang, who left Dell in 2002 and now runs a venture capital fund that has co-invested with Hon Hai in a company called Ugobe Inc., which makes robotic toys. Competitors have struggled to keep up. Four years ago, Hon Hai was smaller by revenue than Nasdaq-listed Flextronics International Ltd., the industry's longstanding leader. Now, Hon Hai is so much larger that even after a merger announced in June between Flextronics and Solectron Corp., of Milpitas, Calif., their combined revenue will be about two-thirds that of Hon Hai. Hon Hai has its vulnerabilities. It isn't, for example, a major producer of laptop computers, which analysts say requires product-design capabilities that Hon Hai lacks. It is exposed to the risks of contract manufacturing, an intensely competitive business with thin margins. Hon Hai relies heavily on a fairly small number of customers: In the tech industry, a single product line can make or break a company's fortunes and, in turn, the well-being of a supplier. The company also faces the challenge of increasing revenue at the rate investors have come to expect. Hon Hai's sheer physical size also creates difficulties. Longhua was built quickly, and its layout wasn't well planned, says Mr. Lee, the plant director. With its increasing overcrowding, just moving all those workers around is a challenge. Mr. Lee says he once considered building a monorail but the idea proved too difficult. He says the ideal facility would have about one-fourth of the land area and perhaps one-third the workers. "It's not a good idea to be this size," says Mr. Lee, who is also in charge of building other large factories for Hon Hai. [inline-right:1] Hon Hai executives, and outside analysts, say the company has stayed nimble so far largely by splitting its operations among about a dozen smaller, semi-autonomous units. Mr. Gou says he wants to upgrade Longhua's facilities and take on more advanced work, such as research and development. That means shifting manufacturing jobs to other parts of China. Longhua is incessantly busy, but during breaks and shift changes, the activity explodes. At lunchtime on a recent sunny day, thousands of employees poured out of their buildings. They swarmed in and out of a large cafeteria and browsed in the factory book shop. A line of dozens of new employees, carrying their few possessions, snaked along a crosswalk. Most of the workers wear uniforms color-coded by their department. Others wear blue jeans and T-shirts. A number stroll in pairs, hand-in-hand. The workers are as young as 16. Zhou Ruqing, an affable 20-year-old, has worked at Longhua for just over a year as a quality inspector on an assembly line. She lives in an apartment outside the factory with her boyfriend, who also works at Longhua. Ms. Zhou came to Shenzhen in 2005 after graduating from high school in rural Sichuan province. As a mid-level assembly-line worker, she earns about $230 a month, including overtime pay. (First-year workers can make as little as $90 a month if they do not work overtime.) That doesn't include about $60 a month in housing and food subsidies, plus health insurance. In Shenzhen, that money goes far -- the rent for the small apartment she shares is less than $60 a month. Another worker, who would identify himself only as Mr. Xiao, started as an assembly-line worker almost three years ago, just after graduating from a technical school in central China, where Hon Hai recruited him. His starting salary was $44 a month at today's exchange rate. Working up to 30 days a month, he could earn up to $157 a month. "I was really tired then, too busy to rest," he said. Mr. Xiao has worked up to a more advanced post. His basic salary has doubled, although his total pay hasn't increased much, partly because he works fewer hours. He says conditions are better than they were at the time of last year's critical press attention, but "the change is incomplete." He currently works six days a week, spending his off day studying in hopes of landing a different position. Mr. Gou's role at Hon Hai is changing, too. He says he works just as hard today, but is focusing more on big strategic issues than day-to-day work. He is also devoting more time to charity -- he has pledged to eventually give away one-third of his fortune -- and dealing with changes in his personal life. His wife of many years died in 2005. Last month, his younger brother, who had headed a Hon Hai affiliate, died after a long illness. Mr. Gou has begun looking for a successor at Hon Hai, focusing on candidates in their late 30s or early 40s and asking senior managers to prove themselves by running their units assertively. There is no natural successor -- his son and daughter don't work at the company. He says his decision to begin stepping down now is inspired by Chinese history, specifically the Qianlong Emperor, who ruled from 1736 until 1796, when he was 84 years old. Qianlong greatly expanded the Qing Dynasty, making China perhaps the wealthiest country on earth. But his judgment failed in his later years, and the Qing began a decline that led to its eventual demise. "He controlled the whole of China for 60 years," says Mr. Gou. "He stayed there too long. So I want to sit back and give young people more responsibilities, when I'm still young." --Sue Feng in Beijing and Christopher Lawton in San Francisco contributed to this article.

Bloglines - Racketboy: The Interview!

Bloglines user JindoFox (Bloglines@jindofox.com) has sent this item to you.

The Saturn Junkyard

Racketboy: The Interview! By fatherkrishna "The Saturn Junkyard, like The Dreamcast Junkyard before it, is a labour of love. It's aim is to celebrate and keep alive a console that has passed over into the annals of gaming history. In this respect it deals with a piece of the past. However, it is run by, and contributed to, by gamers who use this hallowed console in the present. I'm as happy playing my Saturn in 2007 as I am playing my Dreamcast, my PS2, my DS or (on my 40th birthday, May 16th... Diarise people)... my Wii! You see classic consoles are like classic movies, classic tunes or classic literature. They live on in their own right, as technology/art moves forward... Shakespeare didn't stop being worthwhile 'cos Dickens jotted down a few lines. The Doors still rock the joint even though The Sex Pistols kicked up a bit of a noise. Star Trek still does the business in the wake of Heroes. And for you youngsters out there, Missy Elliot aint washed up just because Timbaland is putting out tracks for Justin and Nelly. But I digress... When putting together articles and games reviews for the SJY, when thinking of anything Saturn related, there is one reference point that needs to be cross checked. An encyclopaedic odyssey of all things Saturn related. An oracle of epic proportions. The Alpha and Omega of Saturn knowledge. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Racketboy... The excellent www.racketboy.com provides the springboard for this particular site. Any game I buy/play/stumble across for my beloved Saturn, has been reviewed, dissected and analyzed by the legendary Racketboy. Such is my respect for the man, that in the early stages of the Saturn Junkyard, on discovering that he had commented on one of my posts, I let out an audible gasp. My wife and kids on hearing this, questioned the cause of my outburst. "I've got a comment off Racketboy" I gushed..."He's a bit of a blogging legend..." Recently I contacted Racketboy (real name Nick) and he kindly agreed to answering a few questions for the Saturn Junkyard's readers. So here goes... First of all should I address you as Nick or Racketboy? Either is fine. Most of the people online call me "racket", I don't really care. I don't usually go by my "normal" name because I enjoy being a bit anonymous and nobody would know how to pronounce my last name ("racket" is close enough) BTW, before I go any farther, I have to say a special thanks for asking me to participate and I am very flattered by your complements. While I definitely do not consider myself to be a "legend" or even an expert, I'm glad that so many people have learned a thing or two from my writing. How did you get into videogames? What are your early gaming experiences? I grew up as an arcade kid with the rise of Pac-Man and Frogger so I was mesmerized by animated pixels at an early age. My older cousin also had an Atari 2600 and I use to get a real kick out of Space Invaders and Pole Position. Once I got to elementary school, a lot of my friends had an NES, but my parents had a rule that if I was going to have a video game system, I would have to pay for it myself. Their reasoning was that if I was going to spend all my time playing games (instead of school work), then it wasn't going to be because they paid for it. Anyway, I used to play the NES at various friends' houses whenever I had the chance. My favorites at the time were Mike Tyson's Punch Out and Duck Hunt (I thought Super Mario Bros. was cool, but I sucked at it). Some of my favorite gaming experiences remained in the arcades. My local Little Caesars pizza place had a great arcade collection with classics like Double Dragon, Dig Dug and eventually games like Street Fighter 2 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Man, I loved that stuff. Later on, I eventually bought a Gameboy and a Sega Genesis as the first systems of my very own. I actually got out of console gaming for quite a while during my last few years of high school and my freshman year of college. I got back into classic gaming the summer of my Freshman year when I bought a Saturn off of eBay and started collecting games for that and my Genesis/Sega CD/32X combo. Your blog is somewhat inspirational to us at the Saturn and Dreamcast Junkyards. When did you start it and how much time do you put into it? Well, when I was really getting into the retro scene back in the early 2000's, I was a very active member at SegaXtreme. I used to spend a lot of time on there when I was living out in California and was bored at work. I organized a project to compile a list of all the top games for all of Sega's consoles among other things. I was also an active news poster for the site's front page. With the rise of gaming blogs and my fascination with RSS, I was hoping to see SegaXtreme grow and set up an RSS feed for news and such. The developers there didn't think it was worth the effort, so I started posting my news stories on a Blogger blog in 2004 so I could have an RSS feed for retro news (there weren't any retro gaming RSS feeds at the time). For a while I posted some of them on SX as well, but the site was slowly dying off and I was getting a better response from my site, so I silently left SX to focus on my own project. Initially, I didn't put a lot of time into it. I just posted some interesting links and wrote a paragraph to accompany it or something. I didn't have a ton of original content for a while. But once I started getting noticed for some of my longer articles, I made the transition from just reporting news to writing my own original content. Now, on average, I probably spend two to three hours a day on the site. I don't have a dedicated time to work on it and its kinda spread out throughout the day. My USB flash drive is my best friend as I have a bunch of text, html, and excel files with a bunch of articles that are half-way in development. I have a normal day job in an office, so I will jot some things down during my breaks or when I'm waiting to hear back from somebody. Then I flesh things out after hours or on weekends when I'm at home. Some of my longer articles are actually in development for a month or more, while sometimes I will knock a decent post out in an evening. I'm aware the site is a team effort. How did you recruit your team members? While, I do have some contributers, the site isn't as much of a team project as some other blogs. I still do the majority of the writing, but I have a couple people who do some articles here and there. On a couple of occasions, I have asked around my forums if there are people willing to help out and each time I have had somebody that was willing to write something. I have also run a couple of contests where readers can write up game reviews or summaries for a chance to win some prizes. I then either publish those reviews or incorporate them into some of my game lists. On some subjects I'm not as educated in as I would like, I post some topics in my forum and get some input from the forum members. I have a lot of smart people in there, so I've gained a lot from them. What is it about The Saturn that keeps you loyal? It wasn't a phenomenal success... There are a number of things that keep me loyal to the Saturn. First of all, until NiGHTS into Dreams, Guardian Heroes, the Panzer Dragoon series, Shining Force III, and Radiant Silvergun get accurately ported (or better) to a modern console, I won't be forgetting about the Saturn. I am also a big fan of fighting games, and to a lesser extent 2D shooters. If you enjoy these types of games, a Saturn and a Dreamcast are must-own consoles. Having a six-button controller like the Saturn's gamepad is a definite plus for these as well. I think Sega needs to re-issue a Saturn controller for every console (and the PC again), preferably wireless, to give all of us retro fans something to cheer about. And finally, the Saturn is just a great piece of hardware. I still think it is one of my favorite console designs and it runs super quiet. That was one of my biggest disappointments about the Dreamcast. It lost a lot of the elegance that the Saturn established. If you had to narrow down your top 5 Saturn games what would they be and why? NiGHTS into Dreams - Even after all these years, the gameplay is fresh and the level designs are out of this world. If only we could get it re-issued with smoothed graphics and HD support. Panzer Dragoon Saga - Take the engaging world that the original Panzer Dragoons set up and mix in some interesting RPG gameplay. It's unlike any other in the genre. Guardian Heroes - I love beatemups and adding RPG elements make the genre so much better. It also has some cool 2D graphical effects and a branching storyline. Some of Treasure's finest. Street Fighter Alpha 2 - My favorite fighting game of all time. Sure SFA3 had more characters, but I thought everything else was better about the second installment. The controls seemed tighter and the fighters were more balanced. I even liked the backgrounds better in 2. It seemed like with Alpha 3, Capcom just crammed as much stuff in there as they could and didn't take the same amount of time to polish it up as much as they could. X-Men vs Street Fighter - The reason to own a 4MB RAM cart for the Saturn. The original "Vs." fighter is still my favorite. Like SFA2, it had fewer characters than its sequels, but it was more polished. Plus it had some characters in it that I enjoyed, but were later pulled in installments that followed. For more on the topic, I would recommend checking out my post, The Best Sega Saturn Games for Today Sega is a shadow of it's former self. From being a big player in the console market, its now a third party developer... Why is Sega special? To add to your statement, I would say that Sega as a software developer is a shadow of its former software self as well. Sega was special because they weren't afraid to take risks in developing innovative games and characters. Sega left the hardware business because they wanted to focus on the most profitable business -- making the games. And once they focused on increasing their profits, they quit making games that were riskier and less profitable. This kinda explains why they have been rushing so many Sonic games out the door. They know people will buy them -- even if they don't live up to their potential in terms of gameplay. Adding to Sega's downturn is the departure of some of Sega's key developers. Sonic Team had the most obvious departures with Sonic creators Yuji Naka and Naoto Oshima leaving to start their own ventures. Fortunately, Sega just recently admitted that they have not been living up to their reputation and may be working a bit harder to rival Nintendo's software in the near future. I'm hoping that the new NiGHTS into Dreams game for the Wii will be evidence of this initiative. You have love for the Dreamcast, Sega's last attempt to compete in the console market. Why is it worth playing and sticking with? Besides nostalgia, I personally stick with the Dreamcast because it has a number of unique games (plus lots of fighters and shmups) that haven't been ported elsewhere and games are quite affordable for the most part. Even though some of the Dreamcast's best games have been ported to newer systems, it's nice having them all on one platform. It also keeps me from feeling the need for an XBox/360 or Playstation 2/3 for now. The Dreamcast is also a very affordable platform to get into and find a number of rather modern games in addition to one of the best homebrew and emulation scenes out there. On a side note, I would probably stick with the Dreamcast significantly longer if there was a solid wireless controller solution for the Dreamcast. I love my Wavebirds on the Gamecube since my wife and I can play in the living room without having wires all over the place. What consoles do you currently own AND still play? I used to have a lot more, but I sold many of them off when I moved from Michigan to California to Florida and then back to Michigan with only two small cars to cram everything into. Here's what I still have and play at the moment. Sega Saturn Nintendo Gamecube Nintendo DS Sega Genesis Sega Dreamcast I hope to gradually accumulate some more consoles as the years go by. What games/consoles have you played in 2007? My wife and I both have a DS, so 2007 has seen us play a lot on the dual-screened wonder: New Super Mario Bros. - the multiplayer games are surprisingly good in addition to the main game Meteos - One of my favorite puzzlers ever -- and that is saying a lot Clubhouse Games - TONS of games that are perfect for a lazy evening Metroid Prime Pinball - Excellent pinball simulator -- especially with the rumble pack On the Saturn, I've been playing on my LCD (which has S-Video input) NiGHTS into Dreams Street Fighter Alpha 2 With the Dreamcast, I've been enjoying the beauty with my VGA adapter. The games I've been playing lately are Rez Metropolis Street Racer Propeller Arena Trigger Heart Exelcia Genesis Vectorman Sonic 2 Phantom 2049 The 'next gen' console wars are happening around us... 360, PS3, Wii. What is your take on these systems. Do you think there will be an outright winner? I think Sony was getting overly arrogant after the PS2's success and now they are going to have a big stumble. Nintendo realized they needed to shake things up after the mediocre success of the N64 and Gamecube and it is definitely working. Microsoft learned from most of their mistakes with the original XBox and is still plugging away and is looking to be a major player despite some people writing them off right away. The XBox 360 seems to be doing much better than the original XBox in many ways, but I still think the price point is keeping it from getting bigger (I can't afford one right now). The hardware seems to be very solid (but I'm holding for a more silent version) and the software support is getting better all the time (stealing PS3 exclusives left and right). XBox Live Arcade is also getting a lot of excellent games that I think are more attractive than nearly all the Wii Virtual Console games so far. The Wii is off to an excellent start due to its attractiveness to non-gamers. I work in an office with lots of 40-50-year olds -- many of which are women. I'm blown away by how many of them talk about how great the Wii is and how much fun they have playing it with their families. And like Nintendo's DS, it just has a great gimmick that gives developers the ability to make innovative games that they would not have otherwise been able to do. As I touched on before, I'm a bit disappointed so far with the Virtual Console after all its initial hype. Because it is so different, I don't see the Wii taking over the "Console War", but I am a firm believer in the whole "Wii 360" thing. The Wii is perfect for casual gamers and will sell a lot that way. In fact, in the long term, it will probably end up being the biggest seller of the bunch. The 360 will be the most popular with the hardcore gamers and will have a respectable library of its own. Most dedicated gamers will probably own both a 360 and a Wii. As for the Playstation 3, it's not looking good. The Playstation 2 got off to a slow start as well, but I don't see the PS3 recovering quite as well. The price point is just too high, and developers are getting discouraged by the slow sales and are lured in by the established 360 audience and the hot demand for the Wii. It really all comes down to developer support and Sony is losing it fast. Do you ever play handheld consoles? If so which ones and which games? Lately, I have actually been doing most of my gaming on handhelds. I like being able to take my games to work and other trips I am on to pass time. It's also nice to play them out in my Sun Room at home when the weather is nice. As I mentioned above, my wife and I are big DS fans. I got a white DS Lite for my birthday last summer and my wife ended up playing it more than I did (she loved Brain Age and Clubhouse Games). To get mine back and allow us to play wireless multiplayer, I got her a Pink DS Lite for Valentines. Lately we have been duking it out at Meteos and New Super Mario Bros. I've also played through most of Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney. It's a great game, but I have been getting a bit tired of it, to be honest. I get frustrated when I can't find the stuff that I'm looking for and end up using GameFAQs. Takes some of the fun out of it. Metroid Prime Pinball is also a bunch of fun, as I mentioned in a question above. In addition to my DS, I have a GP2X that I use for emulation, homebrew, and playing videos. I still haven't gotten around to getting some of the other emulators up and working, so I mostly play Genesis games on it -- primarily Vectorman and Sonic 2. Finally, your site is not blogger, it's dot.com. Is that testimony to it's growth and development? I originally started the site on Blogger since I mainly just wanted a way to post retro news and have an RSS feed to complement my posts at SegaXtreme (where I was one of the more active posters and moderators). Looking back, my writing was pretty sparse and pretty lackluster. But somehow, some people were actually reading it and it slowly grew in readership. As a side project, I was selling some accessories and parts for the Saturn and Dreamcast and I thought that I should get a domain and hosting account so I could have a more professional storefront. Having the blog on the domain and hosting was just a side-benefit at the time. Soon after the move, I was making a few dollars a month in ads, so it was enough to pay for the hosting bill. Once I got featured on Digg, Joystiq, and Kotaku a few times, RSS subscriptions and traffic really started to gain steam. Since then it has been a very gradual progression. Since I'm cover a relatively nich audience, I don't nearly have the audience of your mainstream gaming sites, but for the topics I cover, I've been pretty happy with the results. With the growth of my ad revenue, I've been able to outsource some of my web development so I can focus on my writing. This past month I've moved my site over to the Wordpress platform so I can have more flexibility and organization of the content. I also have some other interesting things in the works, that should make the site more enjoyable. Are there any blogs out there that you regularly dip into or check out? What blogs would you recommend? I assume you are referring to gaming blogs, so I'll keep it to those. With a lot of gaming blogs, I'll subscribe to them, but then unsubscribe because they post too much or they just post news that the major gaming blogs already covered. I'll skim through Joystiq and Kotaku just to make sure I don't miss out on anything major. But the only ones I read completely are smaller, usually independent blogs. Other than the Junkyards (obviously), I read GameSetWatch, PressTheButtons, Error Macro, Siliconera and insertcredit. Other favorites (when they post something) are Special Attack and ShootTheCore. Today, I learned about a new game review site that seems up my alley: Actionbutton I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that doesn't find some of these over-hyped modern games to be less than fun. Hey! This is purely for me, Father Krishna. There's no point having a hero here and not asking a bit more personal stuff... Top 5 Movies ? Back to the Future trilogy The Original Star Wars Trilogy Serenity Monsters Inc. 13 Going on 30 Top 5 TV Shows? Heroes Scrubs Arrested Development Lost (except this season has been slow) The Office ok, #6 is Firefly Top 5 Musicians/Bands? Mae Skillet White Stripes Jars of Clay Norah Jones Top 5 Books? Purple Cow Being Digital The Second Coming of Steve Jobs Free Prize Inside The Tipping Point (I never really got into reading fiction much) I'd like to say a massive thankyou to Racketboy for giving his time and energy to contribute this interview and for his continuing support and guidance for Saturn fans everywhere! So there you have it! Racketboy(!) on the Saturn Junkyard! Now back to more mundane matters...."

Bloglines - Weewar

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Wonderland ... Alice's place.

Weewar By Alice Weewar deserves a prize just for the name. It's web-based, it's wee, and it's war in its cutest form: There's no tutorial, nor single-player mode, just an FAQ for how to play, which is a bit dense (in the lots-of-text sense). After many years of being brought up on tutorials, I am now far too lazy to read an FAQ. Shocking, isn't it. So instead, I'll probably go start a game blind, and get battered about by some pr0. Onwards!

Bloglines - Fifteen Rejected Doughnut Varieties

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Woot! - One Day, One Deal Woot! - One Day, One Deal

Fifteen Rejected Doughnut Varieties Sardine Hazelnut Banana and Glass Huitlacoche Pine Dark Chocolate Prion Creme "Brooklyn Style" Sulfur Crunch Pigeon and Lime Blood Sweat and Cherry Sloppy Joe Sauerkraut Bleu Cheese Carol Channing Habanero Vindaloo Scallop Sour Cream and Onion

Bloglines - WWoundup: Year-End Lists of the Year

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Woot! - One Day, One Deal Woot! - One Day, One Deal

WWoundup: Year-End Lists of the Year Magazine editors and bloggers alike know that nothing drives traffic around this time of year like a good year-end list. What if I were to combine the powers of a whole bunch of year-end lists into one big list of the year's best year-end lists of the year? It might look a little something like this... Guess which highly-touted iTem made both PC World's 25 Most Innovative Products of the Year and its 15 Biggest Tech Disappointments of the Year? For the benefit of those 13-year-olds who still have some Christmas money to spend, here's another one from PC World: The Year's Most Offensive Video Games. There's something poetic in the fact that these charts of Most Pirated Movies and TV Shows of 2007 are both topped by tales about do-gooders fighting evil. Out there, somewhere, like stranded Japanese soldiers marching across desert islands long after the bombs hit Hiroshima, nerds and venture capitalists are still partying like it's 1999. Read all about it in this roll call of The Dumbest Startups of 2007. OK, last total-nerd link on this list, promise: Wired's 10 Best Galleries of the Year makes me think I should pay a little more attention to the old gray cybermare. (There's some NSFW content in one gallery.) I never miss the Buffalo Beast's annual 50 Most Loathsome People in America list. Bill Maher, on the other hand, only came up with 13 entrants for his Dickheads of the Year list (some NSFW language, surprise surprise). Unsurprisingly, some of the same people from the previous two lists show up on About.com's 25 Dumbest Political Quotes of 2007. Clear some of that political bilge off of your skin with the awe-inspiring, thought-provoking eye candy of NASA's Astronomy Photos of the Year. If you click only one link in this list, it should be Kottke's Best Links 2007. And while they're not lists, we'd be remiss if we didn't note that Pantone's color of the year is 18-3943 Blue Iris; that Seth Godin named an unexpected duo in a tie for his Marketer of the Year, 2007 award; and that E*Trade exec Mitch Caplan is Silicon Alley Insider's Goat of the Year for fumbling away $9 billion of the shareholders' money on a harebrained mortgage-trading scheme. Seen any interesting eulogies for '07 in convenient list form? Post 'em below. Four O'Clock Flash: I personally am way too uncoordinated to do very well on Movement Mayhem, but I'm as fascinated by its two-handed gameplay as I am frustrated by it.