As initially reported on Dueling Tampons, Michael Bay's AWESOME Transformers 2 (regretably sub-titled Revenge of the Fallen) is shooting today at the Quad on University of Pennsylvania's Campus. Post links to any pictures you take today in the comments.

At first sight, the green field above looks pretty flat, but upon a further look, you'll see the dip. Now if you have been here before, you'll know that there's a HUGE valley in front of the trees... So too today in Philadelphia it appears the "Digital Divide" has closed between The Suburbs and the urban areas. I don't believe it. Our High Speed internet prices will continue to rise because of the current wifi situation. Yes it still functions, but the service has NOT reached it's full potential and Earthlink customer service is abysmal...The latest news is that Earthlink will eventually leave with "Wireless Philadelphia" left to fend for itself. WIMAX in Philly is being flirted with but until these other services establish themselves, and cause competitive pricing, the technology gap will continue. What do you think? Please subscribe...

Just did a mix/blend job for one of my amateur radio sources. Here he is in his heyday.--> Been thinking about my former production techniques and how I should proceed in the future. Clearly there is a difference between the "cookie cut" beatmaker and the "Producer" who gives an Artist an outline to work with but adds and removes in the studio. I've been told my style of poems, lyrics and apparently music making is too deep or complicated. I'm left-handed so I leave room for adjustments in a recording. If I'm given a pre-made beat, after and during vocal recording I chop, add samples and play in between the track I was given. That's how I work. I've been known to give artists just a bare bone drum track so I can build everything around the vocals. That's me. I've made beats with just a looped sample to give to artists. Now I know that in the studio the finished product won't sound like what I gave them, but I don't tell them that. Why would I? Shouldn't they make the beat their own so I can tailor it to them? Maybe thats my problem. I expect a vision from the artist. I like music. The way it flows, stops, changes directions and come back to it's beginning. I'm a circular guy. Maybe I should give each artist I decide to work with a speech about my Studio intentions. I can't expect a stranger to "trust" me. Who am I? There's no awards on my wall... http://myphillynetwork.com/content/no-awards-my-wall

No, this isn't DeJa-Vu. Due to a mysterious "Sam" commenting on my Social.im article, I'm now compelled to investigate about this other IM app for Facebook.
Now Yapper(that's what it's called) definitely installed quicker and smoother than Social.IM. Being based on Java, it managed to keep it's native color instead of matching my current XP theme. For some strange reason on the website I invited 10 friends(sorry guys,you know who you are),but when the standalone launched,it showed me all of my friends with an "add me" button just like Social.IM. One HUGE difference is that I get a lot of "info pop-ups"from Yapper. I like that and even though I don't plan to join the built in chat rooms,it' cool to see the traffic...Sorry Making the band 4 is on...I'm back, um yeah so overall since I forced my contacts to join Social.IM first, I'll probably stick with it even if Yapper does have more bells and whistles. Sorry Sam...

Hmmm... At www.Techcrunch.com 's request, I tried www.Facebook.com 's Social.IM. It's still kinda buggy. I installed it to my XP laptop first and it had trouble automatically logging into facebook. It reminded me of setting up a network, if the sequence was wrong it just hung. First I tried to log in to Social.IM while already signed into Facebook. That didn't work. Then I logged out of Facebook and signed into Social.IM...No go. So I went back into Facbook THEN signed into Social.IM and the app fired up under Facebook's app page. After that the actual program kicked in and that part was done. Strangely it had me select friends to invite like three times from the webpage, but the stand alone app still wanted me to "click to invite" my friends... I probably won't put this on my VISTA laptop if it was this annoying on XP. I guess I won't know the other half(the actual instant messaging side)until some of my friends install Social.IM too... Befriend me so we can figure if this will be the next "killer app"...

A new PTR build hit the test realms today, and just in time for the second stress test that'll be getting underway later tonight. A few of the big highlights:

• The Druid Cyclone spell has had the range reduced to 20 yards, from 30 yards.
  
• The newly purchasable epic gem crafting patterns have had their prices dramatically increased. For example, the epic gem patterns used to cost 1.5g each to buy, now they're 50g each. This will make them harder for casual players to acquire.
  
• A few BoP crafted items have had a profession requirement of 350 placed on them.
  
  

All in all, it looks like Blizzard is winding down the changes. They seem to be targeting some very specific areas right now, and the list of changes each week is getting shorter and shorter. This might mean the patch will be going live soon. And remember, as soon as it goes live, we'll select a winner from the Patch 2.4 release date contest we held.



Any thoughts on the cyclone change? I for one am happy, considering how I hate being cycloned in arena battles.

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Wow, Some people can't extract good points out of Flamboyant Answers. This is a problem many have with www.Mahalo.com creator Jason Calacanis. Why do I care? I don't, but he's a Very Hard Worker from the East Coast tearing up the West Coast Silicon Valley. Sure he likes to say stuff for shock appeal, but HE'S FROM NYC the media capitol of the World. He's trained to hit nerves,sift out the weak and attack. Not his fault, really. Blame the game.

www.Techcrunch.com has a storm brewing between it's reporter and the owner. Seems to be a problem with points Calacanis made about starting a company. I won't bore you with the details but starting a company is a very hard thing to do. I for years produced music and wrote songs. I turned my basement into a studio and decided to pick up some "partners" to start a production company. Things were fine at first, we're all human so physical mistakes are ok. Mental mistakes, though can kill a company and that's what happened. I blame myself for not finding people as hungry or confident about the product as I was. So I cut my losses and started a Computer Repair Company. Ran into the same problem, I was bringing to the table more than my partner. That's not teamwork and I lost clients because of that. Now I run myself and I have more customers than I can shake a stick at. Why? because I believe in myself, I don't make mistakes I can't fix and I stay humble enough to pass off a job I can't or don't have time to do... Oh and Robert Scoble at www.scobleizer.com rocks for being on JC's side...

Came across a personal chef this week. As I was fixing his/her computer, we talked about the many Philadelphian celebrities he/she's cooked for. He/She's currently interviewing for a rookie Sixer's star, but it doesn't look good due to scheduling. I mentioned that to say how possible it is to have your own at home business nowadays. If you noticed, I didn't say "How EASY it is", I wrote how POSSIBLE it is. Clearly it takes hard work and years to get a good reputation, but once attained, business promotes itself. It's kinda like how long it takes to get even a 2 on Google pagerank. Bloggers know what I mean. You have to do/write quality work, promote yourself constantly and keep connections. Online business is like any other business. Nothing happens overnight and anyone expecting that should go to Burger King, they'll hire you on the spot!

If you are a Philadelphia resident who is unemployed, employed part-time, or under-employed, JEVS/Orleans Technical Institute has a FREE Job Placement Program available throughout January to May.

Applicants must be Philadelphia residents 18 years of age or older who are seeking full-time employment. The program will do a complete assessment of skills and work history to help determine a job that will be a good match. Participants must also meet the low-income government guidelines but not receiving cash assistance from welfare.

All participants will attend an intensive two-day job readiness program where they will learn to set up an email account for jobs and practice interviewing skills. The staff will prepare an effective resume and cover letter. They will also learn how to do a thorough Internet job search to help assist in their employment goals. Successful participants who find employment will be eligible to receive a gift card for $50.00 after their first month of employment.

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If you though you COULDN'T possibly hear anymore stories of how horrible and heartless FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency ) was post-Katrina, read today's Philadelphia Inquirer. If you think you are sad & have it bad during the holidays, just read this.

In a nutshell: they are quite possibly evicting Hurricane Katrina victims soon. FEMA doesn't want to pay their rents, apparently. Can you say Scrooge? Can you say this just sucks? Can you say perhaps that the President should have spent part of his visit to Philadelphia this week visiting the transplanted victims of Katrina? Yes Iraq is important, but hey, what about our own people in this country? They lost their homes, their livilihoods, friends, relatives and even their pets! Now they have to worry about being homeless? Yeah, we want you to keep contacting government officials about eminent domain, but you know what? They need to hear it about this too. With tears in our eyes, here is the article: