I had the pleasure of working with a fellow LMU alum, Van Partible, on his new portfolio website. Van developed the Cartoon Network series Johnny Bravo which ran from 1997 to 2004. It was a pleasure getting to work with such a talented artist, his work is absolutely amazing. Please check out his site when you have a chance.

It’s been one year since we moved into our new house in Glendale, and that means it’s been one year of no reception at home. Sometimes, you can get a half-a-bar of reception in the very corner of our master bedroom, but even then it’s spotty at best. I’ve been tracking the development of AT&T’s 3G Microcell for a little over nine months now. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Microcell, it is basically a mini cell-tower that plugs in and runs off your internet broadband connection. I finally got mine last night.

The setup was rather painless and I was up and running in under 30 minutes. The Microcell plugged right into my router and I went through the online activation and added our phone numbers to the safe list. This makes sure that other people can’t poach off our signal. Just like that, we both had full bars in our entire house. AT&T’s slogan more bars in more places is kind of true, except now you have to pay for it.

I suppose that is my only complaint about the device is that I had to pay $150 for it. The reason I needed it in the first place is that AT&T doesn’t provide us with adequate service at our home. I’m not talking about living out in the boonies somewhere, I live in a major metropolitan area. I understand they need to absorb the cost for the device, but ultimately, this is going to save them money in the long run by not having to put up additional cell towers. Between this and their new data plans, I really hope the iPhone comes to another carrier very soon.

I saw this on Engadget today and all I can say is I NEED one.

I’ve been playing music all my life and I have never seen anything so intriguing or amazing.  To me, it’s the perfect balance between digital and tangible, giving you the feel of a traditional instrument, while displaying an endless array of sound options.

They are a little pricey, around $6,000 USD, but well worth it in my opinion. Here is a clip from the Engadget article.

If anyone feels so inclined, they can pick me up one here.