It appears that the bank vaults in NYC have run out of space to store all the gold that wealthy types are hoarding because the price of gold has risen by a factor of four in the past year. The bank HSBC even told all its retail gold investors to remove their bullion so larger customers could use the space. Oh, the trouble such people have!

This summer we finally purchased a new Barbecue grill for the backyard. Its a Weber and we were able to use it a few times before the weather got a bit too cool and cold. Looking forward to using in more actively next summer!

I can’t believe its taken me this long to post these photos. Early in the summer, we had a patio installed in the back yard. Its a wonderful addition to the house!

• Say Hi (band name – aka "Say Hi To Your Mom") – Album: Ferocious Mopes. Love the album + sound. Plan to buy more. #MusicMonday #mm #
• Got an invite to Google Wave! Pretty cool. Unfortunately, have to wait to get home since its blocked at work. #googlewave #
• Great weekend for Syracuse sports. Hoops with big win vs UNC on Friday and football team with really good win vs Rutgers! Go Orange! #

A very interesting and insightful article about pinball machines and the economic drivers that led to their demise.

In 1980, pinball went digital, multi-ball, and multi-media starting with the game Black Knight. Black Knight brought pinball to a new level, literally speaking because it was among the first games with ramps and elevated flippers, but even more importantly because it brought a new challenge that drew in and solidified a pinball crowd. In doing so it also set the pinball market on a path that would eventually lead to its demise.

The article goes on to describe how the algorithms of the machines and the physical limitations of the machines themselves became the barrier to entry for new players, while at the same time video games were on the rise and they gave its users the ability to practice at the lower levels and get better as they advanced.

Every year I go to the Pinball Wizards Convention in Allentown, PA and marvel at the enthusiasm of the people playing the pinball machines, as well as the “chewing gum and paperclip” appearance of how the machines are wired and constructed. The irony is that the advanced (for the time) calculations and logic baked into these machines (not to mention the artwork and design that made up the visual and physical presentation of the machines themselves…there was one guy who said he spent over 500 hours drawing a design for a game!) may have done more damage than good.

The folks over at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) have their Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest Atom smasher, back online (7 hours early actually) after an electrical error put it offline for the past year. So as soon as January, they will be able to smash atoms and create a black hole around the French-Swiss border that will suck in all of humanity.

• HotPotato.com outta Bkyn. Lets you connect and curate conversations around live events. http://bit.ly/69GztF #
• photos of how LA would look completly empty of people http://bit.ly/58ykm0 #
• The Irish were robbed by the French in the World Cup qualifying. FIFA needs to have the match replayed – http://bit.ly/3NSYWf #
• Say it aint so! Ken Ober, host of MTV's Remote Control show back in the day died. "Dead or Alive" ? Dead – http://bit.ly/2JJtAM #
• s
  http://bit.ly/2JJtAM #
• I can't believe the Patriots blew that game. 4th down call not the brightest move but the fumble and int at the goal line did not help #
• Patriots are looking sharp so far tonite! #
• I need to go Paul b #

Some interesting visuals and descriptions of different food offerings on McDonald’s menus from around the world.   I don’t think I’ll be going for the “Seaweed Flavored Fries” from Japan. I’m not sure what to make of the McSpaghetti – spaghetti soaked in sugar. And if you are in Hawaii, be sure to get the Spam, Eggs and Cheese McGriddles.  Spam, spam, spam, spam…wonderful spam!

The National Archives will make yet another attempt, using advanced high tech methods, to once and for all figure out what happened during those infamous 18 and a half minutes of tape that were erased from the records of a meeting between Nixon and H.R. Haldeman on June 20, 1972, three days after the Watergate break-in that eventually brought down the Nixon presidency.

This is funny, especially being that I can agree with the logic of the flow chart and that one of the net end results means you go to Chick Fil A, one of my favorites!

via BuzzFeed

Check this out. I got a direct mail piece from Google, offering me $100 coupon for AdSense. The poster child for the Internet and all things online and digital is using the old fashioned, dreadfully offline, less than 1% response rate channel of Direct Mail to drum up business. Oh, the irony.

One piece of feedback: I’d advise them to actually know the recipient’s name rather than addressing it to “Adsense Customer”.

The folks at Twitter have partnered with Peek to create a device called the Twitter Peek, a device that is built specifically for the “type A” Twitter user. Not that we all need another device to juggle alongside our iPhones, Blackberries, Droids, et al.

Personally, I’m more than happy with the downloadable applications built for Twitter such as TweetDeck, TwitterBerry, UberTwitter, and all the others, not to mention the Twitter site itself.

In fact, I think the beauty of Twitter is how it functions as a communications platform and is so device agnostic – building a dedicated device for the service almost seems counter intuitive to me.

The move of former “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno to his new “Jay Leno Show” at 10PM weekdays is looking more and more like a fiasco of epic proportions for NBC. His ratings have fallen off the shelf as he is averaging only 4-5 Million viewers, off from a high of 18 Million viewers when the show first started out in September, and compared to the other shows in that time-slot that are bringing in 11-14MM viewers.

When I was out in California last week, we took a tour of the NBC studios in Burbank. What struck me during the tour was the cringe of the tour guide’s face when he spoke of “former ‘Tonight Show’ host Jay Leno”. He looked like he was smelling rotten fish. It was also interesting that Leno’s face and “Tonight Show” murals were still all over the studio, which implies to me that maybe NBC is hedging its bets and may be planning on some sort of course correction, because this experiment has been dead on arrival. The hard part here is to figure out how they will handle Conan O’Brien if they do in fact move Jay back to the “Tonight Show”.

But maybe this will be Comcast’s problem soon, if the rumors of them buying a controlling stake in NBC are true. I’d hate to be in the NBC board room when this is the topic of the day.

The lack of activity this week was because I was out on vacation in Southern California, visiting Anaheim, Disneyland and Los Angeles. Just a great time and, boy oh boy, the weather out there is just spectacular. I definitely did not enjoy waking up from the red eye this morning to “Welcome to Newark Airport, where the temperature is 38 degrees”.

• Day 2 at Disneyland. Buzz Lightyear Astroblaster was great. My 2 kids are now trained Jedi Padawans. They fought Darth Vader! And won! #
• Disneyland is a kid's dreamland #
• Greetings from Los Angeles. 80 and sunny. #