Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

End Of The Week Roundup: 8/19/11

Busy week working on wedding stuff but all kinds of fun stuff snuck in too. While we didn’t have a chance to walk our dog as much as usual we did get her an opportunity to play in a river and she had a blast. (And watching her jump against the ‘current’ so did we!) A TON of wedding stuff got taken out and we were able to spend some time in both the city and with friends. All in all, a damn good week. (By how many pictures are in this post I’m sure it’s easy to tell I found a new humorous picture site as well.)

Life

• Setup spot lights in the back so it’s easier to keep track of Ali when she’s trying to hide in the yard
• Tuesday was off for a wonderful day in Chicago, went to Lucky’s for lunch (Man v Food challenge spot)
• Ali had time to play in a river which was, absolutely hilarious
• Leah and I went out for Ramen and Sushi with Rex and Kozue

Wedding Stuff

• Wedding shower happened, holy shit gifts, Leah and all of the family had an absolute blast!
• Cake testing. So done with cake. So sick of cake. Too much cake!
• Figuring out wedding bands
• Did the engagement photo session which ended up being a blast
• Setup a block of rooms and setup booking information for the rooms on the wedding website!

Projects

• Worked a little on the new layout for the BZ
• We had someone redeem a prize on our PunchTab reward system for Buy Zombie! Win, it works

Media

• Watched Paul
• Lots of TV but not much else movie wise really

My Writing

• Submitted a piece of flash fiction, “The Full Moon” to the 31 Nights of Halloween anthology by Rain Storm Press

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

Cake Is Evil!

So today I had the day off of work and Leah and I went downtown for cake testing! Yes we have it narrowed down to 3 places and are just waiting for quotes. Oh wow so much cake. I don’t know how we had room for dinner. At any rate I can’t really talk about it since I know Leah wants everything to be a surprise but all 3 options should be absolutely full of yum. And. I’m never eating cake again. Ever. *holds stomach* So. Much. Cake.

(picture via: Deviant Art.)

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

Engaged!

Maybe it’s from the Wedding shower yesterday, maybe it’s because I’m excited for the wedding in October, maybe it’s because it was on one of my favorite comic book websites – but I decided on a whim to watch this video about a guy proposing to his girlfriend.

It starts slow but the last 20 seconds will give any geek a laugh. Hilarity. Absolute hilarity!

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

End Of The Week Roundup: 8/12/11

I’ve done nothing this week. I’ve had a cold so my energy level has been hard enough to get through the work day, walk the dog only twice this week, and put on a happy face for the love of my life… honestly I’ve just been miserable and sick and am glad it’s Friday and I’m finally ‘starting’ to feel better.

Life

• Went to Misa’s wedding
• Hung out with Brad, Ana, and the Ruffle Butt
• PLAGUE
• Ali was a bit of a monster this week, granted it’s partially my fault for not walking her enough

Wedding Stuff

• Leah and I met up with our wedding planner to get a betteridea of what all we had left to take care of still
• Did someone say ducks?

Projects

• Worked on a bit of the new layout for Buy Zombie

Media

• Watched Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet
• Introduced Leah to Land of the Dead, she enjoyed most of the movie until the end and gave the same reaction that almost everyone else did, ‘wtf was the point of that?’
• Read ALL of the Battle Angel Alita graphic novels, now to see if the second series after that ever got graphic novels

My Writing

• No reviews this week but I’m about 500 words into a piece of flash fiction I want to finish by Monday to submit somewhere. I figured out where I want to go with it now to just make sure I keep it at 1500 words or under!

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas Trailer

I was going to post a video today. This wasn’t going to be it. But I just couldn’t resist posting this when I saw this. Now stoner movies for a long time were a dime a dozen and the vast majority of them are just terrible movies. I in fact did not see the first Harold & Kumar (even with rave reviews) until the second film was out in theaters.

This was a mistake on my part. Both of the current films are an absolute blast and have only gotten better with the inclusion of Neil Patrick Harris. Now the third film is coming out and even with NPH’s “death” in the last one he’s found a way to make a come back and oh does it look good!

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

What happens when you mix 2 of my favorite things, horror and infographics? Well today we get a fun little one about Jason Voorhies from Friday the 13th, and who he’s killed and how! When the relaunch of the series was released (and flopped, some say justifiably so but I for one wish the franchise was continuing) Andrew Barr and Mike Faille created this awesome infographic to show off Jason’s kills up to that point. Win!

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

The Call Of Duty Elite Beta Is Like….

….Something I can’t talk about. Sorry the above image is from an e-mail I received BEFORE I had to sign a NDA about what’s going on in the beta. There will be plenty of time to talk about it when it’s been lifted (or for sites that don’t care about NDA’s and leak screenshots/info anyway.)

What I can tell you though is that the beta is neat, has some cool features, and I’m glad there’s a free/pay version because until they show us what’s so neat about the pay version I can’t really imagine spending a monthly fee on it. That being said it IS cool for a variety of reasons that… well unfortunately I can’t go into quite yet. Hurray for NDAs!

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

Yup that really just about sums it up right there.

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

End Of The Week Roundup: 8/5/11

Another week that has seemed to fly by. Work’s been busier then usual so I’ve also had to fit in blogging at night, picking up the tux for another wedding, taking the dog for walks, it’s just been all pretty nonstop!

Life

• Leah and I went to go see Transformers: Dark Side Of The Moon
• We learned the hard way that Ali’s time with a bone needs to be limited to 1 hour or she gets too much in her stomach and the house (and me cleaning it) suffer
• We went out to the Taphouse for Brenna’s birthday
• Leah started her new job so we’re semi on the same schedule right now. It’s almost strange how much we’re seeing of each other!

Wedding Stuff

• We’ve started getting responses to invitations, win!
• Also made plans with our planner for this weekend

Projects

• Buy Zombie’s Twitter passed 2500 fans
• Leah came up with a possible work around to my lack of a background image for the next Buy Zombie

Media

• Watched Transformers: Dark Side Of The Moon
• Finished reading Dead Guy Spy (Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie Book #2)

My Writing

• I did a My Rotten Life Review on Buy Zombie
• Started a piece of Flash Fiction which if I can come up with an end for will be submitting early next week

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

Crazy Dog TShirts Presents The Teepocalypse Sweepstakes

Now I’m not usually one for promoting sweepstakes on this site but Crazy Dog is always willing to be such a great sponsor on Buy Zombie that when I saw they have a contest running I just had to give them a shout out!

Fans will enter the Sweepstakes for a chance to win One (1) of Four (4) T-Shirt and Costume Prize Packs. We also have Gift Cards for the Top 3 Referrers (using the Invite Friends link, etc) to the Campaign for $100, $50, and $25 respectively. It is open until August 28th, and we will notify the winners by email and/or phone (preferably email).

The Prize Packs are as follows:
Vintage Tshirt Prize Pack
- Aspen California
– Abe Froman
– Scuba Steve
– McCheese for Mayor
– Paddle Faster
– Camp Crystal Lake

Move & TV Prize Pack
– Paddy’s Pub
– Griswold Family Christmas
– Back to the Future Hill Valley
– Ate a 96er
– Big Lebowski Urban Achievers
– Office Space Initech

Womens Tees Prize Pack’
– Bazinga
– Gizzy is the Shizzy
– Scuba Steve
– Honey Badger
– Merlottes Bar and Grill
– New Mexico

Costume Prize Pack
- 2 Costumes of the winners choice, up to a $100 total value

You can enter by Facebook or Twitter!

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

Seriously this is one of the funniest things I’ve seen from Ford in awhile. The way he just gives everything about his ‘view’ of The Smurfs film in such a deadpan voice – brilliant! I haven’t seen Cowboys & Aliens yet (it’s on my list!) Captain America still is coming before it (I missed Thor on the big screen I’m not missing this one!)

At any rate, this film looks fantastic and Ford’s defense of it against the little blue monsters that are lowering their opening sales is 110% perfect.

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

End Of The Week Roundup: 7/29/11

I really have to say that above picture sums up this morning for me. (You can replace my alarm with the dog who wanted food.)

Between the storms keeping me inside, Leah’s schedule keeping me alone, and getting posts done at work I spent a lot of this week playing with the dog, playing Call of Duty, and playing more with the dog. Ali has been going NUTS with tug of war this week, possibly from not getting enough walks possibly because she’s just had a hint of madness in her eyes every day as I’ve gotten home from work. Madness.

Life

• Leah and I had lunch with her parents
• Ali passed her Good Canine Citizen test…. barely
• Leah got a promotion at work!

Wedding Stuff

• Some invitations went out
• Some initial groundwork on a DJ was done

Projects

• Added Google Plus links to staff members on Buy Zombie’s About Page
• Updated a few areas of Riot Noise that were long overdue. I still need to replace the Friends section on there as it’s all about the social networking these days though I’m not sure which sites/section to add in yet

Media

• Watched Ghosts Don’t Exist
• Watched Husk

My Writing

• My Kevin Anderson Interview on Buy Zombie was reprinted in the Star Trek zine Comms

(I think my dog could do this if she wasn’t terrified of crates)

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

End Of The Week Roundup: 7/22/11

Dog week. That’s what I shall call this week. Dog week. Between tons and tons of training, 2 classes, tons of playing, and the monster coming up on our bed last night it’s been all about Ali all week. Yea. We spoil our dog.

Life

• Leah and I had brunch with both of our parents on Saturday and sneaked in some wedding talk
• We also had dinner and drinks with Neil at Tap House
• Ali has both her last official training class AND I took her in for another one since we had an open spot to fill
• Tried on a tux for Misa’s wedding. Damn I forgot how much of a pimp I can be… though I need to drop 10 pounds or so
• Leah didn’t notice the look of crazy in Ali’s eyes and got her to jump on the bed and didn’t have the heart to kick her off. We must make sure this does not become habit but oh wow is our dog adorable

Wedding Stuff

• Invitations were worked on
• Started narrowing down some of the last ‘stuff’

Projects

• Replaced Wordbooker with Add Link to Facebook on my websites, Facebook updated are automated once more
• The artist that was working on BZ 3.0 (actually I think it’s 4.0 now but.. whatever) is not going to be able to finish it. Time to find someone else

Media

• Watched Sucker Punch
• Watched Nowhere Boy
• Watched The Fog
• Watched Deadtime Stories: Volume 1
• Read iZombie: Dead to the World

My Writing

• Rhiannon Frater mentioned my interview with her on her blog
• Did a iZombie: Dead to the World Review on Buy Zombie</a>.

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

Dexter Season 6 Trailer

Well I for one cannot wait for season 6 to start. It’s about to come out and oh wow does this trailer look as if there is going to be a TON of interesting things happening! Not only that but ADMIRAL ADAMA IS GOING TO BE IN IT! Well, of course not as Adama but you get the idea. It looks as if it’s going to be a highly action packed season with a LOT going on (and for a nice change the trailer doesn’t make it look like Dexter is about to get caught for the 10 millionth time. A nice season without him having to worry would be a great change unless they put that as part of the finale which would be perfect.)

Oh, and massive props on the Depeche Mode cover being used in the trailer!

Dexter Season 6. Has Dexter finally seen the light? Get ready for the most rapturous season yet.

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

The X-Men Were Born This Way

So this is some group called The Warp Zone that does spoofs of other artists and they decided to do a spoof of Born This Way by Lady GaGa. This spoof though is how the mutants were all born this way and gives quite a few nods to both the comics and the films that the X-Men come from. When it started, I’ll admit it I thought it was going to be horrible but I was laughing by the end. Great for any X-Men fan

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

Still Think Social Media Is A Fad?

Thanks to my lovely fiancee Leah for linking this to me. As someone who loves social media and infographics this one is a perfect combination! (That and it let me find out about a marketing agency that has released a couple of other interesting ones as well.)

Almost every day I talk with business owners who think social media is a fad, and if they just hold out long enough that it will go away. Or others that think social media is only used for sharing pictures of grandchildren and telling the world what you made for dinner.

In a time where people are using their Blackberry to check-in at a client meeting, their iphone to record a video from a seminar and post it on Facebook, or CEO’s reaching out to connections on LinkedIn to find a new employee – social media is now more business than ever. Businesses are using social media to educate consumers, create brand awareness, connect with like-minded others, be more transparent, and yes, even be social. This new way of communicating with prospects and customers has shifted the way companies think of marketing, opening new doors and options of reaching more people.

If you aren’t using social media to connect with your audience, you can bet your competition is. If you need proof in the pudding or know someone who needs it, take a look at the following infographic illustrating the reach of social media.

[via: Inspired Mag.]

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

eBay Wished Me A Happy 14th Anniversary

Well I just got the strangest e-mail from eBay. Having accounts on various sites is something that I just tend to take for granted, so it’s amazing that.. well:

Congratulations!
It’s your eBay anniversary–year 14
Stuart,
We want to say thanks and let you know how much we value
having you as an eBay community member. All of us at eBay
wish you the very best in the year to come.
Thank you!

How strange is it that 14 years ago, at the tender age of 16 I created an eBay account. Yes. I was 16 years old when I created an eBay account and started ordering things online. That is kind of messed up that I was already doing the whole eCommerce thing right as I could legally drive and not even buy porn or cigarettes legally. I think that’s a problem in itself (and I’m not sure if rules at the time even let me legally start an account. I should check what I decided to put in as my date of birth when I initially signed up, hmmm.) At any rate it was really strange since they didn’t really use it as an offer for anything. They didn’t give me a coupon, didn’t try to sell anything, didn’t want to give me any incentive for using the service (I still buy a few domains a year on it but can’t remember the last time I made a big purchase.)

I don’t recall if I have received these on a yearly basis or not but I am just surprised that I’ve had an account there so long.

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

End Of The Week Roundup: 7/15/11

I fear the above image will one day be our dog when we have children.

This week was an absolute waste in the working out department. While I of course walked the dog, running was out of the picture. I’ve actually been doing a good job at it but with a combination of my knee hurting followed by my neck hurting yesterday I didn’t get to run. This displeases me as I’ve been starting to hit that good stride at the end of a run and now I’ll probably be reset a couple days. CURSES!

Complaining aside work has been all about training our new people and things breaking this week which has given me very little free time to work on projects though I’ve been forcing myself to make a dent in my e-mail and work on a few of the upcoming changes for BZ.

Home means Leah and Ali who both give me nothing but happiness and the relaxation I need at the end of an annoying work day.

Life

• Leah and I went out with Brad, Ana, Margaret, and Jason to the Taste of Westmont
• Ali’s last day of normal class
• Instead of a power outage we, for 5 hours, had a water outage

Wedding Stuff

Aren’t you glad we aren’t penguins?

• Little bit of this and a little bit of that, website, decorations, invitation stuff, music stuff, lots of random tid bits worked on

Projects

Must take deep breaths. Still can’t launch the new and improved BZ. Still waiting on art. Probably 2 weeks out. *twitch*

• Setup a Short url for Horror Tree on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HorrorTree
• Installed a new plugin on Horror Tree to have it auto-post Facebook posts and it’s working much better then my current one, time to switch!
• Trying out a new WordPress plugin on Horror Tree to have it auto-post to Facebook
• Buy Zombie’s Facebook passed 2000 likes
• Buy Zombie’s Twitter passed 2400 fans

Media

• Watched Mastermind
• Watched X-Men: First Class

My Writing

• Finished going over edits of a short story that I should have done months ago, now to submit it

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

Q101 AND THE LOOP NO MORE?!

First off this is mainly going to be on Q101 as while I love The Loop it hasn’t had as much of an impact on my music tastes. It’s classic rock that I already had listened to by the time I found the station. Love it but not as much of an impact.

Q101 and The Loop were both purchased by Randy Michael’s Merlin Media recently. Their plan? Kill off The Loop and turn Q101 into an all news station. Thursday, tomorrow, (soon enough today) Q101 is going to have it’s last day on the air.

Not only are these Chicago’s main and only mainstream rock stations but they are also the main force behind the majority of radio sponsored bands visiting Chicago. Granted this will of course be taken up by others but this has been THE music stations that Chicago residents who have listened to rock and alternative over the past 20 years HAVE listened to. (Rock 103.5 and The Zone went away so long ago they aren’t even a footnote these days. Only this time there is no other station to truly turn to that can carry the torch.)

Q101 brought forth not just the events they sponsored but THEY are the ones that gave many bands their initial airplay – Smashing Pumpkins, Disturbed, Rise Against, and Fall Out Boy are prime examples. Chicago Alternative rock has had a lot of influence and big names come from it over the years and now the outlet they’ve made it through is going away.

Looks like XM radio may be getting my subscription after all.

Fuck you Randy Michael’s Merlin media. I mean seriously guys from every rock enthusiast in Chicago just fuck each and every one of you that supported this decision and had any say in it in any way shape or form. This is your second chance in Chicago and I believe I can speak for all of us that we all hope you fail even more spectacularly than the first time.

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

3 Days Ago The Final Shuttle Launched

(As always click the image for a larger copy)

With the economy in the tanks NASA has lost the ability to continue launching space shuttles. What started as a symbiotic competition to the arms race and has since become one of the greatest milestones of human accomplishments. We have reached space. We have explored the moon. We have sent probes to Mars. Now, for awhile, it’s all over – at least as a country. In the near future space flight is being adopted by the private sector which, while neat, isn’t something the country can be proud of at that point but instead a private business.

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

End Of The Week Roundup: 7/8/11

Another week has gone by and this is one I’ve severely neglected updating the blog for. I haven’t ignored it all that often as of late (amazing I know!) but everyone needs a break now and again and this has been taking the back burner. Maybe it’s the extra dog in the house, maybe it was the 4th and playing catch up from it, maybe it’s been the busy week at work and I’ve just been tired but I’ve just felt that there was no blog time. That’s OK, everything else is going along smoothly for the most part.

Life

• Made it out to my Uncle Ken’s lake house in Michigan where we found out that Ali can swim! Most of my father’s side of the family was there and it was a good time
• Dinner with my parents and grandfather on the 4th
• My laptop may, at an inopportune time, be dying
• I found out that the father of 2 of my closest friends growing up is in a coma after a stroke. Jian, Jia – here’s hoping he is able to make a speedy recovery

Wedding Stuff

• Added more songs to our playlist
• Invitations and guest address finding
• A few random tasks checked off

Projects

• Horror Tree’s Twitter has passed 300 followers
• The new Buy Zombie… art… somewhere… ugh

Media

• Read the Fury MAX graphic novel
• Watched His Name Was Jason: 30 Years Of Friday The 13th
• Some TV and COD

My Writing

• Did an Interview with Rhiannon Frater for Buy Zombie

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

That’s why all of the fireworks yesterday, right?

I suppose it could have had to do with a country celebrating something important but those of us who are WordPress junkies could only have thought that it was for a new update! As the highest used blogging platform it’s clearly a national pasttime at this point.

What’s New?

Well there’s a lot new actually but I’ll only go over what I really care about.

• Refreshed Administrative UI – Admin redesign: it’s sleek, it’s stylish, and it’s fast!</li>
• Full Screen Editor – Distraction free writing experience: I have had times where having a full screen option would have saved me time instead of tabbing out of the window I was in when I was stuck for .05 seconds, ahem
• Faster page loads — We’ve gone through the most commonly loaded pages in WP and done improvements to their load time: I have felt that this is true from the back end, not so much on the front end
• Faster Upgrades — The update system now support incremental upgrades so after 3.2 you’ll find upgrading faster than ever: I like new features!
• Denote images that are headers or backgrounds in the media ui: This is something that is amazingly useful that I wish was done years ago

There are a slew of other options as well but those are the highlights for me. The internal ones I don’t really use that were changed and for themes, as I am not a theme developer and the changes made were to functions I’ve never edited so don’t immediately mean much to me directly. (Yet at least!)

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

End Of The Week Roundup: 7/1/11

Wow I feel worn out. If it was just work it would have been a long week. Add in a friend dying, another friend getting let go at the office (more work for the rest of us), finding out I’ll probably need surgery if I want to quit having problems with my nose, more delays on the art for the next iteration of Buy Zombie, and some of the wine glasses we picked for our registry having gotten discontinued and it’s just one thing after another.

AHHHHHH!

I would just like this week to end… oh wait that happens today. (After chores after work.)

Life

• Leah had the weekend off so we were actually able to spend some time together
• We had a chance to have lunch with Leah’s parents
• We took Ali into class and with her new Gentle Leader instead of a harness she was amazingly calm
• Went to the doctor to see what was up with my CT, I DO HAVE A BRAIN!
• A lot of things broke this week at work. Which sucked.
• RIP Lee Greenberg. He was a great friend I met in EverQuest years back and we stayed talking since then. You will be missed

Wedding Stuff

• Looked over our invitations

Projects

• A LOT of prep work for the next iteration of Buy Zombie

Media

• Finished watching Game of Thrones Season 1
• Watched The Frankenstein Syndrome
• Played a lot of Call of Duty: Black Ops: Annihilation

My Writing

• Nada. Zip. Zilch. Epic. Fail.

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

Google Calendar Changed To Match Google+

So Google is on a massive design makeover spree. While I have a feeling it’s going to spread across all of Google’s applications in the near future so far both Google and now Google Calendar have been giving mini-face lifts to better match the look of Google+. In the already changing world of Google it appears that, while Google+ is still only a ‘project’ that it is infiltrating every other aspect of the organization. It’s something Google is betting big on even if it’s not being touted that way. I’m extremely curious to see how the new Google is going to continue to expand and interact with itself. For a long time now I’ve been under the full belief that being able to tie everything together would be what will be the next big change in computers, even if done subtly, and only Google and Microsoft are in the real position with a built in infrastructure to do it. Apple has an infrastructure but no real base for it and Facebook has a glimmer of the idea but no real platform aside from Facebook itself. These are all small steps in the direction and I really think that at this point Google is the only company primed to truly revolutionize computing. Regardless of the platform it is on.

What’s changing

Right now, the changes are just cosmetic and have not affected the way Calendar works. You can choose to turn off the new look by clicking the gear icon and choosing Use the classic look (you can turn it back on by going to the gear icon and choosing Try the new look).

A summary of the current changes are:

• The Quick add function is now under the down arrow next to the Create button
• Calendars selected for viewing in your My calendars and Other calendars lists will no longer display with a colored background; instead, only the arrows next to them will be colored.
• The Print and Refresh buttons are now icons rather than text links. The Print button shows a printer, and the Refresh icon is a circular arrow.
• Visual indicator icons (alarm clock icon for events with reminders, person icon for events with guests, etc.) will only show when the event is hovered over.
• The My calendars and Other calendars lists on the left are now collapsed by default and may be expanded using the small gray arrow. Once expanded, they will remain expanded on refresh or open.
• The mini month view calendar under the Create button is collapsible using the small gray arrow.
• The Save and Discard buttons and Back to calendar link are only available at the top of the event page, not the bottom.

Over the course of the summer and fall, we’ll make more changes to the look and functionality of Google Calendar. You’ll see these changes in your account in a variety of products, and we’ll make sure to keep you updated as we introduce these changes.

Why we made these changes

The way people use and experience the web is evolving, and our goal is to give you a more seamless and consistent online experience — one that works no matter which Google product you’re using or what device you’re using it on. The new Google experience that we’re working toward is founded on three key design principles:

• Focus: With the design changes in the coming weeks and months, we’re bringing forward the stuff that matters to you and getting all the other clutter out of your way.
• Elasticity: The new design will soon allow you to seamlessly transition from your desktop computer to your mobile phone to your tablet, while keeping a consistent visual experience. We aim to bring you this flexibility without sacrificing style or usefulness.
• Effortlessness: Our design philosophy is to combine power with simplicity. We want to keep our look simple and clean. But behind the seemingly simple design, the changes use new technologies to make sure you have all the power of the web behind you.

Originally published at Civin.org. Please leave any comments there.

Google+ is going to be Google’s Social Network. While the look of it resembles Facebook quite a bit it has a more streamlined service and has a vastly different way to organize friends and connect with people. It’s all built around Google’s AMAZING infrastructure so unlike some services that can seem some what slapped together, cluttered, and has horrible privacy settings (gee whoever would I be talking about) there is a new game in town to try to fil the void. While I’m an avid Facebook user and don’t see my use of the service disappearing anytime in the near future (It’s just SO convenient and I’ve already got so much for myself and Buy Zombie tied with it!) I believe that Google really has a chance to break into the social networking platform if they pull this off properly. Right now the service is invite only (I already sent out a good chunk of my initial 25 invite) but I have the distinct feeling it’s going to open up very quickly!

Among the most basic of human needs is the need to connect with others. With a smile, a laugh, a whisper or a cheer, we connect with others every single day.

Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools.

In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.

We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests. And so begins the Google+ project