Sunflowers > Tumbleweeds

Today was the first day it felt like winter was right around the corner, and it was a tumble-weed-a-tumblin' kind of day here in West Texas. Coincidentally, I ran across this photo I snapped on my way to the beach back in July. Ahhh, I feel the warm sunshine and fresh (dust free!) breeze just looking at this.

One last thought: If Plants vs. Zombies were real life, I'd head straight to the town where I took this. Beautiful seas of sunflowers every couple of miles!

Don't Touch: Space-time Continuum

Wow. I've been crazy busy. Perhaps the Back to the Future DeLorean that was at the ExactTarget Connections 2012 conference could have proved useful, but I'm far too wary of abusing the space-time continuum for personal gain. Just doesn't seem right. Oh, well. Expecting time travel out of a business conference might be too high of an expectation, but I did get some pretty useful digital marketing and social media insights out of it.

The Real Deal: Red Dirt

I see all these trendy fashion blogs posting photoshopped images to look "vintage" and to have "grunge." And for a bit I'm tempted to buy into the nostalgia of it all. Then a day like this comes along, and I laugh at the thought of models posing in anything remotely close to this. No warmth or texture added in photoshop. Just pure, red dirt, baby!

Also, notice my wind chime is taped together...

Carnies and Bunnies

Went to the Panhandle Plains Fair today! AKA the Bunny Fair, since I pretty much just go to see the room full of rabbits since I'm not big into foods on a stick, and just the smell of funnel cake is enough to make me feel sick. But I DO love bunnies. Also, I can now say I've officially been swindled by a carney. Given, I was aware of what I was getting myself into when I stepped up to the game booth, I'm just not the kind of person to object over the details a game of darts or ring toss, so maybe it doesn't count. Oh well, I won a prize and saw hundreds of bunnies. 'Twas an indubitably good day.

It is almost fall! I love this - can't you just feel the crisp morning air and the warm morning light? Taken last year, but soon enough I'll have the fall weather and fall light to snap away in.

Will Rodgers statue

Geek Out

So I ran across this post on Not Cot about Hatsune Miku, a Japanese pop music sensation that is ... completely computerized. This is not the first time I've heard of her ... (it?) ... I actually wrote an entire paper analyzing virtual bands for a senior level elective class I took in the College of Mass Communications (I would like to note that the course title, Rock 'N' Roll Media, is completely deceptive in making it sound like an easy class) and was totally weirded out the more I learned of Hatsune Miku. I had originally planned on focusing the paper on one of my favorite bands, The Gorillaz. It took me 8 pages to thoroughly explain and analyze why this fad is important to the media/advertising/interactive landscape. And only about one page to suck all the fun out of the topic. Luckily, a picture is worth a thousand words and these vids are 24 frames per second and over a minute long. So, just watch:

The Japanese pop sensation hologram that sold out an L.A. concert in less than two hours:

A band with cartoon avatars, and the star power to get Bruce Willis to cameo in a car chase:

And while I'm at it, I might as well post a link to footage from the Video Games Live concert I went to in Dallas. (Thanks to whoever is allowing me to re-live the awesomeness via YouTube!) I have seen bands with much cooler reputations, but a concert venue filled with video game nerds psyched to sing a long with the Super Mario theme song? Best. Concert. EVER.