Under Steve's Hat

IT’S OFFICIAL NOW—Once the Lexan nameplate comes...

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:43:34 -0800

IT’S OFFICIAL NOW—Once the Lexan nameplate comes in… it’s for real.

NEW PERSONAL BEST—Finally shattered the million-point...

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

I wasn't always shooting the targets

As high as the display can go

The daily leaderboard

NEW PERSONAL BEST—Finally shattered the million-point barrier on Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters at Disneyland, but I didn’t know my score until I checked my ride photo, as you can see the counter in the car only goes up to 999,999. Got lucky on today’s trip to the Magic Kingdom when the ride slowed down next to one of the high-scoring targets, and ended up in fourth place for the day (just missed third by a few thousand points!). There was a guy a few cars ahead of mine that did even better, he’s the “LFW” on the top-10 list, he was stopped next to one of the easy-to-reach triangle targets and cracked two million points… so I guess that’ll have to be my next goal!

AVALANCHE—Incredible video of a skier caught in an...

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:13:45 -0700

AVALANCHE—Incredible video of a skier caught in an avalanche, while wearing a helmet camera. Amazingly he survived a 1500 foot plunge and was rescued in under five minutes, with the camera still rolling!

BACK IN THE YEAR 2000—This was certainly a blast from the...

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:09:00 -0700

BACK IN THE YEAR 2000—This was certainly a blast from the past. One of the current Syracuse students just finished editing an old tape he found of my old friend, and former UUTV General Manager, Erik Lindberg giving a tour of the UUTV studio before it was gutted for their new, state-of-the-art digital facility. It’s funny seeing the old studio, sets I built, and dorms I lived in! Seems like it was a long, long, long, long time ago!

It’s “New Phonebook Day”. Which means it’s also “Throw Your New...

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:38:05 -0700

It’s “New Phonebook Day”. Which means it’s also “Throw Your New Phonebook in the Trash Day”. When is AT&T going to realize no one needs these things? I haven’t opened a phonebook in at least six years. I know I’m not the only one who finds things faster online… when will it no longer be profitable for the phone companies to waste money with these phonebooks?

WIRED 17.07—Arrived in the mail today. That’s me on...

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:37:00 -0700

WIRED 17.07—Arrived in the mail today. That’s me on page 18. Although my mother wonders why the picture makes me look 20 years older.

PRIZES

Sun, 31 May 2009 00:56:32 -0700

—A lot of you have asked what swag I scored after the New York Times article mentioned that JJ Abrams would be sending a few things my way for being the first to solve his puzzles. Well, a couple of packages showed up at my doorstep this afternoon. First off was a copy if the May issue of Wired signed by JJ. Also, a few items he rated in his “Playlist” article: a copy of “Catcher in the Rye”, a copy of Kenny Shopsin’s “Eat Me”, Thomas Dolby’s “The Golden Age of Wireless” on CD, and most awesomely—the complete 156-episode, 28-DVD box set of The Twilight Zone. One of my favorite TV shows… as a kid I used to religiously watch WPIX’s annual marathons and tape as many episodes as I could so I could watch them again. Now they’re finally all mine! But it didn’t end there, the second package was a tube—containing two “Star Trek” movie posters signed by JJ as well. Some of you know I collect autographed movie posters, so these will get some prime real estate on my walls!

THAT OTHER WIRED PUZZLE

Fri, 22 May 2009 02:49:13 -0700

THAT OTHER WIRED PUZZLE:

—Jon at Good Times has finally cracked the second page of the “LOST” numbers puzzle. I’m not a “LOST” viewer, so I missed the WIRED magazine that appeared in the season finale. Apparently, running the numbers against the time travel article in that issue (an article I actually do remember reading!) will give the solution: “The four toed statue is Taweret”. So there you go.

WIRED PUZZLE ANSWERS

Thu, 14 May 2009 14:23:59 -0700

WIRED PUZZLE ANSWERS:

—D’oh! I was looking pretty hard for the hidden word “expostulate” and had actually looked at the staff member names a few times and compared a couple of them to old issues, but didn’t compare the right ones! Oh well, at least I wasn’t the only one who missed it!

"This Bevacqua guy must be a maniac. He solved the thing in a couple days and he’s already..."

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 12:39:00 -0700

“This Bevacqua guy must be a maniac. He solved the thing in a couple days and he’s already taking on the biggest mystery”

- madamimadam, on the unfiction ARG forums.
To be honest, I just get a little obsessive over unsolved puzzles. I’m nowhere the caliber of anyone who can tackle a Sunday New York Times crossword. But it has been fun googling my name the last week or so!

MORE WIRED PUZZLES

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:42:34 -0700

—Still trying to answer some of the leftover questions in the WIRED issue. Based on an idea from Nick Tierce on the Brad!cal blog, I converted the code on the “LOST numbers” page to letters based on a repeating cycle, where “A” could be encoded as 1, 27, 53, or “B” could be 2, 28, 54, etc. Anyway, once the numbers were converted to letters, I tried a Vigenere cipher (inspired by the Kryptos article) and took random guesses at code keys. Sure enough, by my sixth or seventh guess, I decoded the message:

“USE LETTERS BACKWARDS FROM END”

from the first page of numbers. Now I have to figure out what the second page is all about.

I FORGOT MOST OF MY HIGH SCHOOL FRENCH

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:03:00 -0700

I FORGOT MOST OF MY HIGH SCHOOL FRENCH:

—So I can’t read much of this article from Paris. Except, of course, my name.

IFC BLOG

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:49:30 -0700

IFC BLOG:

—I got a blurb in one of the Independent Film Channel blogs as well. Cool!

TOMORROW'S NEW YORK TIMES

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:10:00 -0700

TOMORROW'S NEW YORK TIMES:

—I’ve got 14 of the 15 mini-puzzles fully solved, and the answer (but not the question, how Jeopardy!) to the 15th, which is driving me crazy. But you can read all about it in tomorrow’s New York Times, page C3.

Rumor has it that it took about an extra 70 hours for the next person to solve the metapuzzle. Didn’t realize I was that fast!

But there are plenty more puzzles I need to solve. Like: what’s up with Chris Anderson’s signature in the editor’s note? Why are the words “here’s the illusions” on the Contents-Features page different from the article copy? What’s the significance of 16 and 27546.824125 in the “Pi Chart” (I figured out what 0138704 referred to at least!)? Where can I buy an old Violet Sedan Chairs album anyway? Is Jengai the plural of the game Jenga? What’s up with the Lost lotto ticket? Or the tiny numbers squiggled into the “American Stonehenge” article’s title graphic?

Oh, and, wouldn’t ‘Steampunk Bullwhip’ be a great name for a band?

STAY TUNED

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:35:18 -0700

—That’s what I was told to do after a surprising phone call woke me up Friday morning. That, and “It’s gonna be cool”. Mysterious! I’ll let you know the news as soon as I get details…

SOLVED

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:28:00 -0700

—Just happened to casually flip through my monthly issue of WIRED (the May ‘09 issue with J.J. Abrams as guest editor) after work yesterday when I spotted the tiny sentence “For example, spotting and decoding one of 15 hidden clues in this issue will make finding the rest—and solving the overall mystery—a bit easier.” A hidden puzzle? Just like the old days and GAMES magazine! Well, I couldn’t put it down after that. Soon I was elbow-deep in ASCII codes, dvorak keyboards, morse code, semaphore, and a dozen other cryptographic techniques. It took a while, but I finally figured out the puzzle. If you’re looking for a distraction for a few days of solid puzzle work (and Wikipedia searches for how to decode an electrician’s twisted-pair wire code), pick up this month’s issue.

20 HOURS TO SPARE

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:01:01 -0700

—Here’s to hoping NBC’s Edit 10 doesn’t find any technical glitches in the QC. If all goes well, that’s a wrap!

THE "JEOPARDY!" ONLINE TEST

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:28:00 -0800

THE "JEOPARDY!" ONLINE TEST:

—Since I watch “Jeopardy!” every day in the office, and am known for calling out the right answers pretty quickly, my coworkers goaded me into taking the Online Test to be a contestant. I took the Wednesday night quiz, if you want to give it a try yourself, there’s one more on Thursday at 11PM ET/8 PM PT, but you have to register earlier.

Anyway, I think I scored 36 out of 50, which is just 1 question above the minimum for a “pass”. So we’ll have to see if I get a call in the next few months from the Contestant Coordinator.

Here are the questions I had, they’ll change before the next test, though, so no cheating!:

1)MONTHS OF THE YEAR
Each year, it’s Black History Month

2)RECENT MOVIES
“Slumdog Millionaire” is set in this city

3)ROYALTY
This British queen outlived her husband by 39 years.

4)LITERARY GENRES
An epistolary novel is written in the form of these.

5)DRAMA
This group played a major role in early Greek comedy but later only appeared between acts.

6)BIG BUSINESS
Murex, Conch, and Clam were names of early tankers owned by this company.

7)FAMILIAR PHRASES
A farewell performance is this bird’s “song”.

8)ANIMALS IN LITERATURE
The villains in “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” are this type of animal.

9)SIMPLE SCIENCE
It’s the type of electrical current that only travels one way.

10)GOLF LINGO
It’s the term for shooting a 3 on a par-5 hole.

11)U.S. STATES
It’s the third-largest state in the U.S. in area.

12)MILITARY HISTORY
This ship sunk December 7th, 1941 was designated a National Landmark in 1989.

13)BACK TO BACH
A group of 6 chamberworks from 1721 is known as these concertos.

14)PATRIOTIC SONGS
“The Fruited Plain” appears in this 1893 song.

15)CELEBRITIES
In 2008 this young actress confirmed her couplehood with Samantha Ronson.

16)VOCABULARY
It’s a lady’s dressing table, or a synonym for conceit.

17)ASTRONOMERS
Ptolemy’s model was accepted for over 1000 years, until this Polish thinker came along in the 1500’s.

18)RELIGIOUS LEADERS
He served as the Archbishop of Krakow in the 1960’s.

19)AMERICAN NOVELS
This Upton Sinclair book was instrumental in the passage of the Pure Food & Drug Act

20)THE ART WORLD
He died in 1890 having sold 1 painting; in 1990 his Portrait of Dr. Gachet sold for $82.5 million

21)BODIES OF WATER
Over a mile deep and 25 million years old, it’s the deepest and oldest lake on earth.

22)THE INTERNET
The Mozilla Foundation released this open-source web browser in 2004.

23)BESTSELLERS
Completes the title of Elizabeth Gilbert’s tale of a 3-country journey, “Eat, Pray …”

24)THE 20TH CENTURY
Country in whose civil war the International Brigades fought in the 1930’s.

25)’B’ IN GEOLOGY
Formed from cooling lava, it’s the most abundant volcanic rock.

26)ARCHITECTURE
Many Gothic cathedrals used an arched support called a “flying” this.

27)COLLEGE LATIN
3-word Latin phrase for the highest honors granted on graduation.

28)AMERICAN POEMS
Plural title of Joyce Kilmer’s work that admits, “Poems are made by fools like me.”

29)TV THEMES
It’s “where everybody knows your name”.

30)THE METRIC SYSTEM
1 inch equals 2.54 of these.

31)THE GRAMMYS
The 2007 classical crossover Grammy went to “Love Supreme: the Legacy of” this 1960’s Jazz sax man.

32)BRITISH AUTHORS
His “Tom Jones” is one of the first great British novels.

33)19th C. PRESIDENTS
In 1823 he declared the America’s off-limits for European colonization.

34)HISPANIC AMERICANS
This governor of New Mexico ran for president in 2008.

35)U.S. CITIES
It forms a Metropolitan Statistical Area along with Cambridge & Quincy.

36)SHORT STORIES
Nick Adams is the protagonist in many of the short stories in this author’s “In Our Time”.

37)THE ELEMENTS
This element makes up about 78% of normal dry air by volume.

38)STATE BIRDS
The male of this state bird of Maryland is black, white & orange.

39)PLACES IN THE BIBLE
In Exodus 19 “The Lord descended upon” this mount “in fire”.

40)STARTS & ENDS WITH ‘T’
Object in which you’d brew your oolong.

41)WORLD LEADERS
This Venezuelan president likes to call his country a Bolivarian Republic.

42)20TH CENTURY LIT
T.S. Eliot’s verse drama “Murder in the Cathedral” deals with the death of this man.

43)LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY
This general, who took the Alamo, was made President of Mexico 11 times between 1833 and 1855.

44)WALL STREET WOES
This investment bank, swallowed up in 2008, had an appropriately non-bullish word in its name.

45)BUZZWORDS
This “bump” made Time Magazine’s top 10 buzzwords of 2008.

46)PHYSICS
Term first used by James Watt for a unit equivalent to 550 foot-pounds of work per second.

47)STATES OF THE UNION
It’s “The Yellowhammer State”.

48)POETS
“The Tyger” is a famous lyric by this author-illustrator.

49)HANDICRAFTS
“Knit one” is commonly followed by this action “two”.

50)THE MUSIC SCENE
This British band released “In Rainbows” as a name-your-own-price digital download.

And here are the answers:

1) Februray 2) Mumbai 3) Victoria 4) Letters 5) Chorus 6) Shell 7) Swan 8) Snakes (I didn’t know this one) 9) Direct Current 10) Eagle 11) California (of course!) 12) USS Arizona 13) Brandeburg (missed this one) 14) America the Beautiful 15) Lindsay Lohan 16) Vanity 17) Copernicus 18) Pope John Paul II 19) The Jungle 20) Van Gogh 21) Baikal (whoops!) 22) Firefox 23) Love (never heard of it) 24) Spain 25) Basalt 26) buttress 27) Summa Cum Laude (another whoops—I put Magna) 28) Trees (another one I never heard of) 29) Cheers 30) Centimeter 31) Coltrane (spaced on this one) 32) Fielding (another one I misssed—started to worry about passing after missing so many in the last few) 33) Monroe 34) Richardson 35) Boston 36) Hemmingway 37) Nitrogen 38) Oriole 39) Sinai (brain froze on this one) 40) Teapot 41) Chavez (blanked on this one too) 42) Becket (another miss) 43) Santa Anna 44) Bear Stearns (get it?) 45) Fist Bump 46) Horsepower (if I had another second I would have gotten this, but ‘joule’ popped in my head first and the timer was counting down fast) 47) Alabama (whiffed on this one) 48) Blake (just couldn’t pull this name off the tip of my tongue) 49) purl and 50) Radiohead

Luckily I caught “Slumdog Millionaire” just this weekend, and we happened to be shooting an episode where I needed to find stock footage of Bangalore and found a lot of stuff from Mumbai that it stuck in my head when I watched the movie. Also would have missed “basalt” if I didn’t notice the clue category was “’B’ in Geology”. Other than that, the ones I got right I knew immediately, it was the others that took time I ended up missing.

MINOR QUAKE

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:49:53 -0800

MINOR QUAKE:

—A 4.5 quake hit about 60 miles away about 2 hours ago. Didn’t feel a thing, didn’t know about it until I got a check-up text message. I was at a Syracuse University function at the time, meeting some of the seniors and grad students who are looking to move out here in the spring. It was held at the Skirball Center near Mulholland & Sepulveda, so, since it was on top of the big hill, all that insulating bedrock didn’t move an inch. We were always told that the hills are the best place to be in a quake, maybe that’s actually true. Looks like nothing moved around at all at my apartment either, the fish don’t seem rattled in the slightest.

AFI'S 10 BEST TV SHOWS

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:45:00 -0800

AFI'S 10 BEST TV SHOWS:

—The American Film Institute listed the 10 best TV shows of 2008, and we made the list! Also glad to see my friend Jim’s “In Treatment” also made the list… a show I could have been working on if “Life” didn’t come along first. Here’s their 10 best list:

BREAKING BAD

IN TREATMENT

JOHN ADAMS

LIFE

LOST

MAD MEN

THE OFFICE

RECOUNT

THE SHIELD

THE WIRE