So we’re sitting at home tonight, watching the finale of The Next Food Network Star, and on comes a commercial break.  Nothing to worry about, time to go get some ice cream (it was Coconut Bliss Vanilla flavor, if you’re curious).  I come back and what do I see but A COMMERCIAL CELEBRATING THE WINNER OF THE NEXT FOOD NETWORK STAR!  I guess I don’t need to watch the next half hour of the finale now.  Thanks Food Network

Now, to be fair, we were watching a repeat.  But the first airing was only a week ago!  I’m sure they don’t really take this kind of thing into account when scheduling commercials on something they’ve already repeated like 80 times in the last week, I still call this a FAIL.

Oh, and yes, I did just spend about 30 mins reading the fail blog…

Hey everyone – sorry to have been gone a long time!  I was busy getting married – see the photo to the left?  That’s from our wedding day! Check out more on that at http://www.alexaandben.com. But now, I’m back and I’m returning with style – a new style on the blog that is.  Yes, after a lot of work, I’ve switched over from Blogger to WordPress, because Blogger wouldn’t support half the things I wanted to do anymore.  As of a few minutes ago, I even deleted the old Blogger account.  I guess that means the switch is official!

I’ve got a bunch of things I want to write about now, so expect some cool posts in the upcoming days.  With my return, I plan to blog a lot more, as Alexa (my new wife) is looking into starting an online business or two, so I’m experimenting a bit with different styles and investigating what it really takes to build a blog site these days.  (It turns out there’s a lot – more on that in future posts!)

And last but not least, it’s summer out here in Seattle and that means lots of festivals at Seattle Center.  Last weekend, we went to the Bite of Seattle and it was tremendous!  Loved the Alley – best $10 for “foodie” food ever spent!

Ooooh!  And I have a new rss feed link with the changeover, so be sure to update your readers!  The new link is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BbetzsBlog.

I was out at my flag football game yesterday, and right at halftime this huge rainbow came out.  So like the camera nerd that I am, I went out and attempted to photograph it.  I say attempted because all I had was my iPhone, and it’s not exactly known for its stellar lens…  So with a bit of Photoshopping, viola, I have the panoramic image below.  Now I just have to figure out how to feel masculine after paying attention to a rainbow during a football game…

This past weekend, I flew between Seattle and San Francisco for a friend’s wedding.  Beautiful wedding, by the way…  The cool thing was that Virgin America just started flying between SEA and SFO, and I have to say, the experience was great.  I really liked the new airline.  First off, the planes are great:  new A320′s with comfortable leather seats, colorful mood lighting,  and an innovative entertainment system called Red.  While still in Beta, Red was great – live satellite TV, on-demand movies and video games that you play with a controller that pops out of your armrest.  You can even order food and pay for it right from your seat with the built-in credit card reader.  Coming soon is WiFi and wired internet, which VA says they hope to have by the end of the year.  And of course I can’t forget to mention the walk-up wattle bottle bar in the rear of the plan – no more thirsty mouths because TSA won’t let you bring your Nalgene on the plane!

Beyond just what the planes offer, the service was excellent.  Boarding was quick and organized, announcements were meaningful and kept to a minimum.  And of any airline I’ve ever flown, VA was the quickest to let you use your electronic devices (and made you turn them off at only the last possible second), and the quickest to turn off the seatbelt sign and leave it off through the flight, even when encountering a few very minor bumps.  Maybe I just got lucky and had good weather, but it really seemed that the pilots were very attentive to passenger comfort, a huge leap ahead the other domestic airlines I’m used to flying.

If VA starts Seattle to Chicago flights, they’re my new favorite airline.  Here’s hoping they are able to expand even in the tough market for airlines right now.  The attention to passenger comforts is really a level above the rest.  If you get a chance to fly, VA, do!

Couldn’t help but doodle up this comic to complete the story from the other day.  This one isn’t courtesy of xkcd, it’s just my feeble attempt at being funny with a digital pen.  Turns out drawing drool is really a lot of fun!

This feels like me today.  Yeah, I’m the dude at the computer

Note that it’s late.  Note that I’m writing this from work.  Note that my french fries are currently cold.

On a happier note, my brother and his girlfriend are visiting next weekend!  Can’t wait to see them!

Yesterday in my hometown, a gunman entered a classroom at Northern Illinois University and opened fire on the class, killing 5 students before turning the gun on himself.  In memory of the deceased victims, and in support of the students, faculty, and staff affected by the incident as well as the DeKalb, IL community, I post the ribbon to the left.  It’s hard to believe that a tragedy like this could occur in a place like DeKalb, which is known for being a peaceful small(er) town in the middle of the Midwestern cornfields.  My greatest sympathies go out to who have been struck by this incident, in any shape or form.

If you would like to show your support for the NIU and DeKalb, IL communities, you, too may post the ribbon above.  A small section of NIU’s website (now transformed into a simple page with information on the tragedy) suggests the following:

Post a Ribbon

Schools, businesses and media outlets across Illinois and the country are posting the ribbon at the top of this page on their web sites in a show of unity and sympathy with the Northern Illinois University community.

It’s humbling to be confronted with the fact that even the places you consider to be the safest and most familiar are susceptible to the most inexplicable violence.  Although I did not personally know any of the victims, and although I no longer live in DeKalb, I feel for their family, friends, and the DeKalb community.

Just happened to see this xkcd comic today and thought it was hilarious.  Ok, so BenA sent mail about it because some of our friends have a running "It’s Complicated" joke, so I can’t take credit for finding it.  But whatever, it’s still hilarious!

This just shows that Facebook has taken over our lives.  It’s funny because it’s true.

A good friend of mine recently launched his startup website, Seekler.com, which provides social list-building capabilities.  With a free user account, surfers can create their own Top-10 lists for almost any topic, which are then merged with same-title lists of other users to form a community list.  The community list aggregates the preferences of each listed item across all of the individual lists, effectively creating a pan-www Top-1o.  (To be fair, I should note that users are not limited to 10 entries per list – they may be of any arbitrary length.)

Even more useful, however, is Seekler’s ability to associate reviews and links with each list item, enabling site users to share their opinions and providing valuable meta-information to those browsing the site.  While many websites provide reviews for the products they sell, and even for other web users (à la ebay), Seekler is the first site to provide reviewing capabilities for any imaginable object or concept, all within a single experience.

I figure a picture, especially an interactive one, is worth more than any words I could write, so here’s an example of a Seekler list.  This happens to be my version of the Anticipated Movies of 2008 list, but you can click on the "community list" link to see what the rest of the world can’t wait to see.  If you click through to Seekler’s site (you should, it’ s really cool!), you can even search for things like "Best Blog" – don’t forget to rank this blog really high   (Here’s hoping my friend doesn’t mind that I snooped his site and figured out how to embed list content in a blog…  UPDATE (2/13/2008): I confirmed that this instance of snooping is 100% approved!)

If you happen to be a fellow digg member,  be sure to digg the list!  In a shameless plug for my friend, help him increase traffic to his site and ensure he can eat for the next few months

Seekler.com is the product of the Boulder, CO-based startup, Pretheory, which my friend and a colleague founded last year.

UPDATE (2/13/2008): After a quick consultation with my friend, updated the Seekler widget to point to my version of the Anticipated Movies of 2008 list.  Plus, added a plug for the Best Blog list.