And the winner is

And the winner is, originally uploaded by epredator.

more about this over on eightbar but I picked up the award for virtual world innovation in the enterprise here in LA at the VW expo last night.
Veyr very happy to get this one on behalf of myself and IBM

Nothing beats real life?

IMGP3256, originally uploaded by epredator.

I just blogged over on eigthbar about the Augmented reality experience that is the Simpsons ride at universal in LA.
I was struck by another thought about real versus virtual. The crowd interaction and the fantastic performance and stunts of the Waterworld show was fantastic too. It is a "real" experience, but of course it is not real at all.
We can learn a lot from hollywood about immersion and about performance.
Some of this is real some is not, but it all blends into an experience. Its not just media or atoms, but something else in human experience.

A new phrase/ thing to suffer from - CCM

I just twittered I think I am suffering from Corporate Citizen Masochism nuff said :-)

Off to the west coast US - Hollywood beckons?

The few times I have flown over to the west coast USA it has been to the San Jose area or to San Fran. This usually leave sme with a tune in my head of either "I left my heart in San Francisco" or the joke spoof "I left my hat in Sam Frank's Disco". If not that then "Do you know the way to San Jose" (Bup bup buppa baaaa) etc.
This time though its LA. I seem to have got stuck with the Robbie William's tune from swing when you're winning. "I will talk hollywood will listen".

I maybe should be more worried about getting hassled for my predator Avie in SL.
Anyway, next week LA. the virtual worlds conference. Its going to be a hard week one way and another. Though I guess when I do my panel I will talk a somewhere quite close to hollywood will listen :-)

Claridges room 547

Claridges room 547, originally uploaded by epredator.

For Jan's birthday amongst other things I booked a couple of days in London at Claridges. For those of you not form around here it is a very famous, very posh hotel with a great reputation, and possibly the finest place in London to stay.
Amongst this finery there is also Gordon Ramsay's at Claridges so I also booked an evening meal there. Out table was not until 9:30 pm but well worth the wait.
Having checked in, after a couple of cocktails, had a bottle of champagne in the room and then ordered a famous Claridges high tea to the room we were feeling very good when it got to the time.
We popped and had another cocktail at the Fumiere bar drinking from Lalique crystal.
We were then whisked into the classic dining room, full of so many staff, yet so unintrusive and really not pretentious.
We started with a glass of champagne, whilst we checked the menu. We had some very fine bread sticks, more like mini loaves than those you normally get. With some very light dips.
The wine list is a telephone directory, full of some amazing prices. We are not wine buffs, but do like good food. We settled on ordering a Red Cab Sauvignon for a resaonble price. The menu itself is by no means as expensive as you might think. Not ot be uncooth and talk cost, but the a la carte is a set price. £70 a head for a 3 course meal. Now for one of the best restaurants in the world, and given you can easily spend £40 a head in a fried american food chain restaurant in London I think that is pretty darn good.
I cant remember all the fine detail on the menu, lots of sauce and garnish names. Usually I take photos of food and events, but this just needed to be remembered.
As a started I order a roast quail rissoto and grated truffle. Jan had Scallops. Both we perfect. My roast quail was so tasty it almost seemed wrong to eat anything afterwards. The rissotto was not a pile of dry rice, but more of a rice sauce or gravy. Perfectly balanced.
Before the main cause we got a sort of potato and brocolli mini cause. Served in a ramekin. The brocolli and potato sort of mashed, but not quite, a lovely texture. On the top was what I can only describe as a froth crossed with a mousse. It seemed to be potato. I have described it as firm version of the starch froth you get when you boil some potatoes, yet pure and white and set. I may be way off, it was a surprise course and we where quite food struck and occasion struck by then,
Jan's main course was Dover Sole. Two thick, juicy steaks of fish. They almost looked like they were not cooked, just fresh from the fish. The quality of the ingredient and freshness was obvious it sat on a stack of pink fir potatoes, artichokes, carrot and cardamon sauce.
Mine was a beautiful roast duck, the sliced duck breast was layered into what looked like a christmus pudding shape (if that makes sense) sat on a some shredded greens, so the juice had seeped down into that. With brichouttes and sweetcorn and truffle side.
Amazing..... real skill and a real difference from anything else I have ever had. up until now a Duck course at a restaurant in Paris called Roger the Frog (an accidental find but very well frequented by those in the know it turned out) had been my favourite meal. That was about 12 years ago. So this is very significant.
Before the dessert we were served a shot glass size cheesecake. Then by creme brulee arrived as did Jan's chocolate fondant. The creme brulee was not in a container, freestanding on the plate, perfectly formed and fantastic texture, with a raspberry sauce drizzled. Jan's chocolate fondant had honeycomb and and orange sauce. looked fantastic and tasted great too.
As it was Jan's birthday they then brought out a plate with a small light sponge cake, like a madelene. With a candle and Happy Birthday written on chocolate script across the plate.
We finished with coffee and I had a lovely smokey port.
By the time we finished we were practically the last out. We just charged it to the room and then went back to room 547 in the lift. The lift has a sofa bench and you seem to need to sit down.
So a fantastic meal, and for what its worth I can thoroughly recommend it if you are in London and can get a booking.
I think we will go again to the restaurant.
Next we need to go to Heston's Fat Duck with his 3 michelin stars and see what the competition is :-)
Happy 40th again Jan :-)

A great presentation on careers

This is well worth a few clicks through. Lots of it resonated with me :-)

Career Advice '08

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: advice career)

Sand turtle

Sand turtle, originally uploaded by epredator.

On our hols in france there was a "sand castle" building competition by the 3 dads. Being short of buckets, and prefering these sort of structures I made this sand turtle instead. I am quite proud of it as the light worked well for the flippers.
The rest of the pictures (though not with anyone else kids in yet as I have not asked if they mind) are here

Toribash meets james brown

I really like clever machinima. This one fits as I know how hard, yet brilliant toribash is to control. Basically think stop motion string puppets.

I thought Roo was off to the BBC?

It came to my attention today, (Thanks Michael our visitor from the US and Joel for finding it on Youtube), that Roo has not really gone to be a portfolio executive for social media at the BBC. I must say though this could be considered a step up from what we have been doing

Rooparture part 2

A crowd gathered to say goodbye. Roo felt the pace midway through, then it was done. (the final departure was slightly more drawn out than the 20 seconds of video :-) )

v8's in virtual worlds

v8_tauran, originally uploaded by epredator.

We have been chatting about needing a top gear style bbc version of the gadget show. Bascially with me doing a clarkson and strapping a V8 on everything. I am available to do the show should someone in the BBC be interested :-)

Ren, Dave and Ian

Ren, Dave and Ian, originally uploaded by Jim Purbrick.

Ren Reynolds, Dave Taylor and I enjoy the Brighton evening sun and the great hospitality of the Linden's Second Life gathering. Nice to be relaxing not pitching for a change.

Roo's Goodbye

Goodbye, originally uploaded by Roo Reynolds.

Roo created this montage to say goodbye to us all. He has also given us all our Legotar too. That's why we are so sad to lose him. Creative, funny and just does stuff.

Guitar Hero DS in action - well sort of....

I tried to get a bit of film of my new DS lite + guitar hero working. Bearing in mind I was using an n95 to film it and needed both hands to play the game, I think it gets the point across. It works, its great, I like it alot.

**Update I had not read the track lists online so it was an immense surprise and made me even happier to find my favourite song ever in here. W00t! for Stray Cat Strut

Cool.... Upgrades

Upgrades, originally uploaded by epredator.

I finally decided it was time to upgrade my old DS to a DS lite. In game there was a custom Guitar Hero bundle. Well it had to be done. The Guitar Hero on Tour is the most insane add on I have seen.
It is even more mad than the small rubber covers I bought to reduce the noise on the Rockband drum set. Turns out they slowed elemmings drumming down and ruined her mojo, so they have been removed again. Still the box had an amusing tag line on it

Hi dad, your are a blogger now no going back

This is very cool, my dad has dived into computing the last few weeks. (hi dad if you are reading this). The ability to get a 3g card and a laptop, in an affordable way has meant he is able to dive in and just get on with it.
Despite all the years of me and computers, whilst taking an interest there is nothing like being thrown in at the deep end and trying to figure these things out. He has already come to terms with the fact that Windoze just does weird thigns sometimes. He has understood what to ask Google. He has set up a gmail account.
I got an email telling me he now has a blog. Now we had a little chat about blogging on the phone and he has read all the stuff I have written in various places. I suggested that his memories of Great Yarmouth as its industry changed and as he grew up was worth writing down in bits and pieces on a blog somewhere.
So bearing in mind that when I was doing the initial phone support we had a misundersatnding on the difference between shift and space on the keyboard and that the mouse pointer over something means covering it up to us tech geeks, but can mean vertically above to the uninitiated (funny but all makes sense both ways I think), dad now has hit blogger.com and started with boyron-boyron
Bear in mind also that when I tell C level executives or key customers that they need to just try blogging themselves, just one article, just one submit button before embarking on suggesting blogging to their employees (web2 is web do), well my dad has put many of those who have not dared to shame. He has had a computer for about 4 weeks.
A brilliant first step and I am very proud :-)

Catch the handbag

A hilarious situation has just arisen. This week being school hols the grandparents have decided to take the predlets on holiday down to Cornwall. That's a good couple of hundred miles west of here. The plan was to leave at 9am this morning. So from about 8:30 to 9am we had a massive whirl of activity and car packing. Lots of "have we got x" and "yes we have y".
Anyway, off they went.

A great sign of relief, made some toast, wondered what we are going to do all week as the predlets not being around leaves a massive void.
About 15 minutes into the wind down elemming notices her mums handbag, sat on our dining room table. Containing money, mobile, address of campsite etc.
ZOMG! panic. We had to make a decision to hope they noticed and came back or chase after them or both.
We went for both. elemming jumped in the car with the handbag and headed south west. I stayed to man the phone. The basis being, if they noticed and cam back atleast the handbag was going the right direction. If the handbag caught up then good. Worse case being elemming ended up in cornwall. Though it also turns out elemming has left her handbag here though does atleast have her phone. More importantly my toast is getting cold as I had to write this before I collapse laughing.
Luckily whilst writing this the phone went. They had noticed about 10 miles down the road and elemming happened to see them coming back on a regular road (as opposed to the motorway) and flashed them down. The bag exchange has been made and the holiday is back on.
And relax.......

Bye Bye Roo, Hello again.

As has been swarming around the interweb today Roo has given his notice and is ready to take up his new role as a porfolio executive at the BBC. I said pretty much what I needed to say on eightbar
Many people assumed it was going to be your truly leaving the fold, especially after my very public outing of criticism of the lack of balance reward wise for all our efforts. However, Roo has got a fantastic role in a place that suits his media savvy self.
We are very similar and very different at the same time and working together has taight me a great deal about social media, working contacts and being a generally gregarious person. All that I learned from Roo.
A comparison that works I think is that I am Jeremy Clarkson and Roo is Richard Hammond (but taller).
Anyway thankyou Roo for a great couple of years at the bleeding edge, I am proud of what we have acheived, and really happy at your new gig.
My 18 years in IBM has seen a fair few people come and go, but this one is the hardest, but the most deserved.
See you in LA :-)

100% livin' on the edge

100% livin' on the edge, originally uploaded by epredator.

I managed to get a 100% in Aerosmith guitar hero on Livin' on the edge. It felt very good, if not a little ironic at the moment. Yes OK its only medium but in all the games so far of GH iii and Rockband I dont think I have ever just maxed it, especially not on a 1st go.
I do really really like this song though.
Having been off ill for a few days, not eating, not being able to think and being on my own as elemming was away and the predlets went to their grandparents, I have a theory that on gaining a sense or normality, my normal flowing threads of ideas, problems, solutions and ideas that never stop, had done. I was for once, playing, and completely lost in it.
The odd thing is the times this normaly happens is when I am on stage or enthusing to customers about the usual virtual world subject. Then I am lost in the moment, fully focused, delivering what happens as it happens pulling various threads together.
Maybe, just maybe I should dig out the real guitar and approach it with this state of mind, rather than worry about the technical elements?

My record is clean again on Youtube

After a slight delay of nearly 2 weeks my youtube video of the terracota warriors and court 2 at wimbledon is back. Thanks to everyone for helping and putting up with my stand on this. So I have come back from Wimbledon, I am recovering from what is digital equivalent of an endurance rally raid, and my name is cleared once more. Happy days (and saw Henry Winkler the fonz in the canteen the other day)

Dear Ian,IMG Media has retracted its copyright claim with respect to the following video:http://www.youtube.com/v/a_ROI-4VqDY Title:Terracotta Warriors at Wimbledon 2008
This content has been restored and your account will not be penalised. For technical reasons, it may take a day for the video to be availableagain.