I was fortunate to be able to join two panels at PAX Prime this year both on community.  Both were great fun.  I have to thank James Stevenson of Insomniac Games and Alli Thrasher of Harmonix for letting me jump in last minute.  Being on the panel and hearing how people and your counterparts view your work was really rewarding.  All the shoutouts for #HireCollin were extra nice as well.  I hope to have video soon of both panels, you can actually listen to The Various Roads to Becoming a Community Manager panels right now over at The Writer’s Bloc.

As for games, there were lots of them.  My highlights include Duke Nukem Forever, Mortal Kombat, Dead Space 2, and NBA Jam.  My pocket book is already starting to hurt.

While researching business cards, I found Moo, an international print house specializing in custom printing with a great sense of humor.  While searching I stumbled across some videos promoting their paper stocks and their processes.  These short, both under two minutes, videos provided me with compelling information why I should order cards from Moo, but also provided an entertaining display of humor via smart dialogue, catchy music, and slick motion graphics.

As you can see from the videos, they are filled with great information on the product, but also provide some insight on the personalities and humor of the company and staff.  You don’t see many videos become viral that don’t have some level of humor in them.  Either it be the Old Spice Campaign or 99% of the Super Bowl ads.  Making people laugh is good.  They aren’t laughing at you or your product.

As for me, I am excited for my next opportunity.  I am looking for work as a Community Management aimed at the end consumer.  If you know of an open position or would like to talk about community get a hold me of me.  Shinyidol@gmail.com or @shinyidol on Twitter.  I will be attending PAX Prime next week, so if you happen to be there come and track me down and say hello!

Check out my Linkedin Profile as well!

After Leverage, I had Sherlock for a couple weeks.  Sadly it only lasted three episodes, even though they were 90 minutes long each.  Oh BBC how you tease me.

Next is AMC’s new drama Rubicon, about a national security think tank.  It is very slow, but very rewarding.  A very nice compliment to watching Leverage earlier in the evening.  The tone of Rubicon is serious with twisted relationships after the death of a co-worker and the mysteries that soon come to surface.  The cast is strong with James Badge Dale recently on the HBO miniseries The Pacific, not to mention it has Sledge Hammer.  Even with the painfully slow pace at times, it is still well worth watching.

And to close the night I have Entourage.  I have been watching this show for years and I love the inside peak in Hollywood.  While fictional, I get a kick out of it.

Before you get on me, I haven’t started watching Mad Men or True Blood, so back off.

Back to TV Land.

More posts shortly.

Last year I moved from the lovely Seattle, Washington out to Boston, Massachusetts for at job at Irrational Games.  Leaving Seattle behind was difficult as my entire family is in Seattle, all my friends, all the great friendships I have developed while living out there, and a great game development community, but the project was too good to pass up.  And now I can publicly show everyone what exactly made me move 3,200 miles away.  BioShock Infinite.

Please check out the official website at http://www.bioshockinfinite.com as well as head over to http://www.IrrationalGames.com to learn all the news about the game.

BBC launched a new version of Sherlock Holmes tonight simply called Sherlock.  Taking place in the 21st century London, it takes bits and pieces of all the popular dramas on television today and places them together with the legacy and timeless characters of Holmes and Watson.

The 90 minute premiere was a blast to watch.  Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes is brilliant and Martin Freeman as injured Afghanistan war vet grounds the show.  While it is odd to watch a 90 minute television show, it was paced quite well.  Shot very much like Law & Order here in the States, it does have a certain level of nerd factor as seen with the display of text messages on screen.  It is quite charming.

I am excited for the next episodes, but sad that they are only planning three 90 minute episodes for the entire season.  I’d be one to track down when Sherlock will air on your local PBS station.

I love photos and I love dogs.  This is the best of both worlds.  Excellent photo via Flickr.

So I have been running Shinyidol.com for ages now, 2004 to be exact, but my updates are somewhat scarce.  Well I am making a challenge to update once a week.  Yes, I think I have said this before, but I really think it is time to push the blog for good and heal humanity of its limited voice of myself.  So get your reading glasses going and get ready for more posts, more content, and more coll stuff from yours truly.