Recap GeekFest 2012
This past Friday night the Hoover Library hosted their first ever GeekFest. . . and it was fantastic! The library shut down at 6 p.m. and two hours later opened their doors to a crowd of folks. The fun began right from the start as Storm Troopers patrolled the crowd (something about looking for Droids).
Stormtrooper on patrol
These types of events need to do well in three areas – costumes, games for the kids and food. The Hoover Library and their volunteer force nailed all three. The costumes were great:
Web-slingers
We have many many more photos. . .
GeekFest 2012
Tomorrow night (Friday, July 13th) the Hoover Library is hosting an free after-hours (8p-10p) event for local cool folks – or geeks – at the GeekFest. So if you’re a fan of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, trivia games, video games, sci-fi and comic books, you might want to check this out.
Some of the highlights:
- 1. A Star Wars themed Creature Cantina serving snacks and beverages. Plus, learn Yoda origami, fight in a light saber duel and hang with members of the 501st Rebel Legion.
- 2. Visit Lord of the Rings-inspired shire and celebrate Bilbo’s birthday, listen to hobbit stories and fiddle playing.
- 3. Hang out in the Superhero Alley where costumed comic heroes will be walking around for photo ops. Captain America and Wonder Woman will also be around to lend a hand in some superhero craft making.
There is a TON more planned and you can get many more details over on the Hoover Library blog post about the event. If you go, be sure to share your pics somewhere. It sounds like it’s going to be fun!
Groupon and Foursquare Join Forces
“Excuse me waiter, there is a Groupon in my FourSquare.”
Will it be too geeky to use that, at a restaurant? Will it matter if it help me get a $50 meal for $25? Foursqaure and Groupon have announced a partnership. Which sounds pretty cool as it allows you to immediately redeem the Groupon, without having to wait for 99 others “to buy” as well. What hasn’t been said is if this fact will impact the QUALITY of the Groupon. Something I’ll be holding out for.
I’ve been a big Gowalla user, but it’s been flaking out lately, so I may make the move to FourSquare as my primary hey-I’m-over-here-eating-this app.
Netflix Kills the Value for Customers
Are we the only Netflix subscribers seeing this?
I called Netflix a few weeks ago and apparently, since February, they have been restricting the number of simultaneous streams allowed per account. That wasn’t the case in December when we were still paying $8.99. So we learned to live with paying more (they did already increase the price, of our plan, to $9.99 this year) for less service. But then yesterday’s announcement came and now this is how we see Netflix:
This is what scares me: I am 100% confident they are fully aware of this, but either
- don’t see the need in helping current customers along Netflix’s growth or
- they do care, but the movie folks have Netflix over a barrel and Netflix is looking for a path to survival (i.e. Sony has already pulled all of its movies once)
Either way, more rate increases and cutting of services are bound to happen.
Our house is a cable-free one. We only get our news and entertainment over the internet, so streaming services are very important to us. So now we’re looking at using Hulu Plus (hoping RedBox can make something happen). Maybe we’ll look at iTunes or Amazon OnDemand.
I mean, why wouldn’t you bail on an entertainment expense that increases 77.75% in 8 months, while decreasing the services? Especially one that’s going to be having ongoing contract issues with all of the movie folks.
Perhaps I’d feel differently if I still saw Netflix as struggling against the industry and helping shake it up, as they once pitched themselves. But now they’re acting just like any other big spoke in the entertainment industry. And maybe they have to. Maybe they don’t. It’s a shame, either way.
(h/t s.enriquez for RedBox tip)
Discovering Alabama on iTunes
The long-time-running Discovering Alabama has made the jump to iTunes. This is great news for them and good news for us. We are always more likely to catch an episode if we can sync and take it on the go.
They currently have 98 episodes listed, with nothing more recent than October 2010. Their iTunes catalog seem to be a mix of audio and video offerings. Plus, a lot of the lengths of the pieces vary. So there should be something for everyone. Best of all… it’s free!
We originally ran across this over on BhamWiki who, of course, has a very informative write up on the series.