Coffee With Ian

Facebook Places on my iPhone 3G…

Facebook Places is out.  Great.  It’s just not adequately functional on my relic of 2008, the iPhone 3G.

Over the past year, the official Facebook app has become useless on my old phone.  It crashes every time I attempt to send data, whether responding to a wall post, or liking something.  I then realized that the app is optimized for newer iPhone models, and that further updates will make it even more and more useless.

Then, one day, I discovered EchofonFB, which actually lets me do those things, here in 2010, on my 2008 iPhone.  Wow!  Now I can actually use Facebook again.  The only reason I still have the official app on the iPhone is for the push notifications, as its otherwise useless.

So Facebook Places is unveiled to the world.  And its announced that Foursquare is involved.  That’s great since I use Foursquare.  So, I scoured Facebook and Foursquare to link the 2 accounts.

No dice.  I’d like to use Facebook Places.  The easiest way for me to do so on my iPhone would be to check in to Foursquare, and then let the data also show up on Facebook, just like how I do so with my tweets on Twitter.  But it’s not happening.  Yet.

I can use Places on touch.facebook.com, but I don’t use that in the first place.  I guess the ball is in Foursquare’s court, since they have access to the Facebook Places API.  Or in mine to buy an iPhone 4…

Yet another Phish 3D review.

If you know me well enough, then you have heard me talk about this band Phish on a quite frequent basis.  I have seen them live in concert 20 times.  Therefore, my experience of this movie is that of a fan.

Phish 3D is a concert film shot in 3D at the band’s “Festival 8” event from Halloween Weekend, 2009.  Over 3 days, the band played 8 sets, including their tradition of covering a classic rock album in its entirety on Halloween night (The Rolling Stones “Exile on Main St.”).  One of the sets was a Sunday afternoon performance, where Phish played their first ever full length acoustic set.

And, oh yeah, I went to this festival, which was in Indio, CA, site of the Coachella festival.  I flew into Las Vegas and took an RV with some cool people I met on Twitter, through the social group service Twibes.  I went to see Phish 3D on a Sunday night in NJ with 3 others from the RV trip.  And honestly, that was the highlight of the film.

With 16 hours of concert footage shot in 3D, to be cut down to a 2 1/2 hour movie, I think they made a few good choices and bad choices.  The biggest glaring omission from the film was the 1st song from the festival “Party Time”.  It set up the entire festival, and everyone was singing the song’s only 2 words throughout the weekend.  Outside of that, my personal musical highlights made it to the set.  It was odd, though, that most songs were not presented in the order that they were played. 

My biggest complaint is the 3D.  I was expecting an HD video-like experience, with things popping out in 3D.  I wanted to feel that it was like a live simulcast of the concert.  Instead, it looked in 35MM film.  It was something that was not live, which made the 3D effects seem cloudy, like it was smoke and mirrors and not feeling like I, as an audience member, was actually there.  This is a film I would have loved to see in 2D, and I hope I get that chance (or please, the entire festival) on DVD.

All in all, I am happy that this movie was made, and I got to see it with friends who I went to the show with. The movie is called “Phish 3D” and not “Phish Festival 8”.  I acknowledge that the focus of the movie is live performances and where and how it happened, but I was there and proud that I concert that I went to was released in theatres!

Should I blog more?

That is the question.  What should I write about?  Pie?  Time travel?  My beard?

Opening Day Interleague Number Crunch

Who’s ready for Opening Day???

I was reading an article in the Journal News about scheduling issues, and it brought me back to the one thing missing from interleague scheduling since 1997:

When are the Dodgers coming to Yankee Stadium?  Including the 2010 schedule, there are 2 NL teams that have not visited the Yankees since interleague play started in 1997.

1. Los Angeles Dodgers.  The old Brooklyn team.  The Dodgers have played their share of World Series games in the Bronx, but never a regular season game.  In fact, they are the only existing team to have NEVER played a regular season at the late, great original Yankee Stadium.

2. Milwaukee Brewers.  They switched from the AL to the NL in 1998.  Since then, the Yankees visited Milwaukee in 2005, but the Brewers haven’t come to visit them.  But they did play in 1997, but they were still AL.

I then did some research, to compile the entire home and road breakdown of interleague series for the Yankees.  From 1997-2001, the Yankees played exclusively vs the NL East, before hitting other divisions.  Additionally, since 1999, the Yankees have played a home and home against the Mets.

This year will mark the 14th year of Interleague play, and the 13th regular season subway series series hosted by the Yankees and Mets.  The Yankees host their 2009 World Series opponent Philadelphia Phillies for the 2nd straight year (and 5th time overall, more times than any NL team not named the Mets) as well as the Houston Astros, whose combined pitchers accounted for the last no hitter at the old stadium.  They visit the Arizona Diamondbacks and aforementioned Dodgers each for the 2nd time ever, but still no Dodgers in the Bronx.

But interleague doesn’t start until May.  Tonight is opening day vs the Red Sox at Fenway.  Go Yankees!!!