Ever get that weird feeling when you revisit your previous home? It’s a feeling nearly any college student can relate to, but I’ve got one better–I’ve been in Harrisburg all week, but yesterday visited NYC with my family to see a Broadway play like a tourist, and then came back to Harrisburg. If it weren’t for the brief stop to check the mail at the apartment, it’d have been really weird.

I think anyone known for even the most remote computer skills is quickly branded as the network administrator in their family; I can’t say how many times I’ve been asked to install this, or fix that from my mother or sister-in-law.

Take this picture (above) for instance. I’d play the “guess which one is real” game with you, but you can clearly tell which one HAD to be the original based on the ridiculous pose the wedding photographer insisted on.

Maybe I just make myself too accessible, but I wonder, does every other designer get similar chores from their family?

Okay, so talk about a late post . . . I was recently at the opening for Imuri Design at Space 107. I’d check it out if you’re in the NYC area, even though it’s all the way down by the meatpacking district. The graphic designers turned muralists have some pretty nice work.

I think I know who’s doing my office walls (once I get an office!).

I ran across this mural while hitting every jewelry store during a Christmas shopping blitz.

I don’t know who financed it, but I thought it was really cool to see an homage to my elders’ hardware shop at the place where it once was–now the parking lot for Ritter’s hardware store in Mechanicsburg, Pa.

During my stay out in LA I had the opportunity to stop at a Bevmo, a chain that apparently hasn’t reached back to the East Coast yet. I was looking for a decent wine there when I came across Chateau Pape Clement 2003 Pessac Leognan Graves. Rated at 94 points and running about $90 a bottle, I’m sure it’s a decent Bordeaux, but what struck me as odd was the description, which included smoke, meat, sweet plums, and lead pencil shavings. Hmm, to my uneducated tastes, this just sounds odd. Can someone tell me what I’m missing here?

I had to see for myself what Second Life was all about after hearing about all of the marketing dollars going into this massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). If you’re unfamiliar with Second Life, it’s a multiplayer online game built in 3D that just went from 100,000 users in January to 1 million not too long ago; IBM held a business meeting to discuss MMORPG in this virtual universe, and Fox recently held a movie trailer premiere within the game. SMS in the game has been incorporated to work with the real world, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about companies pouring more marketing dollars into this program.

If you haven’t tried Second Life out yet, I highly recommend checking it out once (it’s free, at least if you don’t plan on getting THAT involved).

I would predict that Second Life’s user base will continue to grow, but, ultimately, Second Life really only suites a niche audience, and given the occasional performance lag and the clear financial and time investment required, I wouldn’t be too concerned about MySpace’s position at the top of the hill.

Second Life wreaks of the Matrix to me in some regard; it’s a virtual world where people define their virtual identities and the virtual environment around them. I don’t plan on becoming a resident (my first life is enough!), but it’s utterly fascinating to explore the different residences and see how much effort players put into creating their virtual identities. To think that people invest the time to build houses, furniture, and items for sale . . . you’d think Second Life was training the next generation of 3D artists!

While in Clay Shirky’s class last year, we discussed that when it comes to online presence, no image expresses a person more than a picture of their face.I don’t know if it’s just a trend, or if everyone else I know got MacBook Pros with built-in cameras, but it seems like my buddy list has been slowly transforming into a gallery of friends’ mugs.My father-in-law and sister-in-laws tried to blitz me into removing that (super cool!) MandalaTV icon to no avail, but now it almost feels funny hiding behind some nifty illustration while everyone I know is out in the open.

Alas, I’m joining the bandwagon.

I happened to be walking between meetings in NYC when I discovered the Times Square Toys’R'Us store received a shipment of Nintendo Wiis. After an hour in line (see picture), I was one of the fortunate few who was able to get one. The lucky few included only two more people behind me, and the remainder of the line was shooed off by hired muscle. The Wii now dormantly sits in a closet in my apartment (it’s technically a Christmas present to me from my wife).

Now, I’m not one to advocate buying these hard-to-find items only to sell them for profit on eBay (If that was the case, I could stock up by sitting outside of the Nintendo World Store every morning at 4 am); every genuine video game player should be get the chance at one before they go to the hounds, but the fact that the Wii has actually INCREASED in price on Amazon (now up $200 to $700 a pop). Really has me wondering if I’m foolishly sitting on a gold mine.

Oh well, come Christmas I’ll be saving some poor soul from putting a Wii remote through their big screen tv.

I was off to the beach again last weekend. A nice place to visit, but definitely wouldn’t want to live there.