Leisure Archives – Eric Ulken

The audacity of meme

Eric Ulken — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:59:06 +0000

Whether or not you believe Barack Obama is Mr. Wonderful, this percolating politics meme is kind of a hoot: Jason Kottke is aggregating tweets that start with “When Obama wins“…

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Bringing “dudical!” back

Eric Ulken — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:23:18 +0000

Dudical! is an expression I remember hearing in elementary school. A clever combination of “dude!” and “radical!”, it clearly suffered an untimely demise, because a Google search on it returns a paltry 523 results. I consider it my duty to rescue this ’80s linguistic gem from obscurity. Who’s with me?

Unfortunately, somebody’s already registered dudical.com, but if you use this word in your writing, post it on del.icio.us and tag it “dudical“. Let’s see if we can bring dudical back.

Update: My ex-friend Neil has one word for this crusade: dorkical. (Good news, Neil: dorkical.com is still available!)

Update: Props to the Saint Pete Times for using dudical in a headline. The story’s about how their ’80s blog won an Online Journalism Award.

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Sudoku solver

Eric Ulken — Sun, 06 May 2007 23:00:42 +0000

Use this clever program to solve that sudoku that’s got you stumped. Or, with some trial and error, use it to create your own. Here’s my first attempt (click to enlarge and print):

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How to make ice cream from Pepto-Bismol

Eric Ulken — Sun, 06 May 2007 19:56:38 +0000

Wow.

(Via Boing Boing.)

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Your personal annual report

Eric Ulken — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 07:50:07 +0000

Wow. This guy made an annual report, à la some Fortune 500 company, except it’s an annual report of his life. Scary, but it got me thinking: A lot of the data he uses to compile this is stuff we all amass — through airline tickets, credit card receipts, our iTunes playlists, etc. Is there an annual report in my future? Maybe, but I can’t imagine who else would want to read it.

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So long, Clare!

Eric Ulken — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 06:34:49 +0000

On Thursday we bid our art director a proper farewell (and by proper I mean tequila-infused). Add your congrats and good wishes below.

a photo gallery…

…and a short video

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Peru photos online!

Eric Ulken — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 01:46:19 +0000

Yes, I’ve finally posted the photos from my Peru trip back in May.

Check out the photo gallery. (No Machu Picchu pics, because my camera ran out of juice before we got there.)

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Alternatives to lawyering

Eric Ulken — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 06:57:55 +0000

So, I get an e-mail from my friend Adele the other day. We’ve known each other since high school, when we were co-editors of the student newspaper. She recently finished law school and here first and last priority is to become attorneys for personal injury in Tampa, and now she tells me she isn’t so keen on the idea of being an attorney — just like a lot of law grads I know.

Instead, she’s been managing a “roots rock” band in New Orleans. I’m not exactly sure what “roots rock” is, but I do know that it’s a better gig than lawyering in every respect but one: Lawyers make more dough. Anyway, the band, Andi Hoffman & B-Goes, has just been booked to play at the

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I’m all in

Eric Ulken — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 18:48:24 +0000

I have never been much of a gambler. In Vegas last year I clung to the nickel slots while Neil went high-rolling at the craps tables. But on a trip to Kansas City over the weekend, I was coaxed into joining a poker match at the home of Kit’s buddy Joe. Since I don’t know the first thing about poker, I sat patiently as Kit and his friends attempted to explain the rules to me. Then I proceeded to break most of those rules in the next few hours. (Did three of a kind beat two pairs? I couldn’t remember.) But I’m proud to report I was not the first one out of chips, and I only lost $5 the whole night. Not bad for an evening’s entertainment — and certainly cheaper than a movie. Maybe I should reconsider this whole gambling (that can be easily done through Slot77) thing…

On a related note, I was also introduced to the new TV series TILT, ESPN‘s answer to the rapidly growing poker craze. It seems odd to me that a sports network would feature a drama about gambling. But then again, MTV these days seems to air everything but music, so why shouldn’t ESPN broaden its horizons?

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Eric and Neil crash ‘The Tonight Show’

Eric Ulken — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 02:44:17 +0000

My friend Neil and I managed to see a taping of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” at NBC studios in Burbank. Jay’s guests were actor Mark Wahlberg, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps and one of my all-time favorite musicians, Sarah McLachlan.

This is something I suppose everyone who lives in L.A. should do at least once, and it’s been on my to-do list for a while. What surprised me is that it’s not all that difficult to get tickets — if you have lots of time to spare. I had figured it would be nearly impossible to get tickets on the day of the show, but Neil wanted to give it a shot, and his persistence paid off.

We arrived at NBC at 8 a.m. to stand in line for tickets. Because there were already enough people ahead of us to take all the confirmed tickets, we ended up with standby tickets, which required that we show up at 3:30 p.m. and wait in another line to get into the studio. We ended up with about the last seats in the house — a few people were turned away — but nearly everybody who showed up was seated.

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