MorningStar's blog

PuzzleBee is a jigsaw puzzle application on Facebook, developed by us TheBroth developers.

Many users have questioned the 30 second-completion times that some people are able to achieve on PuzzleBee. Well, folks, it's real. Here's video proof - some people really ARE that fast.

Melissa has been kind enough to document her outstanding mousing and puzzling skills by video taping it!

Folks, here's the proof. Observe and learn:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1iSYBnWwhLQ

Amazing, eh. That's some advanced skills!

Time to practice some more: http://apps.facebook.com/jigsaw_puzzle/

Very buggy and incomplete, but it's a first look at what we're working on...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ILL_3RhqVXU

Hello world! The tiny speck on the right hand side is little me, driving my bike all the way to the very edge of Australia and calling out to you!

My dear friends of TheBroth, I've finally caved and I've opened a profile on facebook.com!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=706757460

Feel free to befriend me there! To celebrate this monumental event (yeah right), I've changed my MorningStar avatar here on TheBroth as well!

I know I know... what a poser I am! This pic was taken only a few weeks ago, in front of a wall full of graffiti in the midst of Los Angeles. Naturally I was just too happy to pose in front of it, trying to look all cool, with all the new graffiti mode at TheBroth etc.. :-)

Today I've also discovered the amazing website of a fellow web 2.0 entrepreneur here in Perth. It's called Scouta - you should definitely check it out, it looks really cool. I've used my new "cool dude" avatar on Scouta as well - my profile there is http://scouta.com/members/Markus/

And while I'm in the process of networking and self-advertising: For those with a business interest in TheBroth (strategic partners, investors etc), feel free to check out my profile at Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/weichselbaum

Happy networking!

I'm putting this entry still in the "Travel and Places" category, even though we have returned from our four weeks US tour. The extreme time difference between the US west coast and the Australian west coast (13 hours) means that once again I have to combat jet lag.

The effect is that we're getting vewwy vewwy sleeepy at around 7 pm and we're up before the sun is up. Mind you, it's getting winter here in Australia so the sun comes up pretty late anyway.

So this morning, I thought I use the opportunity and do my "walkies" up to King's Park. I quite enjoy this route as you get to overlook the city, and I don't think I've ever actually seen a Perth sunrise.

Shortly after 6 am I left the house, armed with a beanie and my mobile phone. I actually do own a snazzy video ipod but find myself rather using the radio in my mobile phone. It's pretty cold in the early morning hours, so I was very grateful to be able to cover my bald head with a beanie (a gift from Erik H. - thank you man, you know who you are! Btw, Erik, I'm also wearing the "Fun of Money Tour" shirt!!)

Here's a pic I've taken with my phone. The quality and resolution aren't all that great, but at least the colors give you an impression of just how amazing the sky looked:

I was also amazed how many other people are busy exercising in Kings Park at this early hour. There was a lot of Nordic walking, cycling, walking, jogging, and whole exercise classes going on.

I think that's the first time that I went up to Kings Park and I had actually brought my sunglasses along but I was back before I could use them. It's a new sensation. Also astounding was just how clear the air was. With the sun being so low, everything looks extra sharp and contrast rich and just totally high-definition!

Let's see whether I can make a habit of these early morning walks... :-)

Traveling from San Francisco back to Perth was a tiresome journey. Going west prolongs every plane trip, so this time San Francisco to Tokyo took 11 hours and Tokyo to Perth took 10 hours. We had about 4 hours stop-over in Tokyo, so if you add the time spent at airports checking in, waiting, or going through customs on the other end, then the whole journey amounts to about 30 hours of travel in total. Phew!

We arrived in Perth on Sunday morning. First thing we did was have breakfast on the beach. Wow, how nice to be back to bright colors, and deep blue and cloudless sky. Also nice to drink really good coffee again :-)

We spent the rest of the day enjoying the sun and for the first time in 4 weeks - being really really relaxed. We visited Fremantle and the South Perth river side where we had a pleasant lunch with a friend. We also found out that the next day (Monday) would be a public holiday - we were in two minds about it since we have so much work waiting for us now that we've returned, but on the other hand, maybe another day of rest isn't such a bad thing.

We struggled to stay awake longer to beat the jet lag, but at about 7 pm we were both so tired - we couldn't help it but fell to bed and slept immediately.

New day! Since we hadn't had much chance of exercise during our last four weeks of travel in the U.S., we decided to take a bike tour. Where to? Our favorite place on the beach of course. From our place, it only took us 30 minutes by bike.

We took a long detour back through some of Perth's nice suburbs (eg. Subiaco, for those who live here) and we arrived back at base with burning thighs and sore bums. No cycling for me for a few days!

I'm writing this on an early Tuesday morning and I can't wait to get back to the office - and begin to answer all the TheBroth forums posts that have accumulated in the last few days. But first, I'll better go and lift some iron - I gotta get rid of that travel-tummy I've grown :)

So here we are in San Francisco. As Mark Twain said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco". We are beginning to understand what that means. We went down to the Fisherman's Wharf today - it was memorial day, a public holiday in the U.S., so we had a day off. And we were lucky too - it was actually sunny, as opposed to just foggy and chilly like the previous two days.

Our explorations today led us through some of San Francisco's tourist attractions. We went through Union Square which is near where our hotel is, then through Chinatown where we had brunch with Dim Sums (yummy but tasted the same as Dim Sum's in Perth - what did I expect?).

Then we went all the way up to Lombard Street - a very very steep incline even before it becomes that famous wavy street - the "crookedest street in world" near the top.

Then we went down all the way to Fisherman's wharf. Check out the pics below. On the left and middle - play spot the "Brothmeister" (me). On the right we're looking down Hyde St, complete with cable car line, Alcatraz and of course Sue Zann aka Freaky Friday.

Apparently Fisherman's Wharf is San Francisco's most popular tourist destination.

It's no wonder - one can (very) occasionally see the Golden Gate bridge from there.

Also popular: The infamous Alcatraz prison ("The Rock"), only a mile off the coast.

Even though the tiny island is very close to shore, apparently nobody has ever escaped, except of course Sean Connery and Clint Eastwood. Why? The weather is harsh, the sea is angry and the water is icy.

Even so, we decided to take a boat ride around Alcatraz - and on the way there I managed to take some panoramic snaps of San Francisco in the sun.

We returned thoroughly frozen and somewhat shaken from the rather harsh trip. Choppy seas, splashes of icy water and gusty winds made the boat trip seem like a hazardous adventure.

When back on land, we had to warm our bodies and calm our senses so we headed to Pier 39 for two cups of hot chocolate. America style, they come pre-sweetened and ready to go - but at the point, that was just what we needed!

In the hotel room where I sit writing this (Hotel Diva, very close to Union Square, nice place), there's a mirror right in front of the desk. To my surprise, it appears that my ears and nose even got a bit sun-burnt!

The LA games and mobile conference took place in the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. Nice hotel! It's basically opposite the Kodak Theatre, and apparently tonight at 6 pm the American Idol Grand Finale is taking place there. The red carpet is rolled out, and there's almost as many security guards as there are tourists already lining the red carpet to get a snap of .. well I don't actually know of whom - someone famous I suppose.

From our nice hotel room (a corner room - nice!) we can see the Kodak Theatre and the famous Hollywood sign behind it. So this morning we went over there to and took the obligatory snapshot. See below:

You can hardly see the Hollywood sign so on the right it is again, zoomed in.

Billboards around here are really really big, in some cases the entire facade of buildings is just one really big ad. Just take a look at the Roosevelt Hotel - it has a darn big H&M ad on it. And I have to admit, the ad works for them - after all, I'm writing about it.

Hollywood Boulevard is abuzz! It looks like everyone has a shoulder-mounted TV camera and you're getting all stressed out because you constantly run into the picture of someone filming something. And when it's not TV stations or movie crews, you run into the picture of tourists with digital cameras. Half the time tourists (like us) don't even watch where they're going because they're too busy looking at the ground, thanks to the stars embedded in the walkways.

All in all the weather's quite good right now - warm and sunny, with the typical LA haze. Today is our day off so I'll focus on working on my tan. :-)

Managed to leave my mark on Venice Beach's most famous graffiti location! Check it out below.

I even borrowed some spray paint and the hat of a local youth who was very bemused:

Amazingly, this wall changes look about ever 15 minutes, so I guess my TheBroth tag won't last very long - but it was fun to be really with it - I can now claim to have real life graffiti experience!!

i donned the hat and I sprayed my tag - and I've got the pix to prove it! :-)

After the usual problems with the hotel (eg having to move room because the wireless connection doesn't work) we're now glad to have a rather roomy room directly on Venice Beach, LA, California.

Last night after a short stroll on the sidewalk, we filled up with spaghetti and pizza and then we went back to the hotel and fell asleep - we were really exhausted. Even though it was a short trip from Seattle, it cost us energy. For example, our stop over flight was going through Las Vegas, and there we had to wait in the airplane for more than one hour due to technical problems before we could take off.

The Las Vegas stop over was interesting. The airport is right next to the skyline made up of the casinos and hotels. Looks just like on TV. When you get off the plane, the first thing that welcomes you in the waiting areas next to the gates is the sights and sounds of poker machines. Amazing.

So we had to wait only 90 minutes to get to our next leg of the journey, namely Vegas to LA, but as I mentioned above we were delayed a lot and arrived in LA much later than anticipated. We took a shared shuttle bus that cost the same as if we had taken a cab. The shuttle driver tried to find his way to our hotel in Venice using his Blackberry-GPS phone. What an adventure.

We arrived and we're in an OK room with wired internet. Sue Zann aka Freaky Friday gets her connection wirelessly through my laptop.

This morning we took a walk along the beach to Santa Monica. It was extremely hazy and quite cold. See picture of Freaky Friday below.

On our way back it was getting very hot! Blue sky came out and we were both hot, looking forward to heading back to base to get rid of our jackets and extra clothing.

I think it's time for me to work on my tan!

But - as always, business first, so back in the hotel we are - and back to work. :-)

We're soon going to be in Los Angeles! For a week! As you may know, we came to Seattle to attend the Online Game Developers Conference, and next week we'll be at the LA games conference.

Changing our flights is a big hassle. The airlines tell us to sort things out with the agency that sold us the tickets back in Australia, and when we finally get to them (timezones can make these things tricky!) they tell us that we have to sort things out with the local airlines. Argh!

Sue Zann aka Freaky Friday did manage to get an afternoon of shopping in, in the world famous Pike Markets. (see photo below).

See these things in the background? That's like 5 stories of markets, viewed from the water front. It's an amazing labyrinth of halls and passages, like in an anthill! Very unique. Sue Zann loved it! All the sparkly bits and shiny things and sweet smells and what not. Naturally, she returned from her market shopping experience with a very happy face and a lot of gifts.

In fact in that short period of time since we arrived in Seattle, we had amassed so much stuff - clothing, conference stuff, books etc. Our suitcases were already overfilled and we have quite a bit of air travel ahead of us. So today we had to fill up a great big (and heavy, phew!) box and ship it all back to Australia. In fact I had to carry that box to the post office - wasn't that far, but it was 3 blocks of agony - and then we paid a fortune (you know, the one arm, one leg variety) to have it mailed back home.