Veronica Belmont » san francisco

Playing The Go Game

Veronica — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:09:06 +0000

Despite the cold and the rain (check out my awesome rain boots, huh?) I set out to visit the HQ for the Go Game, a company that specializes in creating team building events and get-togethers. From their website:

The Go Game stages technology-fueled, creative games and activities for team building, marketing programs, sales training and just pure fun. Based in San Francisco, we stage unique, interactive events and scavenger hunts for groups of 3 to 10,000 players anywhere in the world

Joined by some of my friends, including my endlessly patient partner-in-crime Ryan Block, we traveled around the Mission district of San Francisco, completing quests and finding clues. Check out the video to see who was victorious!

For more of my Cruzearati videos, head over to YouTube or follow them on Twitter!

Fun with geocaching!

Veronica — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:24:23 +0000

My life has become consumed by a new hobby lately, and it’s called geocaching. In my latest Tech Unexpected video, I get a lesson from Lee Van Der Bokke, who has found more geocaches (over 50,000!) than anyone else in the world.

Here are the details for the Cruzin’ Cache that I’ve hidden (tip: it’s not where we put it in the video, we wanted to make it a little tougher), and make sure that you scan the QR codes inside to share with us on Twitter when you’ve located it! Good luck, and happy hunting!

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Learn espresso from the best

Veronica — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:40:35 +0000

Ryan and I recently became the owners of Rancilio Silvia espresso machine, and since then we’ve been trying to learn the ins and outs of pulling a decent shot. While Ryan has some experience in this area, I’m a total and complete noob.

Luckily, our friend Niall steered us towards this great video series that one of my favorite coffee places in the city is producing. Ritual Roasters (a.k.a. “RitRo”) has six videos up so far, with topics ranging from using a french press to making a worthwhile shot. Not only are the videos super informative, but they’re also amazingly well produced (just like their coffee!). Here are a couple of my favorites:

If you’re in the city, make sure you check them out! Blue Bottle is another espresso obsession of ours, and that’s where we get our beans from. Yum!

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Sword and Laser meet up!

Veronica — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:01:43 +0000

With the opening of The Golden Compass this Friday, I thought it would be appropriate to have a movie meet up for members of The Sword and Laser book club! It was the first book that we read together, and so it seems fitting that we all go see how well they adapted the book to film. Anyone is welcome, but I’m theming it for S&L members.

I’m also trying to get a dinner thing set up beforehand. I’ll give out more details tomorrow, probably. Here’s the info for the movie:

The Golden Compass
10:30 PM, Dec. 7th
AMC Loews Metreon 16
101 4th St., San Francisco, CA

Buy tickets here!

Hope to see you there! If you aren’t in the Bay Area, go see it anyway so we can discuss it in the forums!

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Engadget meetup and Berkeley event

Veronica — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:57:28 +0000

There’s going to be an Engadget reader meetup tonight at UCSF! There hasn’t been one in SF for three years, so I’m excited about it. They’re giving away tons of gear, so get there early (doors are at 7PM)! I’ll be there hanging out and eating the free food, and generally making a nuisance of myself.

And then on Thursday I’m giving a talk at UC Berkeley! For those of you on Facebook, here’s the event listing. For everyone else:

Date: Thursday, October 11, 2007
Time: 7:00pm – 8:00pm
Location: 156 Dwinelle
City/Town: Berkeley, CA

I’ll be talking about podcasting, new media and how I became involved in the industry. It’s open to anyone, and it’s free. Hope to see everyone out!

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Fun with exercise

Veronica — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 02:25:03 +0000

I’ve actually been very physically active this week! I’m proud of myself for getting off my duff, so here’s a rundown:

Friday: Gym in the A.M. but got totally bored on the elliptical after 20 minutes. Found the weight room both overwhelming and intimidating, so I briskly walked home. Went to the climbing gym in the afternoon with folks and had an awesome time.

Saturday: Walked around town with Naomi in the morning, and then tennis in the afternoon. It’s been almost 7 years since I played regularly, so I need to brush up my skills a bit.

Sunday: Geek bike day! Rode to Golden Gate Park, and then the beach where we played frisbee for a while. A quick lunch break, followed by a ride back into town to Dolores Park, and finally home. Total time riding? Almost 4 hours!

I’m totally pooped, but it feels good to be active. Time to go take some ibuprofen… What’s your favorite way to get exercise?

—————-
Now playing: Death Cab for Cutie – Soul Meets Body
via FoxyTunes

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Congrats to Pete and Jill!

Veronica — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:20:54 +0000

I’m happy to report that two of my favorite people around were married yesterday! Peter Rojas and Jill Fehrenbacher (he of Engadget and RCRD LBL fame, she’s the creator of Inhabitat) tied the knot during a ceremony in the Presidio. It was a beautiful wedding, and they couldn’t be more perfect for one another. Congratulations! Ryan has pictures of the wedding on his Flickr page.

Photo credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

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Smashing Pumpkins show

Veronica — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:33:09 +0000

Click To Play

Tuesday night I was finally able to live out a dream of mine since I was 12 years old – I saw the Smashing Pumpkins live. For whatever reason, I always missed them when I was in high school (and before that, I was “too young” to go to concerts, according to my mother). When I heard that they were getting back together and playing no less than ten shows here in San Francisco, I immediately had Ryan buy us tickets for my birthday.

The show was good, albeit way too long (I never thought I’d say that an SP show could ever go too long). It was over 2 hours, and by the end I felt like my back was about to break, or my feet were about to disintegrate… whichever came first. They started off the set with some new tunes, and although I have Zeitgeist I’m not all that familiar with the new songs. Then they played a few surprises, like “The Aeroplane Flies High” (from the box set), “Drown” (another B-side), and “Bullet with Butterfly Wings.”

Jimmy Chamberlin stole the show towards the end with an amazing drum solo, and we got a peek into the personality of the new bassist, Ginger Reyes, when they skipped a song without telling her. She seemed very sweet, and joked about it with Billy on stage. OK, now I’m just getting too involved, sorry.

Billy was kind of down on San Francisco, saying that everyone he met was “mean.” Really? But I guess it gave him the inspiration to write a new song, called “Peace and Love and All That Other Shit,” which is the video I took that you see above. It’s sad that SF wasn’t his cup of tea (and too bad they’re playing so many shows here, I guess) but the song was one of the highlights of the evening for me.

I’m having trouble finding the setlist for the show, but I remember them also playing “Tonight, Tonight,” “Disarm” (one of my all-time favorites), “Tarantula,” “Doomsday Clock” and “United States.” A mix of old and new, but as Billy said at the opening of the show, “This is 2007, not 1992. Welcome to the new decade.” It would have been nice to see them back in the day, but it was still totally worth the sore feet.

See this review and others at PLAYBACK:stl

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AIDS Walk San Francisco

Veronica — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 17:51:18 +0000

I’m joining Team CNET Networks for the AIDS Walk on July 15th in Golden Gate Park! It’s a 10k walk, and I’m trying to raise $1000 for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. If you’d like to sponsor me, click here or on the image below!

UPDATE:
HOLY COW!! I hit my goal in 3 hours!! You guys are seriously the best. Thank you so much

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My Saturday

Veronica — Sun, 06 May 2007 01:12:27 +0000

Today is 24 Hours of Flickr, and so Ryan and I went around and took pictures in the beautiful weather. Today was also Free Comic Book Day! I got some of those too.

Tonight is Spiderman 3 – I’m a little worried, I heard it was pretty terrible. Careful, there might be spoilers in the link. I hope that it’s at LEAST entertaining.

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Wii Fight Club

Veronica — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 06:30:49 +0000

Click To Play

Last Saturday night was Wii Fight Club, and there are four rules:
1. Don’t blog about Wii fight
2. Do NOT blog about Wii fight
3. No Twitter
4. No Dodgeball

Well, I broke three out of four… kind of. In any event, I kicked Ryan’s butt, so it was all worth it! See my victory interview on Geek Entertainment TV‘s video of the event, seen above. Hopefully they’ll invite me back after this blog post.

More photos by Scott Beale from Laughing Squid, seen here on Flickr.

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Trip to Industrial Light & Magic

Veronica — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 06:06:27 +0000

Today I went with News.com to visit Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic. Like I mentioned in my last post, this was an incredible chance to meet people who’ve created and worked on some of my favorite movies, including Willow, Star Trek (First Contact and Generations), Jurassic Park, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars… need I go on? I was honored to meet Hal Hickle (Animation Supervisor) and John Knoll (Visual Effects Supervisor) who are both Oscar-nominated for their work on Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest. They’re in crunch time right now working on the third movie, which is due at the end of spring. But that’s not all! I also met Michael Sanders, who showed me the ins and outs of the motion capture process (see pajamas here). I’m hoping sometime I can get back in there and actually try making an animation myself!

Well, as you can see I took a lot of photos. Daniel Terdiman, who’ll be writing up the articles for News.com, also took about 200 pictures. I’ll link to those image galleries and my own videos when they’re published.

UPDATE:
Photo Gallery: In the shadow of ‘Star Wars’
Photo Gallery: The magic behind ILM
News Story: Visual effects masters put the magic in ILM

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Nerd heaven

Veronica — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 00:21:32 +0000

I’m seriously in nerd heaven. Tomorrow I’ll be traveling to the Presidio here in San Francisco to tour Industrial Light & Magic! They’ve done so many movies that I’ve loved. When I learned that they were moving ILM to San Francisco last year (or was it the year before? I can’t remember) I was excited. But I never dreamed that I’d be able to actually get go! I’ll update more tomorrow night, with links to the video/interviews I do and maybe some photos. Hooray!

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Laughing Squid: Decade 2

Veronica — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 19:53:46 +0000

Last night was the 11th anniversary of Laughing Squid, which is headed by Scott Beale. A ton of people turned out at the event, at Mighty here in San Francisco. There was some crazy stuff there, like this fireball maker (for lack of a better term) that I took some video of:

There are also some pictures on my Flickr page, but you should definitely check out everyone’s shots. Congrats to Scott!!

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Long weekend

Veronica — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 21:38:27 +0000

Ryan and I had the chance to take a long weekend, and so we pretended to be tourists. We went to Alcatraz, the aquarium, and Musee Mechanique, and then topped off the day by eating seafood (I had my first oyster on the half shell, and I was not impressed). The only thing bad about acting like a tourist is that you have to be around many, many tourists.

On Sunday, we watched the entire DVD collection of Firefly. It was pretty awesome, but I can’t believe they were cancelled before we learned ANYTHING about ANYONE!! Haven’t watched the movie yet, we’re waiting for the HD version to get here in the mail. Up next? Battlestar Galactica!

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Obligatory Apple post

Veronica — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 04:14:03 +0000

Quick rundown:

+ New Shuffle
+ Color nanos (precious)
+ Movies
+ iTV (as it’s code-named) looks sweet
+ Better battery life for iPods in general
+ 80GB? Booyah! And it’s pretty cheap at $349
+ Games on the iPod

- Only 4GB nanos have colors. WTF?!
- Disney movies only so far (will soon add more, hopefully)
- iTV may only support iTunes purchased video (heard from a reliable source inside)
- You have to buy games? Oh rly?
- No turtleneck? What happened, Steve?

+/- Movies at 640×480 (Meh… better than 320×240 I guess)

Ok, and now for my real rant. I was so close to being free for the bonds of Fairplay. I was talking about other Mac-compatible players, planning on burning/ripping all my iTunes tracks to destroy the DRM, maybe even going Media Center in the house. But then they brought out those little color nanos, and the Apple fangirl inside of me gave a little gasp of joy, much like that of a hamster seeing a ferris wheel for the first time and thinking it’s the biggest hamster wheel in the world. Uh… yeah, just like that.

However, those dreams were crushed when I learned that only the 4GB nanos would have the colors. But… but… I wanted a 8GB pink nano, AND I WANT IT NOW!! *ahem* Sorry. I get a little hysterical thinking about it.

The final insult came when I installed iTunes 7.0 on my PC at work. I have iTunes on there so I can check the podcast to make sure it’s loading. After the lengthy downloading and installing process, I went into the program to check things out. I liked the new design, but my podcasts were acting funny. And by funny, I mean not loading. Then Explorer crashed. I tried again. Crash. Again. Crash. You get the picture. I gave up, and went to the BOL forums to get more impressions. Let’s just say that apparently the Windows XP version of iTunes enjoys not only crashing, but taking down the iPod with it. What the hell?

I’m installing iTunes now at home on the G5, so hopefully things will go a little smoother. If you want to hear my hysterics in audio form, check out the Buzz Out Loud and MP3 Insider podcasts for today. And if you’ve gotten this far into the post, let me know what you think about the annoucements.

References: News.com, Engadget (nice work Ryan and Paul!), MacRumors

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Maker Faire videos

Veronica — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 23:59:03 +0000

Some of my videos from Maker Faire are up on CNET. So far, my “Fighting Robots” and “Ultimate LEGO Train Set” are live! So go check them out… more to follow.

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Mad Dog in the Fog – 4/23/06

Veronica — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 15:09:28 +0000

Having a terrible time
Originally uploaded by Nowhere Dan.

I love this picture, just because I look like I want to hurt Dan. Which is probably true. That’s because he hasn’t played WoW in weeks, and I’m feeling spurned. Ryan, on the other hand, clearly wants no part in my evil plans.

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Scary

Veronica — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:55:31 +0000

Phillip Torrone wrote a post on Metroblogging SF about laptop thieves hitting SF. The two articles it links to are very scary. I can understand getting your laptop jacked if you leave it and go to the bathroom, but getting STABBED as you sit there in a coffee shop?! That’s really insane. The only thing I can think to deter thieves is to lock your laptop to the table or something. If they can see that it’s not going anywhere, then maybe they won’t make an attempt to steal it. Be careful out there!

Update: News.com has an article about what you can do to protect your laptop.

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Urban Cowboy

Veronica — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 17:12:00 +0000

My favorite part of my commute is my Urban Cowboy. He wears a beat-up leather jacket, tan cowboy hat (duh), boots, and Levis. He always has a cup of coffee, and he always yells “THANK YOU BUS DRIVER” when he gets off at 6th. He always offers his seat to the ladies (sometimes it’s me!) and never stands in the way of the doors.

I was at Edo buying shampoo with Naomi the other day, and he walked by with his yellow lab (!!!).

“Look, Naomi! It’s my cowboy!”
The receptionist looked out the window. She sighed.
“The Urban Cowboy, don’t you just love him?” She said.

Yes, Edo receptionist, yes I do.

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