My good friend Dan Baggett introduced me to a new iPhone/iPod Application called “Words With Friends” by NewToy, Inc. which is a game very much like Scrabble. It’s a crossword game using tiles except I’m sure to legally not infringe upon Scrabble’s copyright, all the spots for Double and Triple letter scores and Double and Triple word scores are in different spots than a traditional Scrabble board. Also the board doesn’t seem to have as many squares as a regular Scrabble board. I’ve not been a big enthusiast of Scrabble so I don’t know if the number of tiles and point values on the tiles are the same or not.

The game can only be a two player game and allows for two ways to play, it can be played on one iPhone or iPod Touch through “Pass and Play” mode or it can be remotely played with someone on another device in what is described as “asynchronous” online game play or “correspondence” play where the players play the game at their convenience, they do not have to be playing the game at the same time in order to play. There are several options on how to play with someone remotely, you can create a game to play with someone on your contact list (I’m not sure how this one works but I would imagine it sends that person an invitation to download the application.) Next, you can search for specific players by user name, which has been how I’ve played with my friends, you just enter their chosen user name and it establishes a game with that person. Lastly, you can also start a game with a random person as well by allowing the application to find you an opponent.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

Milton Bradley’s (though now made by Hasbro) classic board game “Battleship” makes it’s way to Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. Battleship was a game my brother and used to play as kids. I enjoyed the game but after having played the Electronic Battleship at a friend’s house I wanted one of those. In the electronic version the positions of the ships had to be programmed in and then when the game was played, you’d enter the grid location you wanted to strike and then pressed a fire button which would play a sound effect of a missile firing and if you actually hit something then you would hea and explosion and see a panel light up with a little red light to indicate a hit.

Many years later when hand held electronics were becoming quite popular, I bought several of the games including, Yahtzee, Connect Four, Battleship, Mastermind, and several game show games. It was handy in the bring with you and play on trips or have handy. Ultimately, the one I ended up carrying around the most was the Yahtzee game, but Battleship was probably my second favorite of the bunch. It could be played as a one player game or a two player game, but also had the fun of the sound effects of the missile launch and the hit which could be turned off if you wanted to play it in a quiet place. But they ended up being bulky to carry around as single application games. So they tend to sit in a box not being played.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

If there’s one thing I could say about my childhood, it’s that I was a Game Show junkie. I loved to watch hours of game shows. I loved the thought of people competing for cash and prizes on the various television shows. I loved nearly all of them from the more luck based ones like “Let’s Make A Deal”, “High Rollers”, and “Card Sharks” to the ones where you actually had to know something, like “Jeopardy!”, “$25,000 Pyramid”, “Super Password.” In high school, I even tried out for a teen tournament version of Jeopardy! Unfortunately, I didn’t make it on.

I also used to get all the home game versions of all my favorite shows, and then eventually bought them as computer games when those started to surface, and then when digital handheld versions became popular, I bought those too. Now the latest incarnations are applications for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. These are probably my favorite versions as I have my iPhone with me all the time and there’s no mess or clean up like the old home game versions. Not to mention, no bulky boxes to store the games when they’re not in use.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

I’ve been checking out some of the Sirius XM Satellite Radio stations I’ve never really checked out thanks to their new iPhone app which means I now have a radio on me all the time instead of my Sirius Stiletto radio which I leave at home so it will record the early morning programs that I want to listen to that are on while I’m at work. One of the stations I’ve been enjoying lately is the Raw Dog comedy channel.

On the talk stations I usually listen to the commercials are all the same kind so I was under the impression that commercials are pretty much the same on all the talk channels, but I encountered a commercial that I thought was a fake comedy commercial but turns out to be a legitimate commercial. It was for a website called “Cougar Life” an online dating portal for older women who want younger men. So the ad was soliciting men to sign up for these sexually mad cougars to ravage them. I was laughing at the commercial because I thought it was fake. So imagine my surprise when Google actually results for Cougar Life and links to multiple pages on their site, and short of signing up for it (as I’m not interested in the site) I checked it out.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

I recently decided to try the Sirius XM iPhone application with their free seven day trial, and I quite liked being able to use my iPhone as an additional Sirius radio in addition to the Stiletto 100 I already use for Sirius. So naturally when the free trial expired, I decided to give Sirius a call to add on the Premium Internet access which is required to take advantage of the iPhone application.

I didn’t really want to pay more money, so I asked the customer service agent if she could just cancel the added on Best of XM package I had added on. I mainly got to hear Oprah Radio from the XM lineup of channels, but I’ll be honest, I didn’t like the channel very much. I wasn’t listening to any of the programs and none of the other XM stations that were added were of any interest to me, so it was kind of silly to be paying $4.04 a month extra for worthless stations. As the premium Internet add on is only $2.99 a month, it essentially means it should be no problem “downgrading” my account. Since it was all prepaid I wasn’t expecting a refund on the extra already paid.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

When it was announced in 2008 that the Disney Resorts would be offering free admission to one park for people to celebrate their birthday in 2009, I knew I was going to make plans to enjoy Disneyland for my birthday. It’s not the first time I’ve spent my birthday at Disneyland. The last time was in 2004 back when I last had an annual pass to the parks. I was excited to come to Disneyland for my birthday as I haven’t been to the park since right around the time Space Mountain was re-opening following two years of being closed to completely replace the tracks.

I posted a note on my Twitter account to see if any of my friends would be free and available to join me at Disneyland, and I suppose the one thing as you get older is that the responsibilities of the real world doesn’t always allow your friends to come play with you in an amusement park on a “work” day during the week. So aside from several notes of regret of not being able to come from local friends and notes from international friends where the travel distances were prohibitive of being able to come, it was looking like I’d be doing the park on my own. No big deal as far as I’m concerned, I’ve never been the type of person to allow the fact others couldn’t come to stop me from enjoying the things I want to do. Besides, I’ve done the Disney parks several times on my own when I last had annual passes, sometimes I’d end up at the parks on a whim and would have no time to invite others anyway.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

Since originally being introduced to Which Wich? sandwich shops by Brian Hill, I’ve also become a fan of the shops and have recently made a point to try out all three of the Which Wich? locations here in San Diego. And since there’s just one additional location in California at the present time, I thought I might as well check it out too, since I’d be in the area to visit Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland for my birthday.

As I wrapped up my afternoon at Knott’s Berry Farm, I punched in Which Wich? into the Google Maps on my iPhone and it pulled up the Santa Ana location and I used the directions feature to tell me how to get there from Knott’s Berry Farm. It was just a short little drive down the Interstate 5, past Disneyland, and once I found the right highway exit, just a couple of miles to the East of the highway.

I got there in no time at all and despite the relative emptiness of the shopping center in general, the Which Wich? location was actually busy. There were a couple of people waiting for sandwiches to be made, one at the register, and a couple filling out bags for their orders and a number of people at the various tables in the shop. There even was a California Highway Patrol officer enjoying a sandwich in there at the time.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

Ryan’s Incredible World has gained what is called a “Favicon.” A favicon is the icon image that appears on browser tabs and/or appears next to the search bar when you visit a site.

In the case of Ryan’s Incredible World, after figuring out what the little image is called in a Google search, I set out to design one for my site. It seems several of the sites that make them easily can convert them from several different graphic types, so it was just a matter of picking something. The first attempt I made I just used a photo of me to try out the process, but felt I would need to delete the background around my head if I was going to use that and since I’m due to take a few more updated skinnier pictures of me thanks to the weight loss I’ve enjoyed on Jorge Cruise’s Belly Fat Cure I didn’t feel like using a photo for my favicon.

I decided to add the stylized “R” from the font of the main title of the page. I had attempted several different looks, including doing a “RIW” however in such a tiny icon, the font the text is in, was making it look like “ROW” So I figured an “R” would just look better, plus I think it ties in better with my site (please leave a comment below if you like it or have suggestions on what you think I should use).

(more…)

Share on Facebook

Jorge Cruise recently posted to YouTube a trailer for his upcoming “Death By Sugar” documentary. The footage that’s included in the trailer is from the sugar experiments that I helped Jorge out with on July 16th. As opposed to the other YouTube clips that were shot on Jorge Cruise’s iPhone, this footage is from the professionally filmed footage taken by Jared Davis.

The short four minute clip provides a good overview of the blood analysis that Dr. Stefan Bajon conducted on my blood both before and after consuming 200 grams of sugar. The initial analysis showed I had very healthy blood featuring individualized cells which help produce energy and carry oxygen throughout my body. In the words of Dr. Bajon, “That is about as healthy a picture of blood as I could ever see.” Definitely a great encouraging thing to see and hear when being checked out by the doctor.

We then followed that up with the consumption of about 200 grams of sugar, which included a large banana, a cup of yogurt, two low-fat Strawberry Pop Tarts, as well as a glass of Orange Juice and a 20 oz. Pepsi. Overall not a lot of food, but easily what a lot of people would consume as a breakfast and maybe an additional snack too. These are all things commonly found in just about any kitchen.

(more…)

Share on Facebook

Amazon has recently expanded the usability of their Amazon Kindle devices. The Kindle device is best known for being a reader for electronic books and the ability to subscribe to newspapers and other regularly updating content sources. Well Amazon has expanded this subscription option to now include blogs. For blog site owners who choose to participate, giving their site’s visitors an additional avenue to read the blog on the go.

The service will not be free, as Amazon will charge approximately 99 cents or $1.99. It hasn’t yet been determined what prices they will charge but essentially consider the cost as covering the Kindle WhisperNet wireless delivery system. I have gone through the process of applying for Ryan’s Incredible World to be carried by Amazon’s Kindle Blog service, but it will be Amazon that determines the price, I have no say in the matter. This site should be listed in the next couple of days and I’ll post an update when that occurs.

Unfortunately, the subscription content is not yet available through the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch Amazon Kindle Applications, so it’s strictly for actual Amazon Kindle users initially. It’s nice to have an additional avenue for people to find and enjoy this blog. If you’re interested in purchasing an Amazon Kindle, they’ve recently had a price reduction to $299.00 for the regular size model and $489.00 for the DX (larger sized) model. Click here to visit Amazon’s Kindle Store.

(more…)

Share on Facebook