Stowe Boyd speaks out against social media press releases and other lame ideas. He’s right. I hate that idea too.  Just give us a damn demo of your product and tell us about it. That’s why I usually do two videos with companies: one’s an interview, usually about 30 minutes or so (sorry Loren, it’s long, but then if you want the facts about a new product, you gotta spend some time) and the other is a demo, hopefully about five minutes or so.

I really don’t get why society needs a stupid press release. Oh, OK, I guess we need to pre-write stories for bloggers and journalists since they can’t write their own opinions or reports down, right? Sigh.

Why not use a blog? I have no idea. Oh, I remember Jonathan Schwartz telling me that there’s government rules that says he has to send stuff to major newspapers in a press release done by one of the major press release firms. I should have asked him that on camera.

My dad used to build military satellites. One thing they were worried about was if the Russians would start throwing nukes up into space and blowing up stuff. Seriously. They worried about that stuff.

Well, now China has tested a satellite killer. Oh, great, they are gonna take down DirecTV right before the SuperBowl. Funny. Or is it scary? Think about how much of our lives depend on satellites.

Sigh. Anyone smell another trillion dollar military program starting up? I do.

Rick Selby writes on his blog: “I like trains.” He better, he’s helping to build another version of Microsoft’s Train Simulator.

I remember first seeing Microsoft’s Train Simulator back in the late 1990s at a train show.

Maryam, tonight, was telling my dad and my step mom how I took her to Tehachapi Loop on the way to Las Vegas on the trip I asked her to marry me. “He was chasing trains,” she said.

Oh, give me a camera, and a train to catch.

By the way, I blame this on Steve Sloan, my former boss at San Jose State. He’s a far deeper train freak than I am.

It’ll be a load of fun hanging out with photo and train geeks on Sunday. Can’t wait.

And can’t wait to get the new Train Simulator. I thought the coolest thing was being able to put my own photos and logos on trains. Here’s one I did for Scripting News.

One thing I hope Microsoft lets me do is to run Train Simulator in a Window. If you’re really a simulator freak, you want to load up a big train and then head across country. That’s pretty boring as game play goes, but it sure makes killer eye candy. Put that up on Vista’s sidebar and watch everyone rave when they pass by your cube!