Archive for June, 2009

Why Casual Gaming Works for Me

June 30, 2009

I’d love to tell you about all the things I do at work that keep me busy, but I don’t have time.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t take the occasional break to complete a crossword or Sudoku puzzle.  One thing I never caught myself doing was playing many games.  That was before I ran into Psycho Aquarium.

The premise of this game is simple.  You’re a small fish in an aquarium with other various sized fish.  Your job is to eat the other fish.  You keep growing in size as you eat more and more fish.  First, you start out eating little Minnows and Tinfish.  Eventually you make your way up to Catfish and Wakiyamas.  If you get big enough, you may even find yourself gulping down a Shuri or Coilia.  The real fun is when you’re the biggest fish in the tank and you swallow everything in sight.  The bigger you get, the more points you earn.

I consider myself a pretty competitive person (feel free to challenge me if you think you’re more competitive).  I like this game because I’m constantly trying to figure out new strategies to beat my previous scores.  So far, my highest score is somewhere in the 700s.  Let me know if you’d like to challenge me.   

This is where I had an epiphany.  The beauty of casual gaming is that it’s simple enough to keep you occupied from the daily routine for a bit, but is still a ton of fun.  Next time you need a little distraction, look no further than casual gaming!

Rich Quick Coutee
Security Analyst

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The Big Picture

June 27, 2009

I always like to give advice on shopping. This one is about getting a flat screen TV.

With prices dropping sharply due to new technology and a limping economy, the time has never been better to look for that flat-panel TV, especially if you shop online. Before jumping into shopping mode, there are a few things you need to know in order to make a smart decision.

It all comes down to the viewing experience versus how much you‘re willing to spend. Before you panick over the cost, let me reassure you that there are plenty of excellent, affordable sets out there. The viewing experience is affected by several key factors including the size of the screen, quality of picture/sound, and reliability.

Size
The screen size should be determined by the distance between the screen and your sofa.

Using a simple rule of thumb, 42 inches for every 6 feet distance will suffice. If you’re further away than that or if you have a big living room, you’ll need a larger screen. A possible solution here would be to buy a rear projection TV which costs less for the same screen size.  However, if you’re going to hang your TV on the wall you’ll have to get an LCD or Plasma.

Picture, Sound and Reliability
Factors that affect the picture quality are the number of pixels, contrast (which I like to call “blackness” – the distance between the whitest white and the blackest black), brightness and refresh rate. Common market terms such as “HD ready” and “Full HD” are actually indicators of the amount of pixels on the screen. Basically, the more pixels the better. HD ready indicates 1366 x 768 pixels, while Full HD is 1920 x 1080. To get a good viewing experience you don’t necessarily need to go for the Full HD.

Contrast, brightness and refresh rate will affect the detail perception and the effort your eyes will have to make in order to see clearly. The higher the contrast, brightness and refresh rate, the better, especially in brightly lit rooms.

Reliability and repairs are pretty much the same when comparing LCDs to Plasmas. However, rear projection TVs tend to have problems more often and will require you to replace the rear bulb every two years or so which will cost roughly $200.

Ready, Set, Shop!
So, now that you have the information you need to shop, grab your mouse and begin surfing. My best advice is to do your research online. Read ratings and reviews on different TV sets and brands and get an idea of what you need. Check out the most commonly bought TV sets. Then visit your nearest store with a large variety of TVs and ask them to show you the same broadcast, preferably a football game (but any sporting event will do) in a high definition signal, on all screens. This is the best way to make the final decision on what to buy since you’ll get to see it for yourself. Once you know the model, use an online price comparison service to get the best price from a trusted store and make sure it includes a warranty, even if it requires some extra cash.

My Recommendations
Personally, I would go for Plasmas. In general, the Plasmas contrast and refresh rate are better than LCDs. It will give you the best viewing experience for Movies and Sports.

My favorite models are:

  1. Panasonic Viera TH Series: Research | Buy
  2. Samsung PN Series: Research | Buy
  3. Pioneer Kuro Series (relatively expensive, but the best out there): Research | Buy

Check out Amazon Warehouse Deals for returned sets in good condition. It can reduce prices by 30%-40%!

Future
LED.

Very cool technology which delivers amazing picture quality and insanely thin and light screens. These are still expensive so check them out next year.

Enjoy the show!

Ziv Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Kill Gonen
S. Business Manager – Comparison Shopping

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Summer Vacation

June 23, 2009

I loved summer vacation when I was a kid.  The days just filled up with fun stuff to do like playing Kick-the-Can and walking on stilts; Girl Scout camp and swimming lessons at the community pool.   It was like a mega Take-A-Break-a-Thon.

What I liked most, though, was the second Friday in August when Dad would come home from work and we’d pile into the camper and head out across the country for a two week trip to visit relatives.  We’d stop along the way to visit neat places like Carlsbad Caverns (watch out for the bats!) or riding the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad as it wound through the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.  

My cousin Scott and I have summer birthdays so we often ended up celebrating with paper hats and melting ice cream in a campground in the middle of nowhere.   Since Scott liked pie and I liked cake, there’d always be lots to go around so we’d invite the folks camping next to us to drop over and celebrate with us.  And then we got more pie and cake when we each got back home and celebrated all over again with our friends.  Double delicious!

These summer trips were the highlight of my year.  The cousins (dozens of us) would sing, hike, play games and laugh until we were blue in the face.   And we’d eat until we couldn’t button our pants.  At night we’d play cards or just sit around the campfire listening to our parents’ stories about the family, what life used to be like and the crazy antics of their siblings.

Mostly, though, I enjoyed the quiet nights in the camper as we drove to or from the rendezvous location.   My folks and my sister and I would play three-handed Cribbage, Gin Rummy, Uno or Racko.   We always had a stash of card and board games in the cupboard under the refrigerator in the Camper and I carry that tradition forward until today.  Only today, instead of under the Fridge, my husband and I keep a stash of card and board games in our linen closet at the house, another set in the back room at the cabin and an emergency set in the car ‘cause you never know when the urge to say “Racko” just has to be met.

Summer vacations don’t happen like this anymore for me, but I always can find time for a quick game of something, whether online or at the dinner table or on a train from Toledo to Bilbao.  

Long live the spirit of summer vacation.

Val Shaken-not-Stirred Sanford
Vice President, Products and Marketing

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Scratch the games. Get outside!

June 19, 2009

I love a casual game just as much as the next person, but seriously, if all you do is sit at your computer and play games on Platrium, you have issues. And if you don’t now, you will soon.

Get outside. Breath some fresh air. Give some attention to that dog of yours. He’s sick of entertaining himself. Whatever the activity (emphasis on “activ”), make sure to recharge your internal battery. We don’t want you to get burned out. We’re happy so many of you love playing our collection of fun games, but pace yourself. Don’t worry, we’ll be doing this for a long time. There’s ample time to enter sweepstakes or bid Jacks for auction prizes.

Save the online game play for the night time or when it’s rainy, at least for the summer months.

Brian Tenacious B Shannon
Engagement Marketing Manager

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Feasting on Father’s Day

June 16, 2009

Hey everybody. Father’s Day is coming up this Sunday so remember to take some time to find your Pops a nice gift! Of course, since we are in a recession and my Papa didn’t raise no fool, I headed to Platrium Deals to check out gifts that’ll get me the most bang for my buck. Now, they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and there’s no shortage of affordable and bountiful gift baskets for dads at Deals – try the search term “Father’s Day” and see for yourself!

Decisions, decisions… now I’ve got to figure out which goodie basket suits my Old Man best. Is he the type to want foodstuffs geared toward an “Armchair Athlete” or a “Distinguished Gentleman”?  Would he prefer the “Groovy Sausage Snacker” or a “Golfer’s Paradise Cookie Bouquet”? I mean, maybe my dad would want something more hoity-toity like the “Pamper Him Spa Set” or an “Organic Fruit Sampler”!

Ok, now I’m feeling totally overwhelmed by the choices before me! Maybe I’ll just scratch the gift basket idea and get him a shiny #1 Dad mug. Dads love those, right?

Erin Lay Lady Laye
Marketing Specialist

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The Boys of Summer

June 12, 2009

I don’t know about you, but one of my favorite things about summer is baseball. I love everything about the game from the skill of the players, the grace of a perfectly executed double play to the thrill of wondering if the center fielder is going to catch that fly ball or run headlong into the back fence and be knocked unconscious.  I just can’t get enough!

Here’s a photo from a recent game that I took from my phone:

baseball

And of course, baseball has its traditions. For me, it’s to play Ultimate Slugger before I go to the game. If I get a score above 500, I know my home team is going to win. Go ahead, try it – you won’t be disappointed!

Enjoy!

Keith Fishsticks Weinberger
Product Manager

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Hooray for Hollywood

June 9, 2009

One of the best ways to take a break during this time of year is by seeing a big summer blockbuster. All the big movies start coming out in May and just keep going thru the summer – it seems like there’s something new I want to see every single weekend.

So far, I’ve been able to get away for Wolverine, Terminator Salvation and Pixar’s latest Up. Up was by far my favorite movie in quite a while – it had everything you want from a movie: great characters, solid story and pace, laugh-out-loud moments (real laughs Amy!) and even a few tears. Next on my must-watch list is Public Enemies in July.

Do you like to watch the previews too? Have a weakness for buttery movie theater popcorn and super -sized sodas? We have a prize just for you in Platrium Rewards: Three winners this month will each win a $100 Fandango movie gift card. Depending on your local theater prices, that could mean 15 movies, or maybe just a few – in any case, free movies!

So if you love going to the movies, try to win some tickets and you’ll be all set for the movies coming out later in the year. All just for taking a break at Platrium.

Or,if you prefer to watch in the comfort of your own home, try finding some deals on DVDs at Platrium Deals. Here’s a few of my favorites: The Shawshank Redemption, Raising Arizona and Blade Runner.

Roy Porkchop Sandwiches Schmidt
Platrium Rewards manager

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Instant Message-Aholic

June 6, 2009

I’m not an impatient person, per se; I just really like to get straight to the point, which explains my love for instant messaging and why I’m willing to admit that I am indeed, an instant message-aholic.  At any given time throughout the day, my computer screen resembles a photosensitive epileptic’s worst nightmare with enough flashing IM boxes to send any unsuspecting visitor to my desk into a frenzied seizure.

Like many other modern internet dwellers, I have adapted instant messaging as a primary means for communicating with the people in my life – my friends revel at my thorough use of the various IM capabilities from simple messaging, to sharing music, to video chatting – I’d make a great spokeswoman.  Except for one minor little detail: I can’t stand internet lingo, especially LOL, the oh-so overused abbreviation for “laugh out loud.”  When an instant message made entirely up of words is funny enough to make me laugh out loud, I feel like it deserves much more recognition than a drab, thee-lettered response can offer.

The other day, while attempting to diffuse the flurry of flashing IM boxes, I couldn’t help but feel like I was drowning in a sea of misplaced letters – OMGs, ROFLs, BRBs, oh my!  Being a self-proclaimed lover of efficiency, one would assume that abbreviated phrases like LOL are staples of my online vocabulary.  Quite the opposite, though.  Call me pessimistic, but when my IM counterpart responds to one of my infamous gynecologist jokes with an LOL, I can’t help but wonder if he/she is on the other side doubling over with laughter as their response implies, or if they are just one of those evil, reckless LOLers.  I have a feeling that more often than not, it’s the latter.

This prompted a secret experiment.

With my coworkers as my [involuntary] test subjects (oh yeah, thanks for participating, guys! ), I set out to get to the bottom of this “LOL” thing.  I began chatting up a storm; cracking my best jokes and emptying my reserve of funny stories on to each and every one of them.  I meticulously recorded the results. 

IM Tally

And they were staggering.  The relationship between LOLs and actual laughter illustrated by the results of this über scientific experiment allows us to infer this: that while generic internet lingo may be an effective time-saver, it doesn’t always convey the message you want it to.  One could even go as far as to say that it’s enough to deter me – *ahem* someone from making jokes EVER again.  Maybe…

IM Pie Chart

I know these results are glum, but don’t fret my little honest and efficiency-loving friends!  Luckily, the Platrium Playbar has tons of smileys, emoticons and graphics to ensure that you are getting your exact message across.

Amy Phun Guy Phung
Cutomer Support Rep

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Fun In The Sun!

June 3, 2009

For those of you who have ever visited the lovely city of Seattle, you know just how miserable the weather can be.   Seattle is cloudy an average of 226 days per year.  We receive between 35-39 inches of rain in a given year and average 24 days of temperatures hotter than 80 degrees.  To sum up Seattle, it rains, it’s gloomy and we rarely see the sun.  Those of us who dare to live here are certainly vitamin D deficient. 

However, these past few weeks of weather have been AMAZING!  For the first time I can remember in my 30 years of life, we had 4 straight days of sunshine over memorial weekend.   That is unheard of….and we haven’t had any rain since before the holiday weekend.  Today the weather man even predicts record highs- even reaching 90 degrees in the foothills (the foothills are just outside of Seattle).

So, what do we do with this unexpected sunshine?  Many of us are taking full advantage of the sun; spending extra time outdoors, mountain biking, attending the Mariners games, boating out on Lake Washington, and hiking. You name the outdoor activity, we are doing it.  And the majority of us are coming into work a little sunburned and uncomfortable!  I guess we have been so excited about the sunshine that we forget just how easily it is for our white, pasty skin to turn bright red.

How do you like to take a break outside?  We often talk about taking a break online with Platrium…but what do you do outside, away from your computer, disconnected from your favorite game site, Platrium?

We’d love to hear from you!

Jenn Driving Me Up A Wallace
Product Manger

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