I had an interesting conversation about wallets tonight. Yup, the little flap of fabric that holds some of the most important things in our lives so close to us. I’ve never thought much about wallets before… what’s in mine, or anyone else’s to be perfectly honest. Not until my friend brought up a good point. She said, “you can tell a lot about a person if you look what’s in their wallet”. And you know what? The more I thought about it, the more I agreed. I became fascinated by the idea, and the first thing I did when I got home was open mine to see what i’d been carrying around. I mean, of course I understand you can’t get the full picture of someone by rooting through one’s wallet alone, but it is a fun exercise, and if you’re a good enough detective, I think there’s a lot you can learn there.

So, what does you wallet and all it’s contents say about you? If you lost your wallet, and someone opened it up to inspect, what would be the mental picture they’d paint of you?

For those of you interested, here’s a description of my wallet and everything inside. I’d love hear what people think this says about me?

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

Brown leather 3 fold wallet. No fancy branding or markings. Fairly warn but for something that spends the majority of time under my ass, it’s in pretty good shape.

Contents include:

• 8 U.S. Dollars
• Mamma Mia’s LUCKY 7′s Lunch Club Card (2 holes punched)
• Expired Massachusetts Drivers License (Change of address sticker on back)
• Temporary Drivers License (Address matches sticker from back of expired license)
• Receipt for $22.14 from Trader Joe’s in Hanover, MA
  • TJ’s Cracker Assortment
  • Grocery Non Taxable X2
  • Arancini Bites
  • Stix Coconut Curry Chick Thai
  • Tempura Nests Onion/ Carro

• New England Patriots Bank of America Visa Debit Card
• Bank of America Visa Credit Card
• Eastern Bank Business Mastercard (Registered to 3thought, Inc.)
• Plymouth Public Library Card
• F1 Boston Annual Drivers License
• Charlie Card (The cool plastic one, not the paper kind)
• Shaws Rewards Card
• Stop and Shop Card
• Tufts Health Plan Insurance Card
• AAA Plus Card

Just because I have a blog… and I have the ability to say anything I want and the world has to listen (not really though).

1. I’m glad i work for myself. The amount of bullshit i’ve put up with in my life (already) working for others is incredible (congrats to all the corporate monkeys out there for dealing with that crap on a daily basis).
2. Evangeline Lilly is Hot (i’m a sucker for freckles and she has the best birthday evar, sorry, i’m distracted by commercials [oh and i miss LOST])
3. I’m a pretty lucky bastard considering the crap that’s went down in the last 10 months. Can’t say enough thank you’s to my family. Thank you, thank you, thank you…
4. I should go to be and stop drinking on school nights. </rant> (that’s html humor at it’s finest)

Ever wonder what inspired me as a designer. No? Yeah, me either until Shea had a good idea to write a blog post about it. Turns out it’s kinda interesting… Jump on over to the mothership AKA 3thoughtcreative.com, if you’re interested to learn more about my 3 design inspirations.

-matti

Tonight there was no LOST, and I was thinking… there’s only 4 episodes left and we still don’t know how the hell they’re going to end this show. So here’s some thoughts and predictions on how LOST will end.

1. Jack becomes Jacob. Like any good shephard his people follow, and the rest of the losties flash to the sideways timeline the moment he takes over.
2. Desmond becomes Jacob. Everyone else dies.
3. Hurley is the only pure person and he takes over as protector of the island. He gives up his sideways life and stays on the island so his friends can leave.
4. Aliens man. Not sure how, but some sort of aliens. Or zombies.
5. They’re in Hell or Purgatory or something. Stuck somewhere between life and death, and decisions they make will determine which timeline they get to go to. Each person decides their own fate.
6. Man in Black is telling the truth and they all fly away from the island and live happily ever after.
7. Neither Man in Black or Jacob win. Widmore wins. He gains control of the island and does evil stuff to polar bears.
8. Somebody turns the donkey wheel and they flash again. Not sure where, but i’m betting it’s way in the future or way in the past.
9. That creepy kid in the jungle grows up to be reincarnated as Jacob and he’s a bad guy. Jack ends up killing him.
10. In a Tyler Durden / Figthclub moment, we realize the original timeline is actually the world with the Man in Black on the loose. Jacob has been bringing candidates to the island all this time so he could trap Man in Black on the island. The only way to trap him is by finding a candidate who makes “the right” decisions.

If you asked me which I thought would be the best ending, i’d say number 10. The Tyler Durden moment. Remember the first time you watched Fightclub how awesome it was? Remember the second time you watched Fightclub how awesome it was because it all made sense? I could see LOST ending like that. A moment at the very end, where everything you thought was one way, changed and made you rethink everything. So, here’s some bullet points to back up my Tyler Durden moment theory.

• In the flash sideways at Widmore’s office, there’s a painting of a balanced scale. (sign that sideways is balanced?)
• In the original timeline, dead Christian Shephard appears to Jack at the hospital off-island and the smoke detectors go off. (sign that MiB is on the loose)
• There’s been no signs of Jacob or Man in Black in the Flash Sideways.
• The island is underwater in the flashsideways, and therefore there can’t be a Jacob or Man in Black

That’s all I got for now. If anyone else has a theory, and cares to share feel free to leave a comment in the box below. Thanks -matt

Things I’d like to do before I die... Yup, everyone has a mental list of things they’d like to do before they die. I figured if I started putting things down on the internet, I might just start crossing things off. Here’s my list of things I’d like to do before they steal my bucket.

1. Start a Personal Blog
2. Go to Europe
3. Live in a foreign country
4. Circumnavigate the globe
5. Drive an Aston Martin (bonus points for driving in Europe)
6. Retire
7. Live somewhere warm
8. Go to Tokyo
9. Go skiing in the Rockies
10. Get married
11. Have a kid
12. Take a vacation
13. Buy a new xbox 360
14. Go to Ulvila Finland
15. Repay my parents for all they’ve done
16. Buy the house next to the Cape House and create the Ulvila/Goddard compound.
17. Eat Korean BBQ and Kimchi
18. Visit Armenia
19. Travel to space (at least be weightless)
20. Be happy – ongoing
21. Start a podcast
22. Eat an oyster
23. Get my personal website up and running

Last updated 2/10/10

The first step to getting help is admitting you have a problem. I’ve been an Apple fanboy for most of my life, and I don’t consider that a problem. Therefore, I guess I don’t need your help. I’ve been using Apple products since I was 5 and sure, not everything they do is perfect, but for the most part, I always enjoyed the user experience of owning an Apple far more than the alternatives.

My fanboyism all started in 1985 when I spent a day visiting my Uncle Philip at his college. He had just bought a Macintosh 512k to do his work for school, and I spent most of the day doodling with Paint and Write. In elementary school I’d rush through my work so I could be the first to jump on the newly acquired Macintosh II’s to play Oregon Trail. Apparently that was an educational game? The only think it taught me, was that when you to finish your work, you should always reward yourself by playing video games. By 5th grade I was staying after school to hang with the computer club. My full-blown Apple nerdiness was starting to show.

After elementary school, my Uncle purchased a Macintosh Classic, and I spent most of my summer weekends down the Cape in my Uncle’s room. Doodling with Paint, playing Monopoly with my cousins, and teaching myself to Battle Chess. Full color screens with animation and computer games. Could it get any better I would ask? Well it did… In High School I thought I wanted to be an architect. After a year of old fashioned drafting class, we got to use the Apple II’s to do 2d and 3d CAD. I used to make some really cool stuff on those old computers. 3d kitchens with dynamic lighting and textures in 1995 was a big deal. I pushed those little computers to their limits and I was never able to break them.

Clearly there was no hiding the fact that I was a computer graphics geek, because my Grandmother bragged to her hair dresser about how talented a computer artist her grandson had become. Wouldn’t you know that hair dresser’s salon was below the largest and best graphic design studio on the South Shore. So, I knocked on the door, got hired as an intern and walked into the world of high-end Macs and Adobe products. In the mid-90′s Shields Design Group was cutting edge. They had everything from Quatras to 9500′s and they even had a few PowerCenter 240′s and 210′s which were the coolest and most powerful mac clones of the time. They had a network and multiple servers, they always bought the latest and greatest software, and we had 10 people who would stay after work to play networked games of Marathon. I was in fanboy heaven.

Off to college I went and with my experience at Shields got hired the first week to do design on campus. The school provided me with my an office and an Apple 7600 my first year. They upgraded me to G3 for the rest of my time there. Shields Design continues to upgrade too, and worked there through college. Even my parents got in on the Apple bandwagon in 1999, when my dad brought home a graphite iMac.

A few years later I purchase my first computer on my own. It was a 15″ titanium powerbook g4. This thing was sexy and slim and most importantly it ran OSX. It was portable and fast and did everything I needed. Sure, it didn’t play ALL the cool computer games or even have wifi at the time, but it ran multiple programs without slowing down and never got a virus. I could surf the internet or do my freelance work from my couch. By the early 2001 Apple started making iPods and once they announced a color iPod, I had to have one. I would rock that iPod until the second generation iPhone came out.

At this point in my life, I had just purchased my next Mac. It just so happens to be the computer i’m using today. It’s a little 2ghz, Intel Mac Mini with 2gb or RAM, and it’s my work horse. I beat on this little computer day in and day out. I open 1gb photoshop docs, and run 10 programs at once, and it never complains. I also have a 20″ cinema display and a 500gb timecapsule, and my company owns a 17″ Macbook Pro with 24″ LED monitor that my partner uses as her daily machine.

I’m not interested in hacking around doing stuff that PC fanboys do. I want a machine that runs like it did on day one. A computer that doesn’t get bogged down with spyware, malware, adware, bloatware, trialware, antivirus programs, anti-antivirus programs and all that crap you deal with on PCs. I don’t want to have to worry about deleting startup items and messing with files to make my machine run like it should. I want to be able to hook my computer to my time capsule and not spend all day fighting to turn the security and putting passwords on. I want a convergence device that syncs my entire life seamlessly between my phone and my computer. I want a machine I can trust to beat on every day and rarely give me a problem. I want a computer that just works. And that is why I’m an unapologetic Apple Fanboy.

Born and raised just South of Boston with a father from a family that lived around Boston, you develop an affinity for Boston Sports at an early age. Growing up, “the heat was on TV38″ and when I couldn’t get to a TV, Ken Coleman called the games on WPLM as I drifted off to sleep. Many a night was spent as a child in the left field box seats at Fenway back when you could get a box seat at Fenway.

Today, I still have a passion for Boston sports, but the fanaticism of bandwagon fans,  ball washing of sports stations like WEEI, and greedy teams out to cash in on the marketing hype have tarnished my love for Boston sports just a bit. Saying such a thing is likely to get me dirty looks from the fanatic bandwagon fans, but just remember that I was there before you, I’m there now, and I’ll be there in 50 years.

Here’s my top 10 Boston sports moments of my lifetime. 

10. *Red Sox beat the Yankess in game 4 of the 2003 ALCS. Ass clown Michael Bolton messes up the National Anthem, but Wakefield pitches a gem and beats the Yanks. One of the most electric nights I’ve ever experienced at Fenway and I’ve been to some pretty electric games.

9. *Michael Jordan comes out of retirement and plays his second game back on Reggie Lewis Night at the Garden. All the Celtic greats were on hand as well as many celebs. My only retirement ceremony at the Garden, my only time ever seeing Jordan play.

8. Snowbowl 2001. Or as Raiders fans call it, the tuck rule game. Either way, it’s the last game at Foxboro Stadium. One of the most amazing nights in Patriots football as Vinatieri kicks not 1, but 2 long distance field goals to tie then win the game.

7. *My first Red Sox game as a child. Sox vs Twins in 1985. Dad lowers me by my legs during batting practice and I scoop up my first baseball at Fenway. Haven’t got one since.

6. *Red Sox beat the Yankees in game 5 of the 2004 ALCS. My second night in a row at Fenway. The second night of extra innings, and the second night Big Papi ends the game with a walk off. The crowd doesn’t budge or stop clapping until Dirty Water and Tessie are done. Another electric night at Fenway.

5. *My first World Series game ever. Game one at Fenway with my Dad in 2007. After giving away games 1 and 2 to clients in 2004, we made sure we got to game 1 this time around. Pedroia leads off the game with a homer and the Sox go on to win 13-1.

4. *Red Sox beat the Yankees in game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. That’s me in my lucky Vinatieri jersey. Shawn Flores’ red mohawk drew the attention of the Fox crew during the 7th inning stretch and we make Live TV. Later that night after half the stadium exits, we witness the beginning of the greatest comeback in Red Sox history. You can even see us cheering on TV when the ball lands in right center. Awesome!

3. Red Sox beat the Yankees in game 7 of the 2004 ALCS. Adam, Mike and I watched from the original Baseball tavern. The victory spills into the streets. Chaos ensues. Mike gets lost with no ID and money. Pepper spray is ingested. The curse was reversed. Good times.

2. Red Sox win the World Series in 2004. A moment I watched alone in my bedroom. After the chaos of game 7 of the ALCS, I really wanted to stay home and listen to Joe Castiglione call the game, as I watched from home. Yes, blasphemy that it’s not my number 1. But your first is always your sweetest. So that prize goes to…

1. Patriots win the Superbowl in 2001. I watch from college and celebrated the first championship for the city of Boston that I get to truly appreciated as an adult. That season was magic and ushered in the Brady/Belichick dynasty.

So that’s it. My top 10 moments… What’s the greatest moment in your sporting life? Were you an athlete and have a great achievement you accomplished, or have you been watching from the sidelines like myself? Let me know what your greatest moments are.

*Denotes games I was at live.

I remember the day I got cable. Not because we had more channels, but because it came with a small gray remote. Sounds strange to say, but before the age of 4, I had to manually change channels on my TV set. Yup, pretty crazy. It all changed once I got that remote, and immediately I started fiddling with the buttons. Especially the ones I didn’t understand. Ones with letter like PR instead of numbers. Within minutes I figured out the PR stood for program, and I could cycle through my favorite stations if I programed them. A feat that was never preformed by either of my parents to the best of my knowledge. Why? I’m thinking it’s because they didn’t have the curiosity to go messing around technology they didn’t understand. But, I needed to know what these buttons did. So I pushed them, and I was rewarded for my curiosity.

A few years later I received my first computer and my first boombox. Soon after that came a walkman, then a diskman. In the 90′s my dad had this great mini laptop too. It was Toshiba Libretto 100 with 32mb or RAM and a 133mhz processor running windows 95. It had a crazy mouse pointer thing next to the monitor and the left and right click was on the back of the screen. I sat there and made powerpoint presentations, word art and doodled with MS paint like it was my job. If I only knew then, what I know now ha ha ha. So my lust for gadgets and new buttons to push began at an early age. Whether it was video games, watches, computers or TV’s I’ve been addicted to gadgets.

Sundays as a child, I couldn’t wait to get home from church because we’d get Dunkin Donuts and the Sunday paper. I’d skip the funnies and head right for the CompUSA and Lechmere circulars to see the latest and greatest gadgets. Oh man, that computer has 133mhz processor and a cd-rom I would think. Whoa that diskman has 8 seconds of anti-skip and megabass. I even begged my mom to get a plasma TV when they cost more than a car and only people like Puff Daddy could afford them.

So yes, I consider myself a tech enthusiast. Have I always had the latest and greatest gear? Probably not, but I have been drooling over the latest and greatest gear since I was a small boy.

Below is a brief list of gadgets I have, want or have had in my life. It’s not complete, but it’s pretty fun to check them out. Oh, and if you’re a gadget lover like myself, friend up Ve6a5 on gdgt!

I couldn’t have been much older than 2 or 3 when my Uncle Billy introduced me to video games. I remember the first moment. It was Horse Racing for Intellivision. I remember the 8 bit sound of “Call to the Post” before every race. I remember us all sitting around watching these colorful block shapes that resembled horses race down a track. I remember not only thinking how amazing this was, but I remember the excitement of all the grownups in the room watching as we interacted with the television.

Before I could read a book or tie my shoes I was playing video games.

I look at my life, and I’m disappointed that I’ve never been to Europe, or Asia, or even California. But, I’ve been blessed to have video games in my life and get to have experiences that aren’t limited to where I live, or my physical abilities. In video games you can go anywhere and do anything.

Sure, YOU might have been to Greece, or Prague, but have you fought Mike Tyson? Raced a Ferrari at 180 mph around the Nürburgring? Flown though Northrend and visited Dalaran? I bet you’ve never won the Superbowl, or gone on a secret mission to save your country. What about saving a Princess from a dragon, just to find out the real Princess was in another castle? Well I have.

My video game life has been truly epic. Here’s a list of my favorite gaming moments. BTW, these might contain some spoilers if you haven’t played before. You’ve been warned.

10. Cool Boarders – PS1 - The first snowboarding game I ever played. It was FULL of bugs and almost unplayable, but even with it’s flaws, I spent hours with it. As someone who grew up snowboarding, I always wanted to live out my fantasy of doing awesome tricks and racing down a mountain without fear of breaking bones. I literally played the snot out of this game with JC in High School and eventually unlocked the double secret snowman character. An achievement that only diehards of the game could fully appreciate.

9. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons – Intellivision – Yup, I guess my love for roaming around in dungeons killing creature began at an early age. 3-4 to be exact. As much as I loved this game and played it over and over again, it scared the crap out of me. Specifically the Minotaur. How could I be scared of a video game? Anyone who remembers this game, remembers in order to kill this Minotaur guy, you had to roam around for hours through a labyrinth searching for him. All of a sudden you’d walk around a corner, and BAM! there he was. A big red pixelated shape. The scariest damn pixels I’ve even seen.

8. Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare – Xbox360 – If I could point to a specific moment in this game, it probably came in the single player campaign when you’re playing and a nuclear bomb goes off (seen above). You live through the initial blast and eventually crawl around until you die. Pretty shocking stuff, but not quite as scary as the big red blocky minotaur in D & D. I’m not a huge FPS guy, but I got into the multiplayer on this game. I think it was the addition of the leveling and unlocking of upgrades to weapons and perks that got me into it. I only played though to prestige 1, and then moved on. All and all, I had a really fun time playing online with friends like Tim and Todd.

7. Gran Turismo – PS1 – Gran Turismo was the first realistic driving game with customizable cars I had ever played. It really pushed the PS1 in terms of graphics and innovation. Something the series has never quite replicated IMHO. This was another game that JC and I played the heck out of. I credit this game for my car craziness during college and shortly after.

6. Mario 64 – Nintendo 64 – I didn’t even own the console or play the game that much, but there was one singular experience I had with the game that changed everything for me. That moment happened on a demo unit at Lechmere in the Independence Mall. The reason this was so important for me, was because this was the first video game I played that had a fully rendered 3D polygon environment. It blew my mind to move in 3 dimensions. It changed the way we interacted with games.

5. Call of Duty 2 – Xbox360 – My first current gen experience. This time my exact moment came a few weeks before launch in 2005. It was a beautiful November afternoon, and instead of going to eat lunch on my break, I headed over to Walmart in Plymouth to check out demo unit that had just arrived. Again, i’m not a huge FPS fanboy, so it was the evolution in graphics and story telling that I was after here. Check out the video above and you’ll see what I mean. The experience was beginning to become more realistic and realistic physics became commonplace. This was another huge step for video games and I won’t ever forget that day at Wallyworld.

4. World of Warcraft – PC - Overall the experience of playing this game is something you can’t really describe to someone who’s never played it. For years I made fun of people who played, and then my buddy Tim told me I was an idiot. I listened to him, gave it shot and never looked back. I spent a good 6 months not fully knowing what I was doing. I put it down for a while and picked it back up after the Lich King expansion and got into it. From there I played a for a good 8-10 months. The pinnacle moment probably came all by self last summer, just questing around Northrend when I finally dinged 80. I probably should have taken a screenshot or something. I haven’t been back to Azeroth in a while because it is quite a time suck, but I do miss the friendships and “second life” really. I feel bad I judged WoW before I played it. If I had only known about the depth, fun and community, I would have started playing when it launched.

3. Madden Football – Sega Genesis through current Gen – This is pretty much my crack each year. I’ve been obsessed since 92-93. Countless hours were spent with JC playing and learning the actually game of football really. Up until then, I wasn’t a huge football fan, but after I started playing and understanding the ins and outs, I couldn’t get enough of the video game, or even the real thing. Some of my favorite memories of video games come from last minute wins or loses against friends or the computer. There’s been some many over the years to point out one. The most obsessed I’ve ever become with a game, was when I lived with my buddy Adam in Quincy. We played almost every day. We had what seemed like 50 year dynasty with custom teams and even custom named players. We got a little carzy… Good times.

2. NES – Christmas Morning 1986 – Probably my fondest moment from a non-gameplay moment. I don’t think I even slept that Christmas Eve. I just knew Santa would bring me one. I woke my parents up at what seemed like 1am. They hooked everything up and I played Punchout, Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, Top Gun and Olympic games on the PowerPad until Mom and Dad woke up much much later that morning. A truly epic Christmas morning

1. Final Fantasy VII – PS1 – Not only did FFVII push the RPG genre, it pushed story telling in video games to another level. When I got the game, I knew this was going to be a technically superior experience than what I was used to. What I wasn’t expecting was to become emotionally attached to my in game characters. And SPOILER… I was genuinely upset when the main antagonist Sephiroth killed my friend and romantic interest. I had never been attached to an in game character before that point and to have them taken away… Well, I was feeling like William Wallace in Braveheart. I wanted nothing more than to exact my revenge. For me, video games had finally reached the point where I could become immersed in the experience. The story seemed so much more personal to me than a sitcom or movie because I was controlling it.

So that’s it. I hope my trip down memory lane has brought back some great gaming memories for you too! Whether you’re 5 or 105 years old, if you have a moment or ten you’d like to share, please feel free to do so in the comments below.

Until next time