Recently in Games Category

We were recently bouncing around a bunch of ideas about career opportunities for Aquent Talent.

I mean, beside the whole everyone-in-the-office-trying-to-place-Talent-at-great-companies thing we do every day.

So we made some inquiries and we came up with an online poll of some of (what we think) are the strongest ideas.

Let us know which idea you are most in love with and, by gum, we may just do it!

(No kidding, we used to do a ton of portfolio reviews, but when the job market got hot, fewer and fewer people wanted to attend.)

Would you take a moment to let us know? Or, if you have some other compelling suggestions, email me or drop a comment in here.

Thanks!

(From guest Blogger, Jenn Tran)

If you are not lucky enough to work in an office that holds hula hoop contests or has a started a building wide stair master craze, then the Wii Fit video game may just be just the thing for you.

Nintendo is targeting the growing breed of casual gamers who also have an affinity for eastern forms of exercise. Makes sense, whenever I feel I need to clear my mind I reach for my wireless Guitar Hero controller and battle with Slash (he usually wins though). But to trump my faux rocker meditation time, Wii Fit is also providing aerobic exercises on top of that.

I remember back in the day when I had to do the Downward-Facing Dog and had to force myself not to snicker during yoga class. Those days can now be long gone!

Here’s a really in depth review on the game from wired.com.

And the whole shebang on the Nintendo site.

Tim's note: I was at Best Buy this weekend and, lo and behold, no WiiFit display. Unusual, wouldn't you say? And, Jenn, if you thought Down Dog is funny, you should see Dead Bug pose.

Leave it to the fine folks at CreativePro (Terri Stone in particular) to find this on-line competition, which is like Layer Tennis except with fonts.

Creatives go against each other in a "type battle". They start on Monday, end on Friday. There is "no panel of judges and no prize — only the ability to call yourself the best on the block."

Oh, and you must never talk about Type Club.

See the results and compete here at the Type Battles site.

If you're not into throwing down, then see how good you are at identifying type at The Rather Difficult Font Game.

Results of 1st Aquent Hula Hoop Off

Longest hooping: Keisha (we stopped her at 15 minutes, she was intimidating the others)

Best Style: Danielle

But hey, everyone was a winner!

(Except, of course, for all the men in the office, who never learned to hula hoop.)

I just spent the holidays back home in Nebraska with my family (and lived to tell about it) and I'd have to say that one of the unexpected pleasures was, weirdly, the Wii.

Both my brother's and sister's families both have the Nintendo Wii and it seemed like every time we got together (all 21+ of us), there were always a couple of folks playing Wii bowling, tennis, or golf.

What's amazing to me is how Nintendo invented a system that converts non-game playing adults into "gamers", thus opening up a whole new age range of consumers for them.

Not that I consider my mother a gamer, but there she was bowling on the Wii.

I think it must have something to do with the simplicity of the control and familiarity of the sports included with the Wii that really helps people make that jump.

It turns out the only problem with the Wii is holding on tight enough to the remote.

With any revolution there are bound to be casualties.

No, that's not damage I personally inflicted.

Yet.

It's from the Wii Damage site.

Okay, this doesn't really count as a post, but emails were flying around the office today about fun festivals going on around LA this weekend and I figured I'd pass them along...

Swerve Festival is a new annual festival dedicated to celebrating West Coast creative culture and its community inspired by art, film, music and action sports. The three-day celebration will be held in Los Angeles to bring together a dynamic group of innovators and thinkers and to spotlight some of the most exciting work to come out of these creative disciplines.

And it's mostly free! Click here!

From Meri. I don't know how the heck Jimmy Kimmel is considered to be Italian, but I guess in this town anything is possible.

The 6th Annual Precious Cheese Feast of San Gennaro, Los Angeles,
Italian food, music, culture, games & rides!

$5 Admission - Kids under 12 free - Student discounts!

Info here!

And finally from Jenn:

Frida Kahlo 100th Birthday Exhibit

Information: (562) 425-4861, picturethisgallery@gmail.com

A team at Microsoft has taken Desk Demolition to a new high! (You may want to turn down the volume so you don't have to hear the song...)

Click here!

Perhaps this is the reason we don't have offices here?

Susie? Susie?

Get the full skinny at Heather's Microsoft blog.

You may have already heard about Miss Teen South Carolina, but seeing her deliver the message is another matter.

I think we found one of the folks who can't find the US on the map.

Whenever we get together for our Back to School Training every year or so, there's a theme party at the end in which offices are encouraged to dress up.

Previous year themes have been: Dress to Represent Your City. College Daze. Dress Like a Trucker. (Wait, that last one was my birthday party.)

This year it was a question:

What will the people working at Aquent look like 150 years from now?

Our answer: A Cloning Lab.

Happily we won't be around for it.

Many of you (who have good memories, read this blog, and are dying to know what I'm doing in my spare time since I don't watch television) may recall that I started the SharpBrains brain workout in late June.

SharpBrains, is a company focused on producing neuroscience-based products and programs. They make a program called MindFit that: "focuses on life abilities such as: working memory, visual and auditory short term memory, planning, location memory, naming, time estimation, divided attention, and hand-eye coordination."

So for the last four weeks or so (five? three? See, this already isn't boding too well) I've been spending 20 minutes three times a week at my home computer partaking in poorly illustrated games while the family is sequestered elsewhere.

The tasks I've been completing?

• Following, with my mouse, a football down a path until the football and the path disappear and making sure I'm keeping my mouse moving at the same speed/direction
• Listening to either a) two sounds or b) two visual signals and trying to determine which is longer (within milliseconds)
• Trying to remember sequences of numbers forwards and backwards
• Playing a version of Mastermind
• Building a simple puzzle while the mouse keeps changing its setting each time (i.e., up is down, left is right, etc.)

I've been sending the results back to the SharpBrains office, but have yet to get feedback. Which is probably good, since there's a 30-day rebate on the program.

I'd love to update you whether or not my mind is any healthier, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell you absolutely nothing. I have no idea. I haven't woken up to miraculously discover my brain is working better than ever or that I remember where I put the paperwork to my upcoming trip to Boston (don't worry, it's an eTicket).

All I'm letting you know is that you don't need to rush out an buy this program at this point.

You could have, for instance, a coworker move your mouse the opposite direction when you try to type a letter. Or try to memorize all the phone numbers of your coworkers backwards.

I'll get back to you next month on whether this is worth buying or not.

If I remember.