Well, it’s not riding quite yet. But here’s the biggest prop we’ve ever had — our very own short bus!
This bus will be the star of our latest educational TV project. It’s a series of programs called QuizBus: Dealing With Data, the subject being statistics, the audience middle school kids, and the premise a game show in a school bus, a la “Cash Cab.”
Besides the incredibly cool paint job, there’s a lot more customization here. On the exterior there’s a hood scoop, four fog lamps, chrome wheel covers, and flashing multi-color neon underneath. The ugly black mirrors have been replaced with cool chrome ones. Now we just need to apply the logo to several places.
On the inside, there’s new carpeting and headliner, a six-speaker 750W sound system, flashing chaser lights, custom bench seats, three nine inch LCDs and one 42″ plasma screen. The driver and host seats are racing seats. The side windows all have limo tint in them, and the driver’s side and door windows have a 35% tint.
Andy, the genius who’s worked his ass off for this project (logging over 400 hours so far) has a little more work to do. We plan on shooting the program in late May. Can’t wait to see the bus completed!

Maybe that’s a little extreme. If it’s not love, it’s serious committed like. This keyboard is way cooler than I expected it to be.

I really wanted to get the wireless one. I mean, look at the white cord snaking out of this thing, plus the white cord for the mouse. I’d have gotten it if it had a numeric keyboard, but it doesn’t, and I use those keys way too often not to have them.

I borrowed James’ last weekend when I had to transpose a website into Word (don’t ask) and I was struggling with the board I was using. I noticed an immediate speed and accuracy increase. It’s kind of surprising, really. The keys are based on those they use on the MacBooks (but not the MacBook Pros), and I’m not a big fan of laptop keyboards. I usually go for really clacky old-school keys (like those on the Tactile Pro or the old IBM Model M), and these are neither clacky nor old-school. And Apple hasn’t made a decent keyboard since the venerated Apple Extended Keyboard back in the 90s.
Anyway, I was so impressed I bought one this week. It’s been three days of soft-typing bliss. Yes, that’s both geeky and sad.