Ben Rudnick and Friends - Review

Ben Rudnick and Friends, the group who played at the Strawberry Festival in Concord.

• Open in Google Docs Viewer
• Open link in new tab
• Open link in new window
• Open link in new incognito window
• Download file
• Copy link address
• Edit PDF File on PDFescape.com

A very fun, family friendly and quirky little band with easy going music, a combination of blue grass and rock in their own original musings.

These guys seem to play all over the state and further out, but pretty much all are free concerts such as town summer green concerts, or fairs etc.

They played 3 sets of around 40 mins a piece with great music that the kids could dance around to, which was a lot of fun to see.

You have the opportunity of getting free music if you sign up to their newsletter, but also check out the samples they have of all their CD's.

At the end of each set, you could hang around and have a chat with the band and get the chance to buy their wares, which included CD's, fun tie dye t-shirts and a collection of other small things, but they really didn't put up a hard sell at all which was rather refreshing.

For a line up of coming soon events, which is listed on their site, include:-

July 11 - West Bridgewater, MA
July 12 - Newton, MA
July 13 - Boarding House Park, Lowell, MA
July 14 - North Kingston, RI
July 15 - Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Oak Hill, NY
July 19 - Revere, MA
July 20 - Candia, NH
July 21 - Medford, MA
July 22 - Lexington, MA

So for those in Boston, there's Newton and later in the summer, Natick as well as a host of other venues you could catch these guys. Well worth keeping an eye out for!

Strawberry Fest Review

Strawberry Festival

• Open in Google Docs Viewer
• Open link in new tab
• Open link in new window
• Open link in new incognito window
• Download file
• Copy link address
• Edit PDF File on PDFescape.com

As mentioned last week, this happened last Saturday.

It's definitely a great event to be marked into your calendar for next year as it was a lovely, family event.

The strawberries were superb and the pick your own plentiful, as well as being very well priced at $3 a pound.

The farm also had a lovely marketstand type store where you could buy locally grown fruit and veg, which seemed to be very well priced as well. Plenty of lovely looking home made lunches boxes were available as well.

Because of the rain this time around, I don't think they had the pony rides which was a shame, but they did move the music and puppet shows into the greenhouse and there was plenty of room to enjoy them.

The one main consideration I think would be to arrive early, because even with the heavy morning rain, which had cleared out by the time this started at 11am, the place did get very busy by the time we arrived at lunchtime. There was quite a lot of parking available, but it was still a bit of a struggle to find a spot.

There also might be a bit of a struggle to use a pushchair if you had to as there might not much space to move it around easily when the shows get going and it's certainly very grassy outside.

The toilets inside were also very nice and clean and they had ample portaloos outside as well.

I'll get around to writing a review for the music and the puppet shows, which were both fantastic entertainment for everyone.

Slam Bolt Scrappers PSN Post Mortem

The last Boston Post Mortem was presented by, Eitan Glinert of Firehose Games.

The talk was a post mortem into their PSN released game, Slam Bolt Scrappers, which pre-release had received very favourable news from Pax East etc, but since release has not been getting the same kind of reviews. They cover the highs, lows and the bittersweets of the development and cover the lack of online multiplayer which was one of the biggest detractors in the reviews for the game.

• Open in Google Docs Viewer
• Open link in new tab
• Open link in new window
• Open link in new incognito window
• Download file
• Copy link address
• Edit PDF File on PDFescape.com

This presentation was filmed by Firehose.

Free Fun Fridays - Family Events!!!

Highland Street have organised a Free Fun Friday for the summer, starting in July going through to the end of August.

• Open in Google Docs Viewer
• Open link in new tab
• Open link in new window
• Open link in new incognito window
• Download file
• Copy link address
• Edit PDF File on PDFescape.com

Details of the events are here.

Basically, every Friday, there are a bundle of museums, art exhibits, zoo's and other children's activities that will be free. There's no registration, no need to be residents of the state or county, so a great way to have fun with the family and especially if you've got guests from out of state coming for the weekend.

Some of the personal highlights over the Fridays include :

BUTTONWOOD PARK ZOO
425 Hawthorn Street – New Bedford

PLIMOTH PLANTATION

137 Warren Ave – Plymouth

THE DISCOVERY MUSEUMS
177 Main Street - Acton

FRANKLIN PARK ZOO
1 Franklin Park Rd - Dorchester

BOSTON CHILDREN'S MUSEUM
308 Congress St – Boston

STONE ZOO
149 Pond Street - Stoneham

CHILDREN'S MUSEUM IN EASTON
9 Sullivan Avenue - Easton

OLD STURBRIDGE VILLAGE
1 Old Sturbridge Village Road - Sturbridge

ECOTARIUM
222 Harrington Way - Worcester

What's nice about this, they are dotted all over the state of MA, so everyone should have the opportunity of finding something nearby as well as a few other fun day trips such as the Boston Harbour Ferries.

Brit and other bargain goodies

So at the moment, The Christmas Tree shop has been carrying crates and crates, in loads of locations of Robinson's Barley Water, both in lemon and orange flavours for $1 each instead of the going $7.50 a bottle.

• Open in Google Docs Viewer
• Open link in new tab
• Open link in new window
• Open link in new incognito window
• Download file
• Copy link address
• Edit PDF File on PDFescape.com

They also had sun factor 50 sun screen, especially childrens sun screen for $3 which normally go for $8-9 in Target.

Then head over to Ocean State Job Lots, they had chocolate digestives and hob nobs for $2 each and also a 2 for 1 deal on Terry's Chocolate Oranges, which were $3 each, which is a bargain.

Family Fun - Strawberry Festival

Verrill Farm in Concord, MA

• Open in Google Docs Viewer
• Open link in new tab
• Open link in new window
• Open link in new incognito window
• Download file
• Copy link address
• Edit PDF File on PDFescape.com

25th June, 11am-3pm

Strawberry Festival, including ponies, hay rides, muppet shows, live music and a strawberry dessert competition.

Could be a lot of family fun for free.

Boston Blender User Group

BBUG

Not to be confused with BUG (Boston Unity Group).

Good opportunity for Blender users to get together and talk about work flows, tools and other tips and tricks. This is especially good for indie devs to network as well as new comers who get the chance to meet a variety of skilled artists.

The next meet up is planned for 23rd of June, next week.

This group is organised by K. White Adam, who you can follow on twitter as @kadamwhite he also has a really interesting blog here, which covers indie game development and web design development.

Boston Pride Parade

The whole gay pride celebrations are ending today, 12th Sunday, but the parties have been going on through out the week and the big parade starting out on Tremont St, going past Boston Common and ending behind Faneuil Hall was yesterday.

What a great family day out, even if the weather was poo and it rained like crazy.

It was a great chance for kids to see a lot of diversity which they might not be accustomed to seeing with a lot of fun and friendly people. The atmosphere was great and really up lifting and the floats and people in the parade were great, having various organisations taking part from various religious and charity groups, various banks, Zip Car, Google Android, the works.

Plenty of free swag for people being handed out as well, must of which was very family friendly, beads, bracelets, sweets, keychains, balls etc. There was only one float handing out stuff that you might not want your little kids to get, packets of condoms, but as ZipCar had decorated their car with condom balloons, you might not have minded.

What a great party festival feel and a great day out with the kids. Would definitely recommend going again, or taking part if you can!

Awesome Bowl Protectors!

The Wrap by Boon

Check this product out here.

It's a rubberised wrap that protects your bowls, helps them stick to tables and makes them easier for kids to hold, so able to use your regular china which is lovely!

10 games that you believe people should have played?

http://t-machine.org/index.php/2011/05/29/the-10-games-you-should-have-played/

This blog has a list of games that you think people should have played and here's my list -

Deus Ex - Seems a lot of the younger folks haven't really played it and it's a great game, really nice use of upgrades

Sabre Team - Nice turn based, strategy shooter game from Atari/Amiga days

Railway Tycoon - Or any of those of the era, they're good wholesome family fun

Golden Eye - Just really nice multiplayer action, and destructible environments

Turok - just some lovely environments and a good bit of fun

Lara Croft - As annoying as some of it got, nice mini games and exploration and fun character moves that were new at the time

Snood - Really simple game mechanics, but it got my missus interested in games so it has to have something going for it

Hotel Dusk - Really nice story based game with simple graphics

Gamebook Adventures - iPhone story based game, shows that a good story can make a game

Wii Resort - Something that's not all very gamey, but has a bit of something for everyone in the family and very easy to get someone to play the odd game with you