I stumbled across an incredible story today on the Playstation gamer message boards. A young paralyzed teen had an idea for how to build a rig that would allow him to play video games. The teen worked with Mark Felling who did the physical assembly of the gear and after a couple months they had a kit that allowed the boy to use the vast majority of the controls on a PS3.

In his own words:

“The main reason I put this on the PlayStation website was to show people that even the most limited person can still enjoy console gaming just as much… anyone else. the controller was pretty easy to make except for converting the analog signals into digital signals for when I use the various switches. this took about two months to build and get working effectively. here are a couple more pictures. this time much smaller,lol.I really want the Sony people to see this as well, because many years ago when I was asking about this they had no idea worked to send me.also I can see my television clearly with no instruction whatsoever even though it really works like I would not be able to see anything at all. if anybody knows anybody who could use assistance playing video games please let me know

Also each and every jack has a predetermined function and whichever one I plug into is what’s the switch becomes. so depending on the game I generally use the left analog joystick directions and the right analog joystick using my tongue. currently I can d 20/25 possible functions all by myself. I’m currently using 16 switches plus a joystick with my tongue. saving up money to purchase three switches that are activated by the torching of a muscle. once I have those three switches I will just have to have somebody take care of something like select which is almost never used.”

Ultimately this is about a teen who didn’t let his disabilities hold him back.  He was able to do something that most of the kids his age were doing everyday. I’m sure on some deeply fundamental level that isn’t obvious to all of us this one act allowed him to feel normal for just one moment.

He’s missing a few parts to help complete his rig. I’d love to help him in someway. Does anyone know anyone at Microsoft or Sony that we might be able to pass this story on to and see if we can get him some more gear and games?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this story, but if nothing else I hope it brightens your day. It made my day.

View The Inspiring Original Thread!

I think I did five flights last week, spent two days on site at GE, completed two massive client presentations and still managed to keep up with my normal load (excluding Take Me To Your Leader).

This weekend burn-out finally caught up with me and I slept for two and a half days. I didn’t leave my house except to go to Best Buy. (One of my latest obsessions is trying to get Windows Media Center to work with my Comcast digital cable.)

All this withstanding I actually enjoyed every second of the pressure. I do get off on this stuff. The big reward was on Friday. I bought a puppy for my girlfriend (which I think was as much a present for me as it was for her). The puppy’s name is Amelie and she’s a 1 pound 10 oz. Pomeranian.

Check out her picture after the jump…

Amelie

Great YouTube Ad

I’ve seen two really first class uses of YouTube as a marketing tool recently and I thought you might enjoy seeing them as well. The first ad is for the new “Wario Land: Shake It” title on the Wii. The video which shows game play and the associated Wii hand motions also slowly starts to shake the entire YouTube page to pieces sending text and content flying. I’ve seen concepts like this before, but by being the first on YouTube it came on as totally unexpected which made it memorable and interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/experiencewii

The second ad for Samsung Instinct telephone. It uses some of the new functionality in YouTube to link between multiple videos. The series of videos are presented in a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style with amusing and racy content that is not only entertaining but demonstrates functionality on the phone successfully. Make sure you watch the video to the end to view the additional functionality.

http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=HoOCiaxIZF4

My congrats to the agencies behind both ads. In fact if you see this blog post and you worked on one of these send me an email. I’d love to take you out for a drink in recognition of your original thinking.

I ended up putting up all the solid aluminum storm shutters on my house and going and shopping for supplies in case we were out of power for a week like we were a couple of years ago. I had even developed a plan to ride the storm out at the Sapient Hollywood office because it’s built like a bomb shelter.

The saddest part was that I had developed this crazy plan that I was going to report the entire storm via twitter including sending photos from out of the windows (as the office has very highly rated impact glass). I thought this was going to be an amazing experience to share with the world and I actually started to look forward to it.

I’m thrilled to say the storm won’t be hitting us and simultaneously embarrassed to say that I think I actually felt a moment where I was disappointed because I couldn’t try out this experiment. If you’re not following me on twitter already please add me at http://twitter.com/djm0ther.