Chicken

Back when I was a corporate drone I was part of the Marketing Department. That meant that there were times that I had to take peoples ideas, no matter how complex or stupid and forge them into Powerpoint presentations.

I made a lot of those suckers. So when I saw this video I felt a bit of nostalgia. It is possibly one of the funniest things I've seen in months. Eventually ALL the concepts started sounding like this.

It is done!

At long last my secret project has come to fruition! Announcing the Mark 1 Brass Goggles. I'll be selling these things over at my website www.got-steam.com

This represents about 2 months of solid work. It was also a great learning experience. I displayed these at ChattaCon and have already sold a few pair. They are indeed pricey, but I think there is a market for a pair of high end brass goggles in the steampunk community.

Horaay for fixing

Hey, I like buying shiny new tools as much as (or more) than the next guy. So when the rechargeable air mattress inflater started pooping out halfway through the job of giving me a place to sleep this season I had to take action. I took a trip to Home Depot where I found a cool Ryobi inflater that would use my 18v cordless drill batteries. Sweet! But at thirty something bucks...

I decided I had nothing to loose so I cracked open the old unit and found a battery. If course, it wasn't any kind of normal battery. That would be too easy. Fierce googling ensued and eventually I found something as close as I could and trusted to fate.

The battery arrived today and damn if it wasn't a perfect fit. I even managed to find all the screws to put it back together again. Total cost? $19. There is indeed something deeply satisfying about fixing something yourself. It would have been easier to just buy the new inflater or a new computer system but this was I saved a few bucks and learned a little bit in the process.

iphone > Droid

I went to the mall the other day (shiver) to put my meaty paws on the new Droid smartphone from Verizon. Like any iphone owner, I would gladly pay a hefty fine and/or take hit to the nuts if I could switch from AT&T's craptastic network to Verizon's land of milk and honey.

And with the coming of Droid I thought that I might have found a reason to undergo the painful process of migration. After all, the phone is getting rave reviews. It uses the Android OS from Google which is far more open that Apple's. New apps appearing every day, free GPS navigation using google maps. What's not to love?

Well, the Droid IS good, but it's not awesome, at least in my opinion based on limited hands on experience.

It is well made. Solid. Nice looking. The screen is very sharp. But what they put on it is not nearly as polished as the iphone. It's cluttered. I know it can be configured however you want it but using it wasn't the simple process I'd hoped it would be.

The biggest drawback is the physical keyboard. It just isn't isn't made for my fingers. Period. They sit on a flat plain and one has to depress the center to activate them. The Sidekick had a much better keyboard for us big folk. The on-screen keyboard was okay, but not great. I am sure with practice I could be proficient with it. People have said the camera, while 5 MP, isn't all that great.

But for me, the biggest stumbling black was tapping on some kind of news bubble app and having it crash. Then I launched another app, and it crashed. Two crashes? Really? The Droid can run several programs at once, unlike the iphone. But it's rare that I'm listening to Pandora while IM'ing and uploading pics to my facebook account. And if I do try to do several things at once, the delay in starting an iphone app up is about a second. (Games do tend to take longer to launch). I was impressed, I just wasn't wow'ed.

It is on the network I crave. And with a little polish I am sure the usability will improve. But for now I am still happy with my iphone. It does what I need it to do without any fiddling or crashing. That's my 2 cents. Anyone got one out there who cares to share their experience?

I'm gonna write more than a letter...

Like many people I've been keen to upgrade my computer to the shiny new Windows 7 OS. I ran the beta on my laptop for a while at it really is how Vista SHOULD have been. Lot of fixes. Better usability. Clean. I did the install on the laptop without incident, going from Vista to Windows 7 allows for an 'in place' upgrade that keeps programs and files intact. While a clear slate is always best, my laptop wasn't loaded with crap and the results were good.

My desktop however, runs XP. You cannot upgrade XP to Vista. You have to do a clean install and then re-install ALL your programs. For me, thats a LOT of programs. But I was resigned to it. My system has been running slow, giving me plug and play errors. Nothing game stopping, but annoying. But just as I was getting ready to do the deed I came across a program from Laplink that promissed it could actually backup and move my XP programs to Windows 7. I did some research and it looked like a good deal. The software is about $20 or $9 if you download it from Amazon.com. I did the backup. Installed Windows 7 (which went quite fast) and then started the unpacking process. Bam! Sorry mate, you don't have enough room. But I'm just moving files around, why do I need gobs of space?

No answer from their website.

Actually, no website.

It seems that my wireless card wasn't working. No internet. Luckily I have my trusty laptop. I won't bore you with the gory research details. Suffice it to say I wasted about 4 hours downloading drivers, updates, software, more drivers. At one point I got my onboard soundcard working. Great! I didn't know it wasn't woking, but okay. (I use USB wireless headphones that bypass the sound card).

Eventually, out of desperation I went back to the Linksys support site. I did searched for Windows 7 info. I looked up my card again and carefully read the FAQ's. Funny thing, there's no info on Windows 7, but there IS info on Vista drivers. I click a link, download a 500k file, use a thumb drive to move it to the desktop system, clicky clicky and guess what... internets.

Really Linksys?

You've known about this OS for about a year, just like everyone else. It's not like it just sprung forth from the sea like Venus on the Half Shell. It's not like this hardware is old or from an obscure maker. It's f*cking Linksys! And you can't bother to build a driver for your product? Or ever put up a LINK to a blurd that sayd 'Hey, Windows 7 users, use there Vista drivers, they're just peachy" ???

This is the sort of thing that makes me want to buy a place ticket, fly to California to their corporate headquarters, wait patiently in the waiting roon and then, upon meeting the person responsible for not getting this driver in place, punch them squarely in the balls.

Repetitively.

Now that I've got my internets back I will call the Laplink people tomorrow to see if indeed I can do this in place upgrade. Computers... indestinguishable from evil pixies.

Happy Halloween all!

I'm going... into the clouuuuuuuuuud...

Last week my desktop stopped working. Most likely the power supply is starting to go. Although my data was not damaged I couldn't get to it for a few days. Yes, I have a portable hard drive I use for backups but my most recent emails and most recently created files weren't available. I also couldn't write checks using my accounting program.

That sucked.

So I started working on ways to get my important and current data on the cloud (storing it on the internet). My upstream speed isn't fast enough to do total backups on line unless I want to leave my system on all night (I don't) and I don't need everything, just some important files that are constantly being updated. My first attempt? Dropbox. This is a nifty little app. You get 2GB free. Install it on two computers, save or drop any file in a special folder and BAM it gets synched. It also saves older versions in case you delete something at home. You can even have a public folder that anyone can see without a password. Cool.

So far, so good, but I like to keep minimal sensitive data on my laptop. I don't store passwords or important work files on it in case it gets stolen. Dropbox, however, is quite happy to copy important files right to my laptop including stuff I dont want everyone in the world to see.

There are two options;
1) don't install the app on my laptop and access my info through their website using a username and password.

2) Encryption. I can use TrueCrypt to encrypt any sensitive files so that even if they are on my laptop, they are protected.

The first option is easiest. Drawbacks? What if dropbox hands over my data to the gubment? (I'm looking at you phone companies, this has happened before) I also loose the helpful feature of simple synchronization. If I download an important file and alter it, I have to then upload it and then delete it locally. Annoying. With synch, if I am writing a story on one system, the latest version will automatically me available on the other, which is neat.

With encryption, I have to go through a setup process with TrueCrypt which basically creates a single size file. Down side? That whole file has to get synched each time I change it, even a small change. Upside? Available even if I don't have a net connection.

I am going to go for the second option for now. Test it and see how it works. Again, I can't store everything online, but in the event something goes very wrong, I will be able to get up and running on another system quickly. And of course, there's an iphone app that lets me access the non encrypted stuff as well. Sweet. I'm off... into the clouuuuuuuuud

Have any of you flirted with this idea? Anyone else getting rid of software installed on their computer and instead use web apps? Post in comments.

Sweet tee's

If you're looking for a nice t-shirt based on your fav movie take a click over to Last Exit to Nowhere. There are some nice designs there for logo junkies like myself.


Via BoingBoing.net

More clever monkeys

Ok, I'm gonna need someone to take my wallet for a few weeks so I cannot order this thing. I mean, a working tricorder media player? For $350? Dammit! This is the kind of thing I would have given my left nut for a back in my more fervent fanboy days. And now that I'm a "responsible" adult I'm supposed to 'just say no'? Fuck that!

Okay... deep breath. As long as I don't ever actually touch one in person I should be safe.

Maybe.

Jesus Christ it's a Lion! Get in the car!

There was no greater genius than DaVinci. And this shit right here proves it.

I am a huuuuug dork.

Of this there can be doubt. The proof? Check out 8 things you didn't know about the Enterprise. But this is not enough. Have an article on the Smithsonian restoration of the original 11 foot prop. Need more? Here are detailed pics of another restoration (there have been three)

Robots

Here are some pics of Robots at MegaCon.

Soooooooo freakin cool - A windmill

Check out this video and then try this for yourself here.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

The Cult of Done Manifesto

From here:

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

I have a lot of projects that I am constantly thinking about or working on. But I sometimes get stuck because I don't have the right part, or the right tool or the right materials. I need to stop procrastinating on these things. The list above is a good set of guidelines. Although I disagree with abandoning a project if you haven't started on a project in a week.

Lovely...

It's been a while since I had to make a flowchart. I made quite a few in my Corporate days. Some I did in Corel Draw, others in Microsoft Powerpoint. But the process was always ugly and required a lot of work.

Well no more! There a FREE online flowchart program online called Lovely Charts. I used it to diagram the convoluted system I had to develop to get internet and VOIP phone working in my home. It takes no time to pick up how the system works and it has a lot of pre-made objects (like networking icons). I only wish they had more objects to work with, but hey, it's free.

And if you're curious what the network looks like that makes Bag End function you can see my kick-ass diagram here (click to embiggen):

Free at last...free at last...

A few weeks ago I hooked up the new Ooma equipment and tested it out. When I was satisfied that it could workI disconnected it and went forward with porting my number (which takes 7-10 days) so that I could cancel my Verizon (local) and AT&T (long distance) services which have been like a repetitive series of kicks to my groin over the years.

When the email came through I hooked up the equipment again, bought a new cordless phone set and crossed my fingers. While the system worked I wanted to report to you on how well it works. So far its been pretty good. The only difference from the old system is that when you pick up the phone there is a brief chime. Also, calling numbers in another area code required you to push 1 first. Once you are talking, there is a short delay between when something is spoken and when the other party hears it. About a half second. Call sound quality has been mixed. Yesterday my brother called and some of his words were garbled or washed out, but he was on his cell phone, which may have had an effect. When I spoke to my Dad in Massachusetts on his land line it was crystal clear.

The system comes with caller I.D. and my new cordless phones can actually tell you who is calling using this information. Very cool. Both the cordless handset and Ooma have a blacklist feature so you can block calls from certain numbers. This is an AWESOME feature. I used to get three calls a day from satellite tv companies and 4 or 5 from call warrantee companies. This has gone waaaaay down. The Ooma works like a regular answering machine except I can get my messages on line when I am traveling. Nice. To call internationally you have to buy credits, but I don't call internationally very often so I haven't tested this out yet. There are extra features available, like a second line and other goodies if you want to pay about $14 a month.

The old cordless phones, which were showing their age, will be put in the garage and the shop respectively so I can finally get calls there.

The best part? No more local or long distance charges EVAR. Ooma is a one time cost. Do you hear that Verizon?? Huh? Do you know how good if felt to tell AT&T to die in a fire? It felt AWESOME.

WARNING! Scam Alert

If you're like me, you don't look super close at your bank statements. I confess, I am lax. But my beloved wife is NOT lax. She is a hawk. Nothing escapes her view. Which is why she caught the bogus check that took $24.95 out of our account. The same thing had happened to her about two months ago and fixing it was a pain in the ass.

I don't know how they got my account into, but they did. They then made out a check from ME to a company called Payment systems for a 'subscription' (apparently to an adult website). There is a phone number and a reference number on the check. The company that answers the phone is called M Billing or any of a number of variations. They quickly offered to refund the money (Rossana received hers promptly). They claim to only be a billing processor. Using the googles I traced their official address to Cypress. Read into that what you will. I smell a rat.

There is some internet buzz that the account information was leaked from Mary Kay or from Propay.com When Rossana was hit, they had her old address on the check, mine had my current address. Some people have been hit multiple times. We will likely never know the source of the leak. So many companies have your account data these days its frightening.

Tomorrow I will go to the bank, open a new business account, move most of our money into it, check for any outstanding checks, then close the account and order new computer checks. Fun.

Now go check your bank statement, here are some links to more info on the scam.

Spending money to ...save money....wait what?

Times is tough. Money is tight. So we're looking at ways to make our pathetic pieces of green paper go farther.

The first was changing our health insurance. Apparently the arrival of the new year is the signal for our insurer to tack on another $100 a month to our insurance bill. This we just can't take. It's gotten to the point of absurdity. But I don't want to have no insurance at all, so we make our deal with the devil. We lower our premiums by accepting more upfront costs. A LOT more. On the up side, when you tell doctors or hospitals you are paying cash, the bill is often lower. The plan is to save the insurance for the really bad stuff.

Car insurance will be next.

Then there's the phone. The local phone lines are so decrepit that we loose 50 - 80% of our service when is rains heavily here. I can't get cell signal in our home (being underground and all) and I don't want to try a call-repeater or change our number (which is tied to our business). The answer? Ooma. Ooma is a VOIP system, like Vonage. But unlike vonage, you buy the hardware once and that's it. Voice quality is also supposedly better. It looks like a pretty sweet system. I bought the base unit and one satalite unit. But I need to get a router working in my office to hook it up to. I also need to test the system with my wonky internet provider. But if it all works, I will be able to change over my landline to Ooma (something Vonage can't do here yet) and start saving an ASSLOAD of money. I'll let you know how it's working in a few days.

The Machine....it WORKS!!!!!!!

Swiss watch found in 400-year-old tomb

Archeologists in China are baffled after finding a tiny Swiss watch in a 400-year-old tomb.

The watch ring was discovered as archeologists were making a documentary with two journalists from Shangsi town.

"When we tried to remove the soil wrapped around the coffin, a piece of rock suddenly dropped off and hit the ground with a metallic sound,? said Jiang Yanyu, former curator of the Guangxi Autonomous Region Museum.

"We picked up the object, and found it was a ring. After removing the covering soil and examining it further, we were shocked to see it was a watch."

The time was stopped at 10:06am, and on the back was engraved the word "Swiss", reports the People's Daily.

Local experts say they are confused as they believe the tomb had been undisturbed since it was created during the Ming dynasty 400 years ago.

They have suspended the dig and are waiting for experts to arrive from Beijing and help them unravel the mystery.

Keen - Pics of shuttle Endeavor

A great set of pics documenting all the steps involved in a typical shuttle mission. Very keen.

A sad confession

I visited some friends in Michigan two weeks ago and came away shaken. Their place, despite having two big dogs, was spotless. It was organized. And while I've always been a bit of a pack rat, I wouldn't say my place is a pig sty.

But it is.

The main part of our house isn't too bad at all. Rossana keeps it pretty neat and clean. But my office? My fortress of solitude whose condition I am solely responsible for? It is, in a word, awful. So I've spent the past week cleaning up. Really cleaning. Throwing out old magazines and paperwork. Cleaning off my desk. Dusting. Filing things.

It's not sexy or exciting work. It does not involve travel to exotic lands or dangerous characters, but it was long overdue. I must admit that a few times I got distracted by looking at art or stories or ideas I was playing with 20 years ago or so. But here was planty of crap too. And it had to go. It's a process I recommend. Cathartic and yet meditative.

Then I looked around the house and I realized that we just hadn't had time during the season to do much more that keep up with the mess generated by our work/lives. Try to keep on top or it. Put stuff away, send off packages, sweep up a little. But in truth the place hadn't been thoroughly cleaned since June.

Since Rossana was having a client over for a past life regression I helped really clean up today. But after a good vacuuming the carpet still looked...unvacuumed. Being a man I new that the only answer was a tool. But I'm tired of renting the rug cleaner from the hardware store. The whole miserable process sucks. Instead, we went on the internets and did some research. In the end we bought a run cleaner at Walmart. In this craptastic economy we've tried to keen a lid on unneeded expenses. But this purchase was am absolute necessity. We called it an x-mas gift for the house.

I ran it over what appeared to be the mostly clean and freshly vacuumed living room carpet. It was not clean. Not by a long shot. The machine extracted buckets of pure evil. I was so excited by the results that I gleefully cleaned most of the carpets in the house. (I am sure the novelty of this task will soon wear off) I swear I will never go a year between carpet cleanings again. Hell maybe I'll do it once a month. You could eat off our carpet now. It's exciting, in a mundane and domestic kind of way.

Street with a View

Have you ever wanted to know exactly when the google streetview guys were coming so you could be outside in a yetti costume juggling flaming hams? Sure you have. And so did some clever monkeys in Pittsburgh who worked with google to stage a kind of 360 degree art scene.

It's pretty cool. It includes a marching band, mad scientists, an escape from a window and even two Dagorhir fighters with boffer weapons. Wow.

Go check it out.

Ooooooo Shiny..

I will willingly admit that I am a trekker. Despite Voyager and even Enterprise. So when I saw these items I got excited. Wall socket plate covers. Sweet, and pretty cheap over at ThinkGeek.com

I like em big...

So the're a GIANT BALLISTA for sale on ebay. 

I could link to the story about how this was built for the discovery chanel for education blah blah baaaaaah. I think what we need to do is focus on the fact that there is a

GIANT BALLISTA for SALE on EBAY.

Yes, it's in England.

Yes, it's 'As is' and will need alittle work.

Yes it's $35,000

But ASIDE from all that its the perfect gift.

For me.

Update: Oh look, here's a wee little one for only $10,00 here in the US.

I'm off to check my couch cushions  for change.

p.s. Make sure you check out the questions to buyer section on the UK site. Hilarious.

City of Ember

Every one in a while I hear about a film that is waaaaay below the Radar. Sometimes its a small foreign film or something the studios won't promote like "The Fall".  

I just saw the trailer for City of Ember and I like what I see so far:

Extra Awesome

These guys have some shirts that I have truly fallen in love with. Wearscience!

OMG

If you've ever worked in print or graphic arts, this may be the funniest thing you will see all month. And if you haven't...well...it uh...won't

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

A little of thisa... a little of thata

Not a whole lot to report at the moment. I downloaded the new iphone 2.0 firmware and some apps. My iphone is now more useful. Not as useful as my brothers NEW 3G iphone, but useful. I'll just have to live with my limitations.

The big purchase was a new laptop. I have agonized over this for about a year ever since my Sotec's dvd drive died. Boot times were around 8 minutes. It was old, it was slow, but it was light. The new hotness? A Gateway. It's very fast. But it's got Vista. There are really very few things I see as an improvement with Vista. Really. It's kind of pretty, but it's also a bit awkward usability wise. I'll keep it around and try to figure it out.

It's got good battery life. I watched a movie that I rented from a very cool machine called Red Box at the Geneva grocery store. The cool things? Only $1 a night and it's basically a robot. I rented Batman: Gotham Knight and was a little underwhelmed with the movie.

The Great Lakes Faire enters its third weekend and we're looking at rain again. Joy. Then I have a week to prep for Pennsic. Will I be ready? Unlikely.

Sooooo coooooool

Optimus Prime made from scrap metal....

In the workshop...

I bought a cheapo video camera for the Germany trip. I am not very impressed with it other than its size. But while I am testing it I thought I would record a brief update on a few projects I am working on in the shop. Enjoy!

What have I done?

I have spoken before about how I am not to be left unsupervised for any reason. This is double so any time I am near shiny objects. So I feel completely comfortable blaming my lovely wife for this entire fiasco. Oh sure , she had nothing to do with it in any direct way. But if I blame myself I'll just stress out and we all know that stress is bad for you, right?

And it's not like I could have resisted the siren-like call even if I HAD any kind of self control (which I do not). Can I be blamed for letting my eyes rest upon the shapely, sexy form that was before me? Could any man have remained faithful. NO I say. There are carnal urges, and they must be sated.

So... I bought and iphone.

It was not something I needed to do. I have a phone and it mostly works. At one time I thought it was powerful and even a little sexy (in a Bill Gates kind of way). The Treo 650 had email, could surf the internet, had a color screen, ran the Palm OS and could sync with my PC. It seemed like the right thing to get. It was pricey. But I told myself that it would allow me to stay in contact while on the road. Indeed, the treo was very handy, mostly as an email device. It saved me and my clients several times when things went wrong with their websites. There were times when using only my phone I corrected settings on a clients website while sitting in a tent in the middle of nowhere during a rainstorm. But lately the spark had gone out of the relationship. It crashed on occasion. I expect this from my PC, but my phone? Yes it ran the Palm OS, but we all know that that like investing in a dodo farm.

The browser was functional but finicky. The notes feature just stopped working. The sync often created duplicate entries in outlook. It was a qwerty keyboard but my fingers are not the nimble digits of a piano player but the meaty paws of a wookie.

I thought it was time my phone and I started seeing other people.

The experience of getting the phone at an AT&T store was more pleasant than I had imagined or read about. It wasn't a paradise with 72 virgins and streams of wine, but it wasn't a red hot poker up the ass either. The young man (I think his name was Bark, or Brad or something) answered my questions. He had an iphone, as did 2 of the other 3 sales people. Two had jailbroken them (hacked them to run unofficial applications).

Then I learned that switching to the iphone with a data plan would actually be $20 a month cheaper than my current plan. Well, hell. In a year it would half-way pay for itself. (This is what passes for rational though in a tech fevered mind).

I bought it and took it home.

Setting up the Treo had been fun in the same way that having someone poke you in the eye is fun. The basic setup was simple enough, but setting up the email failed. I went online and finally tracked down an obscure tech document with clues on how to get email working. It turns out this information had actually be printed up by the helpful sales guy and stuffed in the bag with the phone when I bought the Treo, but AT&T had given me something like 50 pieces of paper with the phone. Manuals, promotions, recipie books, addendum's firmware update info.

When I took the iphone out, I plugged in the dock and stuck the phone in it.

I went through a setup form. It synced my contacts and itunes playlists. I went outside to get signal and in a minute it was activated. My sole interaction was to enter a password for my email and that was it. It just worked. I played with it. Tweaked it. Added a few widgets, moved some icons around on its desktop. All of it intuitively. I never looked at the skinny users guide.

As a former usability person all I can say is that this is simply the best designed device around. Although there is a volume rocker switch on the side and a sleep button on top, they aren't needed. It essentially has ONE button. That's it.

Jacob Neilson masturbates to his iphone.
(and if anyone else other than Ed get that joke, I'm impressed)

Since I try not to use cell phones while driving there have been times that I've needed Rossana to call someone or try to check directions or whatever. This was never a pleasant experience. First you had to push the center button, then tap the screen to unlock it. The either push the phone button or the menu button. You could then use the rocker button to select 'contacts' or push the on screen icon for the virtual keypad. And this was just the phone! It's easy enough if you are comfortable with tech but Rossana eyes tech the way I eye shellfish, as an evil entity that is lying in wait to attack me.

I handed Rossana the phone and had her push its single button. From there, everything else was pretty much self explanatory. Typing on the virtual keyboard takes some getting used to. But it's no slower than the pinheads that the treo had. She smiled.

I snapped a pic of the box and emailed it to my brother. He and I have discussed the iphone back and forth for a while. It's strange that he, who used a Mac for many years is now very attached to a Windows mobile phone. I played with it at his wedding and it is a great phone. It has a slide out keyboard and GPS. It's very nice and I was tempted by it.

But in the end I went for the iphone. After the clunky, asymmetrical block of the Treo I could not resist the sexy black buttonless slab. This is not to say that it is perfect. It has flaws. The most obvious is the fact that standard headphone jacks don't work without an adapter ($5). Flash isn't natively supported. It doesn't have GPS (although it can get a rough fix on your position) and it's not 3G which means it's not as fast when surfing the wb (although it can use wifi, which is sweet). My brother told me I would feel the fool once Apple releases a 3G version this summer. Perhaps. Or I may just sell it on ebay for a profit. This thing is in high demand around the world. Even the sales kid at the store told me that I would be better off ebaying it if I didn't like it than returning it for a 10% restocking fee.

Of course, now that I have it. I have to pay for it. This means I need to clear out my closet. The first two things that have to go are the Treo and my 40 gig ipod. Both have served me well. I used the Treo to Blog about volunteering in New Orleans and travelling through Egypt. The ipod has kept us awake during long drives to shows with audio books from the library. Both work great. The treo's memo function is wonky, but I'm sure resetting it to factory setting will take care of that. I replaced the ipod battery with a new one only five months ago. It's better than the original. If anyone is interested in either drop me a line or leave a comment. I'll give it a week before they go on ebay along with some other stuff.

Take 2...

So two and a half days of reinstalls and XP still isn't working right. IE 7, windows update and other things just aren't working. The deal breaker is when I can't get any anti virus or Quicken to load.

I make some calls. I talk to some people who assure me that indeed I have to push the Big Red Button. They told me to do this originally but I though I could do this half-assed. Several friends admit that they do a re-install twice a year. I back up 72 GIGs of info onto a portable hard drive. I scan it with an online virus scan. I triple check for info I need to have. And then, I wipe the drive.

While the system formats I take a shower. It's a spiritual as well as physical cleansing. I have lost almost an entire week because of my mistake. And there is NO guarantee that my work, pictures, music or anything will still work when I restore it.

When it's done I start the reload. This time it goes much faster and workes much better. I get a LOT of hard drive space back. I download 82 security updates to XP. I restore my documents and so far (knock on wood) it all looks good. One of the most annoying things is trying to remember user names and passwords from various sites.

It is done. This system is clean.

Epic Fail

All it took was one second to click on the wrong file. And then... it was a slow decent into FAIL. Despite antivirus I contacted a host of evils and was forced in the end to reinstall Windows XP. On the plus side, my internet connection and other parts of the system are running nice and fast again. On the down side, it's been two solid days of reinstalls and patching. Joy.

Outlook is back but my account settings are AWOL.

Unrelated but good news, my friend Grimm seems to have found a buyer for his house. It looks like he'll get a good price tool.

Also unrelated but important is the arrival of a new addition to the family. Feel;ing that Little One could use some company we went to the local vet and picked up a young cat who had yet to be named. I'll post pics soon and maybe even solicit name suggestions.

Taking a deep breath...

Ok, I've calmed down after my previous rant. Watching this video helped. Then I went to this site which has all kinds of pics of microcars. Sweet!

I am old

Warning! Geek Speak ahead

So I'm playing a Half-Life Mod called Insurgency online with some pretty cool people. An Aussie, a German some froggers and some Amuricans. Great. We kick the snot out of the enemy team and do a little victory dance. Cool. The game at this point should load up another map and we should continue to crush our enemies. But the game seems to just stall. It doesn't crash. But we're all sitting there waiting. We have voice chat and begin to wonder what's up with the server.

"Da suhrvur, eet must have locked up I zink" said the German.

"They're probably running some shitty P2" chimes in some kid who sounds like he's 9.

"No," I say "It's a it's a 486 with an add on math co-processor".

There is a moment of silence.

'What ze 'el is a math co-processor?" asks the Frenchman.

"I'm sorry to admit I do" said another American.

"That's because you sir, are 39 years old I'll bet. You are I are ancient ones here. We walked the earth on 640k of ram and got our pron over 14.4 modems from BBS's. We wrote our own autoexec.bat files to load our CD-Rom and sound drivers in to HIMEM. And none of you young bastards know what the hell I'm talking about do you?".

There was much laughing.

Then the next map loaded and we prepared to crush the other team.

"That was great mate" said the Brit. "But really, what's a math co-processor?"

For my first trick...

With the addition of a table saw last year and now the Shopsmith, space has gotten a little tight in the shop. I am hoping to get some retractable casters for the shopsmith so I can roll it out of the way. But that still leaves all the accessories, each of which takes up room and are currently stored in a 'lean it against something else and hope I don't break it' kind of way.

The answer? Build a table. Now I know this thing ain't purty. It's made from the crappiest scrap wood I could find lying around, but it does the job. The table has sets of holes where each of the tools posts slide in keeping them off the ground and easy to get to. It's held together with deck screws, the star pattern kind rather than philips heads and I must say that it was like discovering fire. They are 286% better than using philips, which now seem like crude bits of bone.


I also changed the power switch on the shopsmith. Shopsmith actually has a bunch of cool videos on their site showing you how to do just these kinds of things. Yes I know that swapping out a toggle switch isn't exactly sequencing the human genome but it does involve putting your hand directly into the motor housing, a place hands aren't supposed to go. I managed to scape up my bear size paws pretty good in the process, adding to my sense of accomplishment. After all, it's not a successful shop project unless there's blood involved.

Tool Pron...

Most women and many of those I call "tool impotent" may wish to click away to another site. This posting is about the sexy little number I brought home the other day, and man, can she deliver.

It all started a few weeks ago when I was browsing the toolmonger blog. They have a regular feature called "hot or not" where they ask if a specific tool is worth getting or lives up to its hype. The subject of this hot or not was the Shopsmith Mark V. This is a multi-function tool that first appeared in the 1050's and it's still in production today with almost no changes in funtion or design. The basic model is a table saw, a lathe, a horizontal borer, a drill press and disk sander. BUT, you can add ALL manner of accessories making it a true all in one tool. There was a great deal of debate on whether this was a tool worth investing in, since a new one (base model) is about $2500 and accessories can range from $2-400 bucks each.

Since I don't have a large barrel of money sitting around it seemed a moot point to consider its "hotness". But then I started checking ebay and craigslist. Sure enough, you can find used ones for a LOT less money. Often, they have accessories included. I found mine on ebay. It was bought at an estate sale and the owner was looking to make a quick buck on turnaround. I got it for $600! But wait, it gets more tasty. Included with the base unit was a Jig saw, a band saw (and blades), a joiner, router bits and a sander. Holy crap! All that stuff new would around $4500!!

My friend Ed drove with me out to Pittsburgh to get it and haul it home, a task that took the better part of a day (thanks Ed). I've spent the past 2 days cleaning, aligning and testing it out. So far everything works. The genius of the design is that it's A) Built like a tank and B) It has only one motor and IT is built like a tank. The power switch is a little flaky and the motors variable speed control feels a little off. Luckily parts and service are still available for it to this day. My unit was likely built between 1968 and 1978 and almost any new part or accessory I get today will work on it and there are a LOT of parts for sale on ebay.

I don't have the manual or the woodworking books that came with the unit originally, I may get these from the company. It was also missing the sanding disk, but that's it. Even without the manuals the design is so good that you can figure most things out yourself. I am beyond geeked about this thing. What should I build fist?

Cars!

Rossana and I took her Dad to the Crawford Auto & Aviation museum today. If you live anywhere near Cleveland you really should visit it. It's part of the Western Reserve Historical Society near University Circle so there's lots to see and do.

The visit took a lot out of us. Although there were a few sparks of interest here and there, it was overshadowed by the constant moaning about his hearing, the place he lives, phone solicitors and the general aging process. I have been listening to these same complaints for about 10 years now. Despite relatively good health he refuses to DO anything. It frustrates Rossana no end.

On a positive note, we saw a great car built in the early 1900's. I forget the name but it's one of those massive Deusenburg types. Wood spoked wheels, no windscreen, seat belts or power steering. Apparently one of the Museums directors took it to a public function and took it on the shoreway. He was pulled over for speeding, clocked at 91 miles per hour!!!! I cannot conceive of taking a 100+ year old car on a public highway and doing over 90. Hell, I don't do 90+ in MY car! And remember, no seat belts ands no windscreen. Amazingly, the cops let him go with a warning.

Hitting the Big Red Button

When not tying women up in corsets I do website development. It has its ups and downs. Last month I caught someone trying to hack a clients website. It wasn't a clever attack. But it puts you into full on combat mode. It gets you going 900 miles an hour. Because things happen very quickly online. A lot of damage can be done in a very short time and it can take a LONG time to fix it.

An hour ago I sat down to check my email and noticed that godaddy said I changed a domain name server for a client. I've been offline all day. Alarm bells start going off. No other domain names seem to have been touched, but that might just mean that someone is right in the middle of fucking with my life and the livelihood of my clients.

I fire up my godaddy admin. If they made a change, they might have my password. Change it. I bring up an online chat with my webhosts. Do they know who this new nameserver is? Have they changed hosting providers? No. That's bad. That leaves the client making changes but he doesn't have access. Is he pissed off? Did he contact godaddy directly? I fire up Outlook and get ready to bite the bullet. Once I contact him and let him know there's a problem, it will likely make him nervous. I look like a moron and at best he looses confidence in me.

Then I take a closer look at the email. The domain name is CLOSE but isn't exact. It's the plural version of my clients site. I check godaddy. I never registered that name. A quick whois check shows someone I don't know and he got the name years ago.

I sit back and think. Then I close the email I was going to write to the client. Godaddy fucked up. This email was supposed to go to someone else. How did that happen? Isn't this process automated? I call godaddy just to double check and they have me forward them the email. They say everything is fine.

There is no crisis. No one is messing with anything. I take my hand off the Big Red Button and take a deep breath. Technology. Ain't is grand?

Technology!

Sure, it's the 21st century and I don't have a !@#$% flying car. I can deal with it. I'm not happy, but I can handle it. What does that leave? Talking computers, moon base, giant walking robots. There are still a lot of cool things I was promised that haven't materialized yet.

But wait, what is this? A super hi tech material thats soft and flexible but when exposed to sudden shock instantly becomes rock hard? Sweeeeeeeet The material d30 (which even sounds like a D&DE armor class) works a little like corn starch in water. Expose it to shock, and some molecular/structural/magic transformation happens turning the rubber-like material solid. Very very cool.

So my question is, could it work for SCA combat? Better yet, when can I get underwear made out of this?

More video of one chick hitting another in the kneecap with a shovel here.

Super cool tool system

If anyone happens to win the lottery in the next few months, I would be quite happy to receive one of these as a present. The Mobile-Shop looks pretty damn sweet (even if the website looks like poo). All modular with tons of storage and wheels. It even comes complete with tools, screws, nuts bolts, tape, everything. The weird thing is that it doesn't seem to have storage for many power tools. A storage unit for a cordless drill and circular saw would be nice, as they are what you use 90% of the time during construction projects.

Hacked!

I just discovered that one of my clients websites has been hacked. Needless to say, I am most displeased. How did this happen? Pretty simple. The client had a pretty easy to guess user name and password. Do YOU change your passwords regularly? Are they a combination of letters and numbers? Do you use the same user name and password on lots of sites? I bet a lot of you do.

Luckily the damage was minimal. They tried to redirect paypal payments to a disposable email account. A pretty unsophisticated hack. I immediately changed the user name and password to something much harder to guess, then I password protected the admin page itself with a different password. I then changed the FTP password. Then I tracked down the little bastards I.P. range. He's somewhere in Brazil most likely so I can't just drive to his place and mess with him personally.
My clients are my friends. And I don't like people fucking with my friends.

Not bad...

Sometimes cruising YouTube yields interesting results. Here is a gentleman who seems to have built how own Bag End (complete with a *twitch* round door)

THE coolest car

I am not a car person. To me, a car serves a function, and form is something I usually don't care about. There are exceptions of course. The Delorean (time machine or otherwise) The spinner from Blade Runner, the Mach 5 and a few others. Sure.

But in general most cars, modern or classic, fail to get my heart running. I can apprciate them, but not crave them. This is not the case with Bugatti's Veyron. Watch this video and see for yourself.

I am well aware that the way they shot this sequence is half of what makes it so cool. This is a car show for gods sake! Yet it has the visuals of a movie. Outstanding.

Very very cool

Anyone here remember the early days of the web browser, or windows 95? Remember how they tried to make "Virtual" malls and "Virtual" desktops? But most of these ideas pretty much sucked. The computer doesn't match up well to real world motifs. Sometimes you need a long list of information. And the graphics power to pull this sort of thing off simply didn't exist.

But I just saw a pretty slick website and set of videos for something called 'Surface' from Microsoft. Some of the things shown in the demo have been played with before in various tech demos available on youtube, but this is the first I have seen a system that takes the desktop metaphor and makes it work. Put your camera on the table, and pictures fall out, grab some and send them to your phone or email them by dragging them with your finger. Browse a restaurants menu and divide the check visually. You pay by placing your card on the table. It recognizes it! The usability here is pretty slick. Date of arrival is Winter 2007 but what does that mean? All kinds of hardware will need to be developed to take advantage of this kind of coolness. But I don't care. This is the future, shiny and full of touch displays that I want.

Flickrvision

Totally addicting. See what people are uploading to Flickr and where they are uploading from.

Beam me up. Har har.

When contemplating a home improvement project, there are three distance phases:

• Phase 1- Concept
  
  "Honey, if we're going to stucco the house, we should have stone lintels over the windows like an Irish cottage. That would rock."

• Phase 2- Modification due to budget
  
  "Holy crap, there is NO way we can afford stone. But I found this cool company on the Internets that makes faux wood beams. They'd be perfect"

• Phase 3 - Settling for something else (due to the intrusion of reality).
  
  "They want HOW much just to ship a fake wood beam? Ok, what have I got sitting around the yard that I haven't burned yet?"

I really put entirely too much thinking into what should have been a pretty straight forward problem. How do I make it look like the windows have antique beams above them. I contacted companies that sell old barn beams and tried to figure out complex cuts so that they would fit into the window frame. I stressed myself out because I couldn't make it work. Eventually I had to walk away from the problem. Too much thinking. Thinking bad.

They yesterday I picked up a scrap piece of 6X6 left over from the roof project. I held it over the window and heard the sound of Angels blasting trumpets. I could use chunks of WOOD!!!!

I know, it seams pretty obvious to YOU. But I'd been trying to figure out ways to cut materials to replicate a lintel exactly. Using an actual beam would not be perfect, some of the existing window frame would be visible, but it would certainly work, and time is a big factor here.

And since our budget won't allow for buying real 200 year old hand worked beams I had to come up with my own. The solution was simple and very effective. A super tough wire wheel on a 4" angle grinder. The wheel strips away the softer wood fibers, leaving the harder wood in a great raised pattern. It's just like sandblasting. I also took chunks out at random spots and rounded the edges to give the appearance of having been hand worked with an adze.

Voila! Instant antique beams. They look great and didn't cost an arm and a leg. Rossana loves them and now wants to know if I could do the same to the main beams for the roof. That would be about 20 times the work. Plus the beams would be dark whereas the rest of the roof is pretty light colored. Maybe I could use a lighter stain. We'll see. I'm just grateful to get something off my to do list.

Oddly Hypnotic

This is a small Japanese dancing toy that will dance to any beat you play for it. Honestly, it dances far better than I ever did. In a real word bar situation, it could probably pick up chicks to. Chicks dig cute.

Oh yeah, this will end well...

Ok folks, its time for another installment of 'The Danger Show - with Grimm and Steve'. What are these two kooky kids up to today? Well, they've decided to built a ballista. That's right, these brain surgeons are going to use tools, to make a weapon. It's a danger trifecta!

We began with a well written set of directions and blueprints we obtained off the interweb. These plans were promptly ignored by Grimm, who has in typical fashion, completely redesigned the project in his brain.

Things got off to a good start when Grimm informed me that the prod (the bow shaped thing that makes the big arrows go zoom) did not look good enough, and would have to be cut down. Now, because of the spring like nature of this piece of steel, it cannot be subjected to heat. This would ruin the tempter. The solution? Hose down the prod as we use an electric circular saw to cut the prod.

I am not making this up. If you click HERE you will see the larger image, labelled accordingly:

1. The Hose
2. The Saw
3. The electric cord
4. Glasses. Subject to fogging and debris
5. Grimm's mind

I'll upload some video to youtube later. It was fun, if you consider getting soaked to the skin in ice water while risking electrocution fun. But somehow, we managed not to injure ourselves. We only got half the prod done before the cold forced us indoors for fresh socks. We began the body of the weapon, which looks pretty good. To be fair, Grimm did the lions share of the hard work work this first session. I alternated between flinching and trying not to pee myself. To feel productive I've started stripping a pair of Amish wheels Grimm 'obtained' which will be used to move the weapon once its done. I am fairly sure that using Amish wagon wheels as part of a Medieval siege weapons is a fairly straight path to Hell.

What I've been up to

My recent fascination with Steampunk has led me to dream of several outlandish projects. It is a genre ripe for the picking. Not limited by actual science but more by aesthetics and cool factor I have been gripped by a kind of artistic fever that is composed of rivets, gears and polished brass..

As such, I have created The Clockwork Rifle. It is based loosely on the classic Kentucky rifle with a few notable exceptions. There is no pan or striker. Also, I have added a sniper scope.

This is my first effort and is mostly just a prototype. I carved the rifle stock by hand using a draw knife and a lot of sanding. The barrel is grey PVC. Lots of clock bits. The brass flourishes on the side are cut down cabinet hinges, the brass bands are a thin art brass It was a time consuming process as I wanted the parts I used to look like they fit together. I'm not completely happy yet. I still need a trigger guard and possibly a flip out hand crank for winding the 'main spring' that would power such a weapon. This stock is two pieces but I intend to use a much nicer single piece of wood for the next one.

In doing research for this project I discovered that air rifles, that is, actual air powered rifles that could be used for hunting, were in limited production in the 1700's. Lewis and Clark brought one along, mostly to impress the natives.

Comments and criticisms of this project are eagerly sought.

Clockwork rifle

Too cool for words

It always used to bother me when I watched some crime fighting show and they managed to do all kinds of image enhancement from a shitty low res security cam. Or took a single image and somehow extrapolated a full 3d image from it (which they would feed into a computer to make a lifelike mask ala Mission Impossible 3)

This kind of crap just isn't possible!

Or is it?

Check out this video and be freakin amazed what they can do with only 1 photo. I did a search with the googles and found the website of one of the researchers which has more examples. There are all kinds of applications for this, some of them actually scare me alittle. What do you think?

Sony shoots self in foot.

Apparently Sony will not allow porn to be produced on the BluRay format. Wow. This is one of the reasons betamax didn't succeed. The porn industry was the first (and may be the most) profitable company on the Internet. They are a multi-billion dollar industry. To tell them to f*ck themselves (and not in the good way) is a sure way to make sure no one uses your technology. Way to go Sony. How's that minidisk tech working for you? And the PS3? Still sitting in warehouses? Nice.

I'm calling it for HD-DVD. Gentlemen, start your wallets.

Dammit dammit dammit!

I'm weak. I admit as much. I have a weakness for some technology. You might say I crave it. Oh sure, I may have backed the wrong technology now and then. Like VESA local bus, Betamax and minidisk. Sure, in hindsight those were bad choices.

But despite my missteps in the past, I still hold true to the idea of technology and THE FUTURE!

Bright, shiny. Chrome covered. Oh yes.

That doesn't mean I am some kind of fanboy. I don't heap praise on some company just because they make their interface lickable. You will note that I don't own a Mac. The idea of an overpriced white laptop with my lifestyle is beyond absurd. For a laptop to match my lifestyle it needs to be dirt colored, made of adamantium, weigh 1 pound, be solar powered and be able to get an internet connection from inside the Pyramid of Khufu. Show me that laptop, and I'll gladly shell out the dough that Apple asks for their gear.

But today I saw something that really blew me away. The iPhone. There's been all kinds of speculation among the drooling cult of the i-faithful. Rumors, fake photos, endless arguments and navel gazing. None of it really right. I knew there was some kind of phone coming down the pipe. It's innevitable. The phone and the mp3 player are destined to join as one.

But what Apple showed today was pretty frickin amaaaaaaazing. Look at the picture:



Oh sure it's pretty. So pretty. But it's the implementation that is so revolutionary. There are a lot of phones that look cool. The trouble is trying to get them to actually do shit. I own a Treo 650. It does quite a bit, but each application had its drawbacks. And the fact that it needs a keyboard means I've lost prescious screen space. Apple removed this problem by making the entire front of the phone a touch interface. Go check out the site and watch the demos. All of it works. Seamless integration. The interface is fantastic.

But this shiny piece of Nirvana will cost. Will I buy it? It's possible. I'll need to try it for myself first, run my fingers along its smooth curves. Caress its screen. Push its buttons. Oggle its huge screen.

If you'll excuse me, I need to take a cold shower.

Hi Def violence and punk gypsies

Last night I caught V for Vendetta at the Dale's. Ed had downloaded the movie onto his X-Box 360 and I must say that it looked freakin gorgeous. Super clear. HD is the future there is no doubt. The only real downside is that the 360's hard drive is only 20 gigs or so. Downloading a hi-def film means you have to delete most of your demos and videos to make room.

After the movie Ed introduced us to Gogol Bordello a 'Gypsy Punk' group who's 'Start wearing purple' just rocks. You find yourself yelling the lyrics like a drunk Kossack half way through. They're infectious. They do to hungarian music what Floggin Molley did to Irish ballads. Tons of energy. I highly recommend you take a listen.

Meltdown

Yesterday my wife casually mentions that her computer isn't working.

"What's it doing?" I ask.

"Very little".

On booting up a cryptic message flashes on the screen telling me that LSASS.EXE can't initialize and I have to terminate it. Hmmm. Off to google.

According to the allmighty googletron LSASS.exe is a common file used by Windows to load account settings and should not be tampered with. However ISASS.exe is a trojan, a worm, a virus that will cause all manner of harm to my wifes computer and will likely herald the birth of the antichrist. Of course, because of the way fonts are displayed in Windows, A lower case 'L' and a capital 'I' look exactly the same. In any case the antivirus installed on her system might have missed something. Time to pull the hard drive. After 10 minutes of concentrated swearing and several cuts I get the drive out and scan it on my system. My antivirus finds 14 evil creatures living on my wifes hard drive. I perform deletions and exorcisms and re-install the drive. Still no boot, but as a bonus its giving me random blue screens of death.

It's off to the windows XP recovery console. Which finally 'repairs' her installation of windows. Except that again, it doesn't. I am forced to do a re-install. I pull the drive and put it back on my system, pull off all my wife's email and other files. Pop it back in her system and start the clean install.

Once its done I find I'm missing all kinds of drivers. I crawl around in my wifes closet to find the Dell drivers disks. Then there's the missing wi-fi drivers that must be downloaded, then a download of Thunderbird, Firefox, Avast Antivirus and an attempt to restore the email.

By the time most of it was over it was 2am. Fun Mcjoyjoy. Today I got her email restored and working again. I almost wish it had been a real hardware failure. Computers are so inexpensive now it's almost cheaper just to chuck one and get another. Wouldn't that be great? Your rig starts to slow down and you decide to get a new one. At the comp-u-mat you select B7 and rub your hands in anticipation. Then the new computer get stuck on that stupid spiral wire thing. You end up smacking the plexiglass front of the machine and trying to shake it for 10 minutes to no avail.

Of course, once you stop your rant the computer magically falls off the wire and you are able to pull it out the bottom and take it home. The old system? You throw it on the compost heap (because in my work computers are biodegradable).

Sweet Jeebus!

I took a drive last night to a lonely town located in the backwaters of Ohio. I was to meet with a man who's name I can't write here but who you may know as Codename: Monkey. There were dark deeds to be done and exchanges to be made.

When I arrived at the rendezvous I flashed my cars headlights twice as I had been instructed. The car at the other end of the narrow bridge did the same. I got out of my car and approached the large wall of a man who stood silently.

"I believe you have something I want" I said, trying not to sound nervous. I had no backup here, I was flying solo.

"Indeed I do. It's in the truck. You have the payment?"

I nodded and held the briefcase up flat. I flipped open the latches and opened the lid. Inside were rows of crisp bills. Small denominations, non-sequential.

"It's all here. Do you want to count it?"

"Count? No! I trust you completely."

That was funny, because I could easily make out the tiny red dot that rested over my heart. Placed there by some unseen sniper, very likely the Swede named Ander.

"Then you're happy?" I asked.

"Not quite, you forgot one small thing. My Hat."

"I didn't forget, you get the Pirate Hat when I see the Rig."


He laughed. "Always so paranoid my friend! Of course."

He pulled a squat box out of the truck. "Here you go. All the papers are in it and are in order"

I placed the box in my trunk and handed the large man a bag. "Your Pirate hat, I hope you like it."

He pulled the hat out of the bag and placed it on his head. "It fits like a glove. Sweet. So, we gettin wings?"

"Hells yeah."

Several hours later, in the darkness of my office...The last of the computers cables are connected.

whirrrrrrrrr

"My God, it's full of stars...."

Scalpel....forceps...duct tape...

Last weekend my minion Lindsey learned the painful lesson that laptop computers do not like to drink mead. She quickly drained said laptop and let it dry and suprise of suprises, it worked long enough to pull most of her files off it before the screen went blank.

She came over to the house tonight, and having nothing to loose, she let me take it apart to see if I could possibly make things worse.

Thanks to the internets I discovered a step by step guide to disassembling a Toshiba A15. Of course, this guide did not take into account stickiness and its detrimental side effects. I cleaned all the surfaces I could. Just as in High School biology I pointed out the various guts, indicating their function and condition and how they were most likely being damaged by my large, paw-like hands. There was a bit of bother when we removed the keyboard and the cable connecting it to the computer simply popped off without the piece of plastic that should have come with it. But really, she's in art school. What use does she have for a keyboard anyway? We live in a point and click world. Words just get in the way.

When I was done I re-assembled the device with only one mystery screw left over and a slight gap in one of the corners where I am sure ants will be moving in over the next few weeks to enjoy the sweet goodness we couldn't reach. We could not test my efforts as the entire system needs to completely dry out again for a day or two. Lindsey has kindly released me from any liability if my actions somehow let the magic smoke escape from her computer. I personally blame evil laptop pixies, but that just me.

Super cool...

Anyone speak Russian? Here are some AWESOME pics from a former Soviet Sub base.

When I am God-Emperror of this miserable little mudball of a planet, I shall have a slew of such bases hidden across the globe. Just in case any of my subjects get uppity.

Adventures in Lawn Care

So here it is at last. The lawnmower. With it I shall tame the wilderness that is my back yard. I shall fear no weed. My chainsaw and my roundup shall comfort me.

This thing has made my life much easier. It does 80 mph. It can, in fact pop wheelies. I will be speaking with Grimm about chrome exhaust pipes and a turbo charger. Its 0-60 speed is a little sluggish. And yes, I am wearing a John Deere hat. It came with the mower and it gives me mad farmer cred down at Cecils trackside diner. Word.