Linky Goodness

Whenever I get to speak with friends there is often a neat exchange of cool or useful information. This information is often located on the internets and it would be a shame if we kept that linky goodness to ourselves. So here are some of the sites I visit on a regular basis.

www.morons.org Self Explanitory
www.boingboing.net Cool things
www.engadget.com Gadget Goodness
www.fark.com Link-o-rama
www.aintitcoolnews.com Film geeks, unite!
www.penny-arcade.com Webcomic with bite
www.pvponline.com Another webcomic
www.snopes.com THE place to check out the crap that comes into your inbox before you forward it on to everyone under the sun

www.illwillpress.com Squirelly Wrath!!


So, what links are YOU clicking on??

Cool - What I need is a tank

Found this over on Ebay. What was I looking for when I stumbled across this item? None of your goddamn business. Suffice it to say that this is something that I need. Any anyone who wants to send me some spare change to make this happen, well, you rock.

Cool - Germans make with the funny

My personal link-o-rama is FARK.com and it's where I found this article. It seems that some clever krauts are placing little American flags into piles of dog poo. Even better, they're now placing little flags with Bush's picture into poo as well.



I have to respect this quiet, yet clever way of disagreeing with our countries foreign policies. Although the police have tried to find the culprits, they have no idea what to do with them even if they cought them red handed.

Soooo cooool ..... Must get

Like many geeks, I believe that it would be extremely cool to have a secret crimefighting lair. It would also be cool to have a super-villain lair, from which I could plan civilization's downfall. My preference as to which alignment, good or evil, is based mostly upon how cool the lair is decorated. Whichever lair has THIS item will get my business:



You can find details at this site, which is in Japanese. This does me little good as I myself am not Japanese. Try this translation from google. It appears that it costs 3,990 yen or about $39 USD. I am sorely tempted to order this. After all, you never know when your brilliant plan will go to shit and you need to make your secret base a crater pronto.

No protest for me

There are many people who believe that I am first and foremost a capitalist. They are, I suppose, correct. But despite my prowess at sales I am not a worshipper of the almighty dollar. I have never judged the quality of my life upon the amount of money I am earning. Indeed, I enjoyed my earlier life quite well living from paycheck to paycheck.

So here I am, in our slow season, and what with the election being what it was (a farce) I considered doing something I've never done before. Protesting. I come from a proud family of protesters. My father protested the Vietnam War, my brother has protested, even my mother has gone to Washington a few times. So I felt that the upcoming inauguration would be a good opportunity to make my opinion known.

I didn't plan on joining the youth of our nation, yelling and waving banners with slogans like 'No blood for oil" etc. Those people will never get within a half mile of Bush. No, I planned on dressing nice and neat, maybe wearing a tie. I planned on getting onto the motorcade route, and when that stupid monkey passed by I planned on turning my back on him.

I talked with a few friends who showed some interest in going. But there are a lot of logistical barriers to attending a protest during an inauguration where the city has been locked down as if under martial law.

And then life seemed to tap me on the shoulder. It informed me that my home had a leak. It reminded me that we're having a guy hang drywall and a circuit breaker seems to keep popping without reason. It showed me our business account, and while we did good sales this season, we also bought a van and paid for it outright. It reminded me that the Ren season is months off.

So I reluctantly fired up my browser and found a sci-fi convention that wasn't too far away and might generate some income. It starts the day after the inauguration and it would be almost impossible to do the protest and still get to the con in time to set up and start generating sales. I tried for two days to find some other event but there was nothing on the radar unless I was willing to go to Texas or the UK, both of which would require too much outlay for an unknown event.

I feel like I've let down my family, even though they didn't know what I planned on doing. And worse, I feel like I have let an opportunity pass me by which will not come again (at least for this presidente'). Rossana is a pragmatist and she doesn't feel that my presence there would make a great difference, and she is right to a point. But what if 50,000 people who felt like me showed up, and all turned their back on this warmonger? That sends a message. I can only hope that there are other who will do what it takes to make their voices heard.

For now I am forced to bow to economic necessity, and it kind of sucks.

So not cool - Tmobile cocks up

So you may have read that some punk broke into t-mobiles servers and had about a year to look through everyone's stuff. This includes customers like Secret Service agents and celebs. He then tried to sell this stuff to other 7eet clowns. While I am not a celebrity I do believe I have a right for my data to be kept from the prying eyes of some hacking asshat.

Here is the pleasant letter I send them:

Dear T-mobile Thank you for letting a 21 year old punk get access to your servers for almost a year. I conduct a good deal of business using my Sidekick and Sidekick II. And although I've never been dumb enough to send things like credit card info using my phone, I have exchanged a lot of proprietary and important information. I wonder if any of it was picked up by that kid? I guess I'll never know will I? You didn't even seem to think it was important enough to post a press release about. A fucking press release, let alone an email. You company has been nothing but a disappointment from the start. From the broken promise of outlook synch for the first Sidekick to the worst coverage area of any provider.

This latest piece of news is just the icing on a cake composed almost entirely of crap. Can you give me one reason to stick with your company? The new Treo is pretty sweet and there are some new Smartphones that can do what your phone does.So what can you offer me to stick with your company? Better coverage? Lower rates? Better customer service? How about just an apology?

Underground living, now with more suck!

When we began the house-buying process almost a year ago we were really nervous about only one thing. Moisture. A friend of mines father, who is a realtor, gave us stern warnings. He told us to walk away from this place and walk away quick.

In the course of our due diligence (paranoia) we had the house inspected twice. First, by a drooling, toothless yokel and then by 'the Fennucci brothers'. Their name wasn't Fennucci, but it could have been. They were great. Very thorough and very cool. They even gave us snacks! But they pointed out to us that there was no absolute way to be sure that our home would remain water tight. Underground houses are impossible to inspect on the outside and it is a 20 year old home.

We knew there was a very small leak near the back of the house where a short passage leads to our garage. In early December we had a guy we call 'mumbles' come over and fix it, and yes, he dug up part of our roof. He found and fixed the problem and in general cleaned up the area and improved its drainage.

One month later and we find water coming in from behind the cedar lining of our bedroom closet. There was only one way to see how bad it was, so three days ago I went in with a hammer. What I found wasn't pretty. I can't even bring myself to post a picture, it was THAT scary. The wall looked like it belonged in a Turkish prison.

Several hours of scraping cleaned the area up and exposed a very small crack. It convinced us that we need to do repairs to this part of the house from the outside. The leaking might never have been noticed if not for the unbelievable amount of rain we've been getting here. It just won't stop. The property is waterlogged. If and when it stops and the wall dries out I will paint it with a special waterproof paint. But we really do need to find the source of the water and correct the drainage.

Overall the leak is far smaller than other leaks I've had over the years. The old house we had on lorain road in North Olmsted years ago once flooded to almost 8 inches. And I do not regret getting Bag End. It's just another fun facet of home ownership. Joy.

***UPDATE***

So I gues what we really needed here in Ohio was more Goddamn rain. It went on all night and through the morning. Small rivers formed in the back yard. The tiny creek behind the pond was now about a class three rapid. I attempted to patch over the crack using a quick setting cement that said it could plug leaks, even under pressure. This did not seem to happen. Water just kept coming. Eventually the rain stopped, the temp went to 60 and the fucking sun made an appearence. The leak seems to have eased up, but not to worry, there's more rain expected tomorrow, followed by Snow,Ice Giants and then, I believe, swarms of locusts.

Cool - Modding my bed

So everyone has some kind of keen-o modded computer case. Lots of neon and fans and whatnot, which is great and all, but its not my 'thing". No, my thing is different (or so I have been told). So I present the story of my custom modded bed.

My bed started out as a normal, everyday item. It can be purchased at a number of stores pretty cheap. It is essentially a black tubular frame with tall posts, capped with some decorative wrought ironwork. There are thin tubes connecting the top of the posts which you can hang drapes from. This configuration worked well at our old place, where we had high ceilings, but the new house has a smaller bedroom overall. The top section had to go. Removing the upper tubes left a nice frame and we could still use the decorative tops. Below is what the corners looked like.



At some point I realized that if I removed the little swirly bit, a pillar candle would fit nicely atop the bedpost and give a nice medieval glow to the room. The problem is that candles involve flame, and wax. Ever since having my head catch fire I've been Mr. Safety and the open flame atop the bed thing wasn't going to happen. So I cast my eyes to the internets and found the coolest thing on gods green earth - electronic candles. These things aren't some crappy fake candle with a cheesy flame shaped bulb, fuck no. They have a small microprocessor that control's three small lights that change intensity randomly. The effect is totally real, and its housed in a very realistic looking melted candle shell.



incorporating these candles however, would take some serious modding. First off, I bought the wrong size, which were too big. I got another set which was perfect and I began the project. I had to shave the power plugs to fit through two holes made in the tubular steel frame using a drill and a dremmel.



Then I had to create wooden plugs to fit into the bottom of the candles so that they wouldn't simply fall off the bed with the slightest of jiggles.



Once the wires were fished though the bed to the candles, both transformers were plugged into a wireless remote so I could turn them on and off with slacker like ease. Here is the end result:



I haven't decided what to do with the extra candles. The effect is so cool that I'd like to make lamps that go down the stone steps to our house with these, but it would be waaaay too expensive. I'm doing some research now to see if I can build a similar circuit myself.

Not Cool - No power = No fun

Two weeks ago the power went out at my friend Grim's place. For him, the experience was not fun. He has two dear pet prairie Dogs, and a house that uses hot water to heat it. He and his sweetie had to hunker down in the basement with the dogs and use their wood burning furnace. They couldn't leave the house empty too long or the fire would go out and their water pipes would burst. No hot water, no internet, not a single luxury...Several sleepless nights. Eventually, their power was restored just in time for their New Years party and a good time was had by all.

This morning, it was our turn. No power, and everything outside was encased in a thick coating of heavy ice. So heavy in fact that several pine trees on the property were badly damaged. The weight of the ice bent smaller tress in half and several large limbs snapped off completely.

What were we to do? Leave immediately and go to breakfast in town, that's what. The small diner was so packed that we offered the two empty seats at our table to another couple, who turned out to be very nice folks. We ran some errands and returned home to find... No power. We called up Grim, who could now chuckle at us. Although the power was again out at his place, HE now has a generator, and all the joys that power provides.

This was the big test. How bad would our Hobbit hole get? Although the temp went up to about 39F outside the ice stuck around all day, and the house started to cool down. We considered starting a fire, but that would draw cooler air into the outer rooms. Eventually, after a nap, I was forced to put on a sweater. It was horrible.

Being bored we again abandoned our house to go see Blade 3 and enjoy a nice dinner with Grim and his wife. Upon returning to Bag End, we found warm lights glowing and twinkling at us, welcoming us home. Our house is toasty again, but it was good to know that in the event of another outage, the place should stay pretty tolerable. The only casualty was the ice cream in our freezer. We gave it a decent send off using bananas and some walnuts.

The very definition of wacko

I am not one to bitch slap other peoples religious faiths. In my life I have attended many kinds of Christian services, a barmitzvah, and have visited the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, which I found to be one of the most tasteful religious buildings I have seen. Many of my friends are Wiccans or some other form of Pagan. So I believe I hold a pretty open mind with regards to spirituality.

The Church of Scientology, however, is pure made up wacko fiction. And more than that, they are dangerous.

You may have heard about these people, they have centers around the world and offer free 'personality tests' at many of them. They run commercials for the book 'Dianetics' which tell you that you can reprogram your brain.

But the simple fact is that this is a made up "religion". 100% fiction.

Why should you care? Because there are lot of them out there, they have a shitload of money, the best lawyers, and will use them against ANYONE they think is a threat to them.

For a little background, take a link over to Wikipedia for the basic story that their religion/science is based on.

Would you believe this if someone blurted it at you on a street corner? Hell no, you'd carefully cross the street to avoid such a wacko. But Scientology doesn't give you that story right off the mark. You will spend years and thousands of dollars learning these 'secrets'. And if you try to leave or cause them trouble? Well, take a look over at Xenu.net for more horrifying stories about what this 'church' is capable of.

Seriously, if James Bond existed he'd be sent to stop these people before they took over the world using their mind controll bullshit ray and their hoards of mutant lawyers with frickin' lasers on their heads.

Old but still Cool - The Godfather bit

Two years ago at the SCA event called Pennsic I thought it would be fun to help raise money for the Chiergeons (sp?). These are the people to basically run a small hospital at the event. Many merchants put out a small plastic bottle to collect spare change for the cause.

I felt that was letting them off easy. Merchants have money. Not a lot, but enough. They also get tired and bored being stuck in their booth all day. So a few friends from our camp joined me to 'shake down' the merchants for 'protection money', which we in turn donated to the cause. Despite the rain, we had a great time. We'd set up a little table with a checkered tablecloth, candle and a small boombox playing the godfather theme while I did my Marlon Brando impersonation and made them an offer they couldn't refuse. After the event, I whipped up a quick Flash animation to send to some of the merchants who donated to the cause.

Click HERE for the .swf file

If that doesn't work, get the .exe HERE

The animations have sound. Enjoy!

Cool - XM Radio is in da hizzous!!

So it struck me that my lovely lady and I spend a lot of time driving. This driving usually has to do with our work and thus involves many hours of sitting on our asses looking at mile after mile of blacktop.

We have found many ways to distract ourselves on these long trips. There are, of course, games such as 'Punch me in the Arm' and 'Racoon Bocce' but these are short lived thrills. Books on tape are a great help but this situation really requires a far more complex solution involving technology of an almost mythical power. Behold!


I got the basic XM kit for Chrismachannukwanzikaa and picked up the car kit at Best Buy. I activated the system over the phone and then pranced (yes pranced) outside to install the shiny silver box of joy. This was achieved without undue stress. The radio itself slides into a mounting bracket that is stuck to the dash with powerful sticky tape. The power cord, antenna and audio out line are housed in this base station so you can simply take the radio with you if you should have to leave your vehicle in one of the less savory Amish neighborhoods near our home.

The unit requires about 20 minutes to download programming info, updates and (I am convinced) secret spyware that allows the government to track my every move.

Once set up the system is fairly easy to operate. That is to say, if you can turn a knob and/or push buttons, you're good to go. XM features something like 120 commercial free channels of programming for $10 a month. It also features something we often do not get out here in 'Gods Country (tm)', reception. I've had the system for a few days now and I enjoy it overall. Being a person who grew up, to some degree, during the 80's I appreciate the all 80's channel, although I am beginning to learn there was indeed a lot of crap created during that time. The world music channels are cool and I have a soft spot for 40's music and radio dramas from that period. The only problem is that if there isn't something on the channel you are listening to, you can bop around from channel to channel. And because the radio displays the artist and title you may find yourself distracted from your driving duties, which can lead to much swerving/screaming in panic etc...