This morning I had wondered why I haven’t seen Frazz in a couple of days…so I walk over to her cage and pick up her house…she sorta fell out of her house. When I looked down at her the first thing I noticed was an odd smell andafter I had a good look at her though…it was obvious that she had passed on. I like to think I gave her a good life. She had a hamster wheel, lots food and water, lots of treats, soft bedding and a house to live in. She was a very kind and docile hamster too…I could pick her up and pet her to my heart’s content and she’d just sit there starting at me wondering where her treat was…=) I am a bit puzzled as to why she died so young as I got her in April of this year. Anyway…here’s to Frazz The Hamster!! You will be missed.
Quote of the day!!!
“No…she’s not named after a comic book character…she’s was named after the tufts of fur sticking out of her butt.”"
11 years ago I said to myself…I don’t want to be a computer tech…I realize now that I should play to my strengths rather than learn something new. Why learn to walk at something when I can already run at something else? So here I am…attending Devry which in all respects is a technical trade school and not a 4 year university. I realize this and will take from Devry what I need and not expect anything that it cannot give me. I know that there are better solutions to getting a 4 year degree than Devry however the way they do their classes works out a lot better for me. At a regular school they are on the semester system which means there are 16 weeks and 32 classes per term. When I find myself in a tradtional semester system I tend to slack off and skip classes because I think…well if I miss one or two classes it won’t matter. That snowballs in to 4-5 then 10-15 and low and behold I fail the class. At Devry each session is 8 weeks long and we only meet once per week (for most classes) so if I miss 2 classes I’ve already missed a quarter of my classes…this fact keeps me honest and going to class.
There was one thing however that made me think really hard about going to school at Devry and that was the “written” placement test. As all of you now all colleges require you to take a math and writing class before you can go to school there. It is used to gauge your ability and put you in the right classes. Devry is no different. I finished the math part pretty easily and placed in the highest level algebra they could put me in which made me happy. When I took the English part I was required to write a 350-600 word essay that was concise, to the point, no grammatical errors, no spelling errors and that I would be graded more on the content of the essay rather than my ability to argue my point. I was given an hour from the time I started to read the topic to finish the essay. An hour later I have a 352 word essay that was concise, to the point and free of grammatical and spelling errors (sorta). I hit submit and 2 seconds later I received a score of 7 out of 12 which would place me in the lowest English class they offer. Being placed in the lowest English class didn’t bother me too much…what did bother me was that it took only 2 seconds for my essay to be graded. Now I don’t care who you are…you cannot effectively grade something in 2 seconds time. I surmised that the content had nothing to do with my grade and that it was the length that really mattered. So when I retook the “written” test I wrote a crappy essay that was not clear, concise, strayed off topic and used a lot of filler words…in the end I have 550 words and when I hit submit 2 seconds later I got a score of 11/12 which placed me in the highest rung of English they had to offer. This fact really bothered me…until it dawned upon me that this is a technical trade school. They’re not here to teach me english or math or history…they are here to teach me well…things more related to the technical field. So in the end I brushed off the placement exam, gave my self a pat on the back for realizing the stupidity of the written exam and decided to move forward with my career at Devry. I hope I made the right choice because I’m running out of time.
Quote of the day!
“Do you think God gets stoned? I think so . . . look at the platypus.”
One of my favorite games when I was a kid was the Monkey Island series. I’m not gonna bother trying to explain what Monkey Island is but I will say that this game was made back in the days when games required thought and out of the box thinking to complete. Lucas arts (the makers of Monkey Island) went back and remastered the original Monkey Island and created The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition. As you can see from the image above they made everything look prettier, they added voices for everybody and they enhanced the music/ambient sounds. The really cool thing is that you can hit F10 and toggle between the old version and the new version…that’s how I got the nifty screen caps =) As you can see just from the title screen caps above they really have made everything look better and even changed the color scheme a bit with the title.
Here you see part of the Scumm bar and the docks….notice that the moon and background have much more detail. Also note that the inventory is no longer a part of the screen and you have to hit “i” to bring it up in the Special Edition version. All in all I LOVE the new version and I hope that they make Monkey Island 2: LeChucks Revenge.
James May of Top Gear had the honor/opportunity of a life time to fly in a U2 spy plane at 70,000ft. That’s twice what an airliner flies at. The footage he took was breath taking and really reminds you just how big this planet is and how small we are. Enjoy.
Oh yeah…the other thing I found amazing is that the U2 spy plane lands on two sets of wheels that are inline…the skill it must take to land like that is amazing as well =)
Quote of the day!
“It’s absolutely…just almost impossible to articulate what it feels like. That is the real thing, Earth. It’s humbling.”
–James May as he looked out on Earth from the U2 spyplane
Had a blast at this years Piratefest! Got drunk, sung songs, played games (including Pirate Musical Chairs) slept on a really uncomfortable camping mat, got my ass beat down by an 8 year old in liar’s dice and other things that are kinda fuzzy atm…=) The only bad thing was the heat made it rather difficult to stay in full Pirate Garb or even to wear any pirate garb really but I was able to wear it at night so it wasn’t all that bad…=) I would like to thank Aaron Rhodes for organizing Piratefest every year and putting up with the crap that goes along with organizing an event like this…we all <3 you Aaron! I would also like to thank Dave and Tommy for coming up this year and I hope to bring up more people next year! See you all Piratefest next year!!! ARRRRR!!!!!!
Last week was Dave Sanders’s bachelor party. I wanted to make something special that would look cool and get everybody really drunk at the same time…=) My solution? Skittle infused Vodka and Vodka infused Gummy Bears. A few months ago I stumbled upon the recipe for Skittle infused Vodka over here at Mixthatdrink.com. The instructions were very clear and I only had to change a few things based on my own observations while making my first few batches, some assumptions and a difference in materials used to make my own batch. As for the gummy bears my friend Gillian told me about them and while the instructions over at again mixthatdrink.com…it left out the fact that I would have to air out the gummy bears to let them firm up a bit…but more on that later.
Skittle infused vodka…I’m gonna assume that you all read through the recipe at Mix That Drink…so I won’t bore you with the details as to how to make it…but with what changes I had to make…=) First off the recipe stated that the quality of the vodka didn’t matter too much but to not use the really cheap vodka i.e. Vons brand vodka. My assumption there told me that I could use what I have deemed a C grade vodka (first mistake) which was Smirnoff Triple Distilled Vodka. I also picked up some plastic flasks (second mistake) as I couldn’t find the nice glass ones that they used in the short amount of time I had. I decided to start out with the red skittles (third mistake) and after I let the infusion sit in the freezer for 2 hours…I tried it. Yeah tasted like medicine. I tried a second shot and swirled it in my mouth a bit…yup medicine. Turns out that after a bit more research I found another site that said that I have to use a B or A grade vodka and that out of all the flavors…the red ones tasted the worst. Down the drain it went. After that failure I went out and bought some Kettle One Vodka which I decided would be a B grade vodka. The other site also stated that the purple skittles tasted the best so I infused the Kettle One with the purple, stuck it in the plastic flask, stuck it in the freezer and 2 hours later…medicine…although not as bad. I decided to keep this batch cause I didn’t want to waste anymore booze. Dejected I tried the yellow skittles but this time since I had used the last of the vodka I put it back in to the original glass bottle. Two hours later…it tasted like yellow skittles!!! I deduced from this that I need to use glass to store the vodka infusion and not plastic…cause I guess plastic will change the taste of the infusion. A few other things I learned was the recipe said to just stack 4 coffee filters together and use that to filter the infusion…bad idea…at least for the filters I used cause when I tried to use 4 eventually it just stopped flowing through. I figured that the white gunk was clogging the filters so I decided to just use one at a time….but even just using one at a time didn’t work so I used one till the flow stopped then switched to another filter. I stopped filtering when all I had to use was one filter. They also say you can use paper towels…but I found that they absorbed about a quarter shot per filter run…and that’s just unacceptable =)
What about the vodka infused gummy bears? Not much there really just that (I think) I have to air them out for a few hours to let them firm up and get less slimy and that I probably have to use again a B grade vodka…cause I used the rest of the C grade to make them. They turned out okay…but I’ll have to play around with them to figure out the best way to firm them up.
Quote of the day!
“Jesus turned water into wine…I turned a whole student loan into Vodka. Your move, Jesus…”
Here’s the scene…I’m chilling out at the start of Dave Sanders’s bachelor’s party…when my mom calls me in tears saying “Your dad is in he hospital.” Lucky I didn’t drink too much by this point and was able to drive over to the hospital 5 minutes away. So I get to the hospital and I find my mom and she tells me that they are preping my dad for open heart surgery! HOLY CRAP! is what I was thinking…but I wanted to keep a calm face for my mom…so I played it cool. I tried to keep her occupied by talking about random things…like…the weather…kids these days…blah blah blah…eventually though the need to know exactly what was going on got to me and I started to call people I knew in the medical field to get advice as to what to do next and perhaps what was going on. Eventually I was told I should ask the ER registration nurses and ask them what was up. They told me that my dad was in the cath room and that they were going to insert a tube in to the femoral artery…snake it up to his heart…inject a dye and watch the workings of his heart. So now I’m thinking oh thank God…he’s not in surgery! A few minutes later Dr. Lopez comes out and informs us that one of my dad’s arteries is indeed blocked…but my dad’s body formed it’s own bypass. Yes…my dad’s body is so freeking bad ass that it formed it’s own bypass. So now he’s resting well in a bed over at Torrance Memorial with my mom. They say that they’re going to put him on a treadmill and if he does okay here they’re going to send him home Sunday or Monday. Here’s to small miracles.
Quote of the day!
“My dad’s body is so bad ass…it formed it’s on bypass!”
So I had an entire write up for this…but firefox decided to give me the middle finger and crash on me…and for some reason wordpress didn’t autosave a draft for me…go fig…anyhoo…here’s my attempt to rewrite my already written post…=)
My buddy David Dukellis posted a video on his facebook page done by Corey Vidal and I must say that it really impressed me. The video above however is not the one done by Corey Vidal. The above video is done by the original performers Moosebutter. Corey however did produce and promote the above video…=) Basically Corey contacted Moosebutter and asked if he could make a video of their song Star Wars….they wisely said yes. There was no reason to deny Corey permission really…it’s free advertising. A few months later Corey helped Moosebutter produce and promote their own video of Star Wars using the same style as Corey’s original video. (Man…the first post looked and sounded way better…grrrr…ah well)
I have no words for this…I went over to look to see what Frazz was up too and what do I see? I see Frazz asleep holding a seed…yes folks…she fell asleep WHILE eating.
Anyhoo…quote of the day!
“I don’t believe in reincarnation, and I didn’t believe in it when I was a hamster.”
Since the last incarnation of Punch-Out!! that came out for the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) I’ve been (we all have been) waiting for the next version of this game to come out. The last two consoles (N64 and Game Cube) had some great franchises on them and even launched a few of them…but they never saw Punch-Out!!. Why would Nintendo do this? Even though I would say this game is probably one of the most entertaining games I have ever played…there is one small problem. Replayability. Once you go through the game and figure out the patterns and the way the boxers telegraph their punches the game becomes very easy. So yeah it may take a week or a month or whatever to figure it out…but once you do…there’s no incentive to play it again. Nintendo has (it seems) to have addressed this particular issue.
After you fight each boxer it opens up an exhibition mode for that particular boxer. So say you fight Glass Joe and you whomp his ass and you’re feeling good about your self cause you beat the snot out of a boxer that has a 1-99 record (that’s 1 win and 99 losses) what do you do now? Move on to Von Kaiser? Nope you go to the exibition mode and you will find three challenges for Glass Joe. One is you have to knock him down three times…then let him win by Decision. The second one is to find his one punch knockdown. The last one is you have to beat Glass Joe with out ducking, dodging or blocking (a lot harder than it seems). So yeah…each boxer has this mode…so it adds another thing to do once you beat the game the first time around.
Another thing that Nintendo did for Punch-Out!! is that once you do win the first time around you get to defend your title! You fight all the same boxers but they are different somehow. I have yet to beat the game so I cannot say as to what or how they are different…this is just what the Nintendo site says. Once you beat the title defense mode…there is yet another mode called Last Stand. No clue what that is…but…you do get to fight Donkey Kong. =) I assume that you once again get to fight all the boxers again and based on the name I’m gonna guess you start at half health and you have already been knocked down twice. We’ll see.
The actual game play however is pretty cool. I love how they did the boxers and how they kept with the theme of Punch-Outs!! of the past. The one thing they did change is in the past as you progressed the boxers basically got faster and had cool gimmicks. With the Wii version yes the boxers get faster but they also don’t throw all their punches at the same speed. What does this mean? Well take Super Macho Man for instance…he has 5 punches. Two upper cuts, one hook and two different spin moves. The two uppercuts (depending on which side they come from) will come at you at different speeds so if you’re used to just dodging as soon as they move…you’re in for a big surprise when you go up against Super Macho Man and some other boxers that do the same thing. As for the controls…man I was totally excited about being able to actually box with the wiimote and nunchuk in hand. When I tried it it seemed clumsy and awkward. The only other option (unfortunatlly) is to turn the wiimote sideways and use it like a controller. While this method is much more accurate…the wiimote wasn’t designed to be used like this. The direction controler isn’t flat…it sorta curves up at the ends and after an hour of ducking, dodging and jabbing your thumb gets a bit raw. It’s also a bit on the small side so I found myself ducking when I should be punching or dodging when I should be ducking. The last thing about the wiimote is that it was designe to be held vertically not horizontally so it’s just awakward in that sense. All in all though it’s not TOO bad…but I wish I could use the classic controller or even the wavebird.
Even with the short comings with the controller…I am still having a lot of fun playing it and I look forward to the other two fight modes…they sound pretty challenging.
Quote of the day!
“There are many ways to climb a mountian Mac but there’s only one way to swim across a river.”
Chunker: the really cool thing is...this chat wall is linked to a hidden page...so askimet will filter the spam for me =) NO more crappy caphecha!
Chunker: I wonder if anybody reads this site regularly...
Chunker: Ah well...I can just chat with myself here and pretend that people do...=)
Rick: Chat wall?
Rick: Oh, nifty.
Chunker: cool huh? =)
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This morning I had wondered why I haven’t seen Frazz in a couple of days…so I walk over to her cage and pick up her house…she sorta fell out of her house. When I looked down at her the first thing I noticed was an odd smell andafter I had a good look at her though…it was obvious that she had passed on. I like to think I gave her a good life. She had a hamster wheel, lots food and water, lots of treats, soft bedding and a house to live in. She was a very kind and docile hamster too…I could pick her up and pet her to my heart’s content and she’d just sit there starting at me wondering where her treat was…=) I am a bit puzzled as to why she died so young as I got her in April of this year. Anyway…here’s to Frazz The Hamster!! You will be missed.
Since the last incarnation of Punch-Out!! that came out for the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) I’ve been (we all have been) waiting for the next version of this game to come out. The last two consoles (N64 and Game Cube) had some great franchises on them and even launched a few of them…but they never saw Punch-Out!!. Why would Nintendo do this? Even though I would say this game is probably one of the most entertaining games I have ever played…there is one small problem. Replayability. Once you go through the game and figure out the patterns and the way the boxers telegraph their punches the game becomes very easy. So yeah it may take a week or a month or whatever to figure it out…but once you do…there’s no incentive to play it again. Nintendo has (it seems) to have addressed this particular issue.
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