Telescope

This is a beautiful piece of machinery.



There's a story about it on the JPL website. I go there because I was reading this story about the giant Asteroid that's going to pass by the earth. Everybody duck!!!

Hacking a Car

In this post, I was wondering if it might be possible to hack the keyless entry to a car. How amazing that I ran across a little article about that just today!!!


Click for bigger.

Men's Room to remember

I like the one on the right's expression the best...



According to the email this came in, it's a Men's Room in NYC designed by Edge Designs.

Unrelated

I always have to snicker when I see my IE* window minimized like this.



Totally unrelated, I saw this picture somewhere the other day and thought it was cool. I like Red Balloons I guess.



*Yes, I'm an unrepentant user of IE. I've tried FireFox and Opera and I just don't care for them. I'm a dyed in the wool** Microsoft guy. Can't help it...

** I've always heard this phrase, but never really known the meaning of it. WikiPedia no longer has a page for it, but Google knows everything, so here's the old WikiPedia definition: The expression "dyed in the wool" refers to a state of steadfastness, usually in one's political, religious or social beliefs. The expression comes from the fact that fabric can be dyed in a number of ways. The woven fabric may be dyed after it is complete, or the threads may be dyed before they are woven. When a color is "dyed in the wool," the wool itself is dyed before being spun into threads, so the color is least likely to fade or change.

Google Datacenters

The NY Times had a really neat article lately about Google building two new datacenters in Oregon. Pretty impressive!

Links, Stats, and More Traffic

Morris over at The Greatest Blog Experiment has just started an interesting project. He is building a blog directory of sorts. According to his inaugural post, he'll add anyone to his directory who links back to him. I've done that and I am anxious to see what happens.

Since he's talking about increasing your traffic, it's worthwhile to talk about knowing how much traffic you're getting...

I have two different stat collection tools on my blog. The first one I got, StatCounter, gives me a weekly email about how many page loads, unique visitors, and returning visitors I got that week. The website also gives you graphs of traffic and LOTS more info. After you sign up, you add a short piece of code into your Blogger template to allow for the data collection. It's very useful and free.

My newest find is shown on my right sidebar near the bottom. Geo Visitors plots your last 24 hours worth of hits on a Google map. It is awesome. I love being able to see at a glace where traffic is coming from. It's also free and just a small piece of code to add.

Why would you want more traffic? Well, two reasons: If you have Adsense on your blog, the more traffic you get, the more pennies you make. If you don't have Adsense (I don't currently), the traffic figures may just be something you enjoy seeing. I am thrilled when I get an stat email that says I had 50 or 60 hits today. That's worth it all by itself.

No Comments?

Dudes! All that writing and no comments??? Someone please throw a guy a bone here! :)

Any comments are welcome, even dopey ones.

Thanks to my reliable and regular commenters Fortunate One and emmakirst, one of which just started a brand new job. Congrats!

But that's no excuse!!! The comment addict needs his fix here, people!

Please, alms for the comment poor...really. Pretty please?

Single Letter Domain Names

I was thinking the other day about how valuable the single letter domain names in the COM TLD* are, so I decided to do a little research on that. I can only think of one that I know that is in use - X.com, now owned by Paypal. I'm very curious as to whether other single letter domains are in use. Certainly all are owned, but what happens when you go there? I'm going to make a table that will list them from A to Z and we'll see what happens.

This will be a work in progress, so I will post names as I research them, and hopefully someday finish this.

*Top Level Domain (like .com .net .org)

Here we go!

Single Letter Domain Name Research
Click the domain to go to the site.
Click the owner to see more info about them.

Domain	Owner	In Use
Q.com	Qwest Communications	Yes ^1
X.com	PayPal Inc	Yes ^2
Z.com	Nissan USA	Yes ^3

^1 - Redirects to Qwest.com.
^2 - Redirects to Paypal.com.
^3 - Z.com remins in the address bar, but shows the same site as NissanUSA.com.

I'm quite surprised that only 3 single letter domains are in use right now. A mystery has arisen, however. Every other single letter domain name is registered to IANA. According to the WikiPedia Article, "The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is an organization that oversees IP address allocation, DNS root zone management, and other Internet protocol assignments."

So, is IANA demanding such a high price for single letter domains, that only really large companies can afford them? Time for more research!

So, here's the scoop on that. After beating down the conspiracy theorist in me that sometimes rears his ugly head, I found an article that explains the reason pretty well.

It seems that back in the Stone Age of the Internet (1993), the database administrators that took care of the DNS system were afraid that there would be such an explosion of domain registrations that the database couldn't hold up to it. Well, they were right about one thing, there has been a supernova of registrations. However, lucky for all of us, the database has held up and actually performed quite admirably. So, instead of splitting the database up into 26 or more small ones, they've left it as it is. Had they done the split, you'd have to type www.apple.a.com to get to the iPod maker's website and www.cnn.c.com to visit the site where we all get our news. Thanks goodness for simplicity!

I learned from the article that there are actually 6 names that had been registered before the reservation of all the singlets. The three above, and these 3:

Domain	Owner	In Use
I.net	Inet Corp	No
Q.net	Q Networks	No
X.org	X.ORG Foundation	Yes

So, will we or will we not see the rest of the sinlget domains? Will they sell for 6 figures if they are released? We'll just have to wait and see.

Two New Projects

I'm starting two new projects today.

The first is to make a list of all the video games I've played at home from Atari 2600 games up to the present. I'll continue to add games to this list until they pry the controller from my cold...well, you know. :)

The second is to make a list of who owns all the single letter domain names like a.com. Very valuable names I think, and I'm wondering if ANY of them are actually in use. The only one I can think of that I know is X.com, which is now owned by Paypal. That should be fun.

The second project will be bumped to the top each time I add some, but I don't know when it will be finished. I'll probably look up a few letters at a time and go from there.

Link to Game Project

Link to Domain Project

An old pic

I just ran across this old picture from when I was at the Red Cross shelter. I've always planned on posting it, and finally here it is.

I call it "Cop on Segway".

Test Message

While I was testing the 1and1 hosting I setup, I sent myself a test message to see if the email was working. I liked the text so much, I wanted to stash it here so I can use it in the future:

This is a test request. It comes from the best guest in the west. I'm not being a pest, I just guessed that you like to hear my little jest.

Movies I want to see

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is coming out on July 7th and I am ready for it.



Here's the trailer to get ya interested...Argh!

Superman Returns is coming out in 3 days, and I want to see it too.



Here's the Man of Steel's trailer.

I'm not impressed

Check this out. I would like to see a picture of the old coot that does the signs. What a grump. I'm surprised that the city allows that kind of thing to be posted at a business.

Custer's Last Stand

Breaking news: Today in 1876 was Custer's Last Stand.

In an unrelated story, today at lunch was Custard's Last Stand; we had Flan for desert. (Just kidding.) But we did have taco Sunday.

Hehe.

HP Movie 5!

I just learned that movie of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is coming out next year, and I decided that I'm joining the countdown now!!! I'll have to pop this to the top of my site every once-in-a-while. :)



Thanks to LeakyNews for the ticker!

Webbys

I found that game (previous post) while I was looking at the Webby Award winners. Here's another one. This is an amazing use of the web. Truly impressive.

Freedom of the Seas

A fun game

I found a fun game online today. It's part MahJongg, part Tetris. It's good! Try it. :)

The 1and1.com testing is going well. I'm fairly impressed with them. Some of their instructions are out and out wrong, which would cause trouble for the average user who was trying to set it up though...

Good Sunday

So far, it's been a pretty good day. Got up, ate cereal as usual, and did some nettin'. I had some Superman Cap'n Crunch, which is sweeter than the cereals I normally eat, but it was good.



I was looking for a picture of it when I ran across this review. I have to quote the funny part - very amusing!

Box loudly exclaims, "Superman Shield Shapes Turn Milk BLUE!" Apparently, this is a good thing. At least for kids. Those of us over 20 remember when skim milk used to have this blue tint to it that induced the gag reflex. Fortunately, the blue milk trick, while disturbing, is acceptable because the Man of Steel surely must have signed off on this when selling his soul to Quaker, and the Man of Steel would never betray our trust.

What the box doesn't tell you is that this blue thing works both ways - not only do the shields turn the milk blue, but the milk turns the shields blue. Like a Superman Shield pregnancy test.

I signed up to test out 1and1.com's web hosting service today. I'm preparing to recommend it to a client and I though that I should at least try it before I did that just in case. Looks good, according to my very cursory examination. 90 day money back guarantee, plus an affiliate program...



I also researched how to root a cutting from a Hibiscus, which I love. According to this site, the author of which needs a spell-checker, it takes 3-4 months to root a cutting in water. More time that I'm willing to spend, I'm afraid. Another site, however, says 4-8 weeks, which sounds much more acceptable to me. They say to plant it in vermiculite, which I have heard of but don't know anything about. They also say, before planting to dip the cut end in a rooting hormone such as Rootone. I might try it, since I can't find a potted one of the multi-colored variety that I like.


Today we played some more of our current game, Dungeon Siege II.


Here's my character, Daria.


Here's a mean, nasty, old dragon we fought.


And here's a pretty rainbow magical place.

It's fun. Jen figures that we'll finish in about another month, before the baby get here.

That's about it for now. We're planning on seeing Cars tomorrow before Little Gym, so I'm hoping for a great Monday too!

Music to taste

Tomorrow when I wake up, I'm going to sample some music from Digitally Imported. I was just listening to the Ambient channel before bed...

L.A. County Fair

A cute little video that I absolutely will not be posting to Digg. Man, I got torn up for the Lynne & Tessa post...

L.A. County Fair

Engrish

Going to Woot always makes me think also of Engrish.com, for some reason.

And here's a particularly good recent Engrish...I don't know if I'd name my baseball team that...

Woot!

On the rare occasion that I remember to do so, I visit Woot.com to look at the daily deal. Today's description is very funny!

S’natas Repeekesuoh
( that's Satan's Housekeeper spelled backwards -Dh )

A dapper traveling salesman appeared at our headquarters not too long ago, demonstrating—or should we say DEMONstrating?—the Dirt Devil Vac ‘n’ Mop. His manner was polished, his pitch persuasive, but did we detect a whiff of brimstone about him?

“Your vacuum and mop were created as separate housekeeping implements,” he said, “and separate they might have remained, but for the powers of the Dirt Devil, Prince of Domestic Darkness! Banish thy broom and thy dustpan! Cast out thy mop and thy sud-bucket! And prostrate yourself, mortal, before the unholy cleaning power of the Dirt Devil Vac ‘n’ Mop! Its absorbent pad of pure evil damns dustbunnies to an eternal hereafter, where they shall know a suffering beyond your earthly ken!”

Just then, a priest appeared in our doorway, sweating and panting, his vestments disheveled.
“Wait!” the cleric cried. “The Vac ‘n’ Mop is a perversion of nature! This infernal hybrid, with its labor-saving, easy-empty dirt cup merely serves to tempt your susceptibility to sloth, a capital vice!”

“But isn’t cleanliness said to be adjacent to godliness?” asked the handsome salesman—and we could tell it was too late; we were sold. We made our deal with the Dirt Devil, and our floors are so clean, we don’t regret it. After all, Vac ‘n’ Mop goes from sweeping to mopping without stopping—and it’s from the deepest bowels of Hades, so you know it cleans like Hell.

Tetris on piano

Neat music...and you never see an Asian girl speak with an English accent!

A great gadget

USB Teddy Bear



Now what would be really wacky would be if they made a plush that plugged in so that it looked like he was making love to the computer. That'd be hilarious...but would probably speak to a very small market.

Optimus Prime

Can you tell I'm cleaning out the folder where I've been saving pictures that I wanted to post?

Wish I had...

...one of these!

Funny Shirt

I saw this funny shirt on Big Dogs today...

Car unlock via phone

Locked your keys in your car ???? Did you know this??

If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home,
call someone on your (or someone else's) cell phone.

Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the
other person at your home press the unlock button of your key fob
(clicker), holding it near the phone on their end. Your car doors
will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you.

Distance is no object you could be hundreds of miles away, and if
you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for your car,
you can unlock the doors (or the trunk!).

I just was emailed this today. If you know me, or have ever emailed me anything of questionable factualness, you know that I'm a BIG skeptic about anything I get in email being true. So, since my good friend has a brand new Buick Lucerne with a key fob, and she was the one that sent it to me, I just had to test it out. I walked out to her car and called her on her land line from my cel. We tested in a variety of ways: I held the cel phone near the car, I held it to my ear as you normally would while talking, and I put it on speaker phone. MUCH TO MY SURPRISE the car was able to be locked and unlocked repeatedly no matter how I had my phone positioned.

I am really pleasantly surprised that it works, but I guess I shouldn't be. This article mentions that the car "...monitors a radio frequency and unlocks the doors when it receives the correct digital code from the radio transmitter in your key fob..." and that kind of explains it. The cel phone transmits any kind of signal that it gets apparently, whether sound waves or RF.

I think the root of my surprise is that I didn't really think about the fact that the key fob is an RF transmitter. I guess I thought it was infrared or something, but that sounds silly now. Anyway, take it from me, it does work - at least on this car. Now I need to test more cars!!!

I wonder if you could build a device that could figure out the correct frequency and code to transmit to unlock the doors or a car and not have it take 6 weeks to be successful?

Further, I wonder what other benefits this has. I've heard of a system called Lo-Jack that is a transmitter that can be used to track your car if it is stolen. Well, what if the thief conference called like 5 other people and had them just sit their phones down? Are there not now 6 duplicate signals for Lo-Jack to track? That system may not use regular RF, maybe it uses satellite, I don't know, but it is something interesting to think about...

[Update: Read the comments first. Okay, I'm a fool. We tested it again. Originally, the person with the clicker was inside a building about 150 feet away, but was still in range it seems. The cell phone had nothing to do with it. She went much further away and then the car failed to unlock via phone. I didn't construct my experiment well. Oh well...I was too anxious to get a positive result, I guess. Kind of like those guys that claimed to have produced cold fusion. Hehe.

So, the final word from the two expieriemnts that I'm aware of is: it does not work.]

Go England!

I'm not sure why, but in the last 24 hours, I've gotten quite a number of hits from England.



Welcome, friends, and "Go England - World Cup!!!!!"

All you blokes send your mates to DarrellH.org!!!

How do you like that? I don't really speak English, but I used this dictionary. :)

I just checked my other stats and found that I almost beat Jen in traffic this week...but I didn't. I had 258 Unique Visitors and she had 269. Sooooooooooo close! (but that only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.)

Shoot down a crash test dummy over the internet

This real-time webcam game lets you shoot tennis balls at a crash test dummy glued to the ceiling. Which will crash first - the dummy, or the website?

( I shot 3 times, and on the third, I hit the dummy and had the tennis ball bounce back and nearly hit the camera. Yes! )

read more | digg story

Funny Stuff

Here's some funny stuff that I just wasted time watching/reading:

* UNNECESSARY CENSORSHIP

* When asked about the pictures that show Britney driving with her infant son in her lap instead of safely secured in a baby seat, Britney said: "I did it with my dad. I'd sit on his lap and I drive," the Louisiana native said. "We're country."

It really would be awesome if people would stop mentioning that Britney is from Louisiana. As a native, it's kind of annoying to be lumped in with this idiot. It's kind of like being Hitler's dog.
-Tyler Durden

* The male Lyrebird impresses mates by imitating chainsaws, car alarms, camera shutters, and other sounds of the forest.

(If the vid is not smooth, pause it, and wait for it to download)Love that song, but it's better in *German* - "Like a freighter!"

(I'm not going to embed this video, but it's funny if you know the song as well as I do...oh, here's another!)

I really thought that Lynne & Tessa did a good job. They have lots of videos...Wannabe...Get Down...This Love...Don't Speak...It's Not Unusual...Skater Boy...What a Girl Wants...Lucky...Move Your Feet... I've watched em all tonight! I love cable internet! :)

I really think its funny how the round-faced one (Lynne*) changes the meaning of the lyrics with her actions. It's cute.

*Doesn't she look like a young Buffy the Vampire Slayer? :)

Read Up

I must look into this a bit more!

Divergence Eve Vol 2

I enjoyed Divergence Eve Vol 2 and a Hawaiian Pizza this evening at Drafthouse. The guys running the show talked to me before and they were really nice.

The show was good, but I wish I could have seen volume 1 first. I searched for a synopsis of those episodes, but didn't find much. I did find a review of Vol 2, which starts "Right when you pick up this DVD, you'll notice two things, and two big things at that. These space cadets have huge knockers." I have to laugh, but its true. Everyone in the theater laughed ever time a gratuitous boob scene "spang" up. It in no way contributed to the story, except for comic relief. Oh well. The story was good, if confusing.

I would like to go again sometime.

Random + Dafthouse

Periodically, I read one of the "updated right now" blogs listed on the front page of Blogger. This is one of them. Nice Pictures.

Going to the free Anime show at Alamo Dafthouse in a little while. I can't wait!!! I've been wanting to do this forever!

*Yes, I know it's Drafthouse, but I made a typo and thought it was funny enough to leave. :p

Video Channels

I just found this website called ChannelChooser that lets you watch several different Video Channels on your computer. It's interesting. It has a baby channel, Jen... :)

[Update]: It seems that the locally hosted channels are really glitchy, at least from where I'm sitting. The external ones like Baby and MTV are pretty smooth.

i-Bar

Wouldn't it be neat to play with one of these? I wonder how much it costs? $100,000?

Manufactured by i-Bar.ch

Try this

Really, try it.

Castle

It's an amazing "eye hack".

Faxanadu

The Top 50 Game Ending Songs story on Digg made me think about some of the games I had played as a kid and I wanted to play around with some again. I've been playing one called Faxanadu today and it is...well, not exactly fun on the computer, but it is interesting. It was great back in the day, as I recall. On the PC, it would be better with a game pad.

Anyway, one thing you have to do in this game is get training at a gym before you can go out into the world. Here's the animation of the trainer (circa 1988-quality 2 frames per second animation) in the training hall. Now, I suspect that he is throwing up his fist in a manly "Raar" that is meant to inspire wimps like me to be strong...but it certainly looks like he's doing something else there in his lonely training hall to me. Hahahahaha.



Yeah, I just felt like ridiculing him. There's really no other point to this post. :p

New Transformers Movie

"According to a leaked script, three of our favorite consumer electronics (Xbox 360, iPod and a Plasma TV) are going to do a little transforming in the new Transformers live action movie courtesy of Michael Bay."

(I read some more on this and it sounds like this movie is going to suck, suck, suck. Did they never watch the original Transformers cartoon? Who are these idiots? I may not watch it in protest...)

read more | digg story

Spaghetti

I'd like to make something like this some time. I think I might use chicken and artichoke. I wonder if rosemary would go good in that?

I have to laugh at Jody's "White Oprah" comment. Hehe! A person has to keep their sense of humor to get though adversity, and I have great respect for her for doing that and for keeping going.

DIY Hi-def LCD Projector that uses $30-50 bulbs!

PopSci ran this article on how Lumenlab is simplifying LCD projectors for DIY'ers using standard parts. The best part is that it's a Hi-def (you pick the resolution based of the LCD) and then illuminate it with a $30-50 dollar bulb that lasts 3 times as long as a normal projector bulb!

(This is a great little build, but I wouldn’t try it. You have to be very confident in your skills to disassemble an LCD monitor and potentially destroy it with even the smallest mistake. I'm not willing to possibly blow at least $150 on a screen, plus the cost of all the other parts. Now, Lumenlab prebuilt projector sounds pretty cool...cheap enough too, but the resolution is low. That's OK for TV shows or even DVDs, but you couldn't reasonably project your computer output at good quality. You probably could do PowerPoint, if it didn't have any very detailed graphics, I guess...)

read more | digg story

One, please

I say! I need to purchase me one of these here posters some day!



I watched the live-action movie version Aeon Flux today and enjoyed it immensely. I've never seen the MTV attempt at anime, but it doesn't look like something I'd like. I really dislike that kind of cheap-o non-detailed American trying to look Japanese style animation. However, the movie was great. Good sci-fi, good love story, good surprise ending. I'd like to own that too. What I didn't expect was the pronunciation of Aeon being what it was. While I'd say something like A-yawn/A-on with a long A sound, it is really E-yawn/E-on with a long E. How about that.

Top 50 Game Ending Songs

You will no doubt find some old favourites in the list, and probably a lot of other titles you've never played or even heard of. There are MP3 files for each one of the songs.

(I super-digg this! I played so many of those gazmes when I was a kid. It really brings back memories. If you'd told me when I was 8 that I'd still be playing video games...I guess I would have believed you.)

read more | digg story

Star Trek Cribs

Oh, man, this is great! I don't know how they did this, but I got a big kick out of it. Is it dolls? Is it CGI? I...just...don't...know...Spock!

One complaint, I don't think Mr. Spock is from Compton. At least not the last time I checked.

Not Cars

I got this ad for the new movie Cars in my email from a local theater...but...what's wrong with this picture?


Click for a readable version. :)

How funny!

I didn't even notice that I wrote two posts on the subject of Georges in a row today!

Graphics Play

I've been playing around in Paint Shop Pro today on inspiration from Scripting News. I really like their header graphic style and I made a few in a similar style just for fun. These are from our recent Port Aransas (1, 2) trip, of which I have not yet written, but I plan to. Enjoy!







Here's a link to the real, unscathed image of the Hibiscus flower. Beautiful!


I used to have one similar to that (below), but it went to the big flower garden in the sky. :(


One day I'll find another one like that.

P.S. Wanna know how to do curved text like that real easy in PSP? Here ya go!

New Photo

Since the photo I have been using for my profile is quite old, I thought I'd update it with a photo that Jen recently took of me. I've let go of the big glasses and I'm pretty happy about that.


[ ---------- Then ---*--- Now ----------]

The Iceman

I hadn't gotten around to writing it yet, but I met The Iceman, George Gervin the other day. He was signing autographs at a Sprint/Nextel event that I went to. I went up and shook his hand and chatted with him for a sec. He was really nice, and someone that I felt I could instantly respect. I told him that I thought he was a great person and he said, "Well thank you, young man." :)

Where is George???

I'm entering bills into Where's George today. I only had $23 on me, but I entered them all. It had been a while since I'd used the site, but I'm getting back into it now.

Here's the link to my profile. I am adding a button to my sidebar too. It's getting full over there!

That's not her

Is there any way this could really be Paris Hilton singing? I doubt it...

Who: Paris Hilton
Video: 'Stars Are Blind'
The Lowdown: The paparazzi-loving celebutante tries her hand at singing while frolicking on the beach and vamping it up in signature Paris style. This reggae-drenched tune is the first single from the sexy heiress' debut CD.

Writer's Almanac Podcast

Thanks to Merle Sneed, I just learned about Writer's Almanac Podcast by Garrison Keillor. I've always enjoyed Keillor's work, and listened to A Prairie Home Companion on the radio, but I didn't know that WA was released as a podcast. What a wonderful find!

Via WA, I checked out the Poetry Foundation website and tried their Poetry Tool. Using the tool, you can find all kinds of poems for whatever occasion you need one for. For instance, I found 7 poems for Graduations, that I have printed out and plan to recite at length upon our next meeting to my good friend the doctor who just graduated! (just kidding about that whole reciting bit...)

[unrelated]
Here's a poem for remembrance. It is awesome!

Remember
by Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,
...Gone far away into the silent land;
...When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day
...You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
...Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while
...And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
...For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile
...Than that you should remember and be sad.

Up Again

Well, I got some sleep and now I'm ready for the day. As with most Saturday mornings, I slept well since I had unplugged the phone before bed. We still get lots of wrong number phone calls, and they tend to come in a lot on Saturday morning.

Now it's cereal time!

I was just checking the weather for today (the forecast says that the atmosphere in our general area will turn into plasma today due to the high temperatures in the area - no surprise there!) and noticed a link for Traffic.com. Pretty interesting stuff, but I don't know how accurate it is. I have to test it out...

WinAmp has TV

I just learned that WinAmp has TV shows, as well as the variety of radio stations that I normally listen to. Some channels have things that are actually worth watching! I just watched 10 minutes of an episode of Firefly, which I love. Such a good show. Such good acting. Particularly Kaylee!!!

SnipShot

I just learned about SnipShot from Amber MacArthur's website. Definitely good! It's so easy my mum could use it!!!

Two Ten AM

Weird stuff comes out on the net at 2:10am. Let me introduce as evidence the following clip:

What is love?


FO, didn't we go to high school with these two? Hehe.

Hoodwinked!

I just watched movie #2, Hoodwinked! (IMDb link w/ reviews.)

I enjoyed it, but it was silly. :)

Ann Hathaway is Red; she has such a pretty voice! And cute too! She starred in Ella Enchanted, too, you know. I liked that movie.

No more movies tonight. I have two more rented, plus at least 3 anime DVDs, and two other movies that I have but haven't watched.

UE post 2

Okay, I didn't move on to the next movie; rather, I watched the 6 "Making of Underworld Evolution" featurettes. Man, talk about in-depth! They were quite lengthy, but really well done. Very enjoyable. The special features really enhanced this movie for me.

Underworld Evolution

It's movie night at the H household. I'm here at home while J & B are gone to visit my folks.

I just spent the last 1 hour, 46 minutes, 24 seconds watching Underworld Evolution. (IMDb link w/ reviews.)



It was good, but I think the first one was better. I like this kind of movie a lot. It's gothic fantasy action without things that really scare me. I can put up with and enjoy vamps and werewolves, but just don't put me in front of a movie with lots of needles and scalpels in it. Hehe.

I think that widescreen is the only way to watch a movie these days. I won't pick up a full screen DVD any more in fact. If it doesn't have widescreen, I won't watch it. I'm a widescreen snob I guess. It's funny, but I used to dislike wide. No more!

Hmm, just checked out UGO, too.

On to the next movie!!!

3D Logic

Check this out!!! I've been playing 3D Logic from MicroGames for the last 30 minutes, and I barely noticed the time go by. I'm on Level 12 right now and it is really addictive. I have gotten stuck once or twice and then surfed the net for a few minutes to clear my mind, and then I started again and the solution was clear.

Very fun game!

Indians Strike Back

Baaaack in the day, the White Man screwed the Red Man out of just about everything he had. Land, Buffalo, Women: the white devil took it all in trade for a few baubles. Well, now the Red Man strikes back and it ain't purty!

'Malfunctioned' win spurs Oklahoma casino questions

My family actually plays a lot at this casino. We usually go whenever we're visiting, and I know that mom and dad go to play and eat there frequently. I hope that if I do win, it's a smaller jackpot so that I'll get paid. Granted, I don't know the full story. The machine may have malfunctioned, or Stanley Rosemond may be doddering old fool, or both - we just don't know. I think that there are machines in the casino that pay that much on a progressive jackpot win, but I never play them. You just can't win on progressives, as far as I'm concerned.

I haven't seen it yet, but I plan to try to get a photo of an ad from one of the Shreveport LA casino that says something to the effect of "Shreveport: We pay our winners." Ouch!

1,000 MW solar power plant for China

Solar Millennium, a Germany-based solar energy technology company, is working with its Chinese counterpart to build a US$2.5 billion in north China.

I love the idea of solar power!!!

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Priest: Don' Cha Worry!

Worried about your kid being born today on 6/6/06? Fuhget Aboud It!!! So says a priest in this article.

I think it'd be kind of cool. But I bet the kid'd be a real...hellion! :p

TikiBar again

In addition to releasing two episodes "double-shot" style, it looks like the Tiki Bar website has had a few bucks "poured" into it! Tastes great! Less Filling!

For a while there, the episodes were really getting a bit disappointing, but they've put a "splash of the good stuff" back in and they are a lot better. Whew!

I can't think of any more drink references!

Port Aransas on my mind

In 2005, we went to Port A for a few days. We stayed at Sandcastle Condos and loved it. It's a great place to stay. The pool is beautiful, and the walkway to the beach is very convenient! The #1 good thing is that the Air Conditioning in our room was very cold. Double plus!

While there, we ate a Castaway’s and enjoyed it. The Coconut Shrimp that we had was outstanding, but the service was just fair. I also ate at Port A Pizzeria while there, and was very pleased with that. The pizza was good and the atmosphere was “little town friendly.” I liked it a lot.

Finally, my mom and wife went to Virginia’s, and they were so rude that they turned around and left without even being seated. I’d recommend against going there.

The reason that I’m writing this now, a year later, is that we’re going back to Port Aransas in two days and we’re staying in the same place and going back to the 2 favorite restaurants too. We plan on trying one or two new places too, just for fun, and I will write about those when I return!

Paper Bins

All over San Antonio, the paper recycling bins are full. I don't know why they aren't being picked up, but I've emailed the San Antonio director to ask.

I checked their map, and they have bins all over. I'm actually surprised that there are so many. I've been to at least 8 locations lately, and almost every bin is full.



Hopefully they'll pick them up soon.

While I was reading up on their info on the website, I saw a link to a good article in the The Christian Science Monitor about paper recycling.

Last month, the American Forest and Paper Association reported that paper recycling reached a record high in the US in 2005. More than 51 percent of all paper products consumed was recovered, up considerably from 1990, when 33 percent was recycled.

I was really surprised that so much paper get recycled, but I'm happy about that. I do a lot of work to contribute to that 51%!!! :)