Checking...

... in.

So it's been a couple days since I got back. I was sunburned all to shit, which left me feeling sick as hell. I'm feeling a bit better, though getting up at extremely early the last few days has me tired.

It's also worth noting that I've decided... to quit smoking again. This time, however, I'm going at it hard. I've gone from smoking between 3/4 to 1 1/2 pack a day to 4 per day the last two days and I've only smoked 2 today. I'm cranky, that's for damn sure, but I can tell that the cravings are already getting less than they were. I'm just hoping that I can stay quit this time...


Anyway, I've got around to to uploading some images.

Vacation

Check them out if you'd like.

You can see some of the great beauty that is Northern Minnesota. You can see the Soudan Mine as well.

I had a great time, and really wish I could have stayed longer.


In other news, I'm almost done with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Not bad so far, but definitely far different than I expected.

Hello Interwebs

It's been a little while... actually, it's been almost two weeks, which is more than a little while really. I've been pretty busy... took some vacation time and actually went somewhere, and I've been overall just not interested in blogging.


Now, the problem is that I've got a ton of things to blog about, and still nearly no time what-so-ever to do so. I've also been wanting to get some writing done, having recently been somewhat inspired to do so, and I'm really not seeing it happening.

I will do a quick run-down on what it is that I've been up to.

First of all. I went with my girlfriend on what she calls her 'family vacation'. It's basically a reunion of about 70 family members at one location that they generally invade. It involves tons of aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews. All of these are combined with various types of watercraft at a multi-cabin resort and copious amounts of alcohol. It's spread out over the course of a week.

Oh, and her family is just a little bit crazy. Although, I have to admit, everyone's family is a little bit crazy. You just get used to each individual family's crazy after a while.

Really, they're not bad at all.

So, this vacation runs from Friday through Friday, and due to a lack of usable vacation time, and not wanting to miss out on seeing my kids for a week, I wasn't able to go for the entire time. But, I went from Friday through today and had a pretty good time. I drove back down today.

The "resort" we stayed at was Arcadia Lodge. I used quotation marks because of the fact that Arcadia Lodge is only slightly a resort. It's the first year that they've been there, and I truly hope they don't do it again. First of all, their beach, which isn't much of a beach, actually has posted hours. None of the amenities are very impressive in person, and the cabins main feature is paper thin walls and tin roofs. It's not a terrible place, but given the price list on their website, I wouldn't really recommend it.

It's about a 4 hour drive, and after driving back, I'm pretty exhausted, so I will be stopping there. I have a lot of things to catch up, even though I've only been out of touch since Thursday morning, but, thems are the breaks.

I have some photos that I will try and post up, but I didn't have a lot of camera time, being that I didn't want to take it with me everywhere where I might lose or break it. I will try and get up some pictures from our trip over to Tower, MN, and the Soudan Underground Mine. I got some decent shots there before my batteries died, so I will try to get those posted up. I'm proud of myself because I overcame my rediculous claustrophobia and took the tour which involves packing into a tiny 60 year old elevator on a cable and plummeting at some 15+ mph over half a mile into the earth. It would be interesting to go back and check out the tour of the U of M's Physics Experiments, however it would involve going down in that elevator again.

On another note, there's one thing I can't just let go by yet. I can't beleive they're making a Thundercats movie. Actually, I can believe it, I would just prefer not to.

I do things oddly....

And you know this!

Quoted for truth. Copyright © 2007 Melissa Kay Gagner. All rights reserved.

... Anyway, I thought what I had just written was pretty funny, but I had to delete it.

READ ON FOR MORE!!! (Of something else...)


Openmoko: The Open Source Phone

Forget the iPhone. Well, you can't really forget it, the internet is determined that it needs to be crammed down your throat. But, even if you don't forget the iPhone, take a look at it's competition, Openmoko Neo 1973.

Openmoko is an open source, Linux based, button-less cellphone. Don't let the open source title make you think it's free, it's not free, this bad boy will set you back $300. However, you might want to bear a few things in mind.

What things? First, this is Linux based, so there are plenty of free apps you can use on the phone, and there will be plenty developed. It uses both a touch (fingers) and stylus input. It uses MicroSD, so you can get up to 2GB of storage (though it comes with 512MB, as a matter of fact, you'd do well to see what else it comes with). It's also unlocked for any service, so you can call your company upon receipt and have yourself a working phone right away, the $300 price tag for this thing doesn't require a contract discount. It has a gorgeous looking 2.8" screen that has an amazing 640x480 resolution.

What this thing can do is nearly unlimited. Honestly, it's a pretty amazing looking piece of hardware, and I am strongly considering picking one up. The only thing that I don't like is that while it has open Bluetooth and USB connectivity, it does not have WiFi, which I would really like to have on my next phone. The next iteration, expected in a few months at a price of $450, will have an 802.11 adapter, 3-D Motion Sensors, and added graphics accelerators. Maybe I'll save my pennies and see what the next version brings.

Maybe it won't turn heads quite like the iPhone, at least not without explanation, but I would prefer personal satisfaction to a status symbol.


WoW on the iPhone?

Wow, WoW is lame, and playing on your iPhone is lamer. See it happen.

Wish I'd thought about this before....

The US Postal Service will actually give you free shipping materials.


'93 Lincoln Mark VIII w/ Rolling Door Concept.

I really wish this had gone to production. It's a great concept, and would love to do something like that with my car.


Pr0n and it's Relation to Your Social Life

This graph is pretty funny, and eerily accurate I think.


Light Graffiti

This is actually really impressive. I'd love to give it a try some time. All you need is some lights and do some time lapse. I think. I don't think it matters much how you do it, j


Little People

These are some interesting photos. I've seen some like them before, but it's still an interesting concept.


That's it for today.

I know that it's been a little weak this time around, but you know I'll keep coming back. As long as there is people on the interwebs looking, I'll be here.

Fallout 3

It occurs to me that I haven't mentioned this enough.

So, I'm here to remedy that!


It has come to light that Bethesda finally got around to letting the world see what's coming for the Fallout series.

If you haven't read before, I loved the original series. It's not that I don't love Orcs and Wizards, but I'm very very tired of them. Seriously, Goblins are great, as are Dragons and the like, but, for me, I fell in love with the idea of a post-apocalyptic future with a decidedly different flavor than anything that had come before it.

There are 2 RPG's that I've really gotten into before, Fallout and Vampire the Masquerade. I think that it should be obvious why, given the previous paragraph, but I will still spell it out: They are different worlds than what we're normally treated to. Don't get me wrong, it isn't that I don't appreciate the D&D license, because honestly, that's where it all started, but there's something about playing the same basic settings over and over again that really starts to lose it for me. It's the same reason I'm tired of Lost, because they're still on that damn island, and we're no closer to the truth than we were when the plane crashed.

Fallout 3 has been called the gamer's holy grail, and for good reason. The original Fallout came about in the mid-90's, and Fallout 2 followed close behind. Fallout 2 was follow by a couple of crappy titles that held no interest for me, but there was feverish work on a Fallout 3... until Interplay realized that money didn't grow on trees and was forced to fold up shop.

Enter Bethesda. After years and years of stagnating on a shelf, Bethesda stepped in and said, "let's do this thing!"

And, it seems they have. There is a list on their blag of many articles relating to the new Fallout, and all of it seems favorable (duh!). I really enjoyed this article from Voodoo Extreme over at IGN.

Now, even though the game is already looking pretty polished, it's important to bear in mind that there's still over a year before we can even EXPECT the game, and on top of that, you have to add several push backs. Right now they are quoting a Fall 2008 release time frame, so I would expect it around quarter 2 of 2009.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up, especially because it's being released for the Xbox 360 as well, and it's going to be first person, rather than top down. But, if they can pull off a game like Oblivion, than there's gotta be something to hope for with Fallout 3.

Did you know I was on vacation?

I am, sort of.

It's been a lot of work, being on vacation, but for the next couple days I will be, I hope, relaxing a bit. It's still been nice not being at work.

I've been off since the 4th and won't be back to work until Monday, although, from Monday through Friday I'll be doing training at another location.

For the 4th we went to Coon Rapids, which is only a few minutes from my home and watched the fireworks display there. It was good, and the kids had fun. It did remind me why I hate crowds, though.

But, none of that is why you're here, so, click the link to make the rest appear.


The Zombie Food Pyramid

I'm not sure why it is I find this so amusing, but I do. YMMV.


33 Names for Things You Might Not Have Known Had Names.

It's sad how many of these I actually knew already. Very very very sad.


xtimeline

This just appeared in my Google Reader. It's a free, albeit beta, time line creator. There's actually a couple of time lines that seem pretty interesting. The features are pretty good, even if the system is limited to making time lines.


Do it like Hitchcock!

Alfred Hitchcock, a genius, a pioneer, an absolutely amazing man. If you've never seen his work, you should stop reading right now, run to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video and pick up at least 3 of his flicks. (I would recommend Psycho, The Birds, and then something like Rear Window would make a great finale. (Jimmy Stewart anyone? Him and Hitchcock? OMGWTFBBQSAUCE!) North by Northwest would also make a great final piece.)

Now, however, if you're already familiar with his greatness, then you might want to check out this site. It would be especially useful to you if you're a budding filmmaker looking for ways to improve your style. He really was a master of suspense.

The site it comes from, Borgus.com, has a couple other interesting things to look at, if you're interested.


More Business Cards

Yes, I love design, and I really love business card design. Do I even need to preface these links anymore?


A Social Experiment, or Proof the Internet is Full of Stupids?

What happens if you could add one word to a story, a never ending, constantly evolving story that involves everyone on the interwebs?

Idiocracy.

The fact that someone actually thought this was a good idea is proof positive that someone was either smacked too much, or not near enough as a child.

Even their new version, which only allows words in the dictionary to be added is full of stupids. It's funny, for sure, but really isn't in the vein of what was being attempted.

What a terrible, terrible idea.


More Bad Ideas from the DoD.

Laughing Gas Bullets. *le sigh* Not near as funny as the GayBomb, but still pretty funny.


With that, I'm out.

Peace.

That's what she said!

What a stupid post title!

Seriously, what the hell is that all about.

Anyway, it's been a little while since I posted, although there's a good reason why my posts have been slow. For some reason, Google thought that it was possible my blog was spam, and it took them forever to review it and decide it wasn't...

Re: [#168524536] Blogger Beta non-spam review and verification request: http://fyrephlie.blogspot.com/

Blogger Help

to me

Hello, Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and cleared for regular use so that it will no longer appear as potential spam. If you sign out of Blogger and sign back in again, you should be able to post as normal. Thanks for your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. Sincerely, The Blogger Team

So, with that, I'm not a SpamBot! You'd think that if the blog was flagged as potential spam, a few posts where I fill in the annoying CAPTCHA would have cleared me, but no, it's been about a month and a half of that.

It's not that it was that big of a deal, but it's still pretty damn annoying.


Transformers

No, I haven't seen it... yet. I'm hoping to go this weekend and check it out, but it's not sounding like reviews are that bad, which is good, because I'm really hoping it doesn't suck.


Stratego

So, I haven't played Stratego since I was much younger, and even then, I think I played it wrong and only a few times (I'm pretty sure we played it like checkers). Anyway, my lady friend got me a copy of the 'classic' bookshelf edition and we played. Sadly, I lost, but it was a lot of fun. It's funny to me how a game from so long ago could still hold such entertainment, but it's proof positive that the classics never really go out of style.

The problem is that this sets a precedent that I must own the entire collection. It's a lofty goal, but I think it's definitely one worth attempting. I am taking donations, if you're interested.

Unusual Keyboards

The title of this article really says it all, but, I have to admit that some of the keyboards they show are really interesting. I'd love a chance to try a few of them out.


Roswell, The Truth is Still out there.

I won't say I'm not a nut when it comes to conspiracy theories and paranormal phenomenon, it's all just so damn interesting (read that as 'entertaining'). So when I read stories about Roswell, NM, it always gets me thinking.

It seems the newest evidence is about Lt. Walter Haut, whose original story was fairly thin and down played. However, after he passed away last year, he left a signed affidavit, which has a somewhat different story.

It seems that he has posthumously claimed that there was, in fact a saucer crash, they did recover wreckage, and that there were bodies of small humanoids that were most likely aliens.

It's an interesting read. Of course, it leaves us with no more or less evidence than we'd had before, but, it's still something worth noting.

What do I think? I think that there must have been something that happened, and it's just as likely that there was a flying saucer that crashed landed as there was some grandiose weather balloon project.


A Good Wife Knows Her Place

Damn straight! Ah, the 50's were a glorious time, weren't they?


That's it for now.

Thus ends the another journey through nostalgic board games and sexism, strange keyboards and conspiracy theories. Join me again next time, same bat channel, same bat time!

Just another day...

on the interwebs.

Here I type words, words that you might read or just skim over. There are many more words hidden right under where it says Read More...



Childproof PC... for you or charity.

This article is about building a Childproof PC, that is, a computer that's meant use by children so that they can be spared the horridness that's all over the internet.

The intent of the article is explain how to do this cheaply or free and when you're done, you can donate the machine and feel good about yourself.

Of course, this is also great if you are looking for a way to build a box for your own kids to keep them safe on these scary interwebs.


Bittorrent Box

While we're speaking about building specific computers. Here we have an article that is all about building a box that will run 24 hours a day 7 days a week, serving up all of your downloaded files.

It also goes into detail about how to not only build a headless server, but also set it up so that it will serve your media to you anywhere in the world.


Gay Computer?

I don't get this... but it seems they are not happy with Alan Turing.


More scary future stuff from Google

I've talked about the supposed future of Google before, and of course, I'm not sure whether or not I'm eagerly awaiting the day that we live in the United States of Google, but, until then, it's good to read speculation and conjecture.


Symbaloo

Symbaloo is designed to be a front page for the internet. It's pretty interesting, and fairly well laid out, but after getting digged, the site is very slow, I can't imagine that they were really prepared to be the front page for the entire internet.


Unattractive British Women have a lot of sex..

180.


Tiger Army released their new album!

Tiger Army, one of my favorite bands of all times, finally released their new album, Music from Regions Beyond. While the title is a departure from their previous albums, the music most definitely is not. As a matter of fact, that may be my only problem with it.

I've been waiting until I'd had a chance to really absorb the music to talk about it. That time has come already. I love the album, there's nothing like Nick 13's melodic vocals, and the drive of a stand-up bass. It's psychobilly at its finest.

My only real issue with this album is that they seem to be re-using a lot of their old hooks and bites. There are several tracks that have nearly identical sounds to previous albums.

Otherwise, it's Tiger Army. Tiger Army is great. I strongly recommend it.

Die Hardest w/ 50% More Vengeance with Liberty and Justice for All.

So... yeah.

I saw the latest foray into the Die Hard series tonight, and I have to say, it was a Die Hard movie.

There's so many things about this movie that were just awful, but because it was a Die Hard movie, they are all very forgivable. Primarily, of course, the problems come from plausibility, and I'm not referring to the idea that the country could be crippled by hackers, because, that is actually plausible. I'm talking about the way in which things are done, the fact that Bruce Willis blows up a helicopter with a cop car, and leaps onto a falling Jump Jet only to roll off and escape yet another brush with death. I'm talking about the fact that computer user interfaces do not look like that, and connecting remotely to hack into a system doesn't happen instantaneously.

Beyond that, however, the acting was typical for a Die Hard movie. Bruce Willis does an excellent job playing John McClane, and old man, because Bruce Willis is now an old man. Seriously, I wonder how he can do what he does anymore. I have to give him credit, for being 120 years old, he's looking good. The best part of the movie, to me, was the various comedic deliveries of Justin Long, whose name I finally know after enjoying him in about 293 movies. His timing and over reaction play perfectly throughout.

Anyway, I won't really get into the story, because it's still pretty silly. The bottom line is that it's a great action movie, which is what it was meant to be, and it's well worth the money to see in the theater.