Going into the "adult" section

Shhhh. Don't tell my wife, but I just came out of the adult soda section at our local supermarket. Now you may be wondering.. WTF is "adult soda"?! Put your dirty mind to rest it isn't fizzy lubricants or soda in multi-purposed shaped bottles. Quite honestly... I don't know. Everything in that aisle looked like plain old pop. Perhaps its to give shoppers that naughty feeling without the store having to invest in red velvet curtains to hide the "products" from the kiddies.

Tech Tuesday: Vat to do...vat to do

Yesterday it became extremely apparent that I am all to dependent on the digital age. Both the Xbox LIVE and the Zune Marketplace servers were down for maintenance. That meant two of the three things I like to do when the kiddo has gone to bed and the wife is busy chatting with friends or reading a book, were unavailable. Despite being warned via email, LIVE message, AND dashboard announcement of the impending hiatus I was caught unprepared. So basically I had to resort to play all alone with no friends and stale music. *sigh*

Thank God Heroes was on last night or I might have withered away.

I'm sorry this post is passing on the boredom I experienced. (I'm not even going to put a picture to whet your imagination.) :)

ETA: Everything is up and running now, except for a small glitch with the Call of Duty 4 matchmaking (which makes playing online IMPOSSIBLE.)

REALLY strong coffee

Anyone who knows me, knows that I like my coffee pretty strong. If I can see the bottom of the mug, its too light.

A few months back Starbucks switched from brewing coffee every hour to every half hour. Obviously the purpose of the change was to provide fresher brewed coffee. To avoid wasting coffee they switched from brewing "full" batches to "half" batches (but doesn't that make the half batch the full batch now? Sorry, that's neither here nor there). Now that half as much coffee is brewed at a time, they run out quicker. In order to avoid making the customer wait for a new pot, a lot of time they do the ol' "tip the carafe" trick. If given the opportunity to wait for the coffee...take it! Several times I have enjoyed the first 3/4 of my cup when my mouth is suddenly infiltrated with hundrends of coffee grounds. Here is a picture from the last time it happened, the proverbrial "straw".

The thing that sucks the most is if you get your coffee to go, you have no idea this is going to happen until your sitting at your desk and all of a sudden a pile of coffee bean corpses are in your mouth. As I said, I like strong coffee now chewable. Its getting so bad I might start brewing my own coffee at home... nah, that sounds like a lot of work. :)

Oh how they grow...

I realize that this is a bit of a selfish post and has a very targeted audience (mainly me), but I was going through some old pictures and came across an old photo of Keegan (my son, for those who don't know).  It is CRAZY for me to think that this...

is the same little person as this...

Woah!

Did you Know...

Pac-man was partially inspired by Namco desinger Tohru Iwatani seeing a pizza with a slice misssing?  Pac-man's name in North America was originally Puck-man, but was changed just before release (if you're wondering why, think P=F).  The Japanese name for pac-man is pakku-man and comes from the Japanese onomatopeic phrase paku-paku-taberu.  The paku-paku imitates the sound of the mouth opening and closing (twice, kinda like a smacking sound).

Sources: 

http://www.gamespot.com/features/vgs/universal/hist_pacman/p4_01.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man

Smileys: a leap forward for passive-aggression

I just had a sort of epiphany... By simply adding a colon and sideways parenthesis (singular for parentheses, file that one under who cares), you can say some truly hurtful things and totally get away with it.

Examples:

• You are the stupidest person I know :)
• I'm going to kill you!!! :)
• Wow! You're 45, don't have a job, and still live with your parents?! That's awesome! :)

I think subconsciously I inherited the use of smiley faces from my mom. She used to leave chore "todo" lists on the fridge and always put a smiley face at the end. Something along the lines of:

"Please do the following:
-Clean the kitchen
-Clean your bathroom
-Dust & Vacuum
Thanks, Mom [smiley]"

But I always interpreted it as this: "I know its summer and you would probably rather be doing something else but instead, do these chores or you'll be sorry! Don't like it? Awwwww, Mom. [middle finger]." (Ahhhhh... teen angst.)

For some pretty funny passive-aggressive notes (many with smileys) check out passiveaggressivenotes.com.

ETA: I just noticed the irony in putting the info about the plurality of parenthesis in parenthesis... I know, I'm lame.

Winning Wednesday: Heroes

Monday night was the premiere of season three, and it didn't disappoint. If you haven't watched Heroes and don't know what the hype is all about, you don't know what you're missing out on. I was a bit skeptical about the show and only saw one or two episodes in the middle of the first season. I had seen other shows with superhero types a la Smallville and the like, and didn't really enjoy them. Our friends were really into it and I ended up getting season one for Christmas. My wife and I devoured it, watching at least four episodes a night (that's right I said my wife, its not just a "guys show"). As soon as possible we purchased season two and did the same. Heroes manages to keep you on your toes, telling the story of each of the characters and how they are tied together (think Lost, but with superpowers). If you haven't been watching it, I think it might be pretty tough to try and jump in now without any background. Go to Blockbuster or Netflix and rent disc one of season one and I guarantee that by the end of it you'll be hooked.

Heroes is on NBC Monday nights at 9pm and is rebroadcast on G4 Tuesday at 10pm.

LOW Tech Tuesday: Pop Starting a Car

I was originally going to post about the new T-Mobile G1 (aka the gPhone/HTC Dream) which is the first phone to feature Google's mobile phone OS (operating system) called Android. But I got lazy and didn't feel like compiling all of the information and trying to explain how open source is better for a consumer than closed source software... blah blah blah.  

Since I had the "privilage" of engaging in one of my favorite activites tonight after getting some work done at Starbucks, I thought I'd pass it along.

My car's steering column has a bit of give to it which allows for the key to be removed without actually turning it to the "off" position.  This is handy when you run into 7-Eleven for a Slurpee when it's 104 outside and don't want to turn the A/C off.  Not so handy when you think you've turned the car off and leave the key in the ACC position for two hours with the radio on.  This is exactly what happened while I was at Starbucks this evening.  Needless to say when I returned to my car the battery was dead.  Since this problem isn't new (and I've had a manual transmission for about 90% of my driving years), I knew exactly what to do.  

Ideally you'd have another person with you to push the car while you are in the driver's seat, but since the other patrons we're "busy", I'll give you the solo version.

1. Turn off all of the accessories (radio, lights, dome light, etc)
2. Put the car in neutral and disengage the parking brake
3. Place the key in the "on" position (this is an important step I missed tonight)
4. Get out and push the car until you get it rolling about 3-5 MPH (easier on a slope)
5. Once the car is moving, jump in the car, depress the clutch and quickly place it in first or second gear
6. Once in gear, "pop" the clutch by letting it out and then quickly press it back in once the car is started (if you don't press it back in immediately the car will stall)
7. Optional: Quickly drive off, since you looked like a goofus pushing your car around the parking lot for what now looks like no reason at all

Something to note, is that this only works on a dead battery/starter (and as far as I know only on manual transmissions), if your car makes the rrrr-rrrr-rrrr noise when you try to start it you'll have to call a tow truck.

A side note, tonight was especially fun since in my frustrated, flustered, embarrased state I forgot to turn the key to "on".  I ended up pushing the car up and down the parking lot about ten times before I realized this, adding to my frustration/flusteredness/embarresment.  *sigh*

You know it's close to payday when...

...you have more money in your car than in your checking account and this is how you have to buy your morning coffee. :(

Just so you don't think we're irresponsible with money, let me give you a little background. I work for a small company and in order for me to get benefits (which was a requisite for me taking the job) they have me technically "employed" by one of their larger partner companies. The partner company thinks its fun to change the paydays at their whim. I believe their payday calender is based on a combination of the current humidity, the shape of the grounds on the bottom of their coffee cup, and the last "animal" they saw in the clouds, no matter what it is based on it's still a mystery to everyone else.

In all seriousness, paydays are supposed to be on the 5th and 20th. Now, every company I've ever worked for no matter how small paid you on the Friday before the payday if the actual payday fell on the weekend. The first time in the year this occurred, payday fell on a Saturday and we got paid on Friday (nice, that's how I thought it works).

Next time this happened, payday fell on a Sunday, so we got paid on the following Monday. It was explained that Saturday=Friday; Sunday=Monday, the email went on to explain that this was all spelled out in the calendar we received in the HR paperwork (which I didn't get). Well, that sucks, but oh well, at least now I know.

The next time it happened, payday fell on the Saturday of the three day Independence day weekend (the 4th was on a Friday), we got paid on Monday (WTF????).

This time payday fell on a Saturday and we get paid today. Again we got an email explaining this, and it said the following:

Hi Everyone,

Just a reminder payday is on Monday. The calendar's are not right. If payday lands on a weekend anytime payday is alway on the following Monday. If you have any questions please let me know.

Thanks

Accounts Receivable

(copied and pasted from my email (I added the bold, but left the spelling error >:) )

AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Next payday is on a Sunday, so we'll see if I actually get paid. >:(

Wanted: your input

With my recent acquisition of Rock Band 2 and the update to the Zune, I had a bit of a nostalgic flash. Listening to some of the songs on the RB2 soundtrack brought back some fond memories of hanging with friends in high school, spending ridiculous amounts of time at the movie theater, playing Goldeneye 007 on the N64, swimming until we were raisins... ah good times.

But the music... that was the stuff that tied it all together. Whether it was The Verve Pipe's "Freshman" playing on the radio, listening to The Offspring's Ixnay on the Hombre album in my friend's car while bumming a ride home (I got my license after HS) or the "pocket call" I got from my friend Winston as he was singing Blink 182's "What's My Age Again" at the top of his lungs while he was driving, it was all good.

My question to you is: what songs do you remember rocking out to in high school? I want to make a play list of tracks from around 1994 - 2000 (yes I know that's more than 4 years I attended HS from '94/'95 - '98/'99)? Let me know in the comments!

ETA: Here's the updated list. Class of 1999 Track List

Winning Wednesday: Rock Band 2

My birthday is coming up, but we'll be out of town on a camping trip when the day arrives. Because of this, our friends gave me my birthday present when they came over for dinner on Monday night. Nestled under a bag of brownie mix (I think wrapping paper is for suckas!), was Rock Band 2 for the Xbox 360!

Now the game itself is not that differant from the first Rock Band, but there are a few adjustments that were welcome. First, they have added the ability to play the World Tour as a solo act. A big chunk of the achievements in the first game were aquired in World Tour, but you had to have more than one person playing. This posed a problem since, when we had people over and played, we wanted to just play for the sake of having fun (i.e., pick the songs we were going to play), therefore, I barely have any points from that game.

Next, the ability to have one character play any instruments. If you have ever played the first one, you know that creating a character to represent you is a lot of fun. It just gets annoying when you have to create a new character when you want to go from guitar to drums.

Finally, the track list. WOW! The developers were thoughtful enough to take the time to create the ability to import the on-disc tracks from Rock Band 1 into Rock Band 2. Couple that with the fact that all downloaded songs from the first game also work in the second and the 84 track on-disc track list (<--yes... that is Alanis Morissette) of the second game and you are talking about something for everyone!

Tech Tuesday: Google Desktop

DISCLAMER: I'm sorry about the grammatical errors and overuse of the word "ton", but I was trying to get this out posthaste (get it...posthaste... *sign*)

Google has a ton of applications that are available to the public for free.  Some are pretty well know such as G-Mail, Blogger, Picasa, and Talk.  There are also several applications available that are less known. 

Google came on the scene as a search engine and they have not forgotten their roots.  They have expanded their typical search (that includes webpages, images, videos, News, and shopping) with some very specific searches.

• Blog Search - http://www.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en
• Book Search - http://www.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en
  
• Patent Search - http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en
• Scholar Search - http://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en

There are a ton of products, but one of my favorite is Google Desktop.  One of the few features I like about Vista is the Sidebar (If you're unfamiliar, don't worry).  Google Desktop is a sort of combo application.  The first part is that it indexes your entire computer (using the file types that you specify) and makes them instantly searchable through a dynamic search bar.  No more having to use the Windows "Find..." command and wait for the little dog to dig up the file you're looking for.  

The second part of the application is the Sidebar/Deskbar.  It basically is panel full of widgets that docks to the side of your screen.  Any widget you can add to your iGoogle homepage can also be added to the sidebar.  On mine I have my XBox Gamercard, a clock, the weather, a picasa photo slideshow, scratch pad (notepad for scratching quick notes), RSS Reader, and email.  

The search feature alone will save a ton of time, it not only searches filenames, but also the files themselves.  So if you remember you wrote a paper in college about Gene Simmons winning the 2012 presidential election but can't remember where you put it, just type in Gene Simmons.

To see more applications available from google go to: http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/

Also check out the Google Labs, which are products that are still being developed, but available to try (http://labs.google.com/)

The US Forest Service wants us to try tabacco?

I was driving home from work the other day, minding my own business, when in my periphery I noticed a billboard. I ignore probably 95% of billboards, but happened to be stopped at a light in proximity to this one (in the middle of the city at least an hour from a forest/woodland area).

On the bottom right of the white billboard was the left half of the iconic forest fire prevention mascot Smoky Bear. The only other distinguishable thing on the board was a phrase in big bold letters that said: "GET YOUR SMOKEY ON!" Apparently this is the new slogan for the US Forest Service. Now, Smoky has been out of the public spotlight for years, (he kind of went the way of McGruff the crime dog) I honestly can't remember a Smokey PSA since before I was in high school (a decade ago). My point being: no one who knows who Smoky Bear is really says "get your anything on" and any one young enough to use that phrase without seeming like a dofus doesn't know who Smokey is. So who is this PSA geared towards? The most troubling thing to me is that before this sign made it up, there were probably countless hours spent in meetings coming up with "the perfect" slogan. And this is what they came up with???

I'm glad my tax dollars are hard at work.

source: http://www.smokeybear.com/

Did you know...

That California's flag design was created by a mistake?

The orignial plan was to have a pear on the flag to represent the agricultural regions of the state, but through a misinterpretation a bear was painted instead.

source: http://www.snopes.com/lost/bearflag.asp

Winning Wednesday: Fantastic Contraption

Things had been a little slow at work the past couple of weeks and in between having things to do, I was getting a little bored. By sheer coincidence fourzerotwo sent a tweet about a flash game he'd been checking out. I decided to give it a try.

It's called Fantastic Contraption and is a physics based puzzle game. Don't be frightened by the word physics, the only physics involved is the force of gravity. The gist of the game is that you have only five "materials" to build a machine within a certain space, and your machine must move a red object into a the red area of the screen. The trial version has 20 puzzles to try and you can save and link to them if you really like your creation and want to show it off. Another cool feature is that once you've solved the puzzle you can view other people's solutions (they can be pretty crazy). Here is one of my solutions.  Give it a try: http://www.fantasticcontraption.com.  If you come up with something you want to share post the link in the comment section.

How did a white dude get this deal?

A few weekends back my wife, a few friends, and I all went out for happy hour and a light dinner. After eating, drinking, and chatting, we received our bill. On the receipt was the usual summery of why we had ordered in the typical truncated fashion, common on almost every computer generated receipt. I gave the bill a cursory glance and my eyes locked on to one particular item. How did I get this? I am neither black, nor a female. It looks like a good deal though, so I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. XD

What funny receipts have you come across?

(By the way it was for the Blackened Chicken Special)

Tech Tuesday: The new Zune Lineup/Firmware update!!!

I've gone through a few PMP/MP3 players (this is my 5th), and the Zune has been my favorite so far. Let me preface this post by saying I do not have nor have I ever owned an iPod or iPhone, but I did do a pretty objective comparision after my third Creative Zen product crapped out and I decided to go with another company. (Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me; fool me three times, WTF was I thinking!?!?!?)

The Zune is Microsoft's answer to Apple's iPod and has been out for about 2 years now. Since they have been out they have made huge strides in the functionality of the device. The nice thing is that instead of leaving early adopters of the player out in the cold, all then new functionality is added to the older devices through a firmware (basically the operating system for a hardware device) update.

Out of the box, all of the Zune devices offer music, video, and picture support. But they also include FM radio and something called the "Zune Social".

The Social is my favorite part of the Zune community, as it allows you to view your friends listening habits and discover new music. Each Zune owner gets a "Zune Card" (see mine), this card automatically updates as you use the Zune software or sync your device. Your Xbox friends also are automatically added to your Zune social page (and visa versa).

Also Zune's have a feature called Zune-to-Zune sharing which allows you to "squirt" a song from your device to someone else's. If there is a song you really like, send it to your friend.

The current firmware version (v 2.5) also added some really nice features:

• Wireless sync - if you computer is on, you can sync your music, videos, etc. without having to actually plug the device in
• Friend sync - gives the ability to add your friend's Zune Card into your device and when you sync your device it will automatically update their card and download the songs they listened to last
  
• Game support - added support to install games created on the XNA 3.0 framework

Finally on September 16th version 3.0 will be released (as well as a 16GB flash Zune and 120 GB hard drive Zune). The new features expected to be added with this update are:

• Buy from FM - allows you to "tag" songs that you hear on the device's FM radio and when you sync or reach a hot spot, the device will download it
• Wifi marketplace - now when connected to your home's wireless network or a hot spot you can browse the Zune Marketplace and download songs directly from the device
• Games - game support is available now, but with the new update it won't have to be "unlocked". Two free games will also be added Hexic and Texas Hold'em.
• Any friends' Zune cards you have added to your device will now automatically update whenever you connect to a hot spot (instead of having to manually sync them).
  
• Audiobook support - adds support to Audible and Overdrive powered audio books.

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited!

sources:
http://gizmodo.com/5046872/official-new-zune-lineup-packs-more-storage-wi+fi-downloads

http://www.zune.net/en-US/products/

I can't believe youngsters these days!

This past weekend I had one of the moments where you first think "Are you serious?" and then it is quickly followed by "Oh no...I'm getting older". The aforementioned moment occurred while I was waiting in checkout line at Target. I was daydreaming a bit (for some reason the lines were particularly long), when I snapped out of it I overheard a conversation going on behind me. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but what I heard blew my mind. It was a woman in her mid to late 20s and a girl who was probably in high school discussing a concert the girl's friends were talking about. She mentioned that her friends were going to a Metallica concert, and that's all they were talking about. I wasn't impressed as I've never really been a big Metallica fan, but then she uttered the words... "Who is Metallica anyway?"
...
Are you serious?
Like I said, I was never a huge fan, but I know who they are, I could sing you a few songs (hell, I can even play a few on Guitar Hero. It was then that things got worse. The woman's explanation was this: "They're a hard rock band, they were big back in the ninties"
...
Oh no... I'm getting older.
Not only are one of the most popular (and overexposed) hard rock bands of all time now a relic of the past, now the entire decade I was so familiar with (including my high school years) is being referenced as "the ninties" in the same tone that we used to refer to "the eighties".

Side note: before the response I thought to myself, "geez! even my mom knows who Metallica is!". In retrospect this did not help my case. :(

I killed a mountain!!!!

One of my favorite games is Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, its a first person shooter based in modern times with modern day weapons. Back in August I even got to go to the game developer's studio (Infinity Ward) and had a chance to meet their Community Relations Manager (Robert Bowling AKA: fourzerotwo)
When we have friends over we often will play a few rounds of multiplayer. One of my friends doesn't have an Xbox 360 and usually gets owned pretty badly when we play (he's getting better as he gets more time on it) and as we razz him about it he usually barks back that he's "actually fired these weapons!" (He's an MP in the Air Force).
This past Saturday I got a call from this buddy, asking me what I was doing on Sunday. I thought he was going to invite me to golf and hadn't played in a while, so I told him I wasn't doing anything in particular and would be down for whatever. He then proceeds to invite me to fire off some automatic weapons and riffle mounted grenades... wait... did you just say riffle mounted grenades!?!?!? Um... Hell Yeah I'm down! So we get to the range and I'm told I'll get to fire two types of light machine guns (LMGs) the M249 SAW and M240 as well as an M203 grenade launcher mounted on an M16. Good times. All in all I squeezed off 200 rounds on the M249, 400 rounds on the M240 and 5 M203 rounds.

There's more pics and video here.

In the wee small hours.

Its mid-morning and already I've experienced the full gamut of human emotions. This morning I awoke to the sound of fighter jets flying by (there is a USAF air defense base in Fresno).
Annoyance: I am not generally a fan of being awaken by loud noises. I turned my head, still drowsy, and see this:

Panic: I start work at 8:00 (even though I am usually late, this is bad.)
Embarrassment: I realize its Saturday and I only work on weekdays.
Panic again: Why isn't my son up yet?!?! He's usually up between 7:30 and 8:30. I turn to where my wife sleeps... She's gone.
Relief: my son is fine and downstairs with my wife.
Guilt: I realize she's probably been taking care of the baby instead of sleeping for at least an hour and a half.
Fear: Worried about how I'll have to make this up to her.
Joy: When I see them smile at me when I creep downstairs.
Hunger: Going to take care of this now...

Did you know...?

Nintendo (of Mario and Zelda fame) will be 119 years old as of September 23rd of this year?

The company originally made playing cards back in 1889.

sources:
http://www.n-sider.com/contentview.php?contentid=34
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo

stretch your noodle

I didn't post for winning Wednesday yesterday, so consider this yesterday's post :)

Several months back, my wife told me about a riddle website that she was getting into. It involved a increasingly difficult "riddles" and you could not proceed to the next "level" until you figured out the current puzzle. I decided to try too. It was very frustrating, but at the same time very fulfilling. I turned some people at work on to it and we all had a bit of a competition going to see who could get the farthest. I ended up getting about halfway through the third set (level 45) and got stuck. I ended up forgetting about it, but came across the bookmark today. I decided I'd start over and see if I could get any farther. I challenge you to try it out for yourself, during my lunch I got back to level 28 (but remember I'd done them before, so it was a matter of remembering how to solve them). Give it a shot and try not to bleed out of your ears!

http://weffriddles.com (Don't say I didn't warn you!!!)

Its called a SIGNAL for a reason

On my commute this morning I enjoyed the normal morning rush hour (which in Fresno isn't that bad. As I was approaching the CA41/CA180 interchange I noticed a raised Bronco speeding up in the lane to my left, as it approached my position it slowed and began to "pace" my car. I glanced over and saw the driver glaring at me. I wrote it off and continued on my merry way. As I got closer to the exit, I n0ticed the guy was still there, glaring... speeding up a bit... glaring... slowing back... glaring... speeding up a bit. Just as I get to the exit, he flips me off and jerks his POS right in front of my car and crosses not only the lane I was in but the next lane as well. As his car's back left tire crosses the line he puts his turn signal on... Ohhhhh. Dude! If you'd have done that in the first place I'd have know you wanted to come into this lane. No need for the bedroom eyes and crazy mouth movements!

Be careful what you click it might just bite you in the brain (or wallet)!!!

So Google released their latest product the new Google Chrome web browser. If you read my previous post, I am a pretty big Firefox fan, and have been since version 1.0. But I am also a big Google fan and regularly use several of their applications (Gmail, Blogger, Earth, Desktop, etc...). I did a little research and found out that Chrome is in fact an open source browser (like Firefox) and is built on an engine similar to the Gecko engine (like Firefox), so I decided to give it a whirl. While doing digging into the features that Chrome offers I came across a few blog posts mentioning Chrome's EULA (End User License Agreement, basically the "by using this product you agree to this... contract). I took a look at it and found this disturbing clause:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

Perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free?!?!? I don't think I'm clever enough to come up with something that Google could make any money off of, but if some how in a spark of creativity I did, I'd expect a check heading my way if the big G were to market it!

Now Chrome is only in Beta (version 0.2.149.27 as of this posting), so it is possible that this may change by the time the final version is out. But in the meantime I think I'll stick with Firefox.

ETA: Google has now revised section 11 of its Chrome EULA to the following:

"11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services."

Apparently this was a "copy and paste" error and that the previous version was supposed to removed. I'll give it another shot now, but still be careful, I found the same verbiage in the Picasa 3 beta EULA.

If you want to download Google Chrome, you can do it here.

How To: RSS Feeds

For anyone who follows any kind of blog/frequently updated website, and especially those who follow several... the internet gods have created something called RSS feeds. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It basically sends out headlines and a description of any blog post or website update of a monitored site. To tap into the power of the RSS feed you will need an RSS reader. There are many free RSS readers out there, and Google has a free and easy to use reader as well. All you need is a Google account. If you have a blog on Blogger/Blogspot or a Gmail address then you already have this functionality. If you haven't already I'd set iGoogle as your default homepage. iGoogle is basically a customized Google page with widgets that you choose, you can access it by going to http://www.google.com as usual and click on the "sign in" link at the top right corner of the screen. Simply sign in using your Google user name (before the @ in your gmail address, e.g. somebody@gmail.com) and your Gmail password (or blogger username/password). Click sign in, and then after the page reloads click on the iGoogle link. From here you can customize whatever you want to appear on your google search page (including the wallpaper). Mine currently looks like this:

As you can see one of the widgets you can add is the Google Reader widget (bottom center). To add any blog/website its extremely easy. In Firefox 3.0 just click the RSS symbol in the address bar (if it doesn't appear the site does not have the feed feature):

If you are still one of the 75% of internet users who are in the dark and use Internet Explorer (download Firefox here, you'll be glad you did), the RSS button is found on the right side of the screen in the toolbar your tabs are in (Internet Explorer 7+):

Either way you will be prompted to choose either RSS or Atom (I usually pick RSS, but both will are syndication feeds and therefore both will work). If you are using Firefox, you will be prompted to choose which reader you will use to read the feeds, choose Google. You're done now! Go to http://reader.google.com, or your custom iGoogle page to see your subscriptions.

If you are using IE and want to use the Google reader, you have to take a few extra steps. After you click the RSS button you will be taken to a new page, if you want to use IE's RSS reader you can just click the "subscribe to this feed" button (from this point I don't know what IE does with it, if you do send me a comment telling me how to access them, but if you know that you probably aren't reading this far :)). To use the Google reader click in the address bar and copy the address by either right clicking and choosing copy or Ctrl+C (this address is the Feed URL). Next navigate to http://reader.googler.com, on the left hand side there will be a button that says "add subscription" click it and a dialog box will pop up paste in the URL you copied in the previous page and click add. Now you're done (told you, download Firefox!). Note: you can also use the add subscription dialog box as a search box if you want to find a particular subject.

Typically if you want to subscribe to a blogger/blogspot blog the URL for feeds the following template:
http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
and for comments is:
http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default
where obviously blogname is the unique name of the blog (e.g. tepidcoffee)

There you go! Hey why don't you try it out now and subscribe to my blog :) !

Words cannot describe my disgust

Only three letters can do this justice... W T F ?!?!?

What is that sound???

Back when we purchased our house we realized we needed some new furniture to go along with the new digs. Since we now had a house, we figured we'd get some "big people" furniture (i.e., made of REAL wood and didn't have to be put together with an Allen wrench). So we went to the local furniture store and picked out a nice three piece sectional that we liked. In the sea of boxes that was our living room the first few weeks, we unwrapped the furniture from its various boxes and proceeded to arrange them to our liking. When we opened one of the boxes a billion silica beads exploded all over our floor (apparently a bag had opened up, and the bags were about the size of a Mac and Cheese box). I tried my best to clean it up, and then continued my furniture moving duties as my wife "supervised" the correct positioning. Every time I moved the chaise it made a kind of scraping sound on our floor. I thought there was a rouge silica bead and just ignored it. Since then our furniture had never been rearranged. Last night the wifey and I wanted to snuggle up and watch a few episodes of Heroes, but neither of us wanted to assume the "parallel to the TV" position", instead opting for the "feet toward the TV position". So we compromised and rearranged the furniture (don't worry, the whole time we were moving stuff we were commenting on how silly this was). We removed the center piece and pushed the chaise and love seat together and watched three episodes. As we were going to bed, we moved them back into their proper position and again the chaise made the scrapping sound. We both thought it was the scheming silica bead and thought we should dispose of it so the little one wouldn't eat it. I tilted the chaise and found nothing, so I flipped it on its side and... WHAT THE?!?!? I found this...

It was like a buried treasure and my curiosity just couldn't take it. I had know idea what it could be, Pandora's Box, pirate treasure, a hidden stash of the mob's money?? I unzipped the pouch with the glee of an eight year old on Christmas morning and...










oh it was the feet of the couch.
I continued to flip each of the pieces and each had an identical pouch all containing four feet, four bolts, and an Allen wrench. Not quite as cool as pirate's gold, but better than Pandora's box. All this time we thought the sectional just sat on the ground. Oops!

Great weekend!

So I took the weekend off from blogging, because we just wanted to chill and enjoy the last "unofficial" weekend of summer. All and all it went pretty darn good. Friday night we met some friends at BJ's Brewhouse for happy hour and then rented What Happens in Vegas ("...you know why!"). Saturday night a friend came in to town that we hadn't seen in a few years and we caught up, had some drinks and rocked out with Rock Band. Sunday morning we rode our bikes to Le Parisien and met friends for crepes and then went to the movies. The guys saw Tropic Thunder and the girls saw The Pants Movie 2: Dirty Denim (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2). And then Monday we chilled at home and watched the Fresno State Bulldogs whoop on Rutgers 3000 miles away. We capped the weekend by watching a few episodes of Heroes. And on top of it all the weather was wonderful. Friday it was 106, but by the weekend the high had dropped to about 92!