Holy ---, Batman!

I don't like emusic.

2006-02-09T15:08:00.000-05:00

I got a 50-song trial on emusic.com from John Walkenbach's blog, and it seems like a very nice service. Downloads were very quick, and it was easy to find music. The problem I had is that they advertised entire albums as "free music" when only certain tracks were free. Downloading a few albums I thought would be free ate through a good chunk of my trial. You also cannot cancel a download in your queue to get your credits back. Those little problems were enough for me to decide not to get a full subscription to the site.

I lied...

2006-01-21T21:42:00.000-05:00

I don't feel like answering those stupid questions daily.

I am thinking of joining emusic... I'll let you know what music I think is worth downloading if I do.

I feel like updating this....

2006-01-20T01:27:00.000-05:00

I haven't updated in months, so I found a theme that should keep me busy on here for a few weeks. My RA posted a lots of questions in our hall that have you choose between two seemingly equal options, but I think the answer is pretty obvious for most of them. I'm going to try to post one along with my answer daily.

Todays Question: Would you rather have you cell phone function to air horn or tazer?

The obvious choice is to turn off your phone and never use it again, but if I had to choose I would go with tazer. Imagine: You're in Meijer's, where you always get horrible reception. You call a friend for advice in picking which brand of something to buy, and the call drops. You keep talking to the phone, saying things like "Hello... Can you hear me now?" and suddenly an air horn goes off in your ear! Congratulations, you've just broken an eardrum. I would much rather be electrocuted on a regular basis than lose my hearing the first time someone calls me back while the phone is still to my ear.

2005-10-01T17:36:00.000-04:00

So... people think I should update. Unfortunately, I'm really boring. But I do have a job now! That's pretty cool... I work at the Bernhard Computing Center programming stuff for the lab. I also have an account on World of Warcraft now...

Also, I think I am going crazy. I'm pretty sure I just heard a marching band playing music from Phantom of the Opera outside my window.

If you don't like Dustin, I recommend you bid on this, so he actually has to go through the trouble of mailing it.

2005-09-20T18:18:00.000-04:00

It looks like Yahoo stole Google's interface. I'm not sure when this happened, but I think it's pretty crazy. The URL for that version is search.yahoo.com

Don't forget Yahoo's useful defintion lookup tool!

2005-08-31T01:47:00.000-04:00

I'm back at Western now, and pretty much moved in! I haven't done anything really worth talking about, but I felt like I should update it. We watched Evil Alien Conquerers today. I think Eric's comment tells you everything you need to know about it: "I wonder if some guys were just sitting around and said 'I wonder just how B a B-movie can get...' and then went out and tried it." It was a great show, very strange and funny. Watch it. Western has a new authentication system on ResNet to prevent routers, but we've already worked around it. We've got free wired and wireless internet in our room now. I'm bored, and sort of tired, so I'm going to lay down soon. Night! Also, the first person to post a comment wins a free cookie! I have chocolate chip and butterscotch ones. Yum.

2005-05-24T10:56:00.000-04:00

I'm not dead.

2005-04-27T02:07:00.000-04:00

We planted the first tree in our orchard today. It's a Jonathan Apple tree. You can see the flags marking the spots for more trees. We'll plant them tomorrow. We also have to buy two more trees to fill in the gap made when we decided to arrange them differently, although we aren't entirely sure what you want. Soon there will be grapes growing where I stood to take the picture.

2005-04-26T15:48:00.000-04:00

I haven't updated in a while. Now that I'm home there is a lot less going on. I also spend a lot less time online, because I have dial-up. I've been doing nothing but watching TV shows Chris downloaded.

2005-04-22T02:57:00.000-04:00

2005-04-21T22:47:00.000-04:00

Its been a few days since I've updated, but this is the first break I've had all week. I've got a little more work to do, and a lot of packing, but then I go home for the summer. That means I get to relax, but it also means... dial-up.

This post was rather pointless, but here's a fun link: One Dozen Scanned Fried Eggs

Ducks and Bridges

2005-04-19T00:36:00.000-04:00

My mom sent more pictures today. Benny took her babies down to the pond to swim for the first time today. You can see all four pictures here.

My dad brought the first phase of the bridge down to the pond today. You can see the massive central section in the picture on the right. Most of the structure will be underwater and in the ground. It took about half an hour to carry the bridge down the hill and to the pond with the excavator. Unfortunately, as you can see in the other pictures, he hit a rock putting it in the ground, so it sticks out of the water far more than it should. The bridge will either have to be tall, or moved to a different part of the channel.

More photoshop:

2005-04-17T18:29:00.000-04:00

I took some of the pictures from Hunan Garden and stylized them to look like they are from a comic book.

	I love the way Matt's shirt came out in this picture.
	If you look in the background, you can see Bernie's arch-nemesis.

Some happier news...

2005-04-17T14:03:00.000-04:00

Benny's babies hatched last week, and my mom has been e-mailing me pictures of them. I put all of them up on photobucket, so you can see the ones I didn't show here.

2005-04-17T14:00:00.000-04:00

My cat Tigger died last night...

Dinner at Hunan Garden

2005-04-16T22:01:00.000-04:00

Today was Vic's birthday, and the last weekend everyone would still be here, so we went to Hunan Garden for some amazingly delicious food. There were 14 of us, and the table was so long we usually had about 3 independent conversations going on at once. Sara took a bunch of pictures with my camera, and I got another fortune cookie. It wasn't nearly as cool as my last one, but I'm posting a picture anyways.

Alex, Chris, and Matt in front of Hunan Garden

My fortune cookie from lunch:

2005-04-15T14:32:00.000-04:00

Pictures from my walk the other night...

2005-04-15T13:50:00.000-04:00

My first stop:

	I knew that I would need caffeine to stay up all night, so I headed to the McDonalds at the Bernhard Center. They were busy switching to the breakfast menu, so I decided to head to 7/11 instead.

This is new:

	On the way to the 7/11, I discovered that they have added yet another fence during construction of the new building. This one seems to serve no purpose but to confuse people who are trying to get to the 7/11.

It took a lot of backtracking to go around the fence and get where I was going. I'd have pictures of my journey to the 7/11, but my batteries died...

Hey look! A fish!

	At this point, I have lots of caffeine (Big Gulp of Mountain Dew) and some new batteries. This is just South of the 7/11. I was walking along, then suddenly realized the drain had a fish on it! I decided that if it was enough to amuse me for a few seconds, it was worth taking a picture of.

Anyone missing a shoe?

	This is a little further South. I've never understood why you can find individual shoes on the side of the road.

Those last few pictures suprised me. I'm not sure how my camera focused so well before the flash. I had to throw out a lot of the non-flash pictures I took, because the shutter speed was too slow so pictures came out overexposed or blurred. I think I need an SLR with a biiig CCD in it.

I don't get this sign.

	I simply can't figure out what it's trying to tell people. I had some quarters left over from getting batteries and caffeine, so I went in and played Terminator 3 Pinball.

Where I ate breakfast:

	I had a breakfast sandwich. I don't remember which.

This sounds fun:

	I don't think the "enter at your own risk" warning is necessary. Nothing with the word "Asylum" in it's name should be taken lightly. Especially if it is a lake in a dark woods. There was an awesome view back there, but it was too dark for me to even bother taking out my camera.

On the way back towards campus:

	Add?

That photo was blurry because I was startled by a cat. The cat had just dodged a large truck while crossing the road. I tried to take a picture of him after he stopped running, but it was too dark, and all I got out of it was a gray blob.

That big tower thingy:

	I actually had to lay on my side in the bottom of the empty fountain to get this shot. I really like the way my camera handled the lighting.

Parkview campus is ugly.

My last picture:

	The first person to tell me where I took it gets a cookie.

2005-04-14T21:10:00.000-04:00

The crazy Google Maps thing I tried to tie in isn't working because the site that I was using is having some problems. Until I get that worked out, feel free to browse through my PhotoBucket account to see the images. I don't have captions in there, but I will have them on the GMap system eventually. You'll have to use 'previous' to go through them in order. It lists newest first. I linked to the oldest image, so the sequence is right.

Update: It turns out that the site is crap. My login won't even work there. I guess I'll just post a nice Flikr album with captions later or something.

Update: I meant the google maps site I was using is crap. I love Photobucket.

2005-04-14T13:40:00.000-04:00

So... I didn't sleep. In my first class today someone told me that my big final project I didn't even know existed was due in my last class. After my first class got out, I speed-coded a 3D engine in 67 minutes. It is written in VB, so it is horribly slow... But it works! I don't even know what the final project is supposed to be, so I hope this is good enough.

The only reason I'm even posting this is because I have 20 minutes to kill before the class. I think I may even have to give a presentation in it. I hope it will be fun to explain raycasting to the class...

I didn't sleep last night....

2005-04-14T09:05:00.000-04:00

Around 3:30 or so, I realized that if I went to sleep, I would not get up for my earliest classes. Instead, I stayed up and wandered around taking pictures. I don't have a way to get them off my camera right now, but once I get back to my room this afternoon I'll do a big post with them.

Also, I am having a weird problem with comments. Sometimes they get posted, but don't show up in the count on the main page. I'm looking into that now.

Here's a fun conference I'd like to go to, but don't want to pay $40 for: Penguicon

I lied...

2005-04-12T20:26:00.000-04:00

You know that whole "something cool is coming on Wednesday" thing I posted? I lied. I've decided that it can still be done, but I don't like the pre-existing tools. I'll work on it over the summer in my infinite free time. Basically, it will be a clone of Google maps with a custom map, and links to photos wherever the little tags are. I'll need to learn more JavaScript, XML, XSL, CSS, and a few other things before I can do that.

2005-04-11T22:07:00.000-04:00

My roommate Dustin bought a car. It is a '95 Pontiac Grand Am. He was going on about how much he loves it, and how shiny it is, and even posted a picture of it in his Xanga. I thought it could be shinier, so I grabbed his photo, and touched it up a bit.

(click for larger image)

2005-04-11T01:32:00.000-04:00

I need to update more often.

Nothing exciting has happened in a while. I found RentACoder, which pays me money to do programming I would usually do for free. I also put 400 fish in our ponds, and I stacked firewood. Seriously, I don't see how people can stand reading this. I am boring.

Anyway, stay tuned for Wednesday. I have something really cool I am going to try out then. It involves lots of pictures, geographical coordinates of local businesses, and unauthorized use of trademarked technology. And don't forget satelittes. It may take me a few days to get everything figured out, but I think I can have it done by that night.

2005-04-04T20:19:00.000-04:00

I came up with a flyer to help my friend Matt sell his computer. Let me know what you think.

Link

It looks like this Batman thing is a lot of fun...

2005-04-04T14:16:00.000-04:00

I've received 400 page views... from 9 visitors.

Blogger was down a few minutes ago... Let me know if you have any problems. Also, I am going to be messing with my style sheets and tables for the next few days, but I don't think I'll break anything.

Eventually, I'll stop doing these technical posts, and start doing more normal blogging, but right now I'm having too much fun working with the configuration stuff to think of a meaningful post.

I have a title!

2005-04-03T21:22:00.000-04:00

Actually, I have several titles... Refresh and have fun. I plan on adding more Robin quotes to it eventually.

Update:
I found a list of all 352 "Holy ..., Batman!" quotes from the original series, and put them in my script.

2005-04-03T03:14:00.000-04:00

Well, it looks like backdating works, but I realized that I really don't feel like copying the rest of my LJ over here.

I'm moving...

2005-04-03T01:39:00.000-05:00

I'm switching to here from my LiveJournal account. Anything that gets posted here will also be mirrored there, but if you want to comment on things, I'll probably notice it first if you comment here.

Right now, I'm using the standard template, but eventually I'll have the site looking a little better.

2005-04-01T12:27:00.000-05:00

This is a test to see if backdating is possible... If it works, I'll pull a bunch of old posts from my LJ and put them in here.

Anyway, this is what happened online on April Fool's day:

War with Iraq was just a prank.
Google offers new invite-only beverages.
Britannica takes over Wikimedia
Scientific American gives up
President cancels space shuttle program
Electric razor attachment annocunced for iPods
Homestar Runner now a pay site.

Update:
Ask Jeeves introduces a humanoid search robot.
Malwaria.B computer virus spreads to humans

Update:
Life-size magnetic construction set on thinkgeek
They also have touch-screen DLP pong with wireless controllers
Bush Twins join Air Force unit in Iraq
Changing Cow's diets produces fruit-flavored milk!
Gmail announces unlimited storage!

Real Card Castles are GREEN

2005-03-30T23:03:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I finally got a hold of the spare parts for my Sun server. When I got home and realized that I still don't have my server to plug them into, I made this:

(Click for a larger image.)

It contains 2 processor modules, 2 voltage regulators, and about four gigs of ram.