Monday, April 30, 2007

High Mileage

From a list I'm on:

    A 2007 study by Clemson University found that the average American walks about 900 miles per year.

    A study by the American Beer Institute found that Americans drink an average of 22 gallons of beer a year.

    That means, on average, Americans get approximately 41 miles per gallon - not bad!

Hi Tech Photo Studio

Rick Lee has one.

I've tried parts of my deck, patio table, and drop clothes. Never my AC unit...

Friday, April 27, 2007

Strange Vista Bug

It's attractive!

Thing1 cracks me up

    The latest poll taken by the office of the Governor of Texas asked whether people who live in Texas think illegal immigration is a serious problem:

    35% of respondents answered: "Yes, it is a serious problem."

    65% of respondents answered: "No es una problema serio.”

I've got mail

I get a lot of mail at work but not this much...



Thunderbird 2.0 looks to be having some trouble counting...

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Bye Bye to Drive?

I like Drive. It's an interesting concept with an excellent cast. According to Variety it's gone. The Fox site linked above concurs.

Crap!

I guess it's time to give up on Fox and any new shows they produce.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

HTPC Day 3

Black front with a white interior. Looking nice.



Don't worry - all the necessary grounding points for the motherboard and power supply were masked off before painting.

The case fans are here as well. Time to see how they fit. Not too bad. I need to power them up and make sure they work.





Previous: Day 1, Day 2

Rosie

Heh

Monday, April 23, 2007

And the winner of the HD war is?

HD-DVD or BluRay?

Might just be HD-DVD if Wal-Mart has anything to say about it...

300 - PG13?

Thing1 passes this along:

    Warner Bros. originally pushed Zack Snyder to direct this film with a PG-13 rating as the goal. Snyder refused and ultimately the WB brass agreed to make an R-rated movie.


And comments:

    How crappy would this movie had been if it was only PG-13?


Totally agree. 300 was a bloody movie that told a story. Making it blood free would have been a disaster.

Sore muscles

We spent most of Saturday sitting. First at the annual Tom Skilling Severe Storm Seminar at Fermilab (well worth the time if you're a weather geek) as Tom is a huge weather geek and puts together a great lineup. My favorite this year was Tim Marshall. Mr. Marshall is a structural engineer who also chases storms and shared his story of spending time in Sliddell, LA wheb Katrina came to visit. Fascinating. Saturday evening was spent at a play at Thing2's school. Too much sitting.

Sunday was spent buying plants and mulch, going to church, buying more plants, and then, lucky me, planting. When I quit to make dinner I was feeling ok. When I got up this morning - very sore.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Cheddar

Friday, April 20, 2007

HTPC Day 2

After a bit of work I have the opening for the 120mm fan cut and cleaned up.



A little bit of black paint on the front will make for excellent contrast with the white interior to come.

Ordered the fans:

  • Arctic Cooling 92x38mm for the exhaust
  • Scythe 120mm S-Flex Fluid Dynamic Bearing for the intake


Both are rated under 30dBa. Should make for a quiet machine.

Previous: Day 1

Baby Buffalo

Stopped by Fermilab on the way home today and drove by the buffalo. Six new babies. Very cute and further proof that God has an excellent sense of humor.

Red Eye

I recorded it last night on my computer to listen today at work. Some pretty funny stuff. Its on Fox News Channel really early in the morning.

Miss America 1944

    After confronting a man she said was stealing from her Kentucky farm, Ramey pulled out a gun and shot out a tire on his truck so he couldn't leave, allowing police to arrest him and two others.


Way to go Ms. Ramey!

More here

Via Hotair

I adore my 64

That was a great PC - the Commodore 64. It has a cameo in this video.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

USMC Silent Drill Team

Live at a Denver Nuggets game

Hi Honey. I have a surpise for you

"I was hit by an IED"

Baghdad ER

You'll cry a lot watching this movie. And you'll be inspired not only by the soldiers and Marines being treated but by the doctors, nurses, medics, and staff that are treating them.

And strangely enough - you'll find yourself smiling every once in a while.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

PBA

Current headline on Drudge

    HILLARY: 'Erosion of our constitutional rights'...
    GIULIANI: 'I agree with it'...
    OBAMA: 'I strongly disagree'...
    ROMNEY: 'A step forward'...
    MCCAIN: I'm very happy...
    EDWARDS: 'I could not disagree more strongly'...

    SUPREME COURT: NO PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTIONS


I know I'm ignoring the whole commerce argument but I'm not really sure how anyone who understands what partial birth abortion really is can support it.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Shamrox Win

We (the wife, Thing2, and I) went to the last Shamrox game of the season. Thing1, Thing2, and I had gone to an game earlier in the year and really enjoyed so I figured the wife might enjoy it as well. She's not a huge sports fan but indoor lacrosse is such a fast, fun game we all went. Almost all as Thing1, tucked away at school, stayed at school.

Indoor lacrosse reminds me of hockey with a ball and no ice with some basketball strategy mixed in. Great fun.

Thing2 got a clip of a goal being scored. A little grainy but it shows the transition of the game.



After the game fans can go down on the field. Here is Thing2 on the Shamrox bench.



And with some of the Shamrox dance team.







And with players and the team mascot.











At the end of the game the team was throwing shirts and balls up into the stands. We were on the upper level and the public address announcer threw a ball our way. Caught it on the fly. Added some autographs on the field.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Let it slide

Tam has some excellent advice on racking the slide on a semi-automatic pistol.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Great Events in Scottish History

1326 - The game of golf was invented in Scotland, followed shortly thereafter by the invention of the word "DAMMIT!"

1410 - Drinky MacDrunkard discovered how to make single malt scotch. He was then beaten to death by his neighbors when they found out they had to wait 12 years before they could drink it.

More here

via Blackfive

Thursday, April 05, 2007

In Memory of Becky

Adult Day Care Opened In Memory Of Suburban Woman

Story

Video

If you want to help fund the Becky Klein Adult Day Center donations are being accepted at the address below:

    Becky Klein Adult Care Program Fund
    c/o Fifth Third Bank
    1N111 County Farm Road
    Winfield, IL 60190

My kind of woman

Sam rocks!

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Yippie ki yea Mother ...

I can't wait!



Jack Bauer's long lost Uncle John is back!

Top ten sci-fi movies

Via the BBC


  1. Serenity
  2. Star Wars
  3. Blade Runner
  4. Planet of the Apes
  5. The Matrix
  6. Alien
  7. Forbidden Planet
  8. 2001: A Space Odyssey
  9. The Terminator
  10. Back to the Future


And I've actually seen all of them!

I'm not sure how Back to the Future qualifies as Sci-Fi...

Monday, April 02, 2007

High Efficency

We have Idera monitoring some SQL Servers at work. Here is what it reported for CPU utilization the other day:

    4040: Operating system CPU usage for server XXXXX is currently 22424924531250.00%.


I believe that is 22.42 Trillion percent utilized...

Sunday, April 01, 2007

HTPC Day 1

What's a HTPC? Home Theater Personal Computer. Think of it as a Tivo that you control your way - not theirs - hooked up to your wide screen high definition television. The HTPC should support DVD playback, TV time shifting, and Tivo features like pausing live TV. It should be easy to setup recordings and allow archiving of shows to DVD.

I've got a couple of different PCs with TV capture cards but they are in my home office. Nothing hooked up to the HD TV.

It would be easy to start with a HTPC case (but that would take the fun out of it :) ) so I looked at my collection of parts in the garage and came across an old Micron PC that was gathering dust. Stripped off most of the plastic and it looks like a usable case as it's the right size for the oak cabinet my TV is in. Note that the Micron in a mini-tower and my plan for the HTPC is horizontal...




It's a fairly spacious case






 


The default rear case fan is 90mm and uses a special mount. I plan to modify this such that two quiet 80mm fans go above the I/O pod




A close look at the case shows that the 5.25 inch bay can be turned 90 degrees. No tweaking needed here!



And a 120mm fan will fit up front. I'll mod the plastic card holder so that it will keep the switches in place. The speaker will move to the bottom of the case after I add a few holes




If you look closely you'll see some blue lines. Thats where I cut!




The plan for the actual PC is as follows:


  • AMD Athlon 64x2. 3800 or higher
  • 2GB RAM
  • 500GB SATA Drive
  • DVD Drive
  • Haupagge MCE 500 dual standard definition tuner
  • Haupagge HDTV tuner
  • Sound Blaster X-FI sound card
  • Windows XP
  • Beyond TV


Time to start modding!