The Ender saga strikes again...

Every time I crack open Ender's Game, I have to then read the whole thing plus Speaker for the Dead and finish with Xenocide. This time around I am listening to the Audio books and am taking every opportunity to listen. I am working my way through Xenocide and the people doing the read do an incredible job.

Happy Yule...

Pics from our 2006 Yule Day...

Solstice Day Activities 2006

I think I would go here...

Tunisia shares 'Star Wars' set

http://www.mysanantonio.com/salife/travel/stories/MYSA121006.1Q.starwars.245729f.html

My touchscreen's back and you're gonna be in trouble

I don't know why or how. But I was listening to Ender's Game on my iPaq this morning and I brushed the screen... and the audio stopped!!! That sounds bad but, its supposed to stop when you touch the screen!!!

It's back, it's back

Halleulah, halleulah, halleullllaaaaahhh...

It went away and you hung around
And bothered me, every night
And with I wouldn't go out with you
You said things that weren't very nice

My touchscreen's back and you're gonna be in trouble
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
You see it comin' better cut out on tit double
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
You been spreading lies that I was untrue
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
So look out now cause it's comin' after you

(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
(hey, it knows that you been tryin')
(And it knows that you been lyin')

it's been gone for such a long time
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
Now it's back and things'll be fine
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
You're gonna be sorry you were ever born
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
Cause it's kinda big and it's awful strong
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)

(it knows I wasn't citatin'!)
(Now you're gonna get a beatin'!)

(What made you think it'd believe all your lies?)
(Wah-ooo, wah-ooo)
(You're a big man now but it'll cut you down to size
(Wah-ooo, wait and see)

My touchscreen's back it's gonna save my reputation
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
If I were you I'd take a permanent vacation
(hey-la, hey-la, my touchscreen's back)

Yeah, my touchscreen's back
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)
Look out now, yeah, my touchscreen's back
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)
I could see it comin'
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)
So you better get a runnin'
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)
Alright now
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
(La-day-la, my boyfriends's back)
My touchscreen's back now
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)

[Fades]

Know it's comin' after you
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)
Because it knows I've been true now...

Smell memories brought on by songs...

I am listening to music via my Orb server today at work.

Witch in the Ditch by Erasure just came on and my nose seemed to fill with the smells of Domino's Pizza and the way my car smelled from making pizza deliveries. I can almost even see Norristown as I would drive around and listen to Erasure almost non-stop...

Weird...

AllofMP3.com to Be Shut Down...

Sorry to see this place go. I had bought some music from hear about two years ago. It was like 1.50 for a whole album.

AllofMP3.com to Be Shut Down
Under new political deal between U.S. & Russia
Posted 2006-11-29 08:38:56 by Karl · tags: [Fileswapping] [legal] [Politics] [world]

For some time the United States has been applying political pressure in order to get Russia to shut down allofMP3.com, the country's hugely popular on-line DRM-free discount music store. Slashdot points to an official document (pdf) that outlines an agreement where Russia will shut down allofMP3.com (and any sites like it) in exchange for being let into the WTO.

"nah"

I was like "so I guess I'll blog...". I get already and then I'm like "nah"

C.R. Stecyk III - DogTown godfather - rough cut deleted scene

This clip is a very rough cut of a deleted segment from the DogTown and Z-Boys documentary that talks about the original DogTown articles that C.R. Stecyk III wrote for the original SkateBoarder magazine. It begins with some material that will be familiar to those who have seen the film, in it's rough cut form, but then goes on to show various quotes from the stories and an entire scene that is an homage to the DogTown godfather Craig Stecyk that was cut from the film. Craig Stecyk is the reason the DogTown Z-Boys became famous. Stecyk is the one who wrote the stories and took some of the very first photos of the Z-Boys that were seen across the globe. His words inspired legions and helped shape skateboarding into the sport/art it is known as to this day. Those interviewed in this clip include Craig Stecyk, Henry Rollins, Jeff Ament, Ian MacKaye, Glen E. Friedman, Marc Reiter, Stacy Peralta, Nathan Pratt, Jake Phelps (Thrasher magazine), Fran Richards (Transworld magazine).

Fall 2006 photos to look at

Picasa Web albums is pretty neat. Here are some pics from this Falls festivals.

Halloween/ Fall 2006

Nooooooooo.... iPAQ touchscreen loses touch...

So... Friday I turn off my RadioTiki Podcast on the iPaq and slip it into my coat pocket and head into the house. Later that night everybody is out and I go to get the iPaq to update my music. I turn it on and tap the screen to turn the wireless on and nothing happens... I tap it again, nothing. I quickly use the control pad and make my way to the align screen application. Still nothing it wont register a screen touch :o(

I soft reset it and still no touch. I go and back up the iPaq and hit the hard Reset. Now its worse I am stuck at the welcome screen that says "tap the screen to set up your pocketPC". I tap, it does nothing. I press the selectino button and it takes me to the align screen set up screen. Now I am dead in the water.

I get online with HP and the guy has me soft and hard reset, download the latest ROM update and install that... of course nothing works. We get around to ok you need to send it in for repair. Cool, is it covered be warranty. We check the serial number... Your warranty ran out August 6th... Dread... bummer. Can I close the call... Pshsh, sure I click the close call button.

I look around for do it your self fixes. the cheapest will be 85$ for a touch screen since its not cracked. That does not include instructions(why?) and they say that this is the hardest repair to do. Or $104 to send it to them and have them do it. So I do some more searching on how to get around the align screen to at least have a little usability untill I can get it repaired and I can't find a thing. It will be Christmas if I am lucky to get it repaired so much for the GPS I was hoping to get for it.

So over the weekend I keep trying hard resets to see if it would pop back to life. I also read that sometimes the cable can come loose for the screen. So I hold my breath and remove the screws and pop open the case. Everything is so small. Then the camera cable comes unplugged, that was easy enough to plug back in though. I find the screen cable and unplug and replug but it is still not working. I see something else that says that there can be wear on the cable also. So by sunday I have taken almost the whole thing apart and put it back together and it stil "works".

Sunday night again everybody falls out and I am looking for screen repair tips. I come accross away around the align screen.
1. Do a hard reset
2. Sync with the PC, making a generic partnership
3. On the PC browse to the iPAQ. Windows/welcome.exe(or whatever the file extension is) and delete it.
4. Soft reset the iPAQ and wahoo we are the iPAQs desktop.

Now you can use a remote connection application to control your pocketPC from your PC and another application called FakeCursor to use the "d-pad' like a mouse pad on a laptop.

So now I can use the iPaq again untill I get the repair done. I can't play my Worms game as it requires taps to set up games but I can do everything else. Text entry is the other slow part...

All though this puppy is pretty sweet HP iPAQ rx5915 Travel Companion

Jedi costume...

So the Luke costume ended up being a tuff one to pull off in a pinch. What Sarah was able to assist in putting together for me was a Jedi costume. My first ever. I think it turned out well. It makes me want to dig in and get more detailed with it...


Check out the pics... I still want to get them in photo shop and jazz them up a bit.

Jedi Outfit

So I am going to try to pull off a cheezy Luke costume

So am going to try to pull off a quick Luke Skywalker costume for a party over the weekend. Ill post what ever it is I end looking like.

Finished Microserfs today...

So I went to the cafeterria to finish up Microserfs. It's kind of neat to read Microserfs and jPod right after one another. They both have the same feel but one is from the begging of the internet boom and jPod is more current. Both about very smart "geeky" people looking for a "real" life other then just codeing.

The thing is I had 20 pages togo and was ready to be done and move on to something different and then wham... the last 10 pages of the book have me almost in tears in the middle of the caffeteria. I really didnt see it coming. It's not a tottally said ending but not what I expected.

Anyway check em out if you would like to look into the coders world.

DJing would be fun...

We went to my sisters wedding this weekend. At the reception the DJ was set up with a laptop and a small selection of Cd's. Now if that was me I would get a wireless any ware card for the laptop so that if I could not have a regular wireless connection I could at least get on with the other type(Verizon, T-Mobile and what ever else is out there). I would then also have an iTunes or some music service or multiple services. I would ditch the box of Cd's and if somebody requested a song I would just go online and buy it and add it to my collection.

I requested 'Move your Feet' by Junior Senior (YouTube it and you''ll get to see the video) for Ruby. The song is on one of our DRR (dance, dance revolution) games. We used to DDR Ruby to sleep and Sarah even DDRd while pregnant. Anyway, he didn't have it (and could not get it I guess). I said I have it can I give it to you. Sure. I have it on my iPAQ. 'Does your laptop have bluetooth?' I got a blank stare back from him. It probably did and I either shocked him with the question or he never used it before. OK, how about an SD slot. Yep it had that. So he got the song of the SD card and played the song a bit later.

The second the song started Ruby recognized it and ran up to the dance floor. It's always nice to interject some music that nobody has ever heard before.

So that was my 'gadget moment' of the weekend...

Neat optical illusions page

Duck/Bunny

Cool illusions, warning there are some nudes

Just something neat someone(not me) did...

Something neat with books. The person used the same application as google maps

http://www.microtyp.org/

What a name...

A pro-Skater from my time, Christian Hosoi had a son recently. They named him Christian Classic Hosoi

Interesting but this guy always seemed snooty to me...

Blog Juice Calculator ?

Im not quite sure what this is but it looks interesting. Actually it is some sort of blog rating.



I am going to put it in my side bar of stuff

Reason for the infrequent posts... like anyone cares

Whew.. I have been working on these MS Office courses at work in the morning when I ussually BLOG so that why I have not updated for a while... I squeeze some stuff in here and there...

Google Docs beta...

Google just added a wordprocesser to there list of online apps. I have been using the online spread sheet and now can do text docs as well. It doesnt seem like much but MS Office does way more than I'll ever need. If I could ever uninstall it and just use web apps I would...

http://docs.google.com/