Mikkei.com

XKCD presents “A-Minus-Minus”

If only I were crazy enough to do this…

E-bay used to seem like the most exciting thing online. We’ll isn’t it convenient that we have just been given a way to return it to it’s former glory!?! Mystery packages! How sweet would it be if you could buy something before ever knowing what it was? I mean, you wouldn’t spend a hundred dollars or anything, just a couple bucks. The anticipation and speculation alone could really spice up an otherwise boring day.

I actually can’t believe how easily this ties in, but I actually found a site that already does this. There is a website called Super Awesome Mystery Prize from which you can purchase a mystery prize. There are a couple different price options (shipping included) which relate to the size of the package you will receive. I have yet to order something but it looks like they’ve been in “business” for a while. Check it out: superawesomemysteryprize.com

Going back to XKCD, just let me say that this webcomic is more amazing than I can express. I wish I knew more about computer programming so that I could get half the jokes that Randall Munroe makes. However, the ones I do get are awesome.

Allow me to offer this introduction to the next comic: Management used to permit alcohol in meetings at my work. One day they took that privilege away (which didn’t bother me, since I don’t drink) but it really got me wondering why it was ever allowed in the first place. Thanks to XKCD, now I know.

XKCD presents “The Ballmer Peak”

If I saw this coming at me in the darkness of night (or even in broad daylight) I would be utterly terrified. If I didn’t know better I would say this was a demon machine sent from hell. This is the creepiest thing I’ve seen since the Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth. It looks as if the lower-halves of two people have been attached to a machine and somehow the legs have retained life and are forced to stumble around together. There’s also something sinister and malevolent about it. Maybe it’s the fear of the unknown. I mean, this is incredibly new to me. It could also be that it moves in such a human way.

All my fears aside, this is absolutely incredible. BigDog is the creation of Boston Dynamics, a company that developed out of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The BigDog project is funded by the U.S. Military in the hopes of creating an all-terrain gear transporter. (Lerner 2008)

It’s awesome how quickly robotic technology is developing and I mean awesome in the sense that BigDog inspires fear. One person commented on BigDog by saying “I almost feel bad when they hit it to demonstrate how it regains balance on its own.” Robots don’t need our sympathy. That’s how it begins, “Aw, poor robot”. That’s just one card they’ll have to use against us in the take-over. Watch out.

1. Lerner, Preston 2008. Robotic Dog of War. CNN International. http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/03/08/army.robot.dog/ (accessed March 17, 2008).

iMovie has made a fool of me. 

A couple of months ago, my girlfriend’s nearly brand new MacBook was close to running out of hard drive space. The reason being that we both feel compelled to attempt to capture every aspect of our lives on either photo or video. Tons of video and hi-res photos require an astonishing amount of hard drive space. Who would have thought? 

So, we decided to utterly annihilate our problem by buying an external hard drive… with a terabyte of memory. I laugh at your 50GB external hard drive. We rule you.

However, after we got the new drive home, I was faced with the challenge of transferring all of Kidlet’s iMovie project files and events to it. To give you some background on the situation; I don’t know the first thing about Macs. Once I’m under the hood, I am a confused and frightened little boy. I have no idea what’s going on. So I gave it my best, but in my PC-centric meddling I think I moved some files I shouldn’t have and maybe a deleted a couple of things that were best left alone. Whoops.

That was over a month ago and today I finally found what I was looking for: a tutorial on moving iMovie files. You know where I found it? The Apple website. How did I not find this right away? Like within one minute of being faced with this problem? Don’t ask. 

Now I’m left with trying to clean up the mess I made. I need to find a way to restore the iMovie projects I inadvertently destroyed.

Damn you Apple. Damn you iMovie. You’ve bested me yet again. 

Hello. How have you been? It hasn’t been too long.

I made this site so that people could amuse themselves at my expense. Everyone likes a little bit of vicarious living, right? Why not check in on me everyday and see what I’m up to? It’s interesting. I’m going to attempt to update this daily with music (rants about music and actual music), stories about my vegan cooking experiments, restaurant reviews, essays, and tons of other stuff. Please check back soon.