it is 10:20AM. twenty minutes after the hour. today is mozilla’s big firefox download day. i’d link to it, but their web site is so overwhelmed right now that i can’t seem to find the right link where mozilla is trying to break a world record today for most downloaded piece of software in a day.

the problem is that they are running late. it’s now twenty minutes after the hour and still no file to download. i guess i should just wait a couple of hours and see if they’ve figured everything out by then. i will contribute at least two downloads today to the cause.

geeky entry to follow about wildcard DNS entries. 99.9% of you won’t know or care about this entry. =P

Continue reading learned something new every day →

you know, when it comes to the wii, the breakdown in cost is probably something like: 10% console, 70% games, 20% accessories. i got the basic wii console (those things are next to impossible to find these days! everything is bundled now, i guess the margins on the console by itself aren’t very high.) and now i have a small collection of games. but it is the accessories that look like they are starting cost quite a bit.

first, any wii owner knows that they have to own 4 wiimotes. so that means that three of them need to be purchased. i think that you also have to buy at LEAST one more nunchuk. so bare minimum is two nunchuks and 4 wiimotes. but now, we’re starting to get into other more specialized games like guitar hero 3. you NEED two guitars to play the game right. let’s say you buy the bundle, that’s $90. let’s say that you held off and waited for the guitar hero aerosmith bundle to get your second controller instead of buying a second one. that’s another $100. and the wiimotes are useless without batteries. rechargeable batteries just make sense here. you need to charge all of the wiimotes at once, so that means you need 2 wii dual charging docks w/ batteries and modified battery covers at $14 each. i actually saw a quad charger at the store the other day, i think it was around the same price. i wish i saw that before, but oh well. looks like it’s in the accessories where a lot of money is made. i was tempted to buy 3 more wii-wheels for mario kart wii, but opted not to. i think it’s easier to drive with the wii wheel, though…

cost of wii console: $250
$250 wii w/ 1 controller + nunchuk + wii sports

cost of wii accessories: $369 (so far)
$120 3 x Wiimote
$20 nunchuk
$40 guitar – guitar hero 3
$50 guitar – aerosmith
$90 wii fit
$11 rechargeable battery for wii fit
$10 wii fit silicone sleeve
$28 2 x dual charging dock

i played in a grass tournament over the weekend with christi, karenina, and ed. we were in the lowest pool available. it seems like i’m always playing in that pool. i guess i’m just not getting any better. =P our team managed to take second place. i was given a bit of a hard time about not being placed in the right pool, but i think that we’re right on the border between the lowest pool and the second lowest pool. looking at the next pool up, though, it looks like we were gonna get killed a little bit. =P

the outdoor tournament was a lot of fun and it looked like the tournament was run well. the pools were mostly well balanced and i know that i definitely had fun in our pool.

cheryl’s birthday party was also held at the same park where the tournament was, so we were able to hang out inbetween matches. after the tournament was over, i went to play on the net that greg had set up. we played doubles for a little bit and then all of a sudden i was completely drained. i could barely get myself off the court. i guzzled down a gatorade, ate a few cookies, a burger, and half a loaf of garlic bread. finally, the exhaustion that hit me was staved off a little and i was able to sit up and watch the others play. it was actually a little alarming at how quickly i went from full of energy to completely wasted.

the canon rebates are back and it is always this time of year that i am wont with longing for new camera gear. someone asked me the other day what sort of gear i shoot with, what i have, and what i want. man, that is a complicated question. it’s gonna get pretty camera geeky after the jump, only go if you really are that interested!

Continue reading canon rebates are back →

my dentist told me at a recent trip that my teeth were darker than my age and that i should pop by a drugstore and pick up one of the over the counter teeth whiteners. she said that i’m not that old and my teeth are making me look older. it never really occurred to me that my teeth were that stained, but when i started to compare them to people i saw on tv, i did start to notice that everyone on tv does have pretty white teeth. like really white.

so i bought the aquafresh white trays. i wanted something that had better coverage than the strips because i felt that the strips would only brighten your first few teeth. it’s true that these trays don’t fit over your entire set of teeth, but they certainly do have better coverage. plus, with all of the gel that sort of oozes around, the rest of your teeth actually get some treatment too.

after about three treatments, i really do notice a difference. i think that i’ve done a total of 5 of the 7 treatments that are included in the box and i do notice a significant whitening. now, they aren’t glow in the dark white, yet, but i think that i may stop at the fifth treatment. any brighter and i think that it starts to look a little weird.

it must be all of those years of drinking pearl tea that has done it to my teeth. it’s aged them!

so let me tell you a little bit about what my life has been like for the past couple of weeks. i wasn’t sure if i really wanted to get the wii fit when the all of the pre-orders were being accepted, but seeing that the wii fit was sold out everywhere and playing the game a little, i had changed my mine. so my life for the last couple of weeks have been filled with stopping by every single game store i pass by, every single target, and every best buy just to check to see if they have the wii fit in stock.

the crazy thing is that the shipments of the wii fit is sporadic and unscheduled. stores get them in stock whenever they get a shipment and they pretty much sell out as soon as they get them in stock. so it’s just a matter of timing and being at the right place at the right time.

i walked into best buy today, after hearing that best buy and target appear to be the two largest distributors of the wii fit. my hopes weren’t high, though, as i had walked into other stores and have had my hopes dashed with the sad news that they did not, in fact, have any in stock. but as i walked in the store, there were two guys ahead of me who were talking about how excited they were to pick up a wii fit. i followed them to the wii section and they each picked up a wii fit. to my delight, i saw that there was one more left and i quickly snatched it up.

as i was turning around, i hear some guy a little ways back exclaim, “oh man!” it appears that i had beat him out to get the last wii fit of the store. if they had any more in stock, i would have bought the store’s stock out. these things are on ebay for nearly double retail value!

but, yes, i finally got a wii fit. happy times, yo.

i have been having a steak craving for a while now, so last night i finally got around to making steak. it was delicious. i went to costco to buy steak the only way i know how, in large family packs. on the menu for the evening:

spinach dip
a balsalmic asparagus tree
garlic mushrooms
steak a la mike

all in all it was a pretty good meal. paul, leeya, cheryl, greg, and geoff all made it out to help me eat up the food. it was to cook dinner again. it’s been a while since i cooked steak, but this has inspired me to do some more cooking. maybe i’ll cook something else tonight. we’ll see!

this year, i think that i am going to give my dad for father’s day the gift of manual labor. over the weekend, my mom called me to ask me to help him with some broken sprinklers. my dad made me think that we were going to have to dig out the entire sprinkler system and replace it with a new system. all of that trenching did not sound like fun.

it turned out that we didn’t have to trench to remove the existing pipes, though. this was a very good thing because the existing pipes were made out of steel. trying to cut through those pipes did not seem like fun. it’s crazy how much rust and other crap gets stuck to these pipes. we had to replace one sprinkler head that was attached the the steel pipes and there was so much rust and sediment stuck on the threads of the pipe that we could barely screw the sprinkler onto the pipe.

the other half of the sprinkler system used standard PVC so it was pretty easy to make the repairs there. the automatic valves failed and needed to be replaced. we couldn’t get the existing valve off, the plastic threads must have been screwed on crooked when it was put on so my dad and i were debating which way to take it off. my dad wanted to try to muscle the valve off with a wrench. i tried it, but couldn’t get it off. he wanted to try it himself, but he couldn’t do it either.

we sat there defeated for a little while and then i told him i’m just gonna break the valve off. he looked horified. i’m not going to break the water main, i tried to soothe him, but he was convinced that i was going to break off the entire section of pipe and not just the valve. i hadn’t even suggested the use of the sledgehammer yet! though it was on my mind.

so anyway, i gave the valve a couple of gentle kicks and asked him to watch the pipes to see if they budged. they are steel! nothing moved. so i gave the valve of couple of swift, forceful kicks and it splintered off. “see!” i exclaim, “easy!”

oh, i almost forgot. before we worked on the sprinklers, we had to turn off the water for the house. i went to the water main access and saw inside there a huge black widow. “dude, there’s a black widow in there! i’m not sticking my hand in there!”

my dad looks inside and says, “yeah, that is a black widow.” and then he proceeds to kill it with a screwdriver. “ok, all clear, now turn off the water,” he beckons to me. “why do *I* have to turn off the water, you’re closer!” i quiver in fear of any black widow baby spiders lurking in the chamber. still, i manned up and turned off the water…and lived to tell about it. i haven’t seen a black widow in years. i wish i had taken a picture of it before it met its demise. oh well.

i went to fry’s over the weekend to look at camera bags for the throwaway camera. i wasn’t sure at first what exactly i was looking for, but as i was looking through the wall of camera bags that they had available, i started to form some opinions. i didn’t find exactly what i was looking for, but i came pretty close. i ended up not getting a leather case, i wasn’t sure how it would scuff up, though i thought that that would be a good material to buy.

the criteria for a small camera pouch:
1) adequate protection
the main reason i wanted to get a case is so that the LCD won’t get scratched up. the case needs to protect the camera from scratches and it would be good if it could provide some protection from drops too.

2) small
the smaller, the better. it has to be a small case, ideally, it would be something that i can comfortably fit into a pocket. well, you know, a pocket in some really baggy jeans or something.

3) easy access
a LOT of small camera cases have zipper openers. i didn’t want to have to deal with a zipper. i think that it just takes too long, can get snagged on something, and just was not aesthetically pleasing. i think it makes it look cheap.

4) room for accessories
it’s got to be a small case, but it has to be big enough to carry an extra battery and memory. you’d be surprised how many small camera cases don’t have any storage for accessories. i don’t want to store a tripod in the camera, but an extra battery would definitely be helpful.

so what did i end up with? a lowepro rezo 15. it has a velcro opener, a small pouch for accessories, a nice padded inside. it’s a little fatter and thicker than i had wanted, but it will serve its purpose well. i have to admit that i was debating between two bags and the inner camera snob in me choose the lowepro over the generic brand bag. but now it looks like my big camera bag had a little camera bag baby. it’s cute.