Searchme.com is a graphical search engine. Check it out. It looks like how I-tunes handles album art, but with web pages. It's pretty cool.
Also, I am on XboxLive now. I'm Catalyst2k and I suck! Man, I thought that I'd be able to hold my own in Halo 3 but I'm getting spanked. I still hold firm that FPS on a console game is a sin against nature and any true gamer uses a mouse but... I really do suck.
So, if you're out battling the flood and want an easy kill... look me up.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Xbox 360
I've had a 360 for about 4 months now and I never really tried setting it up as a media center. I run wireless N at home and I didn't want to shell out the bucks for a WAP that would do N. Well, I decided to just go ahead and get the wireless G and I'm so glad I did. I got the wireless USB NIC that is made by MS for the 360. It got great reviews and was pretty cheap too (I bought it with Best Buy points). The cool thing is that I've been changing all my DVD's to AVI so I could build a Ubuntu media box but the 360 can stream them from my big server and play AVI's, so I'm just going to use it instead... YAY saving money! It also works with WMP 11 so it has all my music, family videos and pictures on it. It's really cool because now I can sit at the TV and scroll through all my movies, select one and play it. Also, the music player has a pretty cool screen display when playing music. Here's Hayden looking tough in front of it.
It looks really cool in 1080p!
I had some trouble with the 360 wireless only allowing TKI encryption of its WPA key... but that was a quick fix. It doesn't have the 270 Mb connection my wireless N has... but 54 Mb is all good. I even got in some Halo 3 on line... wow I suck! I have to say Microsoft did a good job with their on-line content. I found a TON of Guitar Hero songs, picked up a bunch of new skins and even played some Burnout Paradise. I'm going to do some dogfighting with Ace Combat 6 tomorrow... and then maybe some Gears co-op. Goot suffin!
Seri got some sunglasses for the summer which she loved. I can't believe she will actually wear them. Hayden wouldn't wear hats or anything... he'd freak if you put something on his head. Seri will wear hats all day... but hates shoes. Weird huh?
Other than that it was a pretty slow day. We discussed the placement of all the plants that we bought. They should be in soon... I am not looking forward to all the work involved. I think I inherited my mothers Polish thumb. The Polish thumb is like a green thumb, except you can only grow cucumbers successfully, everything else dies. Mom could kill a plastic plant... but managed to grow enough cucumbers to feed a small country every year. That meant I had the joy of growing up with all sorts of cucumber meals. Cucumber bread, cucumber lasagna, cucumber tea... you ever have to go to school with a bag full of cucumber jerky? That ain't cool! It's like asking to get beat up!
But I digress...
Here's the lasted Iron Man trailer. It's good ju-ju. I have to say this is the first movie that I've been really excited about for a while. I hope they don't screw it up. I'm not a huge comic fan but Tony Stark is a really great anti hero... and I think Robert Downey Jr really 'got' the character. Now, I don't know how much acting is involved for him to act like an egotistical alcoholic.. but, as long as the film is good... then it's all butter.
Whelp, time to hit the hay, I have a big day of saving the world tomorrow... one e-mail at a time!
It looks really cool in 1080p!
I had some trouble with the 360 wireless only allowing TKI encryption of its WPA key... but that was a quick fix. It doesn't have the 270 Mb connection my wireless N has... but 54 Mb is all good. I even got in some Halo 3 on line... wow I suck! I have to say Microsoft did a good job with their on-line content. I found a TON of Guitar Hero songs, picked up a bunch of new skins and even played some Burnout Paradise. I'm going to do some dogfighting with Ace Combat 6 tomorrow... and then maybe some Gears co-op. Goot suffin!
Seri got some sunglasses for the summer which she loved. I can't believe she will actually wear them. Hayden wouldn't wear hats or anything... he'd freak if you put something on his head. Seri will wear hats all day... but hates shoes. Weird huh?
Other than that it was a pretty slow day. We discussed the placement of all the plants that we bought. They should be in soon... I am not looking forward to all the work involved. I think I inherited my mothers Polish thumb. The Polish thumb is like a green thumb, except you can only grow cucumbers successfully, everything else dies. Mom could kill a plastic plant... but managed to grow enough cucumbers to feed a small country every year. That meant I had the joy of growing up with all sorts of cucumber meals. Cucumber bread, cucumber lasagna, cucumber tea... you ever have to go to school with a bag full of cucumber jerky? That ain't cool! It's like asking to get beat up!
But I digress...
Here's the lasted Iron Man trailer. It's good ju-ju. I have to say this is the first movie that I've been really excited about for a while. I hope they don't screw it up. I'm not a huge comic fan but Tony Stark is a really great anti hero... and I think Robert Downey Jr really 'got' the character. Now, I don't know how much acting is involved for him to act like an egotistical alcoholic.. but, as long as the film is good... then it's all butter.
Whelp, time to hit the hay, I have a big day of saving the world tomorrow... one e-mail at a time!
Monday, April 21, 2008
Study says 58 percent of music isn't paid for
Read it here.
Wow... I really don't care. If you start feeling bad for any of today's 'artists' just watch an episode of cribs. Personally, I think it's funny. You know that the big wigs in the music industry really thought that P2P and file sharing was going to be a fad. If they would of capitalized on this in the beginning they'd be doing awesome right now... oh well, hindsight.
Wow... I really don't care. If you start feeling bad for any of today's 'artists' just watch an episode of cribs. Personally, I think it's funny. You know that the big wigs in the music industry really thought that P2P and file sharing was going to be a fad. If they would of capitalized on this in the beginning they'd be doing awesome right now... oh well, hindsight.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Serenity Turns One... (two months ago)
Yep, Seri is now the big 1. Well, she actually turned one in late February but we didn't have a real party for her. I know that some parents go all out for the first B-day but not us! We did want her to have some cake though so we had a little celebration for her.
She really enjoyed her cake, and by enjoy I mean rubbed it all over her face. So what do you do after you mush your birthday cake all over your face? Why you sing of course!
I've uploaded some more pictures onto Facebook. Oh yeah, have you heard of Facebook? It's one of the latest social networking sites that my brother has conned me into using. He gives me these empty promises of updates and pictures of his kids and then leaves me alone with a page full of comments from his youth group. The thing that ticks me off about the whole thing is that I've had a site for years with tons of pictures on it. About 6 years ago I built a web server at home out of my Xbox so I could sneak music into work. I was going to use another PC but the Xbox was just sitting there... begging for Linux. Anyway, I've since moved the server to a pretty beefy Terabyte server... which I use to sneak music into work. I work for the gov't and they don't get down with the thumb drives... or MP3 players... or any media for that matter. I can bring in store bought CD's and the day I buy one... I'll bring it in.
Anyway, I gave my whole fam the password for the site and they can see all of our family adventures... which they don't. I know this because I log access... you know, tech wienie stuff. So when my brother tells me of this new site that will allow us to share pictues... well, you get the idea.
All in all it was a good weekend. Joy and I rounded it out by buying some trees for the yard and spending way too much money at Garden Ridge. So everything was going well, and then the Jehovah Witnesses came by. Man, that sounds like the start of a joke or something.
We get a lot of people trying to sell a lot of stuff around my neighborhood. I put up a no soliciting sign but thanks to the awesome education system here in Texas that just means I spend as much time explaining what no soliciting means as I used to spend explaining that I don't need a new whatever it is... even if you're giving a free demo. I think that Jehovah's Witnesses are immune to no soliciting signs anyway. I didn't really have time to chat so I just asked if they believed in intelligent design... (one of them said no and the other said yes) and then I asked if there really is a rhythm or reason to our creation then why do we expel compressed air from our rear ends. Anywhere else and it would go un-noticed... our ears, through pores in our feet, from our belly buttons... but we squeeze it out from these two pressed hams so it sounds like this. Why?
Not my best argument... but it perplexed them long enough for me to close the door. Besides, I just got Halo 3 and I had to check it out. You know... no time for religion when there's vidier gaming to be done!
She really enjoyed her cake, and by enjoy I mean rubbed it all over her face. So what do you do after you mush your birthday cake all over your face? Why you sing of course!
I've uploaded some more pictures onto Facebook. Oh yeah, have you heard of Facebook? It's one of the latest social networking sites that my brother has conned me into using. He gives me these empty promises of updates and pictures of his kids and then leaves me alone with a page full of comments from his youth group. The thing that ticks me off about the whole thing is that I've had a site for years with tons of pictures on it. About 6 years ago I built a web server at home out of my Xbox so I could sneak music into work. I was going to use another PC but the Xbox was just sitting there... begging for Linux. Anyway, I've since moved the server to a pretty beefy Terabyte server... which I use to sneak music into work. I work for the gov't and they don't get down with the thumb drives... or MP3 players... or any media for that matter. I can bring in store bought CD's and the day I buy one... I'll bring it in.
Anyway, I gave my whole fam the password for the site and they can see all of our family adventures... which they don't. I know this because I log access... you know, tech wienie stuff. So when my brother tells me of this new site that will allow us to share pictues... well, you get the idea.
All in all it was a good weekend. Joy and I rounded it out by buying some trees for the yard and spending way too much money at Garden Ridge. So everything was going well, and then the Jehovah Witnesses came by. Man, that sounds like the start of a joke or something.
We get a lot of people trying to sell a lot of stuff around my neighborhood. I put up a no soliciting sign but thanks to the awesome education system here in Texas that just means I spend as much time explaining what no soliciting means as I used to spend explaining that I don't need a new whatever it is... even if you're giving a free demo. I think that Jehovah's Witnesses are immune to no soliciting signs anyway. I didn't really have time to chat so I just asked if they believed in intelligent design... (one of them said no and the other said yes) and then I asked if there really is a rhythm or reason to our creation then why do we expel compressed air from our rear ends. Anywhere else and it would go un-noticed... our ears, through pores in our feet, from our belly buttons... but we squeeze it out from these two pressed hams so it sounds like this. Why?
Not my best argument... but it perplexed them long enough for me to close the door. Besides, I just got Halo 3 and I had to check it out. You know... no time for religion when there's vidier gaming to be done!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Educational television doesn't work
Everyone has a vice. Most people have more than one. One of mine is South Park. Now, I'm not saying it's all good but I watch it whenever I can.
Last night they had an episode where the Internet goes down... and hilarity ensues. It was pretty funny because I often run into people who think that the internet is a 'thing'. I did have someone ask me once if I could 'put the internet on a disk so they can have it at their house.' I'm not even kidding about that.
Anyway, it turns out that the Internet is run by one giant router... it looked like a Linksys. After the military tries to reason with the router by playing the sounds from Close Encounters, they fix it by unplugging it and then pugging it back in. So Joy and I laughed and then she went to work and I went to bed. Joy works at home but at night. Then, around 3 am, Joy wakes me up because our internet connection was down, which she needs to work. Sure enough, I unplug the cable modem and then plug it back in. She asked me what I did to fix it and I think I mumbled South Park and went to bed. See what I mean? Also, I watch Good Eats on the Food Network and I can't cook my way out of a wet paper bag!
Joy and I also started Netflix. So far it's pretty good... except that we decided to rent War. Here's a brief synopsis:
Some stuff happens... there's a horse. Jason Statham gets attacked by axes for the hundredth time. FBI agents have a license to kill.. and use it... throughout the movie... and nobody cares. Jet Li kicks people. Oh... every Asian in LA carries a samurai sword (my personal fav) ... then there's this big shootout and the end sucks.
It was a pretty crappy movie... better than Transporter though. Honestly, most movies of late are pretty crappy anyway.
Lastly, I've been watching House. Now, I'm not a TV guy and I really have a hard time staying interested in any shows these days but House has got me hooked for the time being. I think that the writing is pretty intelligent and I like where the story's going.
I can really relate to the main character, a socio-path that everyone tolerates because of his brilliance. Man, if he was managing a 2003 environment instead of being a doctor it'd be my life! Anyway, It's good ju-ju. Check it out.
I think I'm going to check the dark corners of the Interweb for seasons one and two... I mean, I am going to go to Best Buy and purchase this fine program with my hard earned money.... because P2P is the devil.
Last night they had an episode where the Internet goes down... and hilarity ensues. It was pretty funny because I often run into people who think that the internet is a 'thing'. I did have someone ask me once if I could 'put the internet on a disk so they can have it at their house.' I'm not even kidding about that.
Anyway, it turns out that the Internet is run by one giant router... it looked like a Linksys. After the military tries to reason with the router by playing the sounds from Close Encounters, they fix it by unplugging it and then pugging it back in. So Joy and I laughed and then she went to work and I went to bed. Joy works at home but at night. Then, around 3 am, Joy wakes me up because our internet connection was down, which she needs to work. Sure enough, I unplug the cable modem and then plug it back in. She asked me what I did to fix it and I think I mumbled South Park and went to bed. See what I mean? Also, I watch Good Eats on the Food Network and I can't cook my way out of a wet paper bag!
Joy and I also started Netflix. So far it's pretty good... except that we decided to rent War. Here's a brief synopsis:
Some stuff happens... there's a horse. Jason Statham gets attacked by axes for the hundredth time. FBI agents have a license to kill.. and use it... throughout the movie... and nobody cares. Jet Li kicks people. Oh... every Asian in LA carries a samurai sword (my personal fav) ... then there's this big shootout and the end sucks.
It was a pretty crappy movie... better than Transporter though. Honestly, most movies of late are pretty crappy anyway.
Lastly, I've been watching House. Now, I'm not a TV guy and I really have a hard time staying interested in any shows these days but House has got me hooked for the time being. I think that the writing is pretty intelligent and I like where the story's going.
I can really relate to the main character, a socio-path that everyone tolerates because of his brilliance. Man, if he was managing a 2003 environment instead of being a doctor it'd be my life! Anyway, It's good ju-ju. Check it out.
I think I'm going to check the dark corners of the Interweb for seasons one and two... I mean, I am going to go to Best Buy and purchase this fine program with my hard earned money.... because P2P is the devil.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The Poteet Strawberry Festival
Today I had to mow my lawn... and I mean I really had to mow my lawn.
So we went to the Strawberry Fest in Poteet instead. Hayden gets another week with the 'jungle' in the backyard.
Poteet is a little town that is literally in the middle of nowhere. We're talking redneck, banjo playing, NASCAR loving nowhere. Luckily the GPS is good at finding nowhere so we were on our way.
The Festival was great. They had some good rides that were really expensive and some great food that was pretty cheap. As soon as we walked in a carny started his schpeal about me winning something for my kids. I was going to avoid it but Joy decided to take his side.
Guy 'Step right up, you can't loose'
Me "No thanks'
Joy 'He said you can't loose... and Hayden really needs a $2 bear.'
So $15.00 later we got a bear for Hayden.
We went of a coule of rides which gave us a great view of all the things we could do.
I personally came for the food and I was not disappointed. The smokers were out in full force and I grabbed a brisket fajita and a BBQ sandwich that were both awesome!
Unfortunately I couldn't debase myself enough to buy the hot beef sundae.
What was that? San Antonio is one of the fattest cities in the US? No... I don't believe it.
Of course we had some strawberries. We had strawberry ice cream, chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry wine coolers (just me and Joy) and we ended up buying 6 pints of fresh strawberries, which we pretty much ate on the way home.
All in all it was a good time. We came home with full stomachs and sticky fingers and all took a nap... except for Hayden who still had energy somehow. That's my boy!
So we went to the Strawberry Fest in Poteet instead. Hayden gets another week with the 'jungle' in the backyard.
Poteet is a little town that is literally in the middle of nowhere. We're talking redneck, banjo playing, NASCAR loving nowhere. Luckily the GPS is good at finding nowhere so we were on our way.
The Festival was great. They had some good rides that were really expensive and some great food that was pretty cheap. As soon as we walked in a carny started his schpeal about me winning something for my kids. I was going to avoid it but Joy decided to take his side.
Guy 'Step right up, you can't loose'
Me "No thanks'
Joy 'He said you can't loose... and Hayden really needs a $2 bear.'
So $15.00 later we got a bear for Hayden.
We went of a coule of rides which gave us a great view of all the things we could do.
I personally came for the food and I was not disappointed. The smokers were out in full force and I grabbed a brisket fajita and a BBQ sandwich that were both awesome!
Unfortunately I couldn't debase myself enough to buy the hot beef sundae.
What was that? San Antonio is one of the fattest cities in the US? No... I don't believe it.
Of course we had some strawberries. We had strawberry ice cream, chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry wine coolers (just me and Joy) and we ended up buying 6 pints of fresh strawberries, which we pretty much ate on the way home.
All in all it was a good time. We came home with full stomachs and sticky fingers and all took a nap... except for Hayden who still had energy somehow. That's my boy!
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