CSI EPIC FAIL

I've blogged a couple of times now about my attending the College of Southern Idaho.  I've been to school a few times now and I know there is this weird bureaucratic "thing" that often just has to be endured, but there are some things that should not have to be endured, and crappy teachers is one of them.

As of this morning I was taking 16 credit hours this semester, which means I had to pay extra over and above full-time tuition.  I was OK with that since it meant I got to take a course I really wanted to, which was CISW 111: Web Authoring.  I was excited about this course...and even more so for the next class which was CISW 113: Website Design & Management.

As of this afternoon, however, I'm at 13 credits because I was forced to drop CISW 111 while I could still do so for full refund.  The reason?  My instructor's EPIC FAIL.

MST3K Meets ICP and Carly Rae

I don't really listen to the radio much, so when I hear Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe", I don't get worked up about it.  Most radio stations overplay all their music, so I get that people will easily get sick of some songs.

From what I've heard this song has been a real popular target to make fun of.

I like it, but I only hear it once or twice a week at best.

I also like MST3K, but this isn't MST3K.  What it is...well you should just take a leap of faith and trust me on this one.  It is hilarious and a bit on the NSFW side, but not too much.

Awesome Product......Reviews

The fine folks over at Gawker put me on to this EPIC product over at Amazon's UK webstore.

I don't want to spoil the surprise for you, but if you click on the magical unicorn poo (actually a graphic from the Deathspank game) you'll go right to the product's page.

The product itself isn't the big deal....or maybe it is.  Just read the product reviews.  Seriously...the product might be WTF material, but the product reviews are pure gold.

Maggie is a Little Under the Weather...so to Speak.

Yesterday I had to take the ride of shame home.  If any of you have an older car that requires periodic maintenance of an "interesting" sort, you know what I mean.....

.....I had to have Maggie towed home.  Nothing is more embarrassing than having to have the tow truck take you and your ride home.

Yesterday I had a speech to give and a Speech Contest to run, so I was a bit occupied.  Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, my car problems weren't a matter of me overlooking some basic maintenance because I was "busy".  Nope....this time it was just having a 34 year old car.  I think some of the rubber seals and/or caps of the clutch's master cylinder just gave out.  As I drove to the meeting last night I noticed that the clutch had way too much play and as I drove it got worse.  About a block before my destination I had next to no clutch at all and there was some hydraulic fluid dripping onto my shoe.

That is never a good sign.

Luckily it is a relatively easy fix.  I just have to get a new master cylinder and while I'm at it I might as well replace the slave cylinder.  I'll probably need some help bleeding the system, but even that is a relatively easy task.

I just cannot go anywhere right now.....bummer.  At least I do have the city bus which runs right by the house.  If I don't borrow my wife's car I might just take the bus downtown to the auto parts store.  Today I don't need to go anywhere and I can catch up on some school work.  

Busy as a Bee

I'm busy as a bee for the beginning of this week, but I'll get some proper posts up once I have my feet underneath me.

School started Monday and while my course load isn't terrible, it is always an extra PITA at the onset.  I have to start my reading assignments, pour through the syllabus, figure out how I'm going to track homework and assignments, etc.  For now I'm entering my assignments into Outlook and keeping calendar items for weekly assignments and any other special dates.

I've also updated my Dropbox account so I can keep all of my school paperwork synced across all my computers.  I find it useful to do that so I can hop around between platforms.  Yesterday I was simply tired sitting at the kitchen table all day and was able to finish up a couple of reading assignments with my iPad on the couch.

Today I have a demonstration speech to give at my lunchtime Toastmasters meeting and I'm running a speech competition at my dinner Toastmaster meeting.  I know, I probably should be "double-fisting" Toastmaster meetings on Tuesdays, but one is my home club and the other is a club I'm sponsoring.  The new club is struggling a bit to get chartered, but I think it'll get there once the summer is over.  It is fun to see a new club forming their own traditions and working in a completely different format than my home club.

Add to this wonderful mix some consulting work from one of my clients.  Nothing major, but it is a few hours of work I want and could really use right now.  Even though the client is willing to wait a bit for the work to be done, I really owe it to them to do a good job as quickly as possible.  I'll probably stay up tonight to finish it up instead of waiting until Wednesday morning.

Well, my "break" is over and I should be getting back to prepping things for the Boise Club 61 Evaluation and Humorous Speech contest tonight.

Awkward Yet Cool Reward

Yesterday I was sent a link to a short YouTube video regarding another Kickstarter campaign.  On the surface, this Castle Story campaign is everything I despise about Kickstarter.  It was a classic, "fund me so I can have living expenses while I work on my idea" plea, but as I delved in a bit closer I found out that was only part of the deal.

Yes, these three game designers needed to have money for living expenses in order to finish their game, but they wanted to re-hire the musicians they've had before to compose a score for the game and they had a demo they've been working on for the last couple of years.  The fact that they weren't asking for much in the scheme of things (as game development goes) helped out a lot.

The game seems to be a cross between Minecraft and Castle Defense and they have a great new idea as far as thanking their backers goes.  I'll let you discover that gem (*snicker*) on your own should you choose to do so (and get the pun), but I wanted to share this funny and creative "additional backer reward" video from the guys at Sauropod Studio.

WTFriday Sounds About Right Gizmodo.

Gizmodo pointed me towards this YouTube clip.  The entry title on Gizmodo was WTFriday, and I cannot think of a more appropriate way to put this.

Seriously....this is what the Star Wars universe is being boiled down to?

I guess 'Ol George's printing press was fresh out of singles so he scraped the bottom of the idea bucket until he found some other Star Wars idea he could try and make a few bucks off of.

Hey George, I don't know how to to put this to you in a more succinct fashion: Please come up with something new.  Even JK Rowling is able to come up with some new ideas after Harry Potter.  Maybe you could try and imagine a new storyline instead of squeezing every last drop out of an idea best left in the 70's and 80's.

Frustrating Trip to the College of Southern Idaho

I've blogged before about me going back to college thanks to the Veteran's Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP).  Monday my wife and I traveled to Twin Falls so I could get my ID card and pick up my school books for the upcoming semester.  While I was there I thought I'd try to take the computer equivalency test so I wouldn't have to take an entry-level computer course.

It is a two hour drive down to Twin and I figured an hour or two tops for the ID and books and the same for the testing.

Of course "everything" was Tango-Uniform and our time there was doubled thanks to a bunch of utter BS.

I Survived a Church Visit

I had the "pleasure" of attending church Sunday to see my newest niece be formally introduced to the congregation.

Now I'm not a church-going type for several reasons, some of which may be evident as you read through this blog post, but generally speaking the problem I have is with religion.  Several of my friends are religious....an associate of mine is even a member of the clergy....and if it works for them I'm happy for them.  I do consider myself somewhat spiritual, but definitely not religious.  I truly believe the average church-goer hasn't bothered to really sit down and think about their religion and how their personal beliefs stack up to that of their professed faith.  Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes is a statement that I think rings truer than most would like to acknowledge.

Instead of delving deeply into my personal history with religion, which I doubt many would care about, I'd like to describe this surreal experience I had Sunday.

Word of the Day is Fraped

I know I haven't posted in a couple of days.  Sunday and Monday were rather "interesting" days that will each get a post when I can sit down and hammer them out.  On Sunday I went to what seemed like a nice church and Monday my four-hour-tops visit to the College of Southern Idaho was closer to eight hours of frustration.

Good times.

Yesterday I learned a new word and got pointed to what I think was one of the best executed revenges ever to be captured on film.  The word was Fraped, which Urban Dictionary defines loosely as "when someone edits your facebook without your permission."  I guess the deal is when you walk away from a computer logged on to Facebook some folks will take that opportunity to change your status.

I used to do something of the sort to folks at work who went to lunch and didn't secure their computer before leaving.  Worst I did, pretty much the only thing I ever did, was to switch their wallpaper to a picture of the ugliest dog contest winner.  I'll put a picture here, but since it is....by definition....not pretty, I'll put it after the break along with the revenge video.

Baby Got Back Supercut

I was never really a fan of Sir Mix A Lot's Baby Got Back until Jonathan Coulton did a blue-grassish version....which is awesome.

I think I've posted about the YouTube user dondrapersayswhat, but regardless, this supercut of Baby Got Back is brilliantly composed of tiny movie clips all stitched together.  In my opinion I think it is one of his best supercuts.....totally worth checking out:

Awkward...

Yesterday something came up that reminded me of what I considered a funny story about the last time I had some Jehovah's Witnesses come to my door.

This was before I was married, so what I did must have put me on a list or something because it has been over a decade since I've had any of these proselytizers come to my door.

10 Short Years.....

Today is my...well our...10th Wedding Anniversary.  The picture on the left is not from our wedding, but from the next time we went back to Iowa to visit my family.  My mother thought we needed a wedding cake since we had eloped to Las Vegas for our Justice-of-the-Peace wedding and honeymoon.

Ah.....I had such high hopes back then....high hopes for our 10th Anniversary that is.  I really wanted to be able to take Carolyn on a European vacation and take her to see some of the places I had been while stationed in Germany.  Someday I'll make good on that dream, just not today.

Not having a job hasn't been completely terrible, except for days like today where I have to get slapped in the face with reminders that I have next to no money.  I've got some things lined up to take care of things starting next month, but we didn't get married in September, we got married in August.

About the only thing I have going for me is that the traditional 10th wedding anniversary present is Aluminum or Tin.  Seriously?  I realize back in the day aluminum was über-pricey, but unless I'm getting the Mrs. a soda I cannot think of anything made out of aluminum or tin I'd even consider purchasing.  I guess I could always get a tin cup and go begging on the corner.....

Instead of aluminum or tin I went with paper and plastic.  My wife has been our HackMaster GM for some time now and I thought I'd create a set of monster cards for her.  A couple months ago at the Origins Game Fair she bought this beautiful wooden card holder just for monster cards.  She figured that over time she would fill it with cards she needed for the game.  I thought that by giving her a head-start on the cards she could spend less time filling out monster cards by hand and using her GM prep time for other things.

I had already made a form-fillable monster card sheet based off of Jolly Blackburn's original design.  My cards are a little smaller so as to be printable at a standard card size (if being professionally printed).  This also allows the use of devices (like her wooded card box) made for these sized cards.  Yesterday I printed up a couple hundred cards and cut them out by hand.  When I was done I stuffed them into card sleeves which give them some protection while being used and also allows her to mark on them with a wet erase marker.

The cards pictured here are about half of what I made.  Unfortunately I ran out of card sleeves.  I still plan on making a lot more for her....I'd like to fill up that box.

Now that I think of it I can get her a small portable card box for games on the go....those are made of aluminum I think.....

If you want to help a blogger out, please head over to twitter and drop @PrincessNoin a happy Anniversary.

Dropkick Murphys in Concert

My wife and I, as of late, only seem to listen to a couple of bands.  One of them is the Dropkick Murphys.

I didn't realize that the Mrs. has been stalking their website to see when they might be coming out way for a concert.  Yesterday I'm informed that they will be in Spokane, WA on November 7th, which is a day after her birthday (the 29th again I think) and if we go that would be "the bestest birthday present ever".

I'm taking some liberties with the 29th birthday and the "bestest", but she really wants to go.  Right now it looks like we will drive up on the 7th and back on the 8th.  It is an 8 hour drive, which I'm not looking forward to, but with a good band and good company, I can definitely think of worse ways to spend the time.  I'm thinking I'll rent a nice car for the trip and if we are lucky we can stop along the way to check in with a blogger we know that lives en route, and an old friend of ours lives in Spokane.

I think it'll be a fun trip.  I've already got the hotel booked and a house-sitter arranged.

Pat's Backcountry Beverages (with Ginger Ale Recipe)

This idea is quite possibly the best thing since sliced bread, and something I'll have to get my hands on someday: portable carbonated beverages.

"Gee Chris, we already have portable carbonated beverages.  What the hell do you think fits in your koozie, a handful of soda (or beer)?"

Yes, technically the whole concept of the bottle or can is to store and transport beverages.  That is fine for 95%+ of your regular consumption needs, but let's say you are out backpacking.  Do you really want to have to lug around the weight of your cans or bottles plus what is essentially flavored water?  That six-pack may seem like a good idea when you leave the store, but get a few miles into your hike and then we'll see how great that beer or soda will taste.  We'll have to keep it cold and more than likely it won't do well getting sloshed around, but we can still take that for a test drive.

Yet Another Game I Want: Borderlands 2

Borderlands is one of the few Xbox 360 games that I managed to finish with 100% of the achievements.  If you are unfamiliar with Borderlands, it is an over-the top frag-fest of epic proportions.  The game is a little "cartoony" and your character is all about amassing bigger and badder firearms and learning to fighter bigger and badder enemies.

The weapons that drop as loot vary by type (pistols, rocket launchers, rifles, etc.), power level, and rarity.  There was a way to duplicate the über-rare weapons with others and there were some hacks/cheats going on so some of the over-the top stuff was even more-so than it should have been.

Of course, some of the challenges were so ridiculous that you needed every bit of help.  Mad Maxi's Underdome Riot had four arenas, each of which took several, about four, hours to finish.  Working towards 100% achievement completion was a total pain in the ass......

...but this video trailer for Borderlands 2 makes me want to do it all over again:

Useful Spray Bottle Hack

This spray-bottle hack was on Lifehacker a couple of weeks ago.

Buy replacing the stiff internal feed tube of the spray bottle with flexible hosing and then weighing down the end of the hose with hex nuts, the end of the tube wants to be at the lowest point of the bottle, just like the liquid.

The only issue I have with this hack is that eventually the nuts will rust out and not work any longer.  I actually think the rust interacting with your liquid will end up being a larger problem long before the nuts stop weighing down the end.

My suggestion would be to take and weigh down the end with resin or hot glue.  I could see making a small mold to put the flexible tubing through and creating a small block of resin or hot glue.  Once it has dried you can take the tubing out of the mold and cut the tubing off so the weight would be at the end of the tubing.  This would be easier than trying to add the material onto the end of an already cut-to-length piece of tubing.

The Walking Dead Game- now for iPad

A couple of months ago I mentioned there was The Walking Dead game on the Xbox.  I just learned that this game was also ported onto the iPad and iPhone.

While there are definitely game elements, I think that this endeavor is much closer to an interactive comic where your actions get to decide the outcome of certain characters and how the story develops.

As you progress through the series, the other characters remember what you've said and what you've done.  If you don't have someone's back when they feel you needed to, they will remember.  I played the first episode a couple different ways and in the end I had to decide which one of two different characters got to survive.  Now that I've played the second episode I see where that surviving character was important.  It makes me wonder how the second episode would play out if I had saved the other person instead.

I could always play the second episode again with the other saved game.

The producer of The Walking Dead game, Telltale Games, put together a short video showing how the many player's actions stack up.  Since that video is full of spoilers it will be embedded after the break.  Seriously, if you plan on playing the game and haven't got to episode two, DO NOT "Click to read more".

WOLVERINES!

I realize that sometimes I get a little over-excited about things, but who cares.....a remake of Red Dawn is in the works!

I'm a big fan of the 1984 version and while I'd like to see more "new" movies coming out, I haven't been disappointed with these re-envisionings.  It looks like this movie somewhat follows the basic storyline of the Homefront video game, which isn't a bad thing.

I have to wait until November to see this.....I hope I can make it.

Free RPG Game!

Now that the HackMaster Player's Handbook has been released, the folks over at Kenzer & Company have decided to make the HackMaster basic PDF available for FREE!

This is HUGE!  I cannot think of a better free GM resource than a whole fricken game!

One of the criticisms that I've heard over the years is that HackMaster Basic isn't a "whole" game, which is complete and utter BS.  This one pdf has everything you need to run a group up to 5th level.  Everything for the players and the GM is in there.  5th level might not seem like much, but to put it in perspective, my highest level PC is 7th and I've been playing this game for the last three years.  Granted it hasn't been all with one PC, but that has been a lot of gaming.

Kenzer & Company have also put out everything needed to transition from levels 5 to 10 in Knights of the Dinner Table and in a few issues of HackJournal.

Even if all you get out of it was a couple months of playtime.......that is a couple of months of FREE GAMING!  I think you'll get a lot more that a couple of months, that is for certain.  I tell you what, if you download the free copy of HackMaster Basic and don't get a couple of months of gameplay out of it, I'll personally refund your money!

To top it off, the PDF comes with three free adventures and an excerpt from the Hacklopedia of Beasts.

I've peppered this post with links to the download page for the free HackMaster Basic book, but in case you need it spelled out:

CLICK HERE!

Finally, a Kickstarter I can (and did) get Behind

I've long championed the cause against Kickstarter, saying that the majority of the campaigns are not so much fundraisers as pre-sales, or that the idea wasn't to raise capital as much as it was to generate funds in the hope of creating something.

Needless to say I was excited to see Reaper Miniatures come up with a Kickstarter campaign for their Bones Miniatures line.

Am I being hypocritical now that there is a Kickstarter that interests me?  No, I am not, and here is why.

An Honest Liar

I came across this YouTube clip for a documentary in-progress about the Amazing Randi called An Honest Liar.

I've always liked the type of acts that Randi did in his day, the kinds of acts that Penn & Teller do now.  These guys will tell you they are going to trick you and then do so and you end up being glad they tricked you.

I still recall a Penn & Teller bit on TV where they were dropping things into liquid nitrogen and towards the end they were playing with a live mouse and they made it look like they dropped it into the tank.  They ended the bit abruptly there and never did any resolution.  To this day I'm not sure if that was part of the act or if they made a mistake and accidentally killed that mouse.

Being entertained, even if it is in a puzzling manner, is one thing, but being tricked by claims of supernatural powers is a completely different matter.  Randi's experience at exposing frauds and charlatans for what they were has fascinated me.  There are some good YouTube recordings of his work and speeches from over the years.

I particularly liked the one about Homeopathy.  I really didn't know what homeopathy was about and after viewing the video and then doing some online reading I was quite shocked.

Here is an intro to the upcoming biography:

So Sad, But True

One of the webcomics I read religiously is Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (SMBC).  It is a simple comic as far as the drawings go, and a rather complex comic as far as the humor goes.

I'm sure SMBC is downright hilarious if you were a mathematician or a physicist, but it is still funny for us non-rocket scientists....or at least for this non-rocket scientist.

This morning I found the comic so in tune with some recent observations on the idiocy of the average American, or at least the average American that comments on blog/news articles.

8/7/12 SMBC Cartoon

First you have all the people using the comment system to make a crack at Gold-medal Olympian Gabby Douglas.  I realize that folks like to push people down when they are on top of the world.....I don't understand it, but I acknowledge it.  It takes less energy to tear someone down than it does to get off your own ass and build yourself up.  This has become enough of a "thing" that the commentary is making itself a news story.

Then you have these heroes talking smack about a 13 year old girl that was propositioned by a couple in Gurnee, IL.  Seriously?  I don't know how messed up these people's foray into puberty was, but to foist their shortcomings onto an anonymous little girl?  Wow.....

The Dollyrots

Today has largely been an errand day for me, running around Boise in 100*+ weather using my FJ40 with no A/C.  It actually isn't too bad as long as I keep moving.

One thing that I find helpful when having to "do stuff" when it is hot as balls outside is some rocking tunes.

I'm a big Bowling For Soup fan and I'm usually listening to their tunes.  The other day I ended up with some Amazon credit and decided to try and download some BFS MP3s I didn't already own....mostly their earlier stuff.

When I was looking through my choices I found this collaboration album with The Dollyrots.  Basically each group did covers of two of the other's songs.  I ended up just buying the BFS songs, but a few days later went back and bought The Dollyrots songs.

I'm sure glad I did because this group rocks.

Don't take my word for it.....download one of their singles off of their upcoming album next month.

Total Recall

Carolyn and I saw Total Recall the other day.  This is my take on it.

First of all, before I go into too much, be advised I'll try to keep from including any spoilers, but anything I say will have to be some sort of spoiler.  Second is the first possible spoiler: this movie is not a remake of the 1990 movie.

Instead it is essentially a new story based off the same source material and has a few elements that were taken from the earlier film.  There was a definite homage in the form of the three-breasted woman and they re-used some of the names.

Water Kefir "Soda"

I like to try new stuff in the kitchen, especially if it might be healthy, cheap, and requires me to tinker.  To this end I keep a sourdough pot, like to make sauerkraut, and now I'm making water kefir.

A blog I stumbled upon, and now follow, is Frugal by Choice, Cheap by Necessity.  Sarah, the blog author, wrote about making water kefir "soda" and that intrigued me.  It took me a while to gather everything up and get the kefir going strong, but I've finally gotten it working.

So You Want to Work as a Game Designer?

It seems I'm in a bit of a video mood today.  Here is a funny, but kind of NSFW video that was posted up on Kotaku this last week.

Kotaku is a gamer-oriented blog that is more about video games than anything.  While I do play more than my fair share of video games, and I do have quite a few different systems, I'm a traditional RPG gamer at heart.  A lot of the site is lost on me.

But not this funny video.  Sorry, but for obvious reasons it is just enough NSFW to be hidden behind a break and not enough to require a age verification.

KFC Loves the Gays

The fine folks at Funny or Die hooked up with John Goodman to come up with this fake TV spot for KFC as a response to the whole Chick-Fil-A hoopla.

The spot is, of course, a little irreverent, but there is an aside about 2/3 of the way through that struck a cord with me.....outside of the humor that is.

Taking Care of Your Knives

One of my daily web check-ins is on the lifehacker site.  Rarely a day goes by without some shred of truly useful information being posted there.

Today was no exception.

If you've gone through my blog at all you know I like to tinker with things and that I do like to cook.  Anyone who like to do either one of these should endeavor to keep better care of their tools.  I know I could stand to spend a few days with my tools.

Are Zombies Overdone?

Is is me?  I'm thinking zombies, as much as I love 'em are starting to be over-used.  Either that or New Yorkers are just too damned hardened against much of anything these days.

A group calling themselves "Put Zombies Back" did a little experiment.  Their aim is to get the Dish Network to bring back AMC and the Walking Dead.

Their experiment had some mixed results, but you really want to check it out for yourselves:

Memos From Fury

Sometimes you completely luck out and stumble upon something so fricken awesome you just have to share it.

This is one of those things.

Memos From Fury is a Tumblr blog that someone much cooler than me put together.  I don't know who did this and frankly I don't want to know because it might diminish the awesomeness of the whole thing.

The whole premise is that this blog is a collection of inter-office S.H.I.E.L.D. memos sent from the desk of Nick Fury.  While not every single one is full of awesome, enough are to warrant some heavy traffic.

Here is just one example of a Nick Fury memo.  You'll have to visit the blog for more.

Call of Duty Elite Fail 100%..Their words, not mine.

I know I've gone off about Activision EPIC FAIL that is called in-house Call of Duty Elite.

The thing is.....while they've been diligent about adding in-game content, they haven't bothered to fix the very thing that is supposed to be driving these add-on sales: Call of Duty Elite.  To a certain extent I get it....they already have our money so why bother doing anything other than finishing up the new maps they've been working on.  Once something is out the door....[expletive] 'em!