Justin Fox

Quest for tone part deux...

2010-03-11T21:25:00.002-06:00

Got another sweet score in the mail today. I got my paws on a lot of Gudeman 0.022uf 200v paper-in-oil caps from an electronics surplus place out west. These are Vitamin Q type caps that are the military spec version of the consumer PIO caps like Bumblebees (that sell for a pile). Gudeman was one of Sprague's competitors and these were used interchangeably with the Vitamin Q's back in the day. All new old stock and ready to make some sweet tones in a Les Paul or 335 (or any other guitar with humbuckers). Sell a couple sets, gift a couple sets and I've got a good stash of fantastic caps at my disposal for my guitars.

The quest for tone continues

2010-03-10T19:39:00.003-06:00

I scored a set of NOS military spec K40Y-9 paper in oil capacitors, direct from the good 'ol Russian Federation (Moscow to be exact). It took over a month to ship, but was worth it. There are quite a few companies (Luxe is the major one) who are making "reproductions" of vintage american capacitors like the Bumblebee and Grey Tiger and so forth, and selling them for lots of cash. What's interesting is that in the good old former Soviet Union, they still use old technology, so they still produce paper-in-oil type capacitors for the military (or at least did until fairly recently). Figures since Russia is where 90% or so of all new production vacuum tubes are made. Anyway, these american companies are basically taking these exact caps and wrapping them in vintage-correct covers to make them look like the old Bumblebees and Tigers, and selling them for a fortune. I say screw the cover, you'll never see it in the guitar, I just want the tone. The added bonus is they're military spec to they adhere to super tight tolerances, and are much newer than most of the NOS american PIO caps you'll find around that may have drifted over time. Time to get these suckers soldered it!
On another note the Super is back and better than ever. The man with the golden soldering iron, Casey Gooby, rebuilt the entire channel in question with Sprague Orange Drops and Sozo's, all new bypass caps, plate load resistors, cleaned up the tremolo tick and dropped in the fresh Mercury Magnetics output transformer, and it sounds HUGE!

So the Super is sick

2010-02-23T21:09:00.002-06:00

I was playing the my new/old super reverb the other night and it started cutting in and out distorting really badly. Seems like something vibration or signal induced, but it's hard to tell for sure. Swapped the tube in V2 around a few times as well as the phase inverter but neither made a difference. It's only in the vibrato channel, so it has to be something in that circuit. I took it back to my boy Casey Gooby again to see what's going on.

We decided it could stand to have the power supply filter caps changed, so I ordered up a some big 'ol blue Sprauge Atom Electrolytics. We also decided the mystery 4ohm output transformer wasn't doing me any favors, so we ordered up a new Mercury Magnetics that is spec'd as an upgrade for a '59 Bassman. What's cool about it is that it has 2ohm and 4ohm taps, so I can run it @ 4ohms for my current 2x10 setup, and if I decide to rebuild it as a 4x10 combo again someday, I can swap it to the 2ohm tap. I'm also considering having JD Newell build me 2x10 extension cabinet, then wire the 2 taps to a switch which would make the impedence at the speaker jack switchable between 2 and 4ohms depending on whether or not I was using the extension cabinet.

Mah other new baby

2010-02-14T21:09:00.003-06:00

A few weeks ago this was a beat to shit 1973 silverface Fender Super Reverb 4x10 combo. I bought it for peanuts and decided to restore it. In the process I discovered it had 4 blown CTS Alnico speakers (which I will recone later) and an incorrect, but still vintage fender 4ohm output transformer in place of the correct 2ohm OT. The tranny was good so it meant that without modification I could run it in a 2x10 configuration for the time being. I had JD Newell (newellamps.com) build me a custom 2x10 combo cabinet out of finger jointed pine, got a new Accutronics reverb tank, a new reproduction blackface faceplate and knobs and a pair of the way too good for the money Eminence Legend 1058 speakers. Got it tuned up and transplanted and she's sweet as can be. Very big sounding for such a small form factor (because of the large output transformer and middle control). Eventually I may get the original CTS Alnico's reconed and restore the old cabinet, or get another 2x10 extension cabinet made for it so I can run 4-10's when I feel like it. Sorry, didn't get any before pictures, but here are the afters (I've got a reproduction 60's Fender grill logo on the way as well).

Mah new baby

2010-01-22T21:36:00.003-06:00

What a beauty, just showed up this week. Got it used, but basically brand new from a guy somewhere in new england. This one is very rare because it has never been through the guitar center/musiciansfriend supply chain. It was a factory direct Gibson Custom Shop order to a Canadian dealer (who have different CS dealership agreements than the US dealers who have a hard time getting these factory direct). I love it, still needs a setup probably but I'll let it get settled in after shipping for a while first.

This is going to be an interesting Christmas

2009-12-18T09:18:00.001-06:00

I'm stuck in Minneapolis this Christmas because I'm on call that week. That sucks, but since Sara is going back to Bismarck to see her family I'm devising a plan for my own holiday celebrations. On Christmas eve, this guy I work with and I are going to have a liquor and ham party where we basically bake a huge ham, eat a lot of it and get real drunk. I also suspect over the remainder of the week I will basically plant myself on the couch and play Modern Warfare 2.

Ok, I'm going to be more diligent, I promise.

2009-10-30T00:43:00.001-05:00

So I'm on call again, and up...again. I just picked up a couple pieces of sweet gear so I'm going to do a write up with pics and (hopefully) video samples this weekend if my camera and schedule cooperate.

One hell of a week

2009-09-25T23:42:00.002-05:00

We have had an absolute shitstorm at work this week, and guess who is on call to take care of it? You got it. So the week we go on call we take the monday off and then take over the calls at 5:00pm. So without working the normal 8 hours during the day monday, I was at 60 hours by this morning. I was up till 6:30 monday and tuesday, 3:00 wednesday, worked from 11-11 in the office yesterday, then straight through to 8am this morning. Today, I went into the office for like 3 hours and here we are. I hope it slows down a little this weekend cause I'm about dead.

Back from the dead

2009-09-07T19:25:00.002-05:00

Well, this labor day weekend I was planning on doing nothing. I had a full 4 day weekend, and I was excited for it. My in laws were coming to town for a wedding so that usually means lots of eating and drinking and what have you, and that was fine by me. It was all going to plan except for when I got off work on Thursday evening to start my weekend, something hit me like a truck. I was fine at 5:00 driving home and by 5:30 felt like shit. I managed to go out to eat that night, but by 9 or so I was incapacitated. Friday I literally couldn't get out of bed for most of the day and Saturday my mother in law (former nurse) strongly suggested that I go urgent care. So, I went and waited in line for 45 minutes (I let a couple people go ahead of me cause they were hurt pretty bad) and then sat and had tests run on me for about 2 hours or so. Basically I don't have the flu, strep or anything like that but my white blood cell count was through the roof so they figured I was fighting something. They gave me some drugs and said to sleep, which I've been doing alot of. Today I managed to get out and do some stuff and am feeling quite a bit better, right in time to go back to work tomorrow. Awesome (queue thumbs down and fart noise).

I've been neglectful of my blog

2009-08-24T18:12:00.003-05:00

I apologize to the 4 people that read this thing, but I've been horrendously neglectful. I've been up to my ass in alligators at work for weeks now, and have been in and out of town alot as well. No news is generally good news around here, but some actual good news is that my guitar is finished and was shipped out this morning. I should see it in roughly 4-5 days. Here are some complete pictures if you haven't seen them already on facebook or some other place on the intarwebs.

(click on the picture to go to the entire gallery)

Stop Puppy Mills

2009-08-12T13:14:00.003-05:00

We need to shut down puppy mills and all pet stores that support them (Petland is the biggest). Never ever every buy anything from a pet store that sells live animals. I know alot of you feel bad for the puppies there and want to get them out, but you're just perpetuating the cycle. You can make smart ass comments about PETA and shit all you want (they are whackjobs, don't get me wrong) but you are 100%, absolutely ignorant if you don't see an issue with these practices. You watch this video and tell me what's acceptable about this. They're tough to watch, fyi.

You'll never stop monsters like this by appealing to their "sensible" sides, because they don't have them. They see nothing wrong with it. You need to hit them in the pocketbooks. Boycott Petland, and every other store that sells live dogs or cats. If you're on facebook, join this group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10760798674&ref=nf

Also check out http://www.stoppuppymills.org/

She's almost done

2009-07-26T11:48:00.004-05:00

So David got the final coats of lacquer on my guitar and got it all buffed out. He's going to drop the electronics in it for me this week and *hopefully* get it shipped out soon. I put together a web gallery of the progress so far here: Guitar Gallery

Progress of my custom guitar build

2009-07-19T21:56:00.003-05:00

So I came across a builder who specializes in "Languedoc-ish" custom hollowbody guitars and after looking into getting an actual Languedoc G2, I realized that there was no way in hell I could shell out 10k for a guitar. The man with the plan is a guy named David from Equator Instruments (a Chicagoan who lives in Quito Ecuador 9 months of the year to build). It's a full hollow, cedar top, masacare sides, walnut back, colorado neck (medium "c" carve) w/clavalin headstock veneer and ebony fretboard. It will be outfitted with a pair of Seymour Duncan '59's (like in my old Gibson). Below is a pic of it after the neck was set.

If you click on THIS LINK, you can see a full gallery of it in the process of it being built (at least to where it is today).

The Tater-Tot Omelet

2009-07-04T12:03:00.006-05:00

The Tater-Tot Omelet was a complete and total success! I started with your usual omelet fodder, and sweated some mushrooms, onions and peppers. Chopped up some thick sliced bacon, added the glorious tots and cheese and cooked to perfection. I doused that bad chicken in Tabasco and proceeded to crush it, and it was wonderful. I've documented the procedure for you below.

Old guy dances for jesus

2009-06-30T22:22:00.000-05:00

Phish @ Alpine Valley

2009-06-22T22:19:00.003-05:00

So as an anniversary present to ourselves, we decided to go to see two shows of Phish's reunion tour at Alpine Valley Music Theater in East Troy, Wisconsin. Two incredible shows, tens of thousands of people and a goat rodeo of a parking lot scene. We had a great time, and are thoroughly worn out.

Setlists:

6/20/09
Set I: Punch You in the Eye, Runaway Jim, Stash, Yamar, Bathtub Gin, Kill Devil Falls, Train Song, Farmhouse, Sparkle, Run Like An Antelope

Set II: Waves, Sample in a Jar, Maze, Makisupa Policeman, Ghost, Lizards, You Enjoy Myself > NICU > Prince Caspian, Waste, Fire

Encore: Character Zero

6/21/09
Set I: Brother, Wolfman’s Brother, Funky Bitch, The Divided Sky, Joy, Back on the Train, Taste, Poor Heart, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday > Avenue Malkenu > The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday, Time Turns Elastic

Set II: Crosseyed & Painless -> Down with Disease, Bug, Piper, Wading in a Velvet Sea, Boogie On Reggae Woman, Slave to the Traffic Light

Encore: Grind, Frankenstein

I'll get a couple videos uploaded tonight for your viewing pleasure (you can see them under my videos section on facebook page too)

Busy busy

2009-06-17T10:55:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been busy as hell between work and visitors and projects around the house. We're about 90% done with the kitchen, just need to order some stainless appliances to match the microwave (stove, dishwasher and fridge) but we're waiting until we can save up some more money so we don't have to peg out the credit card. This weekend we're going to see Phish at Alpine Valley, so that should be fun. After that we actually have an entire weekend without any big plans so hopefully we can get the yard cleaned up and maybe do some landscaping since our backyard is a disaster. I have no idea how it was so nice when we moved in and now is so awful. Our planter's and rockbeds have been totally overrun with weeds. I've been busy with bike repairs and stuff too, although I'm gonna go postal on one of my parts suppliers if they don't get their back order BS straightened out soon. Big Bear is doing alright, although the other day he got the feast of a lifetime when we were gone, let me break it down for yalls. So Brenda (Sara's sister) and her boyfriend James were in town for the Dane Cook show at the Target center. They had a big ass bag of snacks that they left on the counter when we went to the show. When we got home, we saw carnage through the window. Upon further inspection, Bear had crushed an entire jumbo bag of terriyaki jerky, 3 cherry/cheese danishes, a couple packages of devil squares and tried to eat a whole can of wasabi almonds. He was very happy and actually looked like he was going to pop. He was also apparently very thirsty from the 10,000 grams of sodium he took in, because he water bowl was bone try and he was panting very hard. So I filled it up againg and he cashed it in one shot. Crazy ass dog. The next morning we forgot to put a pizza box away when we went to brunch, so he got a couple slices of pizza too.

Something to think about

2009-06-04T12:51:00.003-05:00

I want to make one thing clear before I post this; I am not a Republican or a Democrat. I think our government is (and has been) severely broken for decades as a two party system (or at least the US' implementation of it) is absolutely absurd. I'm yet to see a representative from either party who wasn't an idiot, liar or both. I didn't like Clinton or Bush, but frankly Obama scares the hell out of me. He now controls GM, because they were "too big to fail" pumping money into them knowing full well they'd fail and the reorganization would allow the government to appoint who best fit their agenda. I don't necessarily think Obama's a bad person, but we're setting extremely dangerous precedents here. I think everyone (including his supporters) knew it was absolutely impossible for him to pull off what he promised to get elected (par for the course for politicians in general, I know) but now it's coming full circle with him "considering" taxing our health care dollars (which he made very clear he was opposed to during the election). The people that most feverously support him typically know the least about what actually makes our country function, especially in the financial sector. Perhaps the scariest thing about this administration (which draws a very close parallel with pre WWII Germany) is the fact that people are ostracized for openly criticizing him, and are actually becoming afraid to do so. Honestly, I'm scared. I'm not a right wing nutjob, and frankly have very few opinions when it comes to most of the trivial issues that so many people get bent out of shape over, but we need to take a 30,000 foot view of the entire picture here. If we step back and look objectively at what's happening, it's not right. Honestly, if George Bush had tried to make these exact same sweeping changes, do you think it would have been well received? Absolutely not, but put a different wrapper on the package and the entire country's eyes glaze over and nod in acceptance. If you have 5 minutes, click the link below and read the article. It sent chills up my spine.

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/11/something-of-hi.html

Kitchen Remodel

2009-05-25T13:09:00.004-05:00

So being the sadists we are, after remodeling our bathroom about a month or two ago, we decided to go ahead and spruce up the kitchen too. It wasn't a full on gut the room type thing, but it was still quite a bit of a change. The old cabinets (from the 50's) were still good but the doors were shot, so we had a cabinet maker refinish the bases and make us all new doors and drawers. He also cut out 2 cabinets (over the stove and counter next to the stove) and built new ones to reconfigure it so we could have an over the range microwave. The "cabinet" that was housing the dishwasher was totally jury rigged, so he built us a new one with a bank of small drawers to hold cooking tools. In the process we also had the countertops replaced with some hi-definition laminate and had both sides backsplashed with slate tile with a wet look sealer. It's amazing how much nicer it looks (sorry no before pics). We're replacing the rest of the appliances with stainless steels ones, but that has to wait a little bit so we can save up some more money.

Pics and Video from the Medeski, Martin & Wood show last night

2009-04-19T14:13:00.004-05:00

Went to see MMW at Trocadero's last night. We wound up getting there early and the promoter hooked us up with VIP passes, so we got to chill on the tiger print couches upstairs and watch the show with our own waitress. Pretty sweet man. Here are some pics and a short vid.

Out of nowhere, the legend Dr. Lonnie Smith shows up to the show and MMW have him up for a jam. The dude walks with a cane, but came up there and THREW DOWN!

Here's a short vid

Johnny's trip to our house

2009-04-03T12:06:00.002-05:00

Johnny-5 and Joanna got caught up in the flood action in Fargo and needed to skip town for a few days, so of course we put them up at our house. Lotta action around here with 4 adults, a 2 month old baby and 3 dogs. The dogs got along pretty well and wore each other out. We opened up the gate cause Scout wanted some of the action. He loves to get dogs to chase him, but I'm not sure he was expecting to get pack hunted by all 3 of them. He was a good sport and had fun.

Here are the 3 of them chillin

Ragnar LOVES TV. He'll watch for hours.

Big Bear and Scout playing tug of war

Bear loves company but I think he wanted some attention. I was laying on the couch and he crawled up and curled up in the smallest little space under my arm and went to sleep one night.

Trip to Johnny's

2009-03-19T21:40:00.008-05:00

So while our bathroom was getting worked on, we split town and went to Fargo and I stayed with Johnny-5, his common law wife Johnna and their new baybay Jack. I brought the camera along to take some snaps of something other than my dog and living room. Here's some good ones from the trip.

Jack chillin under the lights

Aww Jackhammer awwww

So Johnny 5 has himself a pair of crazy half border collie/aussies that fetch like it's their job. Here are some pics I tried with the 55-250is using continuous (rapidfire) shooting high speed shutter.

Go to it dawgs

Ragnar getting primed

Remus gettin the frisbee

Ragnar gets HUGE air when he goes for the frisbee, it was hard to catch cause my lens kept backfocusing on the house and stuff in the background

closer....

2009-03-14T10:20:00.002-05:00

Still getting there

2009-03-12T18:22:00.001-05:00

We're inching our way to the finish line.

Getting closer

2009-03-09T18:54:00.001-05:00

Tile is in and looks awesome. Tub/Shower and toilet are done. Now we just need cabinets, paint and a couple fixtures. Here's where it's at now.

The big bathroom remodel

2009-03-06T12:39:00.003-06:00

So the big bathroom remodel begins. We've sort of always hated our bathroom and it was really starting to show it's age (bad tile, grout, leaky, etc). We decided to gut the sucker and redo it from the ground up. We're leaving for the weekend while the work gets finished up, so here's the progression so far:

Before

Phase 1 (floor out)

Phase 2 (starting to get down to the guts)

This is where we're leaving for the weekend, so I'll post some progress pics when I get back. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Couple of cool pics from today

2009-03-01T18:33:00.001-06:00

Ok, NOW I think I've found the greatest thing ever

2009-02-28T16:19:00.003-06:00

Beardhead, the Lumberjack edition

I may have found the greatest thing ever

2009-02-27T15:08:00.002-06:00

Holy hell these things are amazing. Lucky for my fat ass the bags in our vending machine are small and I'm out of dollar bills.

Crazy gallery from Shipbreaking yard in India

2009-02-22T14:27:00.004-06:00

I had no idea this industry even existed. Pretty interesting. Click here for the full gallery.

Another good gallery from luminous-landscape here: Luminous Landscape gallery

Here is another sort of interesting article about the shipbreaking industry: Article

Petition to try Kenny Glenn (cat abuser) as an adult

2009-02-18T09:54:00.001-06:00

Anonymous = 1, Youtube cat abuser = 0

2009-02-16T13:01:00.007-06:00

Cliffs: Douchebag kid from Oklahoma abuses cat, video tapes it and uploads it to Youtube. The internet rises in fury, and unleashes it's well oiled hate machine upon him (i.e. 4chan/Anonymous).

That afternoon, the kid (Kenny Glenn and his shithead brother the "cameraman") was tracked down starting with nothing but the you tube account used to post the videos, his personal information spread around the internet to multiple sites built on the fly, and every authority/news agency/activist group imaginable was contacted (including all his teachers, his parents friends, local PTA members and business owners, etc). Thousands of Diggs later, by 5pm, news stories started popping up in Russia and England, and by 10pm the kids had been arrested and their local news channel was running the story.

Let's be realistic about this; Anonymous is not comprised of a bunch of saints going around doing good most of the time. But they pulled together, went nuclear on this kid and made things happen that would have been absolutely impossible otherwise. Not bad for (as Bill O'Reily called them) a "Domestic Terrorist Organization". Here is a link to a site put up during the hunt that has a decent summary of the events: http://kenny-glenn.com/

Here is the story on the local news stations website: http://www.kswo.com/Global/story.asp?S=9850040

Update: kenny-glenn.com is down for now. Apparently the kids are going to be facing charges on Tuesday according to their local news site here. One other issue that has come up is that apparently their daddy is some sort of multi millionaire oil guy who has a lot connections and will probably try real hard to make this go away (which isn't likely at this point). Anonymous has let up on him for now, letting the law do it's thing. If the ball gets dropped, I imagine someone else will be the focus of Anonymous' attention.

Poll time, vote in the right column.

2009-02-12T21:58:00.000-06:00

Well, he did it again....

2009-02-07T15:17:00.004-06:00

I swear to god that dog has it out for me. So I have a guy over this morning to look at some stuff we're going to get done to the house, and while I'm in the other room, Bear managed to destroy my Ray Ban 3320's. I just got the damn things a couple months ago. Pics for proof.

Congratulations to Johnny Hot-Pants and Jonna

2009-02-05T13:29:00.003-06:00

On the birth of their love child Jack! He appears to have all his appendages intact, healthy and happy.

New pic of Bear

2009-01-31T21:29:00.003-06:00

I was out playing around with the camera and got a pretty good shot of the big bear. I'm learning quickly how important good light is.

Here's one I got of Bear's buddy Scout. I did a little post production with Photoshop and Lucisart.

So the IT guy did it.....

2009-01-30T09:23:00.002-06:00

I managed to get a virus on my laptop (not a virus technically, but a very nasty piece of malware). Even though I'm a Systems Administrator, and (at least was) an anti-virus specialist (I implemented the entire new anti virus infrastructure at my last job) I somehow managed to get bit. Here's the run down of how: I had a piece of software that required some add on's, so I googled them. I found a couple sites where I could grab the config's and presets, so I downloaded them. When I opened one of the files, my best of breed antivirus scanner (ESET Nod32) started kicking out alerts. Generally it is very good at cutting off connections if a file is questionable and stopping just about everything, but this time it didn't.

All of the sudden I knew somthing was wrong, disk activity was pegged out and my task bar and desktop would dissapear and reappear over and over (a sign that the malware is killing the explorer.exe process and it is trying to restart). I figured out that I had a variant of Virtumonde/Vundo which is SUPER nasty and hard to get rid of because it creates totally random dll's and registry entries. I managed to get some scans going with a couple products but nothing was working. I stumbled on a couple of dedicated fix tools (vundofix and combofix) but there was mention of the product Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and how it is basically a total Vundo killer. Back in the day, Adaware and Spybot were about all you needed to clean up most nasties, but they're largely ineffective against newer, more advanced malware like Virtumonde/Vundo. So I'm totally prepared for hours of clean up, and I've already resinged myself to having to restore/reformat. I download Malwarebytes and kick off a scan. It runs, finds the offending registry entries and files, reboots the machine and it is back to normal. I was suspicious that all was well, and ran scans with 7 different anti-virus/anti-malware products, including the dedicated Vundo tools, and it was 100% clean. I was completely amazed. No manual removal, nothing. I thought I would post this as a PSA for you guys since Vundo can be such a pain in the ass. If you have any issues with malware, the first thing I would do is grab Malwarebytes and run it.

New dog training technique

2009-01-23T12:59:00.001-06:00

lolz

2009-01-22T22:47:00.001-06:00

new toy!

2009-01-17T11:55:00.003-06:00

I've always wanted to get into photography more seriously, so I decided with prices dropping on DSLR's, that I was gonna get something. I decided on a Canon EOS Rebel XS, and it's pretty cool so far. It's gonna take a while to get the hang of shooting manual stuff, so I've been using auto alot and playing around with some of the other settings to try and learn them. Comared to pro SLR's, it's alot simpler, and should be good for a noob like me. Here are a couple decent pics I got last night and this morning.

Edit: Here's one more I liked:

Truf

2008-12-30T19:03:00.003-06:00

Today I want to talk to you about truth in advertising. I've seen alot of liquidy, condiment type products that advertise that they're sporting a "stay clean" cap. This winds up being bullshit about 85% of the time. In fact, I've never had a "stay clean" cap stay clean at all. Usually they just clog up with nasty dried (insert name of condiment here). And when that little mayo missile comes rocketing out it's generally followed by gush of far too much of whatever you wanted a little of.

There is one cap that I have found fufills the epic prophecy of staying clean. It is the one attached to this sweet ass bottle of Heinz ketchup. These bottles haven't been cleaned or altered at all. I haven't done anything to this bottle since I bought it oh so many months ago. Its damn near empty and perfectly clean. Observe:

Now lets take a look at mr. mustard here:

Not clean, totally unacceptable. This is what I mean folks. I don't ask much of my condiments, but don't lie to me about it's peformance, then use it as a selling point. I am personally crafting an email for Heinz right now telling them that I support them and their packaging. I support their ketchup too, obviously. It's the greatest ketchup on the planet. Hunt's? Seriously? You can't even put that shit in the same category as Heinz, and as far as I know that's their "closest" competitor. I've given other ketchup a fair shake. I've bought generic stuff from multiple grocery stores, Hunts, Hunt's organic, and just about every other kind that has been on sale at one time or another and it all sucks compated to Heinz. This is about more than ketchup people; this a prime example of completely and totally dominating your competitors in your respective arena. This is like bringing a rocket launcher to a pillow fight. A sexy, delicious, ketchupy pillow fight.

Saturday and snowy as hell

2008-12-20T16:48:00.003-06:00

We've been hearing that Minneapolis was going to get a bunch of snow for the last few days, but it never wound up being more than 1-2 inches at a time. Well, today we woke up to a couple inches and it's been snowing continuously ever since. I think we're up to like 4-5, with the potential for another 3-4. The shitty thing is that I have to go into work tonight at like 11:00pm, right when it's supposed to be the worst. I busted out the snow chief and pushed it pretty hard, and now I'm running out of room to blow snow (the little strip between my neighbor's driveway and ours is getting to be 4 feet high with snow in some spots. Here are a couple pics of the roads right after they plowed:
I finally got some new cooking knives (I've been lusting after a set of Shun's forever, but they've always been too expensive). So the other day on Woot.com they had a woot-off and these bad boys popped up. It's a 7 piece set of the "Alton's Angles" Shun's, which are the same as they're "Classic" series, but with a 10 degree angle on the handles, which I didn't know if I would like or not but they feel so natural in your hand its awesome. They're VG-10 super steel with the Pakka wood handles. They've got a 16 degree edge on the blades, as opposed to the traditional 22 degree edge that german knives have. Before 16 was too thin to be strong, but with VG-10 and the damascus (layered) construction these are super strong. Plus, unlike alot of other japanese knives these are stainless. I'm jacked to use them.

I finally armed myself

2008-12-10T09:54:00.002-06:00

We have sort of an unruly bunch of bastards in my group at work. They all have nerf dart guns and assault each other regularly, so I had to arm myself. I picked up this bad chicken last night and I'm ready to start letting loose here after my next meeting.

:edit: Last night I wound up having to stay late with a few guys to get some patches pushed out and we had and EPIC nerf battle. I think there was like 70 darts laying in the hallway when we were done. At one point I was hiding under a desk. Good fun.

Man=0, Wild=1

2008-12-07T13:58:00.003-06:00

'Shock and agony': Dangerous airlift rescue for injured explorer Bear Grylls after Antarctic fall

By Laura Collins
Last updated at 3:06 PM on 07th December 2008

Daredevil SAS man-turned-explorer Bear Grylls was being airlifted to the UK after being badly injured while on an independent expedition in Antarctica.

The 34-year-old adventurer broke his shoulder in a life-threatening fall and was said to be in ‘shock and agony’ from a serious fracture which left the bone protruding from his body.

The accident happened at 11pm British time on Friday, and Bear’s insurance company arranged for his evacuation by air ambulance for urgent medical treatment, at an estimated cost of £60,000.

Daredevil: Bear Grylls broke his shoulder

Bear was injured during the making of his latest daredevil documentary, a bid to scale an unnamed mountain after travelling across the Antarctic on jet-skis, a wind-powered kite-ski and an electric-powered para-glider.

The aim of the expedition, which was not part of filming for the Discovery Channel, was to promote alternative energy and bioethanol as a source of power, as well as raising funds for the children’s charity Global Angels.

If successful, Bear and his team of four had planned to name the 9,000ft peak. But it is uncertain if the bid will now be possible, though Bear is reportedly determined to return to Antarctica.

The airlift operation itself was fraught with danger as it meant flying into hostile conditions with temperatures plummeting to -35C and a landscape of 1,000ft ice cliffs with 700 miles of high altitude plateau.

:Original Article here:

So over the long weekend...

2008-12-02T21:24:00.004-06:00

Sara's family was here, so we ate and drank a whole bunch. They bought us some pretty awesome tickets for the vikings game on Sunday night (4th row, near the 50 yard line). Here are a couple pics from the game:

Before the game in my first piece of Vikings apparel:

Good seats right behind the vikes bench:

Someone's got some money apparently (dude was in his mid 70's and had a slightly younger, slightly augmented girlfriend)

Sara actually caught a shirt! But for some reason, it was a Rambo shirt?! WTF?

So, after the game, I was slightly intoxicated and managed to crush my index finger on my right hand in the car door. It hurt like hell (of course) but I didn't realize how bad it was till the next day when it was swelling like crazy and it almost brought me to tears any time I brushed anything. I went to the doctor and they burned a hole in my nail to let some the blood out from underneath, and I got some x-rays. It's not broken (very close to the knuckle though) and there is a lot of soft tissue damage, so he didn't know how long it would take to heal.

Here's me assessing the damage (and almost crying pulling the bandaid off)

And what do we have underneath (warning, gross)

Turkey day is under way

2008-11-27T12:36:00.002-06:00

Well, we've got a carrot cake baked (for my birthday) and the turkey is in the hotbox. We battled the crowds yesterday and managed to secure a case of 2 buck chuck (well, 3 buck chuck out here I guess) chardonnay and some beers as well as all the other provisions we needed for today because I have a feeling I'm gonna be rockin out in my fat pants on the couch ALL DAY LONG. I imagine Sara is going to take a bunch of pictures of the turkey and shit later on, so check her blog. As we speak, Big Bear is circling the dinner table trying to figure out how to get to the carrot cake which is cooling in the middle. If that little cake eatin bastard gets ahold of my birthday cake, it's either back to the pound or ol' yeller time for him.

And in honor of thanksgiving (come on...you all knew it was coming).

Updates

2008-11-22T11:56:00.003-06:00

Not much new around here, so I haven't really had anything to post. We're getting ready for turkey day, I think we're going to just have the two of us for dinner (unless any of you are interested in coming of course). Both of us have to work so we can't get out of town very easily. Work is going pretty well, I'm finally starting to get the hang of it I think. The people I work with are cool. One very uncool thing is that tonight I have my first maintenance, so I get to work from 10pm to 8am on Sunday morning. At my old job our maintenance's were pretty casual so if you didn't have anything to do, you didn't have to go or if you only had one or two things to do, you could either just do it from home after 11, or leave when you were done. I think here it's pretty much like a regular work day. Oh well, what can you do. Forward progress has it's price I suppose.

:EDIT: This is what you look like after working overnight to try and patch 4000+ servers:

This is neat

2008-11-15T01:37:00.000-06:00

Mad Poodle from Eric J. on Vimeo.

Hold me puppah......

2008-11-11T21:20:00.000-06:00

The Snow Chief is operational

2008-11-09T12:32:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I decided to tackle the task of getting Snow Chief back up and running. I got a new carburetor for it, because really there aren't too many parts in a small engine like that, and from what I can tell 90% of the problems come from either the carb or spark plug. The new carb is an "emissions" model that doesn't have any sort of adjustments for fuel/air mixture or anything like that, so it was sort of a crapshoot whether or not it would run well. Old engines generally get touchy after a while and you have to be able to tweak them to get them running right.

So, I pulled the old one off, and after struggling with getting the fuel line off without breaking it for 20 minutes, I threw the new guy on. I gave the primer bulb three pumps, and one pull later she was breathing fire again! She ran great (loud as hell, as per usual) and idled fine through the entire throttle range. The test will be what happens when I have to use it the first time. Before, what would happen is that it would run great until it got hot (like 10 minutes under load usually) and then it would start dying. I could play with the needle adjustment and getting running again, but after a minute it would start up the same thing again. It also started leaking gas out of the needle screw on the bottom of the bowl, so I *think* what was happening was that the needle was sticking open after a while, and not regulating the flow of fuel. Whatever, we'll see what happens when we get our first big snow fall.

An election day reminder from Fox

2008-11-04T20:03:00.002-06:00

Whenever I get a package of plain M&M's....

2008-11-03T20:18:00.000-06:00

....I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels.
Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them breaks and splinters. That is the "loser," and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.

I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theater of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.

Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment.

When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc., Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A., along with a 3x5 card reading, "Please use this M&M for breeding purposes."

This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this "grant money." I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion.

There can be only one.

A video of a bunch of people getting really lucky

2008-11-03T18:29:00.001-06:00

Two posts in one day

2008-11-01T23:46:00.002-05:00

So I must have posted too early. I'm at Menards today and I called Sara to see if we needed draino. She proceeds to tell me that water is dripping from the ceiling in the basement. If you've been to my house, you've probably seen some water spots on one of the ceiling tiles in the basement (there is some bad grout in the floor tile outside the shower that will leak if the shower curtain isn't closed right). Well, this was in a totally different spot. I get home and check it out and it's not from the shower oddly enough. I pull the tiles out and start digging around and see that whatever it is is still leaking pretty good. I figure out where it is and go back up stairs. Sure as shit, the water supply line to the toilet is leaking and had been for a while. I shut the water off and pull the line and hustled over to the hardware store (because I had to pee and needed to fix it). Luckliy they were open.

So I get the toilet fixed and the water cleaned up. We eat dinner and I walk Bear. When I get home, I try to close the garage door and it jams. This isn't unusual as it's shitty and gets off track and jams alot. Usually you just have to stop it, and start it again and it goes. I try like 3 times and nothing. I go out there and what do you know, the door is fuxored. The top panel (which has been sketchy for a while) split and the metal frame folded. Awesome. I guess I get to shell out a grand or so to get that fixed this week. Sometimes I wish I still rented.

updates

2008-11-01T12:50:00.002-05:00

I've been really busy with work lately, so I haven't had much of a chance to post any updates. The new job is going well. I just finished my 5th week there (really flew by) and I'm finally starting to catch on to how things work. I've still got tons to learn but it's starting to come together a little. I actually got to feel useful the last few days and contribute to fixing some issues which was nice. I've been going through ITIL training the last week (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) and took my certification test Friday. It was pretty tough, lots of information crammed into a two day course. I honestly have no idea if I passed, but then again, no one else in the class did either so I'm probably right on par.

Not much else exciting has been going on. Last weekend I went to the annual watch fair at Wixon's (high end jeweler here) and got to play with a bunch of watches I can't afford. My buddy was looking at an IWC and this rep from A.Lange & Sohne was like "here, you need to check this guy out" and pulls out this crazy piece. It was really sweet and all, so I'm playing with it, trying it on and stuff, and I caught a glimpse of the price tag: $126,xxx. I pretty much immediately set it down and walked away. Ridiculous. I mean seriously, look at me. Does it look like I have $126,000 to spend on a watch? I don't understand why they even let people like me in to those things. You know you're in trouble when the cheapest thing they've got is a Rolex Submariner or Panerai.

Louis CK + Kid = Funny

2008-10-26T11:23:00.001-05:00

This is for my sister in law Erin

2008-10-21T22:31:00.004-05:00

....Because she secretly loves Sarah Palin...alot. Actually, she fancies herself an even more right wing version of Sarah Palin (not sure how thats possible, but hey).

In honor of halloween

2008-10-20T22:07:00.002-05:00

I present the greatest pumpkin carving ever (you should know who that is, if not we can't be friends anymore).

Prison Break Puppy style

2008-10-13T19:10:00.000-05:00

Hello Mr. Bear, table for one today?

2008-10-09T17:04:00.001-05:00

Something to ponder

2008-10-07T21:41:00.001-05:00

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Now it gets really weird.

Lincoln 's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln .

Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln , was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln , was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939

Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

Now hang on to your seat.

Lincoln was shot at the theater named 'Ford.'
Kennedy was shot in a car called ' Lincoln ' made by 'Ford.'

Lincoln was shot in a theater and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse.
Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his assassin ran and hid in a theater.

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

And here's the kicker...

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe , Maryland
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.

Flow chart of Palin's debate

2008-10-05T21:18:00.001-05:00

Wonder what this guy is dreaming about

2008-10-03T21:56:00.002-05:00

Greatest sandwich evar v.Fatty Melt

2008-10-02T21:15:00.002-05:00

How do you make the best burger in the world? Perhaps by using two grilled cheese sandwiches for its bun.

"What you are looking at, ladies and gents, is what we at A Hamburger Today are calling the Hamburger Fatty Melt. Lemme give you the smack on this meat stack. From top to bottom:

Grilled cheese sandwich as bun top
Four-ounce beef patty
Grilled cheese sandwich as bottom bun

Got that? It's a burger with two grilled cheese sandwiches as its bun.

I wish our R&D department here at AHT HQ could claim this as the product of our grease-addled minds, but we're only following through on a burger we heard about via Serious Eats community member Theadob, who mentioned the "Chubby Melt" at the Mossy Creek Cafe in Fisherville, Virginia (burger between two grilled cheese sandwiches, smothered with sautéed onions and mushrooms and topped with Thousand Island dressing).

I vowed to recreate one of my own, but with some tweaks. I thought Mossy Creek pretty much had it right until it ladled on the toppings. Something as glorious as a burger with TWO GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES AS ITS BUN needs little else adorning it.

So stop what you're doing right now and go out and get the following ingredients:

1 pound ground beef
Pepperidge Farm Very Thin white bread
Kraft Deli Deluxe American cheese slices—yellow, not white, fool!
Butter
A juicy tomato

Now follow me here for the recipe: The Hamburger Fatty Melt"

Updates

2008-09-27T13:51:00.002-05:00

Well, I've been slacking pretty bad on posting anything that isn't a youtube video for a while so I figured I'd post a meaningful update about whats happening with me lately (although I have a feeling that youtube videos are probably more entertaining).

The biggest news is that I got a new job, and start on Monday (sept 29th). It is definitely weird leaving my old job because I've worked there for like 3 years and really like the people I worked with. I just kind of felt like it was time to move on and do something different for a while. I'll be doing the same type of job (same job title, Systems Administrator) but on a much larger scale. At my old job, the systems infrastructure existed only to support the production floor and business systems, and at the new company their business is based on their technology, so they've got a much much larger infrastructure. I should be able to get some pretty insane exposure to a lot of new things. I'm nervous but oh well; you need to get out of your comfort zone once in a while to move up in the world. I'll post again here after a few days and let you know how it's going.

Sonseed: First Fruit

2008-09-21T12:06:00.006-05:00

Is Sonseed really a "real" band? Yes

Did Sonseed ever release a full album? Yes. "First Fruit" was released in 1983.

Could you, Shelly Fire, with your amazing interweb powers, make the album available for download here on the Justin Fox Blog? Yes

My new favorite band...Sonseed

2008-09-15T18:11:00.001-05:00

My only stab at policical humor

2008-09-11T16:48:00.001-05:00

John McCain and Barack Obama somehow wind up in the same barbershop at the same time...

As they sat there, each being worked on by a different barber, not a word was spoken.

The barbers were even afraid to start a conversation, for fear it would turn to politics.

As the barbers finished their shaves, the one who had Obama in his chair reached for the after shave.

Obama was quick to stop him saying, "No thanks, my wife Michelle will smell that and think I've been in a whorehouse."

The second barber turned to McCain and said, "How about you?"

McCain replied, "Go ahead, my wife doesn't know what the inside of a whorehouse smells like."

Radio Wave Generator Burns Salt Water as fuel

2008-09-06T13:28:00.000-05:00

This is pretty amazing. This thing started out as a cancer treatment device, but then he discovered that it can BURN saltwater as fuel. Unreal man.

Aww Racoonah awww

2008-08-18T00:02:00.003-05:00

I think he starts swearing at it at one point, so if you've got kids in the room you might want to keep the volume down. My favorite part is when Willie just starts tossing shit out of the cupboard. If Bear was a raccoon, that is exactly what he would be like.

Monday night we lost an old friend....

2008-08-13T21:14:00.003-05:00

..but gained a much newer, more reliable and sexier one. Sara got rid of the Warhorse (her '99 Honda Accord with 172,000 on the clock) on Monday night and replaced it with a new 2008 Honda Accord EX. I actually didn't even test drive it, it was all her deal. The first time I got to drive it was today and it is super sweet. That thing is fricken huge on the inside and drives like a Mercedes or something much more expensive. I'm not going to put any pics up, I'll let Sara post 'em up on her blog and show off. So be sure to congratulate her on her very first brand new car.

Another toy I want but don't need

2008-08-10T13:57:00.001-05:00

This thing is awesome.

I have no idea what to say about this

2008-08-07T17:26:00.003-05:00

There is something very very wrong with this. I'm not sure what exactly, but it has to be really wrong on a bunch of levels. Thanks to Macho for finding this little gem for me.

OMGWTFCARPETGROSSYUK

2008-08-03T15:56:00.002-05:00

So our old vacuum was dying, and I found a deal on woot.com when they were having a woot off for a dyson dc18 for like $250. I bought it. We got it today and Sara tried it out upstairs while I was mowing and said it was awesome. I wanted to try for myself, so I vacuumed our downstairs carpet, which looked totally clean (seriously, never even considered that it was dirty at all). This is what came out. Its hard to get across in pictures how dense this fricken black lab sweater that came out was, but it is naaaaasty. Dyson = win.

..Sup

2008-07-27T22:37:00.003-05:00

Shelly Fire's Guide to Commercial Vehicle Driving - Series #1

2008-07-19T22:24:00.006-05:00

Sooooooooooooooo, yeah. Today, what a day. Last night it started raining. It was raining at a rate of 2 to 4 inches an hour, depending on the area. This went on for a few hours. Not sure how familiar you are with Kansas roads or what roads are like where you are, but this shit down here will go from gravel to black dirt to clay and back again within a one mile stretch. You may be going up a small hill that is rock solid gravel only to to get to the top and come over to find that it's 5 times the distance down and twice as steep, and made of wet clay. They sent me out today and I went to my first stop and dumped off a few hundred gallons. I damn near got stuck on the way there and figured that I was experiencing what qualifies as a "really bad road". I left and started heading to my second stop. I was going down a black top and needed to go west. All my options were gravel. I found a road that looked really good named "Frontier Church Rd." I figured' hey, it's a church road so it's probably the best maintained out of all of them. I turn on to it and it's just like a rock solid, good ole North Dakota gravel road. I drive about 3/4 mile and come up a hill. I get over the hill to find it turns into mud and gets muddier as it gets to the bottom. I slow to about 50mph and make it through just fine. I get to the top of the next hill to find that the opposite side is twice and far down, much steeper and is all clay and mud. I immediately knew I was screwed. I decided that I need to slow down as the road had a pretty good crown to it and this wasn't the kind of shit you blasted though. All high speeds would do is send you into the mucky ditch that much faster. This would be especially true for me considering the truck I'm in is only 40 feet long but has 18 wheels on the ground, weighs 33,000 lbs and has 34,000lbs of diesel and gasoline on it. I get to the bottom and the truck slows to a crawl and eventually just stops. Tires are spinning. I lock in the inter-axle differential and the wheel differential and try again. I make it maybe a few feet and it bogs down. At this point, I was almost ready to call for a wrecker. In hindsight, I probably should have. I knew there was no way to back up the hill I just came down, but thought I would give rocking it a try. I quickly discover that I could back up into my tracks and come forward with a running start an plow ahead 5 - 10 feet at a time. It was working quite well. I knew the killer was getting off the crown of the road. Any loaded truck can slide easily in that situation, but in my case I have 17 tons of liquid able to freely move side to side. The tanks widest point is approximately 8 feet off the ground. i.e. high center of gravity. One inch too far and the truck sways and 17 tons of fuel follows and sloshes back and forth, pushing and burying it into the muck. I was making good progress and had regained my optimism. At this point, I thought some pics were in order..

First, a shot of what lay ahead:

Second, a shot of what I was leaving behind:

Third, a few good tire/rut shots:

I knew I was home free if I could just get half way up the hill in front of me. Between where I was and where that spot on the hill was, though, was some serious business. The road slightly dipped before going up, making the dip almost twice as soft as the shit I was barley forging through. More troublesome was that the crown grade increased greatly once the road started to go uphill. The closer I got to it, the more physics started to sink in. Something in my was yelling "THERE IS NO WAY IT IS PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE. NOT MAYBE, NOT 1 IN A 1000, NO WAY DUMBASS. STOP WHERE YOU ARE BEFORE YOU MAKE IT WORSE." It was too late though. I had already been clouded by the feeling of premature achievement. My hopes had been dashed only to be fully regained and my stupid brain would be damned if it was going to allow prudence to interfere with its quest for the impossible dream. With Sancho Panza now riding shotgun, I arrived at the dip before the climb. I bored into the muck right up o the beginning of the incline. It was better than I had thought. I backed up about 15 feet and stopped the truck. My consciousness was now in true and total duality. I was about to take a 400 degree pizza out of the oven and stick it in my mouth. I looked at Poncho, he looked back at me and nodded. I hit the gas. I made it through my blazed path and was focusing on keeping her centered. It took to the hill and was maintaining speed. By god, it was actually going up. That logical part of me that I had been suppressing was convinced it was never going to even get traction enough to get out of the muck in the dip. But here I was, slowly but surely going up, up, up. YAYYY up, up, up, side, side, side, side, no, no, no, no. Fuck. :(

It took a large farm tractor over an hour of NON-STOP pulling to extricate me. In the process of being drug along the trees and rock filled muck, my entire left-coast mirror rigging was ripped off by the trees. The trees would bend and scrape along side of the truck until they reached my open window and would then spring into the cab, whipping me in the face and reaching clear over to the passenger window. The steel, drivers side step was also ripped off and buried in the muck along with multiple mud flaps. It took over 60 miles of 70 mph driving before enough mud kicked out to stop the truck from violently shaking.

I want to go home now.

Custom Surly Crosscheck (from my foxcycle blog)

2008-07-16T22:12:00.002-05:00

I just finished building this bad chicken for a guy from Mendota Heights. It's pretty sweet, I laced the wheels up last weekend (Surly 1x1 hubs, Velocity deep-v's, dt revs). It's got Miche track cranks, king headset, syntace bars, and some other sweet parts.

- Click here to see the full gallery -

Minneapolis Storm - now with pictures!

2008-07-10T18:12:00.006-05:00

We had a hell of a storm today. We had the alarms go off at work and they made us get away from the outside walls/windows. Got home and our neighborhood got hammered pretty bad. We lucked out though, no damage to our house or trees. I embedded a slideshow of some pics Sara took while walking the bear.

You can click on the player to view the album at full resolution.

Good deal on a SS road bike

2008-07-05T17:00:00.003-05:00

Jensonusa.com has the Surly Steamroller single speed road bike on sale for $665.99. Heluva good deal if you're looking to build one, this might save you some cheddar. Click here to check it out.

Worst Album Covers Ever

2008-06-27T19:56:00.004-05:00

How to become a ninja in 7 easy steps

2008-06-22T15:57:00.001-05:00

14 songs you should never play in the bar (from holytaco.com)

2008-06-17T21:34:00.002-05:00

Makes me question all the times I played the epic 18 minute version of Eyes of the World at Muddy Rivers lol!

There’s nothing worse than having a perfectly good drinking session ruined by a song that either doesn’t belong in a bar, has been crammed down your ears too many times, or just plain sucks.

14. ALL I WANNA DO – SHERYL CROW

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: The 45-year-old wannabe cougar who, despite being totally beaten down by her dead-end job as a real estate agent, thinks she can relate to the free spiritedness this song represents. She could totally drink beer at noon on a Tuesday…if she didn’t have to be at work. And she could totally drive down Santa Monica Boulevard with some guy named Billy or Mac or Buddy…if she didn’t have to pick her kids up from soccer practice. So, instead of going all Thelma and Louise, she ends up dancing with her other cougar friends before calling it a night in time to catch Grey’s Anatomy.

WHY IT NEEDS TO BE RETIRED: When played at a bar, it does nothing but get a bunch of middle-aged women with fupas and gunts up on the dance floor who ask the DJ to play “Margaritaville” next.

13. MR. BRIGHTSIDE – THE KILLERS

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: The wanna-be hipster. That’s right, he’s not a hipster, but he is choosing to become one. That’s like being potty trained and choosing to shit your pants. Unfortunately for him, the killers lost hipster credibility when they became profitable to a record label. So, even though he’s wearing a t-shirt featuring the tour dates of a band he’s never heard of, and really really tight jeans, once he’s popped this song on, other hipsters react like a Klu Klux Klansman hearing his buddy quote a Martin Lawrence movie.

WHY IT NEEDS TO RETIRE: The sound of the lead singer bellowing “I NEEEEVVVEEERRRR” towards the end of the song is reminiscent of the sound a man makes when he inadvertently sits on his testicles. The worst part about this song being picked in a juke box is that someone is definitely trying to say something about themselves, thus the next two selections his dollar provided is going to be even more shitty emo. By the end, you’ll want to take the Pabst Blue Ribbon he’s forcing himself to drink and lodge it in your windpipe.

12. R.E.M. – IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT (AND I FEEL FINE)

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: The bespectacled, sweater-wearing grad schooler who wants to play a song that shows off his knowledge of political and world affairs. He almost puts on Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire” but figured REM might make him look a little hipper. But his inability to talk to the opposite sex compels him to explain every cultural reference in the lyrics. “Did you know Leonid Brezhnev served as leader of the Communist party longer than anyone except Stalin? It’s true. And Lester Bangs was an influential music writer who wrote for Rolling Stone and Creem magazines. Hey, where are you going? ”

WHY IT NEEDS TO BE RETIRED: Everyone who hears this song thinks they can sing along, but they always end up screwing up the words. So you get a bar full of people screaming, “That’s great it starts with an earthquake…birds…Lenny Bruce!…hurricane…LEONARD BERNSTEIN…oh wait, that comes later.”

11. DANCING QUEEN – ABBA

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: She’s a shy wallflower with lots of acne in her mid-20s who still reads Sweet Valley High books and plays with her My Little Pony dolls. This song represents her fairy tale dream where she steps onto the dance floor and wows all the guys with her graceful moves. At the end of the night she’s swept off her feet by a handsome Prince Charming who takes her away in a chariot led by 10 mighty steeds. Later that evening, she realizes she’s in a rusty 1984 Datsun and the guy next to her has a pizza stain on his Foreigner T-shirt and he’s asking her to chip in for gas money.

WHY IT NEEDS TO BE RETIRED: It’s disco.

10. SWEET HOME ALABAMA – LYNYRD SKYNYRD

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: Look to the bar, there’s probably a gentleman there who’s wearing a flannel shirt with black sleeves. Upon closer inspection, you’ll realize he’s wearing a sleeveless flannel shirt, and what you thought were sleeves are actually a dark, dense fur that’s made a home on in his shoulders and upper arms. He’ll meander up to the juke box and stare it for ten minutes looking through every album twice, because unlike the sex he has with his obese wife, he’s in no rush to finish. When he selects the song, watch closely, because as it begins to play, he’ll say the words “turn it up,” then hold his hand up and when Skynyrd says “turn it up,” he’ll drop his hand down, signifying that he correctly predicted Skynyrd would say this as well.

WHY IT NEEDS TO RETIRE: If Lynyrd Skynyrd had a Juke Box at their house, I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t be on it. This song, much like Jenna Jameson’s vagina, once was great, but years of non-stop commercialized rocking have made it unsuitable for use.

9. DON’T STOP BELIEVING – JOURNEY

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: The middle aged guy who’s still in the suit he bought just to make sure he landed the Peterson account, which he did! But he knows it’s Friday now, time to order some chicken fingers and let loose! Right before he plays the song, he’ll talk to his buddies about how they should totally take a trip to Vegas together. “Fuck it, let’s just do it.” Then they’ll all check their blackberries to find that they either have a prostate exam, a kid’s play to go to, or “wife wants to go see her parents so I kind of got to keep my weekends open for whenever that will be.” Then they’ll sit in silence until one of them leaves and heads to the juke box to make this ass kicking selection.

WHY IT NEEDS TO RETIRE: This song is as played out as Steve Perry is ugly. Whenever it’s selected on a juke box, it’s like a time out is being called from having fun. If this still pumps you up to hear, you probably also get pumped up when your wife says stuff like “I rented the first season of that show “The Closer” that my sister recommended. Maybe if I’m not too tired afterwards we’ll have sex or something

8. SMOOTH – CARLOS SANTANA AND ROB THOMAS

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: The mega brodawg wearing a white bandana and rings on his fingers who “cannot believe!” that his “main man” Carlos Santana got together with the lead singer of the “totally best fuckin’ band ever” Matchbox Twenty. Seriously, this has “gotta be the best jam of all time, bro.” He’s pretty sure that the only way a better song would come along is if “Jimi came back from the dead to play with, like, Mozart, bro. Totally.”

WHY IT NEEDS TO BE RETIRED: It’s a washed-up guitarist joining forces with the world’s blandest singer to write a song that my parent’s older friend’s like (honestly). This song should only be played on the jukebox in homes for the deaf.

7. HOTEL CALIFORNIA - THE EAGLES

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: The college freshman who just “discovered music” and is “getting into” the “deep and heavy lyrics.” This gateway song will lead this young man into an ill-advised Steve Miller concert, Pink Floyd posters on his dorm walls and, tragically, the purchase of a Phish album. If you see these signs in anyone attempting to use the jukebox, call the authorities immediately.

WHY IT NEEDS TO BE RETIRED: This song has been played so much even Glenn Frey and Don Henley stab their own ears with icepicks whenever they hear it. Killing someone for playing it is legal in 13 states.

6. I WILL SURVIVE – GLORIA GAYNOR

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: The 39 year old newly divorced woman whose friends have taken her to a bar where they’re all ten years older than the everyone in the bar, including the manager. After a 45 minute session where she and her friends repeatedly convince her that “any guy in this bar would fuck you. I’m telling you, Janice. You show me one other person who’s had three kids and is as hot as you!” she downs her last cosmo and makes a beeline for the juke box. She confidently plays this song, and as the beginning piano solo comes in, she turns around towards her friends as they all excitedly scream in unison, then begin singing. Behind them a group of 25 year old frat guys say “How many beers to take down the grandma?”

WHY IT NEEDS OT RETIRE: Nothing kills a buzz faster than having a group of people next to you get up and sing a song with the same passion and intensity of Russell Crowe speech from Gladiator, then suddenly sitting down once the song is over. Attempting to empower yourself by singing a 70s disco song tells the whole bar “I have low self esteem. Talk to me later when I’m drunk and there’s a good chance I’ll fuck you.”

5. MEATLOAF – PARADISE BY THE DASHBOARD LIGHT

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: With his over-the-top Broadway theatrics and his over-the-belt belly fat, Meatloaf attracts the tubby, pony-tailed husky guy who thinks to himself, “Hey, if a great big fatass like Meatloaf can pull this off, then I can too. Because I am also a great big fatass.” He then proceeds to try and out Meatloaf Meatloaf by undoing his pony tail for full hair-flip effect, props one knee on a table and sings along as loud as he possibly can. When he tries to get a girl to do the “let me sleep on it” part she politely declines and he’s forced to sing both the male and female parts by himself. Moments after the song is over he goes home, very alone.

WHY IT NEEDS TO BE RETIRED: First off, it’s eight minutes long. Secondly, it’s shitty Meatloaf singing about having sex in a car. The man is too fat to have sex in a barn. I’m pretty sure those are the only two reasons you need.

4. KID ROCK – BAWIDABA

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: He’s got a lifted truck that’s most likely powered by gasoline and “deez nuts.” He’s pounding bud lights sitting at the bar in a shirt that’s either sleeveless, or with sleeves short enough to show off the tattoo he got to commemorate the animal that most closely resembles the demeanor he displayed while playing middle linebacker in high school. He’s also a few beers deep and “there’s a lotta fatties and uptight bitches in this place,” so it’s vital that he take it upon himself to “fucking rock THIS SHIT brother.” He walks over to the juke box while maintaining a full body flex and enters the numbers for this song. Then he nods his head approvingly, as if to say to everyone “Don’t worry, you’re about to see what I picked and it’s gonna take your nuts and shove them inside your asshole, bro.”

WHY IT NEEDS TO RETIRE: Unlike some other songs on the list, this was never an acceptable juke box selection. The only time this is an appropriate selection is when you’re a stripper working the mid-day shift and you need a pick me up because you’re feeling gassy from the free hot dog lunch buffet your club was offering.

3. ANYTHING BY THE BEATLES - THE BEATLES

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: He or she is around 55 and although they seriously considered a cut off the Beach Boys “Pet Sounds” album, “you just can’t go wrong with the beatles.” They’re wearing Teva Sandles and a sweater from whatever college their son or daughter attended. They don’t go to the bar that often, but hey, who doesn’t love a good margarita. Maybe it’ll get them drunk enough to have sex with their significant other who has become disgusting with age! They’ll probably be sitting with several other older people who are waiting for just the right time to pull out their story about when they first heard this beatles song, which will be a lie, since the actual first time they heard it they were smoking laced weed while awkwardly looking for a place to shoot their load in the circle jerk that just “sort of happened.”

WHY IT NEEDS TO RETIRE: Before you freak the fuck out, we’re not saying the Beatles suck. The Beatles are a legendary and influential band and because of that, everybody has heard every one of their songs so many times that it feels like you’re living in North Korea and its propaganda spewing from megaphones mounted in the street.

2. PIANO MAN – BILLY JOEL

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: The lonely guy wearing a suit, who just took off his sportcoat, loosened his tie and undid the top button on his shirt. After ordering a scotch and soda he asks the bartender where he was when this song came out. Instead of listening to the guy’s answer, he immediately starts telling him how he came this close to signing to the Mets farm team and how his wife left him because he worked too much and that he really wanted to be a astronaut when he was a kid. Hours later, when he’s finally done with his pity party and gets up to leave, he doesn’t even notice that the bartender hung himself with a bar towel.

WHY IT NEEDS TO BE RETIRED: It makes everyone over 37 all weepy and sad as they sit there and reminisce about all their hope and dreams that never came true. And it makes everyone under 37 furious with murderous rage because they have to listen to this shitty song one more time.

1. AMERICAN PIE – DON MCLEAN

WHO PLAYS THIS ON THE JUKE BOX: The 55-year-old hippie who’s long, thinning hair and tie-dyed T-shirt scream desperation for a bye-gone era. He’ll spend the entire 8:32 of this epic ballad telling you how much better things were back in the 1960s because the youth actually fought for something. Then, because this song is so goddamn long, he’ll run out of boring stories and will start telling you his “secrets he learned in ‘Nam” that the government invented cancer and that LCD is the only true form of learning. Once it’s finally over, he’ll ask you to sign a petition to legalize hash.

WHY IT NEEDS TO BE RETIRED: It’s an eight-minute long shitty folk ballad that has long outlived it’s welcome. It needs to die

best book ever

2008-06-16T20:34:00.002-05:00

Round 2

2008-06-14T10:13:00.000-05:00

Ladies and Gentlemen........

2008-06-13T12:29:00.001-05:00

I present Mr. Johnny Hotpockets Shea, in all his glory, on his brand new Ruckus Scooter.

Moog (yes, that Moog) to build its first guitar...with infinite sustain

2008-06-10T21:25:00.004-05:00

Click here for full story on Gizmodo.

I can only imagine how sweet this thing is, given how insanely awesome Moog synths are. Here's a short list of its features:

•FULL SUSTAIN MODE - like no other sustainer; infinite sustain on every string, at every fret position and at any volume. You may have heard sustain before but not with this power (we call it "Vo Power") and clarity.

•CONTROLLED SUSTAIN MODE - allows you to play sustained single or polyphonic lines without muting technique. The Moog Guitar sustains the notes you are playing while actively muting the strings you are not playing.

•MUTE MODE - removes energy from the strings, resulting in a variety of staccato articulations. The mute mode has never been heard on any other guitar; the Vo Power stops the strings with the same intensity that it sustains them. You feel the instrument transform in your hands.

•HARMONIC BLENDS – use the included foot pedal to shift the positive energy of Vo Power in Sustain mode and the subtractive force of Vo Power in Mute mode between the bridge and neck pick-ups to pull both subtle and dramatic harmonics from the strings.

•MOOG FILTER - control the frequency of the built-in, resonant Moog ladder filter using the foot pedal or a CV Input.

Video Clip (featuring Fareed Hauque)

Just in case.

2008-06-09T22:37:00.002-05:00

Confessions of a (tech) Deadhead (from cnet.com)

2008-06-03T15:56:00.000-05:00

Seagate CEO Bill Watkins doesn't Twitter but he's not big on sartorial formality either - especially when it comes to ties. You know that cliché' about marching to a different drummer? In this case it's Watkins' own drummer and that's why he grooves on the Grateful Dead.

CEO Bill Watkins

So much so that he's one of the Silicon Valley hotshots volunteering to help the University of Santa Cruz raise money for its planned archive of Grateful Dead memorabilia.

"We've got a warehouse full of posters and letters and things," says Watkins. "We want to create a library annex and we're going to try and raise $2 million to build it. In August, I think maybe we'll hold a big fund raiser party somewhere in the Bay area."

(Credit: Grateful Dead)

Watkins, who calls himself "a Deadhead from way back," owns a couple of the band's old guitars as well as a gold record or two, among other Grateful Dead paraphernalia. And he says he's not the only fan/collector from the ranks of Silicon Valley's managerial elite.

"You'd be surprised how many people secret Deadheads there are out there," he noted.

Then again, maybe we shouldn't be that surprised considering the tech industry's counter-culture wellsprings. I'm not going to cover that in detail here but a good resource is John Markoff's "What the Dormouse Said: How the `60's Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer" does a nice job pulling the disparate strands of the story together. He offers a good explanation of how drug experimentation and rebellion against authority in the 1960s fed into the thinking of several of the key computer researchers, whose contributions to the tech canon ultimately laid the basis for the contemporary PC business.

Maybe that's why Watkins appears increasingly irritated at often finding business interlocutors - and even employees - dressing in formal attire (a no-no in the historically more casual West Coast technology community.)

"It's one of my secret peeves," he says. "I showed up at a meeting the other day and I was the only one with blue jeans on. They were all dressed up in suits. But there's another side to this. You start creating social structures within your companies where ties are becoming ways of differentiating the senior guys from middle management. It's senior management that's trying to differentiate themselves....and I don't like it much."

Nasty accident, cyclists vs drunk driver

2008-06-02T21:46:00.001-05:00

A Brownsville man is dead and at least five people remain hospitalized at a number of Rio Grande Valley hospitals after being struck by a car as the group, along with other cyclists participated in the third annual Bike Tour Matamoros-Playa Bagdad Sunday morning.

At least two people have been confirmed dead. Alejandro Alvarez, 34, of Brownsville, and a second person both died, the Mexican news outlet Tamaulipas enlinea.com reported in its online edition Monday.

Edgar Omar Castro, 14, Miguel Gonzalez, Alejandro Martinez and Rolando Loriqute, along with another person remained listed in conditions ranging from good to critical at Valley Baptist Medical Centers in Brownsville and Harlingen, VBMC spokeswoman Teri Retana confirmed late Sunday night.

The group, along with others participants in the bike race shortly, were struck by Jesse Lopez, 29, who drove a 1989 Gran Marquis. Lopez was driving drunk and under the influence of drugs, Matamoros newspapers reported in their Monday editions.

The collected bicycle wisdom of JWZ

2008-05-21T12:29:00.002-05:00

JWZ is one of the original developers on the Mozilla Firefox project, and this is a collection of his "bicycle wisdoms" for anyone looking to become a commuter in the San Francisco are (thanks to Jay for finding this one for me). JWZ's blog can be found here (note: it's "interesting" to navigate).

The Collected JWZ bicycle wisdom:

I posted most of this as a comment in someone else's LJ who was thinking of buying a bike, but perhaps it is of more general interest.

I've been using a bike as my exclusive transportation in SF for about ten years. I've always ridden, but that's when I stopped driving a car except under extreme duress.

Here's how to begin your adventure as a commuter-bicyclist in San Francisco:

Never take bike advice from anyone who owns bike shorts, clip shoes, a messenger bag, or a fixie. That's like taking car advice from someone who enjoys rebuilding carburetors.

(Update: If you are this person, you need not reply with your indignant "corrections". You are not the person to whom this advice is addressed.)

"City bikes" and "road bikes" are designed for some Jetsons-slick hypothetical future city that I've never seen. Or maybe for the bike paths in Los Altos or something. Here in real cities, roads are shit, and if you want your wheels and tires to survive curbs and potholes, you need a hybrid. They're a little heavier and a little slower. Are you racing? No? Then you don't care.
So, get the cheapest hybrid you can stand. Shocks are a waste of money. You should be able to get a pretty nice brand new hybrid for $370 or so. You can probably get a used one for a hundred bucks.
If you feel like you want a lighter bike so that it's easier to carry up stairs: don't bother. That's optimizing the wrong thing. You'll get used to it (by which I mean: become stronger).
Get a bike that's the right size for you, and has properly adjusted handlebars and seat. The shop will adjust it for you. If they won't, or if they tell you it doesn't matter, go to a different shop.
Get a u-lock. Lock through the frame and the back wheel. Your bike will be stolen, so don't get too attached to it. This also means, don't waste your money on junk like baskets and lights. Just get a backpack.
I always replace my front wheel and seat quick-releases with $2 worth of hardware store bolts, and then bend the ends over. This might have some negligible effect on theft. I refuse to be one of those people who lugs around 3 chains and disassembles their bike every time they park, so that's the trade-off I make.
The bike-nerd at the bike shop will try to give you smooth, high-pressure (110psi+) tires, because they are more efficient. But if you don't air them up weekly or more often, you'll get pinch-flats every time you hit a pothole, which is always. Also, the gas station air pumps often only go up to 60psi anyway. Get knobby low-pressure (60-80psi) tires and they'll last a lot longer. (If you do end up with stupid tires, you might want to get one of these.)
Likewise, make sure the tubes you get have the kind of connectors that the gas station air pumps take. Bike shop nerds like to fuck you with goofy connectors sometimes, out of sheer mean-spiritedness.
Bike maintenance: don't do it, ever. It's not worth your time. Just take it to the shop. Getting them to replace a flat for you costs $20 and takes 10 minutes, including the tube, and you don't get dirty.
Safety: I follow the Zodiac approach: always assume the cars can see you perfectly, and are trying to kill you. If an intersection seems iffy, use the sidewalk and crosswalks. If big streets like Market and Van Ness freak you out, there are always less traficky ways to go, or just stay on the sidewalks.
Grocery shopping: yes, you really can do it with a single backpack. The trick is, shop small once a week instead of big once a month.
If you try to dangle bags on your handlebars, you will die.
Cross train and trolley tracks at a 45° angle or more or you will die.
You really do need to tuck in or roll up your right leg. (You won't die, but you'll shred your pants.)
You don't need to ride up Haight. Take Fell or Fulton and then go through the Panhandle.
The City is only 7 miles across. Nothing is as far away as you think it is.

Kama Sutra for IT people

2008-05-19T15:25:00.003-05:00

Oh Puppah....

2008-05-13T11:05:00.004-05:00

This morning Big Bear decided he was going to test me. He always seems to get into trouble when I'm in the shower. Its like he's pissed that Sara left, and I'm still home but ignoring him. He's tore up alot of crap while I've been in the shower; hats, garbages, shirts, pants, etc. Every time it happens, we figure its the last time since its usually months between.

Well, today Tardface McShitbiscuits decides that my damn near brand new Blackberry Curve is the object of his affection and went to town. Here is a poor picture of part of the carnage:

I apologize for the poor quality of the picture, but it was taken with said Blackberry, and one of his teeth cracked the camera lens, significantly reducing its picture quality. I love my dog man, but it took every ounce of restraint I had to not let him have it. He ate my favorite, irreplaceable hat and I let it go. He ate my favorite belt and I let it go, so on and so forth. Oh well.

Update 5/15/08: Well, I thought the actual functional parts of the Blackberry had escaped all the damage (other than cosmetic) but it looks like its done for. It just started going into SOS mode over and over. Not good.

Some geekery for you

2008-05-10T17:34:00.002-05:00

You guys probably all know I'm an IT guy. We deal with a lot of security stuff, and I'm our primary anti-virus administrator, so work with AV software daily. Managing alot of machines in an enterprise environment means very different requirements than what you would generally use at home, but you always need some sort of anti-virus protection. Back in the day, you could probably just get away with common sense, but now malware has evolved into a whole different beast. There is a whole gray area between spyware and actual viruses, but even spyware these days is a very serious threat as most of it will install keyloggers and other nasties that jack your personal info.

As far as anti-virus clients go, the best I've used is a product called Nod32 from ESET, which is a paid, premium product. There are alot of free anti-virus software packages around too, of which Avast and AVG are two of the most popular (there is another called Avira that is good too). I've used them all, and AVG has always been my favorite because it is very very light on system resources (doesn't slow your pc down). AVG has always been pretty basic, but more than adequate for me. The truth is that when I work on peoples computers, 70-80% of them have whatever client was included when they bought it (Norton or Mcafee) and they've never paid to continue after the trial, so it hasn't been updated in forever which is just as bad as having nothing. AVG is a good option as its free and updates every day.

AVG has changed its game a little though. With version 7.x it was still a basic AV package. They just released 8.0 and totally redid the works. It now includes alot of other features that newer "internet security" software packages have (anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-rootkit, etc). I was really excited about it, until I used it. It has this feature called "linkscanner" that actually goes out ahead of you and scans whatever links you click on to make sure they're legit. This is excellent on paper, but in real life it slowed browsing down alot. To top it off, when you disable it, you get to look at a big red exclamation point on the tray icon, letting you know that something is broken (masking any other issues that you could be alerted to). Lots of people have been complaining that you can't uninstall linkscanner, or configure it to not install when you install AVG. I have found a solution.

AVG is building the options to disable linkscanner into the next revision, but until then, this is how you can install the package without it.

1) Download AVG 8.0 and save it to the ROOT of your c: drive (c:\). Click here to download.
2) Highlight the text below, right click and select Copy:

c:\avg_free_stf_en_8_100a1295.exe /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSurf /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSearch

3) Click Start, then Run.
4) Right click in the box, select Paste to enter the above text, hit Ok.

The installation will run as normal, but will not install Linkscanner.

Old school tv find

2008-05-06T16:53:00.001-05:00

I don't know how many of you grew up on Macgyver like me, but I made a pretty sweet discovery today. Apparently you can watch every episode of Macgyver ever on cbs.com!!!! If you want to partake, click HERE.

WTFRACOONTHIEF

2008-05-02T23:49:00.000-05:00

Scooterkid v.2

2008-04-30T20:18:00.003-05:00

So captain flapjacks was out on his rascal again today and managed to get it stuck in some lady's yard. Him and his little engineer buddy spent a good 20 minutes trying to get it unstuckified. Like a good neighbor, I took pictures to post on teh interweb.

We're doomed - V.robotswilltakeover

2008-04-27T11:50:00.002-05:00

This freaks me out bad. The Big Dog Quadruped robot adjusts and corrects itself in real time like a human would, and can run like 20mph and jump, etc. I have nightmares about this thing chasing me through the woods. It seems kind of insignificant until you see them 1) try to kick it over, and 2) when it hits an ice patch. Scary. Skynet is becoming self aware.

Saturday

2008-04-19T11:35:00.004-05:00

I've been neglecting my blogging duties as of late. Luckily for all my readers, Macho has been taking care of the downtime with horrendously embarrassing videos of himself dancing as an adolescent. We spent last week getting our office ready to paint as Sara detailed on her blog. This week, we're having a finish carpenter come out and replace all the trim on our windows. The clowns that put our windows in did a number on the trim, and we decided it wasn't real nice to begin with, so instead of rigging it up we're just going to replace it. Its not like its rocket science, but they are stool and apron style windows (with a sill) and honestly I have problems cutting 45 degree angles. The trim is a pretty prominent part of our house since we have big windows, so we figured it was worth the money to get it done right. I'll get some before, during and after pics up when we start. In the interim we haven't had any blinds because the window guys used these stupid filler pieces on the trim, so we don't have a square surface to mount them too. The neighbors have been getting alot of free shows.

We finally picked a guy to re-finish our oak floors too. Its tough cause in Bismarck or GF you've got like 5-6 choices for any kind of trade stuff, and here you have like 500-1000 (not including independents from Craigslist). We had like 3 guys come out and look at the floors and wound up going with the first guy because he was priced really well and is going to use non-toxic water based polyurethane.

The bike business has been going pretty well, had 4 bikes to tune up in the last few days, and I've got a guy who is having me build him a Surly Crosscheck and another guy that is getting a rebuild done on a Madone. Today I've actually got to pound out two more tune-ups before I can do anything else. What sucks is not having a parts washer though. God it sucks having to degrease parts in your laundry room sink. I wish we had a harbor freight around here so I could go pick up a cheap ass benchtop one. Actually I think we do have a Harbor Freight around here, but its in Brooklyn Park which is ghetto and I don't want to go there.

Ok, so I've got some interesting neighbors. There are alot of kids in my neighborhood and most of them suck pretty bad and have zero parental supervision for the most part. There is this one house at the end of the street where some lady in her late hundreds lives with some super shady looking handicapped guy with a prosthetic leg (probably her son) and this fat latino lookin kid. So, as of late this little butterball has been ripping around the neighborhood on what I can only assume is this handicapped dudes rascal scooter. Tubby will pile like 4 kids on this thing and just do hot laps, drive across lawns (not my lawn because I'm pretty sure they're aware I would shoot them) pull kids on rollerblades, etc. Its totally ridiculous. Lunch box came rippin by while I'm sitting here and I snapped some pics for you:

2008-04-13T06:24:00.002-05:00

Now that I watch this again, I'm having second thoughts about posting it, but wtf.

there's a decent back story that goes with this vid. Feel free to tl;dr this because i'm told the vid stands on its own, but the story is lol imo.

I made this video when I was about 13. In case you're wondering about the attire, the top is a combination of outfits my mother made for herself in the late 60's. The vest was for a different outfit and the "shirt" is really a long dress. Ironically, I felt wearing a dress was too fruity, so I put on my dad's hunting sweats and tucked the excess down into them. After making the vid, my buddy came over and I showed it to him, quite proud of myself. He was used to my weird shit and was like w/e so we headed out and went fishing. At that point, the vid was tucked away and more or less forgotten about. When I was 15, my buddies, Jason and Mike, and I starting taking my camera and working up our own little skits for our own amusement. At some point on one evening I remembered my old vid. I busted it out having not watched it in 2 years (which is a looong time when you're 15) thinking it might get some chuckles. Of course now, I'm deep in puberty and a little more aware of what "gay" is. We watch the vid and my friends almost vomited from laughter. I was genuinely embarrassed, something I was known for never being. Many times after that when I would have additional friends over, my two good buddies would try to make me show people the tape. I always refused. On one occasion they tried to strong arm it from me and in 38 years of combined friendship between these two, it was the only "real" scuffle we've ever been in. After that incident, they finally stopped asking.

Later that summer, I was over at Jason's house and was going to sleep over. It was in the early evening and as we were throwing the football around in the front yard, this chick I knew from my lake pulls up in front of his house in her car with a bunch of friends. This was a shock as I only knew her from my lake(where we had fooled around a few times) and she lived in a different town. She had called my mom and gotten Jason's address. Jason is standing in the yard holding the ball while I'm in the road talking to her. She invites me to the mall. Without hesitation, I jump in her car via the window and climb across her lap as she speeds away, leaving my best friend standing there wondering wtf I was doing. I hung out with her until about 11pm and went home. The next day I called my buddy, not realizing how big of a prick maneuver that was. He's irate. I believe his exact words to me before hanging up on me were, "you better come get your fucking bike before I smash the shit out of it". Later that week, I apologized, and he forgave me and all was well. The one caveat being that i had to accept the fact that he "owed me one".

Jump to our junior year in high school. One day, I go to school and at first all was normal. I noticed that Jason wasn't at his locker, ours were only 15 feet apart. This was odd because I'd seen him in the halls and I normally saw him at his locker between every class. Somewhere around 4th period I noticed people looking at me and laughing. Slowly as time went on the odd person would be like "*laughing* What's up Macho? Nice moves!". I encountered a few of these odd things throughout the day and was truly baffled. It got more frequent as the day went on. The REALLY odd thing is that this was not just coming from kids in my grade, but 9th, 10th, and 12th graders. I'm sitting in 7th hour Psych class and the bell has yet to ring and people are milling about. The teacher comes over to my desk and says, "so, you gonna do a little dancing for us? Those were some pretty groovy moves, man". I said, " Alright Mr. F, do you know what the heck is going on? People have been saying weird crap to me all day and I don't have any idea what is going on. What are you talking about? "
At this point, he informs me that at about 8am that morning, a half an hour before class started, Jason, who knows I am NEVER at school earlier than 1 minute before bell, went up and down the hallway stopping random people, gathering a total of about 40 students and staff, and telling them to go into the Health room to watch this:

Groove is in the Heart from Eric J. on Vimeo.

Sunday

2008-04-06T18:25:00.004-05:00

We had my brother in law Steve and his wife/gf Erin visiting this weekend, and it was fun. We ate and drank alot, and thats about it. It was beautiful out so we rocked off a couple of new york strips on the grill and hung out on the deck. Of course today its super gloomy and rainy, but thats ok. Maybe it will wash some of the 11ty billion pounds of road salt away.

We got our shiny new windows put in last week. The windows themselves are great, but they did a shitty job on patching up the trim on the inside of the house (they're not finish carpenters, they just try to work around whats there). So we've been having some master finishers come out and give estimates on just redoing all the trim on the windows to match. That should be another fun bill. We're also getting ready to start working on our office. Its this crappy yellow color, and they used totally flat paint that marks really easily (like if you run your finger across the wall it will show). It also has a sort of half-assed chair rail and these weird things they used to hang these kids abc poster things. All that in addition to the 35 or so holes from drywall anchors that I've filled in but not bothered to sand or paint yet (classy). So, we're gonna tear all the crap off the walls, patch it, sand it, and paint it before we get the floors refinished in the next month or so. I'll post before and after pics and all that. I would have with the windows but they pretty much look exactly the same, but new.

Speaking of spending money, this morning Sara decided she wanted a new phone so she doused her Razr with a cup of coffee. It freaked a litttle, then I got it back up and running. I was dumb enough then to shut it off and turn it back on (before she got her contacts of course) and it literally started sizzling and got super hot and shit the bed. We ran out and got her the new Samsung Gleam, which has pretty much the most amazing screen and crazy graphic menu's I've ever seen. Expensive cup of coffee.