Webcam Woes
Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 2027 hrs
The work webcam has gone offline. Somehow the program got corrupted today and now when it loads, it crashes. This is similar to what happened to the program on two of my other PCs.
I've actually been very impressed with the program. The company who created it stopped developing it almost 10 years ago, but it has still worked quite dutifully. That is, until it somehow gets corrupted and stops working.
I've tried everything to get it to work again, short of formatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows. I've uninstalled and reinstalled, uninstalled and deleted all known associated files then reinstalled, uninstalled and deleted all traces of the program (including in the registry) then reinstalled, and none of it has worked. If anyone has any ideas besides formatting the hard drive, I'm all ears.
Perhaps the time has come to find a new webcam program. Will anything be able to live up to Webcam32's record?
UPDATE: I left the computer shut off all night, and when I started it up this morning, the webcam program fired up and worked perfectly. I'm not out of the woods yet, however; this is always how it goes. What comes next is that the program works for a little while before freezing and crashing. I have my fingers crossed that it really is working properly.
Friday Funday CLXXXIII
Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 1220 hrs
Friday Funday brings you some fun and interesting links from my travels around the internet. Funday links will open in a new window.
Creative Sculpture With a Twist [del.icio.us]
The extended title of this post is: Creative Sculpture With a Twist: 3 Extraordinary Ways to Carve Art Out of Ordinary Objects and it definitely delivers! The patience and skill it must have taken to create this is fantastic. More pictures of the pencils can be found here.
Living in Three Centuries [del.icio.us]
Over the course of 18 years, photographer Mark Story took photos of centenarians around the world. Some of the pictures are available on this site. Although beautifully shot, many of them are creepy - some of the subject already appear dead. Says the photographer about the project, "the experience of talking with a 110 year-old man whose father stood next to Abraham Lincoln during the Gettysburg Address does not easily lend itself to words. A photograph seemed appropriate."
Grappa [del.icio.us]
I'm not really sure how to explain this really neat... Um, thing, other than, "painting with strings of light." It's damn cool.
Weekend Plans [del.icio.us]
A video about pickup line for married people. No, not like that. This funny video is about getting married, getting older, and, well, the way your life changes.
Expendable [del.icio.us]
David Malki !, the clever guy behind the hilarious webcomic Wondermark, is also the Director and co-writer of this 18 and a half minute short film about henchmen working for an evil corporation. The movie is laugh-out-loud funny, and for a low-budget film, these guys have done a great job. Filmmakers will be particularly interested in reading an interview with David Malki ! wherein he discusses the making of the film.
Old Habits?
Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 0556 hrs
It's been almost a full week since I've posted anything; am I falling back into my old habits?
No, I've just been really busy. Doing what? Well, last weekend I was out of town, but every day since then I've been well distracted by an open-source first person shooter called Sauerbraten. One of the coolest aspects of this game is the level editor, which is built into the game itself. Are you playing a map and want to change some aspect of it? No problem! Just switch into editing mode and make the change!
And that's really all I have to say, because I'm in the middle of editing a level.
Friday Funday CLXXXII
Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 0537 hrs
Friday Funday brings you some fun and interesting links from my travels around the internet. Funday links will open in a new window.
10 Creepiest Old Ads [del.icio.us]
I don't know about creepiest, but these ads are pretty unsettling. Especially the last one.
Flunked: 14 Signs of a Deficient Intellect [del.icio.us]
It's signs like these that make me worry about the future of humanity.
Internet Stars are Viral [del.icio.us]
I was surprised at how many people in this video I haven't heard of.
The 27 Most Hilarious Album Covers Of All Time [del.icio.us]
Unintentionally funny, that is.
ShamWow! [del.icio.us]
You'll say WOW every time! I honestly have no idea if this product is real or not.
Master's Degree
Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 0527 hrs
Today's Married to the Sea made me think of Mike. Sorry, Mike.
Great Expectations
Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 2226 hrs
With a title like that, you would expect this post to really deliver, right? Actually, that's what this post is all about.
Morah and I watched two lousy movies over the weekend. We were disappointed by the first and enjoyed the second. So what movies were these? The first was License to Wed, and second was Knocked Up. We knew going into both of them that they would be cheesy, dopey comedies - the kind of movies I always say require you to, "turn off your brain and laugh."
We knew going into each of them that they wouldn't be anything special, but we expected the outcome to be the other way around - that is, we thought we would enjoy License to Wed and dislike Knocked Up. So what happened? Why the reversal of our expectations?
It turns out, expectation has everything to do with it. Because License to Wed has Robin Williams in it, I expected the movie to be better simply by virtue of his being in it. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Not only did I hate his character, I didn't like the way he played it (or perhaps, was directed to play it). I've seen Robin Williams play serious-but-funny characters before, which is what I felt this character needed. Instead, we got a performance that reminded of the coked-out Robin Williams I saw on an HBO special from the mid '80s.
Everything I had heard about Knocked Up was that it was a terrible movie with a few funny lines, so that's what I expected. For the most part, that's what it was, but there were more one-liners that I expected, and some of them were so funny, that by the inciting incident, I was enjoying the film. It was still a dopey movie, but it was a dopey movie that I found to be not completely awful.
As Barry Schwartz so aptly put it, the secret to happiness is to have low expectations. When we have high expectations, things tend not to live up to them. On the other hand, when we have low expectations, as soon as something proves itself to be mediocre, we're already getting more from it than we thought we would, and that makes us happy.
Another case of failure to live up to expectations was when Morah and I went to lunch yesterday. We like to try out new restaurants, and we thought the Herbal Essence Cafe sounded pretty good. The name should have warned us. The décor was disjointed at best. A saltwater fish tank mixed with Asian-inspired table settings, all of which was accented by African masks. The music wasn't any better. '60s rock was followed by '80s pop, and I gave up on listening when Who Let the Dogs Out came on. Seriously. In a café. If they had looked around, they might have noticed that the majority of their patrons were senior citizens, and perhaps someone would have switched the channel over to jazz or something.
All of that should have warned us, but a co-worker recommended the food. In particular, she recommended the chicken Gorgonzola wrap, which, although it isn't in the name, also has bacon on it. I like chicken, Gorgonzola, and bacon, so that's what I ordered. Morah ordered one of the specials: Seafood Crêpes. They were a "crab and shrimp mix rolled into two sweetened crêpes, laid in a bed of tomato basil sauce, topped with a garlic aioli sauce and served with a Caesar salad." Sounds good, right?
The food arrived and was extremely disappointing. My wrap was okay, but the bacon was weak, and I could hardly taste the Gorgonzola (which, if you've ever eaten Gorgonzola, you'll know is odd). There was also some kind of oily liquid that dripped all over my hands. It was pretty gross.
The real disaster was Morah's meal, however. The crêpes seemed to be prepared by someone who knew what they were doing. I was particularly worried about the them, so when I saw that they were made properly, I was hopeful. Unfortunately, the crab and shrimp mix was a little too salty, and the tomato basil sauce was a train wreck. Seafood and crêpes are both very delicate and subtle foods. The tomato basil sauce tasted like barbecue sauce! It was strong and smoky; two things that the sauce definitely shouldn't have been.
We pondered over whether or not to send it back, but I my lunch break was running short and Morah had already eaten almost 1 entire crepe. In the end, we simply decided never to eat there again.
In this instance, we wouldn't have enjoyed the food, even if we would have expected something awful. The difference is that, before we went in, we had high hopes. Unfortunately, the higher the hopes, the longer the fall.
Friday Funday CLXXXI
Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 1046 hrs
Friday Funday brings you some fun and interesting links from my travels around the internet. Funday links will open in a new window.
David Lynch on iPhone [del.icio.us]
If you've spent any time on the internet lately, you've probably already seen this, but if not, it's worth watching. I laughed my ass off when I watched this, not only because he's absolutely correct, but because he's David Lynch. By the way, one trillion is a 1 with 12 zeros after it. To put that into a bit of perspective, 1,000,000 x 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000,000. That's a lot of years.
Planet of The Arabs [del.icio.us]
Western civilization has disliked the Arabs for a long time. This video is a humorous and somewhat sobering look at how Arabs are treated in Western cinema. From the video's description: Out of 1,000 films that have Arab & Muslim characters from the year 1896 to 2000, 12 were positive depictions, 52 were even handed, and the rest of the 900 and so were negative.
The last three links share a theme: things that look like (or make you look like) other things.
The Top 25 Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians [del.icio.us]
There are guys on this list who I've long thought look like lesbians. Don't just skim over the pictures; the captions are hilarious and often dead-on.
Cats That Look Like Hitler [del.icio.us]
It's a bit of a stretch for some of these cats, but others are dead ringers for the Führer.
American Apparel Will Make You Look Like A Fat Hooker [del.icio.us]
I've always thought this to be true, and now jezebel.com has proven it. I've never liked American Apparel and I constantly wonder what the fuss is about.
JREF Million Dollar Challenge To End
Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 1045 hrs
For 10 years, the James Randi Educational Foundation has offered $1 million to anyone who can prove, under controlled, observable conditions, that they have supernatural abilities. Many people have tried to take the test and every one of them has failed.
James Randi has decided that, after 10 years, the test has proven its point: that no one in the world actually has supernatural abilities. It has been decided that making the money would better serve JREF if it were available for other projects.
Delusional Hopeful mystics still have time to apply, however. Although the end of the challenge has been announced, it won't officially be over until 6 March 2010. Despite the fact that there are still 2 years left to apply, I doubt we'll see anything that 10 years couldn't provide. I think the reason for that is simple enough: no one has supernatural abilities.
New Masthead Must Wait
Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 2216 hrs
I know I promised that I would have a new masthead done over the weekend, and I did make one, but I don't think it's quite what I want, so I'm still trying to work out a better idea. If I can't think of anything better by this weekend, then I'll just post what I have.
Any ideas?
Secular Sunday XIII - The New Christian Science Textbook
Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 2158 hrs
I saw this on Digg today and it made me laugh. Not the kind of laugh that says, "Oh, ha-ha, what a funny embellishment on the truth this is." No, it was the kind of laugh that says, "Oh, ha-ha, this is what an entire third of the world's population believes. Holy shit, we're all screwed."
Before you start flaming me, saying that not all Christians believe in the absurdity of Intelligent Design, perhaps your voice would be better raised against Intelligent Design than against its dissenters - especially if you're a Christian and you don't believe in the absurdity of Intelligent Design.
Friday Funday CLXXX
Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 1939 hrs
Friday Funday brings you some fun and interesting links from my travels around the internet. Funday links will open in a new window.
Turn off your brain, this week's theme is stupid people!
How Not to Interview John Cusack [del.icio.us]
Two words: Dumb. Ass.
Live Hot Puppet Chat with Prickle [del.icio.us]
Prickle the Horse hosts Live Hot Puppet Chat where he answers questions from viewers who call in. Although completely puerile, it's hilarious. Oh, it's also NSFW.
Obscene Interiors [del.icio.us]
While I'm posting stuff that's NSFW, here's a series of images created for a project about how people in the '70s had awful taste.
Great Olan Mills Photos [del.icio.us]
And hey, while we're looking at awful pictures from the '70s, check out these doozies. People actually paid for this crap?
2007 Darwin Awards [del.icio.us]
Yeah, this is still around. You know why? Because dumb people never stop getting themselves killed in idiotic ways.
So Far, So Good
Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 2100 hrs
Morah has been completely on board with my ideas for no T.V. after work and following a schedule. On the evening of the 1st, instead of watching T.V., we created our schedule and have been adhering to it since. So far, it has gone quite well. I do feel like I have a little less free time than I'd like, although we've gone to bed early the past couple of days, so that could have something to do with it. I wish the buses had WiFi on them; then I could read most of my feeds on the rides to and from work. At any rate, the schedule can be adjusted if we feel like we need more free time.
We have been pretty productive overall, though. Having a list of activities and a set amount of time we plan to spend on them has helped us get things done that we otherwise wouldn't have. We did an analysis of why we weren't doing things like flossing or our traction, and I think we have our schedule set up in such a way that we'll be able to start doing them from now on.
As for counting calories, I haven't started yet, but I have been much more aware of what - and how much - I'm eating. Work is tough, though, because everyone has candy dishes at their desks! I'm constantly surrounded by chocolaty temptation. Not to mention that we're right next door to a Rocket Bakery, which is ever-so-tasty!
I must be strong, however. The end goal is far and hard to reach, but definitely worth much more than fun-size Snickers bar and a jalapeño-cheddar bagel.
Also, I do have a new masthead in the works. I had hoped to have it done by the 1st, but clearly that didn't happen. This weekend, I promise!
Resolutions for 2008
Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 1235 hrs
Happy new year, everyone! Back in January, I made some resolutions for 2007, and in July I gave you an update on how I was doing. Now I'll review 2007's resolutions and give you my updated list for 2008.
Eat right - While the holidays have taken their toll as of late, I have manged to stay on track with this resolution for the most part. With the winter celebrations behind us, I'm planning to give greater focus to what - and how much - I eat. Counting calories worked really well for me in the past, so I'm going to start doing it again using my CountCals website. If anyone would like a membership to the site, let me know and I can hook you up (for free!).
Work out more frequently - You know how you decide to do things with good intentions, but then never really get around to it? Yeah, that's pretty much what happened here. I am determined to lose weight, and I know that the only way to do it is to work out. I just hate the idea of going to a gym, which makes me think that even if I did purchase a membership, I wouldn't make use of it. I did some of Morah's videos for a little while, and although I liked them, the exercise ball I have sucks. Plus, our apartment is too small for both of us to effectively work out in at the same time. On top of all that is the fact that I prefer to work out in the morning. I don't mind waking up earlier, I just don't want to wake Morah up. I don't know, I'll figure something out and try to get back onto some sort of a schedule.
Floss my teeth - I haven't flossed in months, so obviously I blew it again this year. I think what might help for some of these resolutions would be to create a schedule; something along the lines of, "at 8pm, I will do my traction, floss, and brush my teeth." That would help keep me from snacking before I go to bed, and it would help create a routine, which would hopefully just become second nature.
Do my traction - Same as flossing: I did it for a little while, bit haven't done it lately. It's especially important that I take care of my back right now, since I don't have my new medical insurance yet. As I said above, I think the key is to create an evening routine.
Save money - Morah and I have done a fantastic job of this. In fact, we've done so good of a job that we're talking seriously about house-shopping. Obviously this is an ongoing goal, but I think the basic purpose of this resolution has been met, so I'm taking it off the list!
Get caught up & stay caught up - Some progress has been made in this area, but overall I'm still behind. Remember that 3 foot tall stack of magazines that were a couple of years old that I "needed" to read? Well, a couple of weeks ago, in a moment of clarity, I looked at the magazines and thought, "those are all two or three years old. Anything in them is going to be really out of date. I haven't picked one up in almost a year. Why don't I just throw them away?" And that's exactly what I did (actually, I recycled them). It was a fantastic feeling. I didn't know what I was missing, but I honestly didn't care. So now I'd like to apply the same principle to the television. With the writer's strike going on, now is the perfect time to stop watching T.V. altogether. After all, if we don't know what we're missing, are we really missing anything at all? When Morah gets home from work, I'm going to propose a month-long experiment: let's not watch T.V. after we get home from work. I know Morah likes to watch the news in the morning, and I have to admit that it's sometimes useful for finding out what's going on around town, but after work, everything is reruns (or stupid). Let's read books or clean up the apartment, or exercise, or do something more productive than sitting around on the couch!
Build my business - Progress has pretty much stalled since July. I have a prospect sheet, I have a to do list, but what I don't have is time. It seems like there's always something else that's stealing my attention, and since I have a full-time job, building my little side business isn't that high of a priority for me. Which is stupid, since my business pays me more than twice what my full-time job pays me. If I ever want my business to be my full-time job, I need to get cracking! Perhaps when I create my schedule, I can include some time to work on developing the company.
Work on my personal websites - The biggest change on the face of ALLO this year was the addition of revenue-generating content. I made a number of "behind the scenes" changes that improved things a bit, and I have plenty more of those planned. My personal sites have been ignored a lot this year, but I recently starting developing some updates for ALLO, and I'd like to delegate ThomasandMorah.com's updates to Morah (who is much better at that sort of thing than I am).
Get outside - This is a new one for 2008. I spend far too much time behind the computer, and that probably contributes to my lethargy. Even if it's just a post-prandial walk around the neighborhood, getting outside once in a while will do me a world of good. It's not like I don't have plenty of excuses; Morah and I have rockets we could launch (which I love doing), we both have bikes, we both enjoy hiking and camping, and we live in the Northwest! What more could we ask for?
Buy a house - By the end of 2008, I want to be living in a house. Need I say more?
Do more urban exploration - This is something that I've always been interested in, and after going on a couple of UE adventures, I'm hooked. My mother-in-law got me an LED headlamp for Christmas, which will be perfect for exploring the nooks and crannies of... Well, pretty much everything. I've already started taking mental notes about some of the buildings around Spokane, and I've even done a little impromptu exploring (usually by walking down a hallway that looks interesting).
"Life change, life change, life change."
Solicitation Section
Be my boss!
If you visit my Amazon.com PayPage, you can pay me as little as $1. I could be your underpaid employee!
