Monthly Archive for January, 2007

Death To Silhouette Dancers!!!

Published on January 31, 2007 in Gripes and Random. 1 Comment

In this day and age of almost constant web surfing we’ve become pretty used to being bombarded with stupid banner ads. But there are a few of these lame ads that seem to be far worse than others. I’m refering specifically to the freaking stupid silhouette dancers. Now I’m not a fan of the dumb animals with all 50 states plastered across their terribly contorted bodies. I also hate the stupid “tattoo” ads, but they both pale in comparison to the dancers. I have yet to figure out how any of these ads relates to what they’re advertising, but regardless of the product they might be trying to push, THEY SUCK!!!

I realize that everybody has their own pet peeves (Zarch’s happens to be stupid real estate ads with happy couples smiling and laughing in front of their new dream home), but these ads in particular just rub me the wrong way. I also realize that through the use of firewalls and firefox plugins most ads can be totally removed from the surfing experience, but in many cases I’m using computers where I have little control. Also, there are times when I actually want to see what’s being advertised on my sites so I have to leave ads enabled. I just wish I didn’t have to deal with 4 slightly out of sync and obviously gay cowboys dancing at the top of the screen while I’m trying to read my email.

While looking for a picture to help get my point across it became apparent that LowerMyBills.com is by far the most guilty party in this trend, but I also blame apple and their stupid Ipod ads. I’m pretty sure the Ipod ads came before any of these craptacular banners. I realize that much like reality tv, these ads are probably going to be around for a while. I just wish there was a way to arrange a meeting in a dark alley with the creator of this garbage. I’d also like to kick the creators of MTV’s Real World in the head as well. I blame them for ushering in this age of reality tv spewtum that we now have to deal with on a nightly basis.

Rant over.

Myth Confirmed!

Published on January 30, 2007 in Geek Fun and Random. 0 Comments

Have you ever wondered about the validity of the age old myth regarding a web site that allegedly exists which chronicals all of the myths ever investigated by the Mythbusters team? Well, wonder no longer. The site DOES exist and you can visit it HERE.

Learn whether a fishing trawler can actually be sunk by a whirlpool. Find out if you can really fool a fingerprint scanner with a balistics gelatin mold of a finger. Discover whether or not your dream of scaling a 23 story building with suction cups can ever become a reality. The answers to these and many of the other questions that have been burning a hole in your brain await you on the Complete Mythbusters Mythology page.

Super Freaking Awesome gif!!!

Published on January 29, 2007 in Geek Fun and Random. 1 Comment

This post has absolutely nothing to do with anything… except for the fact that this gif is pure comic genious…

I’m not sure if the original author gave this creation an “official” name, but I hereby dub it “A Night At The Roddenberry”…

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Think your NES is retro? Think again, n00b!

Published on January 28, 2007 in Consoles and Random. 0 Comments

My sister got me this wicked sweet retro shirt for my birthday.  She had to have it custom made, because it’s so retro no one even knows what the crap it is.  Behold, Alpiner!  This gem was one of the many games I had for my TI-99/4A back in the day.  For 1983, it was pretty much the cream of the crop.  Check out this page with more screens and sounds from the game, including some voice from the optional Speech Synthesizer module.  I was the kid with the dad who always had to be different.  When he got the TI, everyone else had Ataris and Commodores.  When the NES came out, I had a Sega Master System, complete with 3D glasses.  I carried on the tradition as I got older.  All my friends had GameBoys; I got a Game Gear instead.  Looking back, I’m glad it worked out that way.  I’m not sure what life would have been like without Parsec or TI Invaders.  And who could forget Hopper or Moon Mine?

PSP Faceplate Mod

Published on January 28, 2007 in Case Mods, Console Reviews, Consoles and Gadgets. 0 Comments

 I’ve never been one to live in fear of voiding my warranty, so when I heard about a way to potentially destroy my PSP, I was all ears.  The result is visible in the picture.  I got sick of wiping off fingerprints, so I picked up a flat black faceplate from DecalGirl.  To add a little spice, I got the yellow button kit as well.  Let me tell you – it took some fiddling.  I lost a couple of those tiny screws, but thanks to a wicked powerful magnet I found on eBay, I was able to suck them back out of my carpet.  After some manipulation, I got the buttons just about right once more, and it does look unique.  For most folks, I can’t really recommend this mod.  I probably wouldn’t do it again myself.  The flat black is excellent, however, and it’s worth a look to modders and nerds in general.

Paperclips Rock!

Published on January 25, 2007 in Geek Fun. 0 Comments

Ben “Hack” Strikes Again!

Published on January 23, 2007 in Case Mods and Nintendo. 1 Comment

Ben “Hack” Heckendorn is by far one of the most 1337 “geeks” to grace the face of planet earth. And he has returned, yet again, to provide us with another peice of portable hardware lusciousness. Behold the Wii laptop:

You can check out the full gallery of this amazing little work of art HERE.

Frets On Fire Rocks The Hizzouse!

Published on January 8, 2007 in Game Reviews and Games. 26 Comments


So I’ve been on a bit of a Guitar Hero kick lately. It is by far one of the funnest games I’ve played in a while. Unfortunately, due to my supreme broke-ness I have to rely on friends and relatives to fullfill all my Guitar Hero needs as I don’t currently own a PS2. I do get to play now and then, but on those evenings when I get that insatiable hankerin to play, I’m usually just S.O.L. Until now…

I had heard rumblings about Frets On Fire through the interweb, but I didn’t really give it much thought. I figured it would be cheezy and wouldn’t work very well. Boy was I mostly wrong. After suffering from a near seizure on Friday due to lack of Guitar Hero in my life, I decided to give it a try. I mean, how bad could it be? And besides, it is free after all.

Continue reading ‘Frets On Fire Rocks The Hizzouse!’

Update On Ubuntu Wireless Issues

Published on January 2, 2007 in Software. 0 Comments

So a couple days ago I blogged about my recent experience with Ubuntu Linux and some of the issues and successes I’ve had. Well, one of the big issues I’m still having is in regards to getting my wireless card to connect to a DHCP enabled access point. I’ve been tinkering with this for countless hours over the last week and it turns out I’ve been tinkering in the entirely wrong place (silly me).

Apparently, it seems that this isn’t so much a Linux/Intel 2200BG issue as it is a “cheap-pile-of-crap-Qwest-provided-Actiontec access point” issue. I guess this particular access point has some weird DNS issues when you connect with a Linux based machine with DHCP enabled. Although you may be able to connect to the access point and ping pretty much any site on the entire interweb (I can both connect and ping), you will still get intermittant “failure to resolve hostname” errors when trying to surf. Apparently this issue has been going on for well more than a year now and Actiontec/Qwest are pretty much ignoring it. I suppose this is just one of those things you have to get used to when using a non-Windows OS.

So now that I know what the problem is, I’ve found a semi-solution for this issue by settings a static IP and gateway id within the Ubuntu Network manager. This isn’t really as big a deal as you might think as Ubuntu doesn’t have a Windows style “browse for available networks” tool so you kind of have to know the info about any access point you plan to connect to anyway. But if you’d rather leave DHCP enabled, here’s another set of possible work arounds. Just thought I’d share my newfound knowledge of this stupid issue.

What The Crap Is “Cross-player”?

Published on January 2, 2007 in Game Vids and Games. 2 Comments

Knowing Valve… it’s something that’s gonna be friggen awesome!

I just saw the vid below on Youtube and now I’m all hyped up to find out more about this new game from Valve and Arcane Studios (and I still haven’t even played Portal yet). I’m not exactly sure what cross-player might be, but I’m gonna venture a guess that it’s something along the lines of cooperative and/or multi-player within the single-player story line. Ever since the good old days of the Double Dragon arcade cabinet, cooperative play has been something of a holy grail for me. Unfortunately, very few games encorporate this cool feature and even fewer do it well. There’s just something comforting in knowing your buddy has your back when you venture into that dark sub-terranian enclave of evil baddies (think Diablo II).

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how The Crossing is going to re-define how we think of multi-player. Enjoy the short vid.