Disney trip

‘Twas the night before Disney and all through the house two children were waiting to go see the Mouse!! I’ll be “live-blogging” the Disney trip here courtesy of the WordPress app on my iPhone. Stay tuned for pictures and updates.

Dust, trash, foreign material in the 3G

At this point, having returned 2 previous iPhone3G’s for dust gathering under the screen, it’s safe to say there is some quality control issue or manufacturing defect at work here.

dust again, this is #3

New MAME Control Panel finally completed

Finally finished and tested last night. Only two buttons did not work on the first try and those were easily fixed with new quick-connects. Two player setup with two Happ Super Joysticks, 6 buttons per player, side pinball buttons, 2 ‘admin’ buttons, player1/player2 buttons, Betson Imperial Trackball (from a Golden Tee machine) and a TurboTwist2 spinner for games like Tron, Arkanoid, etc. The control interface I’m using is a GPWiz32 with rotary function so I can add rotary joysticks at a later date for games like Ikari Warriors, Heavy Barrel, etc.

arcade control panel

As if I needed one more reason to have an iPhone

This is a very much needed gmail update. Also for Android.

Talking easter eggs

=)

Brush & Rinse Toothbrush

Design at it’s best. I want one. My kids would love it too.

Another great find on Twitter

Recently I discovered that the Jackson Free Press is very active on Twitter. Our local Jackson, MS. Mayor has landed in hot water and I’ve been following his trial literally minute-by-minute as it happens via the JFP Twitter feed found at http://twitter.com/JXNFreePress

I’ve never subscribed to a newspaper but I’ve always kept up with the news through other means. It’s nice to see traditional “old” media beginning to get a grasp on the fact that there are whole generations who get their news from the ‘net almost exclusively.

For more info on the Melton trial see “themeltonblog.com” or http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/melton/

For more info on Twitter see the following video:

Motivation

Having trouble getting motivated to lose a few pounds?  Check this guy out! 

http://www.timescall.com/health-story.asp?ID=14520

By the way, he’s my Uncle! Way to go Paul!

Celebrities using Twitter

Twitter is the new RSS feed. I follow a lot of silicon valley “web-celebs” Mostly people that have started up some of the most popular websites or are in the tech news sector. Most often when breaking tech news happens, these people tweet it first. Recently, real celebrities are getting in on the game and using Twitter. It’s refreshing to read them as it typically shows a rarely seen personal side. Here are some celebrities I follow on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/jimmyfallon – Jimmy Fallon – More of a geek than I expected, interesting to see how he’s involving the internet community in his new LateNight show.

http://twitter.com/aplusk – Ashton Kutcher – Fun to see him give the Paparazzi a hard time.  He’s pretty funny.

http://twitter.com/tinafey – Tina Fey – Her tweets are as funny as her shows.

http://twitter.com/schwarzenegger – Arnold Schwarzenegger – AKA “The Governator” I’m fairly certain that someone on his staff does these updates but they’re interesting to read nonetheless.

Fun with whips

You can almost always find help on the internet when researching how to do something. Recently my son Cameron and I have been getting into Indiana Jones. He’s been playing the Indiana Jones Lego game and we’ve watched bits of Raiders of the Lost Ark and as a result he’s become a big fan. Therefore, being a good father, I decided it would be cool to get a whip and learn to crack it like Indy. I bought Cameron a “stage prop” Indy whip from Amazon.com for 7$ and I began searching on the ‘net to try and find myself a “real” whip. While looking around the ‘net I found a very active community of both whip makers and whip-crackers. I spent some time researching the various kinds of whips available (bullwhip vs. cow-whip, leather vs. nylon, etc.) I found a whip-maker on eBay selling a very affordable handmade 8-foot nylon cow-whip. I bought the whip and while waiting for it to be delivered I spent some time watching YouTube videos and reading forums to try and learn about cracking a whip. When the whip arrived I immediately opened the box and began swinging it around for all I was worth. After giving myself six or seven nasty whelps I decided maybe this wasn’t as easy as it looked. I now had new respect for all those guys on YouTube cracking whips with such skill and finesse. Not to be deterred, I kept at it and figured out a basic technique to crack it with surprising results. The whip was LOUD; when it cracked just right it sounded very much like a .22 rifle being shot. I was pretty happy with it and decided it was time to post my own YouTube video showing how this particular nylon cow whip performed. So, one morning last week after Cindy and the kids had just left for work, I grabbed my camera and decided to whip-crack on camera in the living room. The video that resulted brought enough happiness to those few I’ve shown it to that I decided it was worth posting for more to see.  So whether you laugh at me or laugh with me, crank up the sound and enjoy.