Who am I writing for?

So the question of who do we actually write for was posed by Mark Artrip in a comment this morning. Also there is Jason Rice's most recent post that addresses the issue of bringing out your own personality in a blog and deciding how much to really care. Really, I do not have any answer to the questions yet but maybe I can work through it quickly and for your own amusement. I think there are a couple of scenarios that I will explore before I define this whole blogging thing for myself.

1. I write this for other tech nerds. Sure there is the discussion about who should be called nerd or geek or whatever, or even if the nerd label has gotten "too cool" as was mentioned in this last issue of Wired magazine. I think that the problem with writing for tech nerds would be that tech people already dominate the internet in almost every way imaginable so what do I really have to add that is not somewhere else? Any foray into making this an actual tech blog would result in 200 links to sources in every post and that is way too much work for my level of dedication to this blogging endeavor.


2. I write this for general consumption. This is a strong contender because I do consider myself at least semi-well rounded in a lot of different areas. Over enough time I think that I will have probably covered a very broad spectrum of categories and part of my hope would be that I could offer some small additional insight or perspective to whatever it is that I am talking about at that moment. Maybe I am not really cool enough or have enough "experience" or whatever to have anybody listen to me but I don't care. Whatever.


3. I write this for my friends. I subscribe to several different blogs of close friends and I find it interesting to keep in touch this way. I do not have to feel bad about not calling and really when you think about it, blogging is just long-hand multi-media capable texting. I think a primary purpose is to let my friends, especially long distance ones, know how things are going in my life.


4. I write this for myself. Maybe this is the acceptable nerdy way of keeping a diary, or at least fulfilling the same purpose in a physiological sense that writing in a diary would meet. Does that mean that I am going to spew forth my thoughts unfiltered to the whole world? Certainly not. Does it mean that I can use this place as a space to quickly post my thoughts on a subject for quick reference at a later point? Absolutely.

So what is my conclusion? Who do I write this for and for whom do I put forth this effort? I think that first 

and foremost I write with my friends in mind. Second I write to relive stress or take a break during the day. Finally for anyone else that does not fit into those two very narrow categories, I write for you to have a glimpse into what I am all about. Maybe we will meet one day and then you can start telling me about myself and it will be really creepy and awkward.

So who do I want to read this blog? Everyone. I am really addicted to looking at my blog stats.

Realistic Nintendo Characters

Ok so I have been sketchy lately about posting here. I used to be on a two or three a day pace but have gotten much busier at work leaving less down time for even short posts here and there. I write this morning to those of you who grew up playing (or still play) the Mario franchise games. I came across an interesting project from some genius photoshopper who made a photorealistic Mario face.



I took the larger picture just so that you could be immersed in the total creepiness of what Mario would look like. Not only would you not want to be him or hang out with him, but you would probably steer your kids away from anyone with a molestache that prominent.

Of course there is no point of having Mario if he does not have a nemesis. We all know Bowser but I never thought that I would end up liking Bowser better than Mario. The rendering of him is below.



So here is my final thought on this. Nintendo, shame on you for duping entire generations of kids into playing with a creepy plumber. I used to be proud that Mario was Italian but not anymore. Mario for heavens sake shave that creep 'stache dude. Bowser you rock. I would say go ahead and eat Mario, in fact it almost makes me want to bust out my Nintendo and get to the final fight and just stand there. It would mean one less creepy weirdo wandering the virtual streets of video game lore.

Credits:

Gaming Today: Realistic Bowser

Gaming Today: Realistic Mario

Lawn - Grass cutting device

Ok so one of the most stereotypically dreaded chores in the world is probably doing the laundry. It never ends. Ever. I think that someday I will post about the never ending doom that is the laundry but today is not that day.

A chore that probably goes right up there with laundry is cutting the grass. It is also a chore that for the most part never ends. Sure those of you in the Northern climates get a reprive during the winter months but it is not as though you ever get to wake up one day and think "wow I finally finished that grass cutting project, I can check that off my list until the next time we refinance and want a different style of grass."

So because taking care of the grass is a never ending project and it is typically a mans job to do on a Saturday or Sunday it is appropriate to want the biggest and baddest lawn cutting device on the block if not in the entire neighborhood. Well friends and colleagues I would like to present to you the most ridiculously awesome lawn mower that I have ever seen. I think that I would have to be issued a second man card just to ride on this thing. All other lawn mowers wet themselves in its presence. No but seriously if you wouldn't get excited just by looking at the picture, read the description and stats. It makes me want acreage just so that I could mow it.

Because few words are sweeter to the lawn-manicuring man than "world's fastest lawn mower," we present you with the Dixie Chopper Xcaliber ($11,400). With a huge 74-inch cutting deck, this beast speeds along at 15 mph, letting you cut down over 9 acres an hour. And even though, at those speeds, you won't be out on the lawn all day, the Xcaliber also features a 12-volt adapter to charge your iPod or cell phone.

Ok so here is my problem. Well really there are several. The first one is that I do not have $11,400. The second is that I live in Phoenix which means that while I have grass, it is a patch that is really just there for token reminder that there is grass in other places in the world. This mower would sit on my yard and basically cut the whole thing in two passes. So what is a Phoenician going to do?

Well turns out the good folks at Uncrate are in a summery mood lately and they threw up another lawn mower recently that more accurately fits my bill in more ways than one. Behold finally a semi-affordable battery operated lawn mower. It can run for about 60 minutes on a charge and is silent. That I think would be so sweet. Also who wants to have to spend a couple of bucks in gas to fill up their stupid lawn mower. Not me! With gas the way that it is right now the extra price that you pay for the tech will actually pay for itself much faster than it would have two or three years ago. So I am officially adding this to my new wishlist.

Remove the hassle of mixing gas from your mowing routine and help out the environment with the Neuton Battery-Powered Mower ($480). Like conventional mowers, the Neuton includes a mulching plug, bagger, and side discharge chute, but unlike conventional mowers, it's powered by a rechargeable 24-volt battery that provides enough juice for 45-60 minutes of mowing per charge. Plus, it's nearly silent - just turn the safety knob, squeeze the handlebar, and mow.

Ok so sure I might lose a little bit of manliness on the lime green coloring of this mower, but seriously, it is small, agile and gets the job done quickly. On a side note if you watch The Office you know that last part was one of the biggest setups of all time. If you don't then you have no idea and that is ok as well.

The Office: Night Out

So I do love The Office. I am so glad that it is back on. That writers strike was a killer for me. Heroes MIA, The Office halted, Lost halted, Smallville...it was pretty rough. For those of you who missed it last night the episode was pretty good. I have to say I miss the days when they started it off with a prank on Dwight. Ever since they all became friends it is like they are grasping for something to replace it and have not quite found that magic again. I think it will come back around but in the mean time check out the latest episode below:

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.518519&w=425&h=350&fv=] from www.hulu.com

The Wii is a virus

Ok by now if you read my blog regularly at all or you just know me you know that I have an Xbox 360 as my console of choice. I think that despite it being from the evil empire in Redmond it does offer the best mix of good games and cost but it is because no one else has anything like XBox Live.



Regardless, last year (actually late 2006) a game called Gears of War was made that truly rocked the socks off of a lot of people myself included and dominated may must play lists for a while and some people still obsess about it. Well if you follow gaming then you know that GoW 2 is slated to come out this year sometime and the gaming world is getting ready for it. There are a lot of gamers that will guaranteed never get to play it on their console of choice the Wii.

Below is a quote from the President of Epic Games (the company responsible for Gears and also for Unreal Tournament) which I think sums up to a T the reason I will not own a Wii and why I think that its dominance may last on the units sold column but will not hold steady in the long term against the technical superiority of the other two consoles.

It’s a virus where you buy it and you play it with your friends and they’re like, “Oh my God that’s so cool, I’m gonna go buy it.” So you stop playing it after two months, but they buy it and they stop playing it after two months but they’ve showed it to someone else who then go out and buy it and so on. Everyone I know bought one and nobody turns it on. Obviously there’s a class of people who really love it and enjoy it and are getting into the games but I’m still waiting for that one game that makes me play it.

This pretty much sums up the people that I know as well. Sure there are the "Nintendo fanboys" who have to own every game that has a major Nintendo franchise character plastered on the box which means that of course Smash Brothers has been a success and so has Mario Galaxy. But for those of us who do not care about a kid oriented Street Fighter using historical Nintendo characters, or who think that swimming with sting rays is lame then what do you have for me? The novelty of flailing your arms in the "real motion" wears thin after you figure out that a simple wrist flick is not only more effective but can be done sitting on the couch, bowling works the best in my opinion but then you realize that YOU ARE BOWLING on a $200 system which last time I checked is like 100 games of bowling...

So do I think that Nintendo is a sinking ship? Of course not you can't sink when everybody and their mom buys your console. Do I plan on ever owning one? Also of course not. Do I think that the comment from Epic could be detremental to the sales curve that Nintendo has experienced? Yes I do. Epic is a big player and other developers will take notice so will real gamers who may have been on the fence about adding a Wii to their entertainment center.

Really sum it up this way. Does the cover of the first game look like it will give you more action and intensity or does the cover of the second game look more appealing to you? There is a place for everyone but I know where mine is.

Stuff White People Like #96

So I read this blog which is published only when they have something really perfect. The most recent post was for New Balance sneakers. 

I have to say that after reading it I was not as impressed as with some of the other posts that they have had. Maybe my friends are not quite that white but I will agree with the part about sneakers by the door, there is always at least one pair. 

So if you are white and have shoes go check out this post. It is at least worth the read.

You Tube Videos

Ok so I promise that I will not make a habit of posting random videos on my blog but for a video of this much brilliance I have to make an exception. In the game Halo 3 one of the weapons is a sniper rifle and when you are able to shoot somebody in the head without using your scope especially at a long distance it is referred to as a "no scope" and is usually something that that person brags about not only during the game but afterwards to the person who was no scoped.

Turns out that working with high school kids has some advantages: I never have to go looking for funny videos on You Tube because they have way more free time and find the funny ones for me. So here is a really good video. I laughed out loud and if you have ever played a first person shooter you might at least chuckle.



Update: It said the video wasn't available any longer so I redid the link

End of the Day

I took a nap this afternoon. I stayed up until 1:30 this morning playing Bully: Scholorship Edition on my 360. Sure that still makes me ultra nerdy but I figure you only have so long without kids and you might as well use that time to do whatever you want to.

So I got up and it was all good, I made Erin breakfast, we took Java to the dog park for an hour or so and then we came back and I cleaned out the pool vacuum and then started to get really tired. Maybe it was the lesser amount of sleep. Maybe it was that my alternative was doing yardwork yet again or dishes in the kitchen or laundry. Out of those choices I will choose to catch up on a mid-morning nap any day.

Then Erin left to go and take pictures of a wedding, and I stayed home for a couple more hours and played Bully until I left for church and ran media for the church service. It was a really good service and the lamb that we brought in as the visual aid pooped three times which was awesome...so yeah I didn't think that it would get any better but then the guys trounced the girls in Trivia Pursuit at Mike & Cindy's house after church so it did get better. I was able to actually use some of that extra homeschooled knowledge and answered a majority of questions for my team. It can be satisfying to know that every once in a while all that useless stuff is still there for me to draw on at a moments notice.

Final thought is that because we got home after 11 I had to stand up Jesse Felix on our Halo 3 appointment. We were going to get together and play the new legendary maps but it would not have been fair to my wife to let her go to bed by herself two nights in a row due to video games. I am white and nerdy but do have a heart.

I think that I am beginning to ramble or at least have nothing else to say. Good night. Although this brings me to something about wordpress that really bugs me. Even though I set the time in my settings for this blog, it still changes my day stats in the middle of the day, and this post will probably be listed as on the 20th even though I am most certainly posting at the end of the 19th. May not seem like a big deal but it would seem like a simple thing to keep it as local time for my own blog. Crap now I am getting mad and less tired...hmmm...boring stuff...Windows Vista and all of its amazing features...

Dan in Real Life

I am a big Steve Carell fan. I watch the Office and am excited that it is back. I have been looking forward to seeing this movie for a while and then I heard that it is actually good so we rented it. I will make the rest of this post after we watch it and see if my enthusiasm is justified or not.

Erin's comment was that "It wasnt about what I thought it was going to be about." I kind of agree with that. I was expecting it to be all at his house and getting through every day life or "Real Life" if you will but it was about this extended holiday at his parents house in Rhode Island.

I think my real problem with this movie is that although it was supposedly set in Rhode Island, there was no mention of Quahog, and last time I checked that is pretty much the only real town in Rhode Island. If you don't know what I am talking about click here for some education. 

Overall I would say that it was a pretty good movie. Different than I was expecting but a good date movie for sure. It was extremely clean and I would have no qualms about recommending it to anyone. However, if you are looking for an in depth analysis of the characters (they were appropriate if a bit stereotypical) or the script (enjoyable if a bit slow) or the acting (cast perfectly all around, even Dane Cook who I was worried would annoy me and didn't) then you have come to the wrong place. But if you are looking for something short and sweet to let you know if you should see a movie, then you are already done. And now I have nothing else to say but finishing before the end of the picture would look weird.

Dirty Italian

Call me a dirty Italian if you want to but I have a soft spot in my heart and mind for a cool fedora. I found this one over at Uncrate. It does have some level of appeal to me although thepattern is not really my style. Also there is the issue that it is made by Fox Racing which means that since I participate in almost no outdoor activities I would be certainly and accurately portrayed as a poser if I donned this hat. However if you want to look greasy and like dirt then this could be your lucky day.

Greatest Gift

I have begun work on possibly one of the greatest most appropriate gifts for anyone that I have ever thought of. I know that there are better gifts like saving their life or paying off their mortgage but I think that this gift when completed might rank up there although maybe in a different category. I have wanted to do this for a couple of years now but am just finally getting around to it. I may or may not do updates on the progress of this as I am unsure of how much I want to be know about this. Just know, it could be for either of you.

The Newseum

I am a bit of a news junkie, a bit of a collections junkie, and a bit of a design junkie. What in the world do all of these things have to do with each other you might ask? Well first I will talk about what I found yesterday and then in some later posts I will detail my other collections.

I found the an amazing site for reading the important news events in the world yesterday. Technically i did not find it I clicked on the link provided by TUAW and proceeded to lose my mind over a site called The Newseum. Although that link is not to the home page it is to the part of the site that i care most about, the display of the front page of 627 daily newspapers from 58 different countries.

Now you might ask something like "Dan when there are sites like Google news or Reuters why would you bother with an archaic format like the front page representation of a dying industry?" First I would say something like "you talk a lot like me that is kind of cool" or "that was a strange sentence structure, I am not entirely sure that worked out like you planed." but then I would tell you that I like the more local flavor that I can get by reading the same story in the Times from three different cities and I like to note the design differences that abound between my papers of choice.

Now if at this point you are saying ok big deal I can click through a whole bunch of PDFs that are really annoying because I have to scroll down to the different regions that I am interested in this is really time consuming. That is what i thought as well but then I came across this link and it made the whole thing more worthwhile.

If you actually went over there bravo. For those of you who didnt the summary is that Dave Bednarski wrote a script for Automator (nice program if you want to geek out your Apple) that takes the URL link to the pdf from Newseum downloads it and then combines the front pages of all of your selected newspapers into a single PDF that opens in preview when the workflow is done running. When that is done you can set iCal to run the script at a certain time every day and the end result is the major headlines from every paper you could want delivered to your desktop every morning without you having to do anything. Click here if you want to download the script.

I really like it so far although I think I got a little trigger happy with newspapers I thought I might want to read. Happy newsing.

Lack of Posting

So yesterday at about 11:15pm I suddenly realized that I did no posts for Thursday. I felt sad, dissappointed in myself and even though both of you probably did not even notice, I felt like I did a small disservice in not putting up some of the really cool things that I found online yesterday.

It was in all honesty a pretty decent day. I was able to get some major work done on the spreadsheets that I have been working on and so that was nice to be able to wrap up this morning for our client meeting this afternoon. I have a shot of it and keep in mind that we used $100k because anything more just gets ridiculous with the number of zeros and we just really look at the percentages and ratios. 

Then I was able to also make some significant progress in some of the more mundane details surrounding our marble and the minutia of how we want our phone system programmed. 

Then I was at church for a media team meeting which was good and also a presentation for a new ministry looking for volunteers. Turns out I already do a ton but they of course need a media/tech team so I will probably end up training their people at the very least anyway. Not that I mind at all. I really actually enjoy it but I think that in this particular instance they will need 30-40 people when it is all said and done and that the 10-15 hours per month are probably about half for the people who are the core of it. That being said good ministry even if the presentation was three times longer than we were told that it was going to be.

More on the goodness that was yesterdays internet coming later this afternoon.

What I am listening to

I thought that I would throw up a little video showing what I am listening to. I could post it in a boring old list spreadsheet style with hundreds of links to the song, album and artists but what fun would that be. See if you can recall the band based on the album art.

New Object of Desire

So I have been looking for a messenger bag for a while now. By a while I mean probably six years or so. I just think that they look cool and I carry a lot of stuff in my pockets so it just makes sense to have a bag. Backpacks are kind of out of the question for a more professional environment so it needed to be something that looks good and functions for all the stuff I carry.

There was one way back in the day from American Eagle that was perfect, looked good and was cheap. I didn't have a laptop at the time so it would have been a bit frivolous. Incidentally if you clicked on that link, I looked and they do not have messenger bags anymore so that is why it is just the home page.

I have been drooling over some of the different Fossil bags that have come and gone over the years but again without a laptop it has been hard to justify the $150 or so that a good bag costs. Well hold on kids because I found something today that put Fossil entirely out of my mind.

Behold the original postal messenger from JCrew. This is what I have been looking for most of my adult life and finally someone made it just for me. Just read this description and tell me it does not sound amazing.

A handcrafted collector's item in meticulously finished American leather. J.Crew has faithfully re-created the beautiful, oil-tanned mailbags carried by the US Postal Service from 1868 until the 1970s, when the original leather satchels were replaced by blue nylon bags. Designed to last a lifetime and improve with age, our hand-oiled, hand-stained, hand-burnished postal messengers are sewn by experienced artisans on century-old leather machines. Each piece of leather is carefully selected for quality; each historically correct, heavy copper rivet is set by hand. As a result, each "original" leather postal messenger is a one-of-kind with its own unique character. Buckle-strap closure on flap. Interior back wall patch pocket. 1" adjustable shoulder strap with leather shoulder protector fully extends to 46". 

So you are probably saying "Dan why don't you run down to your local JCrew and pick one of these babies up?" I would respond with "It is eight hundred freaking dollars!" Or maybe put another way "I could have this bag or I could pay my mortgage and go swimming in my pool whenever I feel like it." This leads to the question "Why does everything so good have to be so expensive?" Is it so that they can say that it was made on a 100 year old leather machine? How much value does that truely add? They probably got those machines out of the trash and fixed them up and now charge this small fortune because it has even more vintage credit.

I am too annoyed to write anymore about this. If you want some laughs about vintage items then read this post.

GrabUp

So I was browsing around and stumbled upon the unofficial apple weblog. At the very top of the page was a little post for an application called GrabUp. The description sounds good enough and so I went to the site and downloaded it.



What it does is let you do the typical screen grab command (command shift 4 for the uninitiated) and then it automatically uploads the shot to their server and puts the URL for the hosted image on your clipboard. This means that the image above was done with literally one click and two command functions.

For those of you who care about some of the more technical details it is a system preferences pane that resides up in your menu bar if you want it to which means that it also gives you really easy access to past screenshots through its drop down menu.

If you are into screen grabs like I am then this is a killer app that is free give it some love.

Victory is Mine!

I finally wrangled down the contractor on costs. Holy crap! This has been a long time coming. I declared I was done with the financial part of this contract two weeks ago and that got me absolutely nowhere. This time I am going to refrain from such a proclamation. Still, hooray for major progress and a sense of accomplishment in the workplace. Also hooray for marble work surfaces throughout the office! I am now officially getting excited to move in to the new offices.

Remember Ring

Ok so this is something that I have not had the need for yet. However it is impossible to think of Marraige without the stereotypical situation of the man forgetting the anniversary or valentines day or birthday or all of the above.

This is the solution to all of those fears/nights of sleeping on the couch. This is a picture of the Remember Ring which promises to help you remember the date of whatever event you are afraid of forgetting. Personally I think that heating the metal up to 120 degrees for 10 seconds every hour for a day could result in some kind of burns for people with sensitive skin. hey who doesnt have sensative skin under their ring there is never any sun and it always looks white and pasty under there. Anyway also not worth the money because I do not plan on forgetting the important dates in my life but for those of you who are not so confident feel free to check it out.

You can check out the original post from Uncrate Cool Stuff or you can go direct to the manufacturer and get yours today.

Update: Turns out that this product is a concept right now and is not in stock. Maybe if you really want it bad write to them and they will make it for you. Still it is kind of a cool concept if nothing else.

Big Day

No this is not a big day for any of the traditional reasons that someone might say it is a big day. I am not buying a house, having a child, getting a new car or going on vacation. This is the look of someone who is watching the Legendary Map Pack download onto his Xbox 360. So not only do I plan on playing those sometime during the day but my actual playing of them will be delayed by a Rock Band party tonight at church.

We are having an event for the high school kids who do not have a small group so kind of an outreach to church kids. It should be a lot of fun and I am still totally excited for it. I think some of my boys will be there and that would be amazing because they totally shred.

Work actually could be significant as well. I finally got the change order paperwork from the contractor after two weeks of hounding on a daily basis. I looked over them briefly and I am pretty sure that they included things that were already in the contract so I am bracing myself for having to tell them that after all this time and all of my clarification to make sure they did their job they really did not. I think that (my apologies if you are or are related to a contractor) contractors really have no business sense. They are great at the mechanical building and even good at the organization of that but when it comes to being accurate with numbers, holy crap has this been a nightmare of inaccuracies.

Maybe more later probably be a busy day. At least shots tomorrow of playing games.

bedtime

So when all the shouting was over I finally was able to get the wireless rock band guitar. I believe (according to the Gamestop guy and their website) that I got the last one in the entire Phoenix metro area and I have to say that makes me feel special.

I played with it a little bit tonight and it is so liberating to not have a wire tying me to the TV. The downside is that the buttons and strum bar are a bit stiff. I think that your skills develop along with your guitar it becomes part of your skill and there is a learning curve to pick up any other one besides your main one. That may sound stupid to those of you who don't play but I stick by it.

So seriously though, 11:15 time for bed.

new look - Freshy Theme

I wanted to do this theme from the beginning but could not design an original banner that was that small. So now that I already had a banner for the bigger banner on my old theme, it was much easier to reduce and reposition existing layers.

It is highly likely that neither of my readers will care about this, but for my own preference, I think that this theme looks much nicer and is easier to work with and easier on the eyes.

Partial Update - Girls should not work in video game stores!

So I posted a preview of my day today and one of the things on the list was getting the Rock Band wireless guitar for my 360. I was told on Friday that there were a couple that had been reserved but not picked up and that if I came by on Monday I could get one if they had not been claimed. Sounds good.

I went in there this morning at 10:05. The girl behind the counter was talking to someone (sounded like a BF) and finally asked me "what do you want?" I explained the situation and what I had been told and she went into the back and looked and came out saying that they only had PS3 versions and the 360 version does not come out until Wednesday. I left knowing that I would not get anywhere trying to recount a conversation I had with someone else.

 Incidently this is a screenshot from the Gamestop website that I first came across on Thursday. I didn't want to wait to ship it so I checked my local store which is what prompted the above situation. If you notice there is a little stock availability next to the item on the page so I called Legacy Village and they are holding one for me.

This is why girls should not work in video game stores. They do not care enough about what they are doing to get accurate information. Not only is the guitar released, it is selling from your website and has already stocked and sold out of a sister store 12 miles away! I really despise incompetence especially when it means that I have to inconvenience my schedule. I should have just had it shipped last week...

Thoughts About Church

I was going through some of the past posts on Patrick Rice's blog and came across one that gave me pause because it hits near home with what I am involved in. I read through both Patricks and his friend Scott's posts and I do agree with them both to a point. So below are my thoughts kind of as they came to me without any real editing so if it does not make any sense, I apologize.

I guess I would just say that you should not as a local church body try and be something that you are not. If you are made up of poor college students and that is who you all want to keep on ministering to then by all means do it. If you are in a really conservative environment and it is expected by some people that the pastor should wear a "tie" or "slacks" when he is "preaching" then by all means, those people need to be fed and ministered to as well.

On the other hand, I personally am heavily involved at one of these "churchasaurus'" and work on the environment and atmospheric team no less. The pressure that we put on ourselves as a team to make the atmosphere not only as inviting as possible but also the most conducive for worship and learning is intense to put it mildly. However it is worth it all when we can look back and say that the atmosphere and the environment helped put enough seeking people at ease that God brought more than 150 people to himself last year. We just had a baptism service yesterday after church and around 50 people were baptized, most for the first time.

I guess I am saying that as someone who is involved in the church environment and is on a team that works on the "sex appeal" of what we present it is certainly not for every church out there nor is it for every demographic. There needs to be a mix and local churches are parts of an overall body just like each of us are as well. We all have different parts to play. Our church is about life change (I actually came up with the slogan on the website during a branding brainstorming session) and everything that we do goes to facilitate that happening. 

As for the references to trying to be to excellent or trying to put too much emphasis on excellence I would say that is a big bogus. Excellence does not have to be in the same areas for everyone. We just moved into an eight million dollar building that is not even finished yet but the parts that we were able to complete are done with excellence. It does not mean that if you cant be the best in the county don't try something, what it means is that what you do attempt do it to the best ability that your resources both human and financial will allow.

For me excellence means that if our lighting cues just got changed right before the service we go down and rebalance the cameras so that it is not distracting to someone who is trying to pay attention to what the pastor is saying. For someone else it might mean that as a solo worship leader they practice their songs one more time before Sunday morning to make sure they do not make a distracting mistake during worship time. Whatever the situation do it in such a way that at the end of the day everything was done in a way that allowed guests and regular attenders to get as close to God as possible. That is what I strive for when I volunteer.

All that was kind of just coming to me. Not really sure if it all makes sense or if it sounds stupid but I just wanted to throw something out there from the perspective of one of those "sex appeal" churches.

Preview for tomorrow

So two things will likely happen tomorrow. First I have a client meeting at 8:30 I think we are setting up an annuity or at least selecting a company and program and then I am going to go and buy one of the last three wireless rock band guitars left in the whole valley. Gamestop will not sell you ones that have been reserved until they have sat there for a whole week unclaimed so I am going to try and get away at around 10am and nail one of those suckers.



Also I just posted a comment on Patrick Rice's blog saying that I would illustrated the ease of posting a custom blog on a mac. So I will also be recording my screen during the process of updating my other blog and then posting the video here. Sure it will probably be an exercise in "who really gives a crap" but I sort of do so that is what matters. Also check out Jason Rice's latest post on how he fixed his back fence, good pointers if you live in a place where they do not give you concrete walls around your yard automatically.

Response to iTunes queries

Recently I posted about how much I like the Raconteurs new album Consolers of the Lonely. Nice little post. In an off the cuff sort of way I said:

Ok so I am not as huge a fan of music as my good friend Mark Artrip but I do have a bigger iTunes music library…not that I’m keeping track.

Now I did not necessarily mean for that to start a "mine is bigger than yours contest" because I thought that it would just be accepted at face value by whomever chose to read my blog. I now realize that Mark does take music much more seriously than I do and so he commented:

wait a minute, I would like to know how big your itunes library is? and if it is bigger than mine, I would like to know how much of that music you obtained legally. I like to think that I have one of the biggest legal libraries around….all terrible christian music from back in the day….but still:)

Now I will say to start off with that a blog on the internet popular or not is probably not the best place for anyone to quantify or justify the status of what is contained in their collection of media no matter what the format. What I will say is that I have never counted a library that way because honestly, I have moved my music around so much to so many different computers and in different formats that I am not sure anyone could really tell what is from where other than what I have bought from the iTMS itself. So for just the sake of defining legality lets say that only songs purchased from iTunes count since if you believe the record labels importing off of your own cds breaks copyright since it constitutes a change in format and is thus illegal. In that arguement I have 156 songs which take up 562.7MB of space and would take 9.5 hours to listen to. Not that much. Here are screengrabs of my overall library.

A lot of this actually has been ripped off of CDs or DVDs that I owned (and since got rid of because CDs take up space) at one time. Most of the stuff that I got in college has been long since deleted as my overall storage capacity expanded or contracted. I will say that changing from a desktop to a laptop prompted me to unload a huge amount of content both in the tv shows area and in music. Things like the entire audio books for the LOTR trilogy added a ridiculous number of tracks and play time to the stats. I have also been getting rid of a lot of albums that quite frankly I will never listen to again and am not even sure where they came from. 

As a wrap up to this post about music and libraries let me include a link to an amazing post that I read this morning on this very subject. Below is one of my favorite quotes from it but you can read the whole thing here if you want.

Because of the availability of music online, a very strict social hierarchy has been created within white culture whereby someone with a large MP3 collection is considered “normal,” a large CD collection is considered to be “better,” and a person with a large vinyl collection is recognized as “elite.”

First of the Day

Ok so first and foremost for today I wanted to show this watch which was featured over at Uncrate and actually looks totally hot. Nothing says Dick Tracy quite like making and receiving calls on your really cool looking watch. Throw in the bluetooth and it really becomes pretty slick. My only problem with it is that the name pretty much sucks like a Hoover. Come up with something better than Watch Phone.

Now you may be wondering why I put a whole screen grab into my own post and that would be a good question. I think that they said everything really well. So you can read what they said without another click and I can make my life easier by just referencing what they said in the same place. All this to say I may do this more in the future so don't freak out. Unless of course this is against all blogging rules because I am eliminating a click back for them. I am new to this so if this is un-kosher let me know.

Anywho...this watch not only looks sick but who of you reading that was alive in the 80s didn't want to be able to make phone calls from their watch? To bad that it took so long to come out and look good because I am kind of at a point in my life where a watch is an unnecessary luxury item. Seth Nash might jump on it but for me I will just be content to know that some dreams really do come true eventually and with no effort on my own part.

Typing word test

Ok so I am not usually a sucker for these things that you take a little test and then post it in your little myspace page and make it all cluttered looking. But I am usually pretty proud of being able to type quickly and accurately. So I found this site that is a typing test using the most common words in the english language. I did better than I thought that I would.

69 words

Also here are my more specific stats.



So there you have it. I actually do type pretty fast. If you want to take the test for yourself and compare scores click on that first image or click on this link here. So bottom line according to this study on page 6, I am in the top 10% as far as typing speed goes. The average is 39 WPM so as long as you do better than that you should be good.

Blog of a Friend

So although she publishes mostly information about having babies and stuff my good friend Jihae Watson is a very good writer. So while I will probably not read her blog on a regular basis because babies are gross, (just kidding) she does also write about life in general so that is cool. Also I told her that I would link to her off my blog. Here you go Jihae.

Wall Saver

Update: I added video captured of my desktop hosted on YouTube

I briefly mentioned this little application in my about page and I just wanted to throw it out there as something that I use. Something that I have wanted for a really long time is to be able to always have my screen savers on. People put a lot of time into screensavers and things like that so it only seems reasonable that I should not have to be away from my computer to be able to enjoy it. This is what a cool screensaver looks like when it is your desktop. Also a cool way to read the news.

In case you are totally vain

Update: Forgot the picture the first time.

Just in case you are so into yourself that there is no limit to your obnoxiousness there is a company called eleven forty that is making some custom cuff links. I found the link through Uncrate but thought it vain enough to be posted. 

I have to admit that it would be pretty much the ultimate in flashiness or maybe even a nice gift to someone. It would still be a bit weird to have my wifes face on my sleeve no matter how much I love her though. Would you take the plunge? I probably would not for $425. But since you can get anything made maybe I would make a Master Chief head as the ultimate statement of nerd...

Most Worthless Video Game Powerups

I am a big fan of video games and even though I didn't have my own proper system until the N64 I am fully aware of most of the older games even if I do not have as many hours as some of the hardcore fanboys out there. I stumbled upon this list of the most worthless powerups over at 1up and I find it to be totally awesome and hilarious. If you spent any time growing up with a NES or a Genesis then you should take a peek at this list. I laughed audibly...well actually snickered. Just wanted to say snickered.

RSS Menu

As promised I wanted to continue to show some of the cool little applications that make my life more enjoyable. One of these is called RSS Menu which can be found by clicking on that link.

I never really read blogs very much until I had this sitting up in my top menu bar telling me that there are new articles to read. I am kind of a surface reader so as you might have surmised from the list of blogs that I subscribe to it is usually just a small two or three minute diversion.

I really like how customizable it is being able to set the refresh rate for each blog individually and also letting you put in authentication information for those of you who subscribe to blogs that are kept secret or are sold at a premium. Not really sure what the point of a secret blog is but whatever floats your boat.

All that being said, I used to use Vienna as my RSS reader but I got tired of having to have yet another program open. I will probably do a post on Vienna later as it is an outstanding program as well but for right now RSS Menu deserves every minute of the spotlight.

Yard Work

So there are some good things and bad things about owning a house just like my good friend Mark Artrip is discovering with his recent posts about his to do list. At the top of my to do list for probably the next couple of months is cleaning up and renovating the back yard for really cheap. Those of you who have not seen our house at all can check out those pictures here.

So the inside has gotten most if not all of the loving as far as time and money is concerned and justifiably so since that is where we spend most of our time. But as swimming season approaches we and presumably our friends and associates are going to be spending more time outside and this means that we need to have our act together so that people are not traipsing through wondering what kind of trailer trash leave their yard like this.

So the process has begun to transform it. This album on Facebook shows a combination of three weekends worth of work so far. The first pictures are from when we started and highlight the weed problem that developed almost overnight. Turns out that rocks block pretty much nothing in the way of weeds. The second pictures depict the struggle to take out tree stumps and level out that rise that goes up towards our back fence. So this topic of yard work will probably be one that gets updated frequently if not every weekend. I will do my best to share the things that I learn about planting grass, swimming pools and sprinklers or whatever unforseen issues come up.

Mercenaries 2

It has been a long time since I heard anything about this game. For any of you who played the first game, I thought it was pretty good. I loved that it was this giant playground where you could just run around for hours blowing stuff up an not even take on the missions. I think that at the time it was my cleaner version of GTAIII.

All that being said I have been excited about the release of this game for a while. I expect it to be more of the same but maybe have a way to shortcut from operations headquarters to headquarters. In the original if you wanted to take on a mission you had to go to the South Koreans, Americans, Mafia etc and sometimes depending on "traffic" it could take 15-20 minutes just to drive over there. It would be nice if there was a menu option to skip around so that you could hop from mission to mission a little quicker. Maybe make it cost some money or something that way you are not bailing out of unexpected firefights all the time.

Anyway I think this game will be great and here is the trailer for your own enjoyment:

ActionTriphref="http://files.filefront.com/Mercenaries+2+World+in+Flames+Trailer+HD/;9950199;/fileinfo.html" title="Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Trailer (HD)">Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Trailer (HD)

sweetest shirt ever

So i was bumming around reading some of the different blogs that I subscribe to and came across a link through Uncrate that led me to ThinkGeek and one of the coolest nerdiest things of all time. This shirt has a built in speaker with a wired remote and pre-programmed music that comes with it. The first thing that I thought of when I saw it was the Family Guy episode where Peter got three wishes and one of them was to have his own personal soundtrack.

This shirt was all originally intended as an April Fools joke but apparently the geeks out there wanted it so bad that ThinkGeek is actually working on putting one into production. If nothing else at least watch the video that they made.

The 80s are still alive

I saw an article that is circulating information regarding a remake of the classic Short Circuit. The article that I am referring to can be found here. I think that for my own sake I would rather not see this movie remade. Some things are better left the way that we remember them. Robots that come to life now does not seem like as much of a stretch from reality and not as special back then it was like way out there now it is still way out there but we can make things that could fake it. I vote no for this remake...what do you say?

The Future is going to be awesome!

Ok so I was browsing around the internet today I was on digg and found some articles that lit my imagination on fire. The first one was so popular that the first server crashed and it is hosted on a mirror set up to alleviate the "digg effect" that is common especially to Wordpress.

The list is about futuristic materials and I have to say that three really catch my mind. I have to be up front and say that the excerpts below are straight up copies from the list so go and support those guys who wrote it originally if they can get their server back up.

Aerogel - holds 15 entries in the Guinness Book of Records, more than any other material. Sometimes called “frozen smoke”, aerogel is made by the supercritical drying of liquid gels of alumina, chromia, tin oxide, or carbon. It’s 99.8% empty space, which makes it look semi-transparent. Aerogel is a fantastic insulator — if you had a shield of aerogel, you could easily defend yourself from a flamethrower. It stops cold, it stops heat. You could build a warm dome on the Moon. Aerogels have unbelievable surface area in their internal fractal structures — cubes of aerogel just an inch on a side may have an internal surface area equivalent to a football field. Despite its low density, aerogel has been looked into as a component of military armor because of its insulating properties.

Transparent Alumina - Three times stronger than steel and transparent. The number of applications for this are huge. Imagine an entire skyscraper or arcology made largely of transparent steel. The skylines of the future could look more like a series of floating black dots (opaque private rooms) rather than the monoliths of today. A huge space station made of transparent alumina could cruise in low Earth orbit without being a creepy black dot when it passes overhead. And hey… transparent swords!

Bulk Diamonds - We’re starting to lay down thick layers of diamond in CVD machines, hinting towards a future of bulk diamond machinery. Diamond is an ideal construction material — it’s immensely strong, light, made out of the widely available element carbon, nearly complete thermal conductivity, and has among the highest melting and boiling points of all materials. By introducing trace impurities, you can make a diamond practically any color you want. Imagine a jet, with hundreds of thousands of moving parts made of fine-tuned diamond machinery. Such a craft would be more powerful than today’s best fighter planes in the way an F-22 is better than the Red Baron’s Fokker Dr.I.

Also there is an article here about a system to think speech into a computer. It is in its early stages of development and can only detect about 150 words right now but this could explain all of those aliens in scifi movies that can seem to communicate with each other by thinking it is really just a cell phone for your brain and an appropriate receiver in you ear...totally sick.

The Raconteurs

Ok so I am not as huge a fan of music as my good friend Mark Artrip but I do have a bigger iTunes music library...not that I'm keeping track.
Anyway I am totally addicted to the new Raconteurs album Consolers of the Lonely. You may or may not like Jack White but I think that not only is he awesome but when combined with an actual band that is not Meg his songs are totally sick. Give it a listen if you have not heard it already. Note that the link to the album that i put up is the link to where you can download the songs directly from the bands website. Enjoy.

meetings - mind node

So I was at a meeting over at our building from 9:00am until 11:45am. Yikes! We talked about so much stuff it was ridiculous but hooray for two things: My MacBook Pro and Mind Node. Most of you will know about the first one because we all know that Apple rocks my socks but less well known is this software called Mind Node.
I think that I might actually live up to my promise of including some or all of the little free add ons that I have that make my life so much easier on my mac. There are a lot and i will include links on the side bar so that they will always be there.

working

So this morning I am doing a little drive by on the construction site. Not the bad kind, but the kind where you randomly drop in on the contractors and make sure that things are actually happening and are going to happen in the way that they are supposed to. Tony is a really great guy but right now it seems like his subcontractors are pushing him around. I have been waiting for three days for answers to some really simple questions that we need answered before we can make final decisions. The question "how big are the marble slabs that we are ordering?" should be a relatively simple one to answer. Or "how much does light A cost and how much does light B cost?"
All this being said I am hoping that these things, marble fabrication and overhead lighting choices do not set us back into the stone age on our timeline. cross your fingers. more later.

header

So I put up a new header. Since I think I show a total of 0 views on any of my posts chances are that no one actually saw the old one anyway. I think that I am going to keep this one for a while. There are some things that I definitely like about it and a few things that might grate on me as time goes on but overall I think it is pretty decent for about an hours worth of time. Let me know what you think.

running

So Erin is on a diet exercise regimen and is counting calories and exercising and all of that good stuff. So of course I am feeling what I call the halo effect of that. Basically I also am eating healthier and exercising muscles other than my two thumbs and pointer fingers.
So last night was the first night that we went running and I have to say that although I did not run for very long there was a little stretch where I kind of flipped the switch to see if I could still move quickly and it actually felt pretty good.
On that note I have this pair of Puma Alsten shoes. I use them as my every day shoe but like a lot of Pumas they are really sprinting shoes that look good. Well let me tell you that they are actually more comfortable when you are going really fast then when you are strolling around. I was really impressed and it removed the doubts that I had that I could actually do running in those shoes.
Kind of a long post to talk about running, but it was kind of exhilarating and fun at the same time. Maybe I will do it some more.

DaFont.com

Also, I should mention that another place that I frequent is www.dafont.com. Not only can you search the thousands of free fonts that they have but you can type in what lettering you are going to need it for so that you can see a preview. This may not be much use to anyone who does not do graphic design but for those of us who dabble and do not want to create our own typeface from scratch this is a great resource.

title bar

So I am in Photoshop designing my own header bar. The problem is that the different themes have different sizes that are their default size so I really dont want to put forth the effort to design something that will not fit the same way or will be distorted if I change themes later on down the road.
I think that I may just go with a theme that although overall may not look the coolest, will provide the biggest canvas for my title bar because you can always trim down without as much effort as trying to size back up.

godaddy.com

I just wanted to say that GoDaddy.com is fantastic for hosting websites. Sure the commercials that they show during the superbowl and that say to go to their website are shady at best, and sure you have to have the will power to not get suckered in by all of those add ons but if you can manage all of that you can get hassle free hosting for really cheap. I now have four domains that point to different parts of my .mac website and to this blog, I think that it will be really nice going forward. K that was it just wanted to make sure you all take advantage of registering your name as a domain before it is taken by someone less cool.

places I frequent

So I go a lot of places all the time while I sit here at my desk. I think that part of what I am going to do is talk about the merits of those places and what they can do for me. I should warn you that I am a bit of a nerd so if these sites take an extreme tech bend then I apologize in advance and if you keep on going that is probably your own choice.
All that being said I think that there is a lot of value in learning where other people go to make their computers personal. Some of the sites and little enhancement apps only are for mac so I also apologize to those of you still stuck in the Windoze world.

First and foremost I would be amiss if I did not mention Google News. Sure there are other sites out there for news but I check this one all the time. If you have a gmail account (if you dont then you are missing out) then you can customize the news page to the story categories that you are interested in or stories that come up from a specific search like I have a section for news related to my zip code and also a section for news related to the new york yankees.

This is a pretty basic one but if you don't at least use google news some of the time you are missing one of the easiest to browse news sites ever. More later.

First Wordpress Post

Merp the PhytoBear!

So seriously there are only three other people out there that will have any clue about what that means but I had to start of the wordpress blog with something.
I am really not sure of what this blog will turn into. I have my blog over at www.danieldezago.com but I find that I don't update that as much as I would like and I also find that when I want to do a vlog I am usually at work and it is a little difficult so maybe this will be my during the day musings in short form and the blog over there will be my main once a week bring it all together kind of blog in video form.
We will see if I keep this one up any better than other attempts in the past.