You should be blogging

Found on digg 3.0's video feed. Very hilarious, see what happens when MBA types try to be hip. Almost as funny as the old lady on Airplane that spoke jive.

Goldeneye: Source Beta Trailer

Golden Eye for N64 was one of the best games released for the N64, besides Super Mario Brothers and Zelda Ocarina of Time. My brother and I used to spend countless hours playing each other split screen on the varios maps and game modes. I can't wait to try this out on HL:Source, and play multiplayer without the split screen. Beta Trailer Released! Blurb: A trailer for the upcoming Beta of Goldeneye Source has been released! Showcased in this trailer are the various maps of the mod. More videos to come, and check back later more information. Special thanks to everyone who helped make this possible. A very special thanks to xes garcia and vader02 for the gunbarrel, basstronix and rich douglas for the music.

Ride to B'ham

I rode up to Birmingham with my supervisor this morning. He has a Victory Vegas chopper , and was getting saddle bags mounted on it at the dealership there. I rode along because that would be the longest ride to date, and I wanted to test drive a cruiser. I ended up riding a 2006 Vegas which is a 100ci => 1600cc+ V-twin. It sounded great, and had a lot of power, but I just didn't like the slouching feeling, and I couldn't get used to the feel of having my foot pegs so far forward.
After the Victory dealership, we went up to Bogart's Motorsports, the nearest BMW and Ducati dealership. They did not have any GS demo models available, but they had a R1200S which has the same flat twin motor. Unfortunately, they were out of gas, and their rescue truck was out. I ended up testing a Sportclassic GT1000 around their 6 mile test loop. It had a lot more power than my 600, but the exhaust was just too puny. It sounded like it was puttering the whole time, like a wannabe chopper.
I also saw the Victory Hammer S, and was impressed with it's looks, but I didn't get to ride one. I assume it feels much like the Vegas, and is as expensive. I just can't justify spending as much on a bike as we did on our last new vehicle.

What to do with 200GB of Hosting?

I've found an offer from someone who gives back $90 of the dreamhost referral fee to the referee, making 1 year of basic hosting $30. It seems like a great deal, I just need to figure out if I could actually use it. I already host my pictures on Flicker, and I use blogger for blogging. I don't do a lot of web stuff, so I'm kind of at a loss to justify it.

Post nostalgia fun

The Venture Bros - 07
Uploaded by bobnino

For anyone that liked Johnny Quest, there is a good follow up to it called The Venture Brothers. It is on Adult swim, and features snarky, tongue in cheek satire of that show, and other old pop-culture. The cartoon takes a look at what Johnny Quest would be like at 40 years old, washed out and living off of his father's legacy. It even features the voice of the Tick as Brock Samson, the analog to Race Bannon. Race even has a cameo appearance in one of the early episodes.

Link
The Adventures of Johnny Quest
The Venture Brothers

Why the internet is cool.

For years now, when my mind wandered, I would sometimes think about a cartoon I used to watch, with music, and some Red and Yellow ship. Something in the show was called Master Blaster, and that is about all I remember from it, until today. I was googling around and I found that the show was called "Kidd Video" and it aired for 2 seasons in 1984 & 85, when I was just beginning Elementary School. I was able to find the lead-in on Youtube, but couldn't find any torrents of the seasons on popular torrent sites. Now if I could just find all the Robo-tech cartoons that used to play after school.

edit: Found a Youtube user that has uploaded several episodes and music videos. According to Wikipedia, these have not been broadcast since 1992, and are not in "print".
http://www.youtube.com/user/toolbot

Now I won't have to go to fairs to get anything deep fried

I saw this on Gizmodo.com, and fell in love. Why is is better than a Fry Daddy? Built in fry cage, 175-370 degree thermostat. Short of actually trying it out, I can definitly say that this is more practical than either a Fry Daddy, or a built in Fryolator like you see on Emeril.

Guitar Hero

I purchased a refurb PS2 a while back for the purpose of playing Taiko Drum master and Katamari Damacy. I've found another game that I like while picking up costume supplies at the Walmart, Guitar Hero. It comes with a Guitar Controller with 5 fret buttons, a whammy bar, and a paddle that you move to simulate strings.

Here is a dual controller pack and a dual controller bag.
http://www.redoctane.com/gh-multibundle.html
http://www.redoctane.com/gh2-bag.html

Site rewickering. Quiz results

I've moved my blog over to the new beta version of blogger. There are some "new" features, and adds some visual template editing. I'm not sure if this is new, or just a way to catch up with what other blog sites have been doing for a year or two now.

Pure Nerd 73 % Nerd, 34% Geek, 26% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd. Congratulations! THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

	You scored higher than 99% on nerdiness
	You scored higher than 99% on geekosity
	You scored higher than 99% on dork points

New killer app & taste of Home

After reading about Democracy Player on boingboing I thought I'd check it out. It plays video, but it does even more than that. It promises to take internet video to the masses, but integrating RSS feeds of video, distributed through bittorrent. It means fast, TV resolution videos over the internet, with DVR functionality that can automatically download new videos, and watches your hard drive to keep it from becoming filled up.

I've found a couple of good channels to watch:
Channel Frederator, a podcast done by the guys that do Fairly Odd Parents and My Life as a Teenage Robot.

TeleMusicVision, Indie music videos.

Texas Country Reporter Which was broadcast locally in Houston, and in other Texas towns. I remember this guy from the Dairy Queen TV commercials.

There are still some bugs to be worked out with the player, but it definitly has promise, and provides another great example of the use of P2P technologies for something other than piracy.

Why I care about religion

Found this video thru digg.com. Expresses my sentiments exactly.

Still don't know if I should be happy or disappointed

I found out around 6pm tonight that I will be deploying to the Sunny shores of Panama City, Florida for four months beginning in early January 2007. I was disappointed when I found out because I had really wanted to go overseas. I am tired of being stopped in public when I am in uniform and thanked. I work on computers, I've checked ID cards at the gate. I don't feel like I have done anything that has had that great of an impact on this country to be deserving of thanks. Regardless of the fact that this country is on the verge of turning into something that is not worth protecting, I don't feel like I have really contributed. I was looking forward to going to the Middle East in January, to experience the war as a warrior, even if it is from an Air Conditioned Comm tent. Not to mention the Tax Free status and the hazardous duty pay I would receive.

I will still feel unworthy of thanks, but at least I will be within 3 hours of home.

Rome's 9/11

Just about ever since I took Latin in 9th grade, I've held the opinion that the Roman emipre is the closest analog to the United States. This article in the NY Times gives another look at an event that lead to the destruction of the Roman Republic, and the creation of the Roman Empire. This is relevant now because of the passage of the Military Commisions Act of 2006, commonly referred to as the Torture Bill. This bill allows any American to be declared an enemy combatant suspending his civil rights, based soley on the determination of the President, not a judge. Even without me worrying about this as an American citizen, I worry about this as a service member. I have a good chance of going to the Middle East in January, and the way this bill pisses all over the rights the Geneva Convention affords, makes it more justifiable for our own Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen to be denied Geneva Convention protections by other signatories.
The article compares kneejerk legislation passed after a "Terrorist" attack which burned the Roman port to the USA PATRIOT act. Both legislative acts restricted rights, gave tremendous amounts of money to fight the threat, and metaphorically took dumps on their Constitutions.

Thoughts from the throne room 1

I have a book I keep in my bathroom, and I read it when I am in there for a considerable amount of time. It is Sun Tzu's The Art of War (with commentaries) published by Barnes & Noble. Every time I read it, I seem to come across some principle that we do not seem to follow, or overlook in the prosecution of the current war, based on what media reports and press briefings tell us. I will try to record these on the blog, just so I have someplace to put them.

I read one quote in the commentary part by Thomas Paine that got me thinking.

Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defense. And history sufficiently informs us, that the bravest achievements were always accomplished in the non-age of a nation.... The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture. The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a spaniel.

Most people that volunteer for military service are not drawn out of patriotism, but out of a desire to climb out of poverty or other bad situations. These are the people of our society that have the least to lose, and they are losing their lives to protect the ones that have the most. I don't think it's a coincidence that Republicans are quite wealthy.

Since the beginning of the Cold war, we have been steadily moving towards a more consumerist society, where we are becoming more and more materialistic. To be absolutly free means to be entirely self sufficient and devoid of material attachments, much like Emerson tried to be. How does this jibe with Ben Franklin's oft quoted phrase "Those that would trade liberty for security deserve neither." Is Franklin's position too absolute? Will the US succumb to the same excesses that led to the fall of Rome , a sort of cultural malaise or ambivalence toward the well being of the state. Will this erosion of our libery in the name of security make our currently spaniel-like populace stop taking things for granted?

vista

vista
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

I found out while reading slashdotthat Microsoft was opening up their latest build of Vista, a post RC1 called 5728. I installed it on an unused partition to try it out, and while there is some nice Eye candy, it is a little buggy, and very bothersome with all the security prompts. It would ask me if I meant to run every single program I clicked on. It would not permit me to drag a file from my file server into my C drive, instead telling me to put it in my documents folder, then copy it once it's local. Just after playing with it for an hour, and not getting to in depth with it, I can say this. If XGL starts working better on Ubuntu, and Cedega becomes free, then I'd have no reason to upgrade to vista, except for perhaps to play Crysis.