Posted by sam at March 25th, 2006
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So after tessacle gave me a sweet tat, I gave her one. She wanted a sun rising out of her … Umm … Well just take a gander.
Posted by sam at March 25th, 2006
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Tessacle gave me a new awesome tat of a totally bodacious mermaid. I named her petunia (and will never wash her off).
Posted by sam at March 24th, 2006
Trying (yet again) to shift my sleep schedule backwards without success.
…
In the following story, I will clearly label each successive failue, for ease of the reader in understanding my level of frustration.
Yeterday my “check engine” light (1) came on. I stopped by autozone and had them pull the code. The result was “cylinder 4 misfire,” a problem I had dealt with last summer. Today I decided to clear the code to see if it came back up again.
While I was under the hood, I thought I would investigate a little further. I pulled out the spark plug to make sure it looked okay. To do this, I have to remove one of the coils that covers it (don’t worry, you don’t need to know what this stuff is for this story). The spark plugs looked fine, so I put everything back together and went to screw the coil back in place.
About 5 rotations into securing the bolt, it (2) broke off INSIDE MY MOTHER F’N ENGINE BLOCK. After cussing a bunch and throwing tools around (and maybe beating up a little kid, I can’t remember), I took a closer look at the problem.
The bolt was still sticking out a bit, so I decided to dremel a line into it and basically turn it into a screw. My dremeling work was beautiful, but as soon as I put a screwdriver to it, it (3) broke apart and left me worse off then I was before.
I decided I would need to “tap” the bolt out. This basically meands drilling a hole through the bolt, shoving something into the hole, and then backing the bolt out. (4) Not having all the neccesary tools for the venture, I hopped on my skateboard and headed down to ACE hardware, about half a mile away.
(5) Springville roads suck, and cannot easily be skateboarded on.
Got to the hardware store, found the tools, got back. I went to drill a hole in the bolt and the drill bit I just bought (6) broke immediately upon touching the bolt. I tried again with the same result. I checked the packaging the drill bit came in and confirmed that they are made for METAL. Apparently this bolt is adimantium.
Jake could see the steam coming out of my ears, so decided to intervene. He got another (mo betta’) drill bit and drilled the hole for me, and then turned the project back to me.
Now was time to use the tap, which I had never used before. I followed some instructions I found on the net. basically you just screw the tap into the bolt, then unscrew the bolt. but wouldn’t unscrewing the bolt just unscrew the tap? Well, I didn’t have a chance to find out, as the tap (7) broke off inside the bolt, (8) rendering all previous work a waster of time, and (9) the situation hopeless.
I threw around some more tools, cussed at some nuns, and slaughtered a goat.
Finally I decided that I can live without the bolt in question (well, it’s not the best idea, but I give up…). Screwed everything back together, reconnected my battery, and got in my car. I turned the key and it (10) exploded in a theatrical fireball, consuming Jake, myself, and our house. Investigators later concluded that the fire was caused by foul-play.
Okay, number 10 was made up, but my frustration level did reach a 9, and a 9 ou to 10 is pretty serious. I better take it easy for a couple days or I might blow a gasket.
Posted by sam at March 24th, 2006
Jake and I finally invested in a table for our projects dungeon and were able to move all of our half-finished DIY projects OFF the kitchen table and downstairs out of the way. Our room mates will be happy and won’t know what to do with their newly reclaimed kitchen respite.
I’m an anonymous devoted follower of your DIY:happy site…and subsequently the charming blog you’ve got going, too. Your latest entry, the “What Sam Did Today…in Awesome-o Vision” one, was so dang good, I decide to share it with my English class here in Franklin, Massachusetts and afterwards, write their own version. Cool lesson plan, huh? Yeah, I thought so too. But it didn’t fly. Mind you, English is not the first language of the students…and they still have trouble with past tense, let alone intense albeit subtle sarcasm. To make a long story short, only the guy from Venezuela “got it.” The French girls, as always, were being catty and chatty during the whole thing and the Japanese guy was asleep. On the other hand, I enjoyed it very much…and I’m from the Middle East (at heart.) Just thought I’d share the international love and fun we have for you here on the East coast. Good luck in California!
Sincerely,
Marie Thompson”
As it just so happens, I’m HUGE in Venezuela right now.
Posted by sam at March 21st, 2006
It’s late and I can’t sleep. So I am going to tell you all a story. It’s called “What Sam did today - in awesome-o vision.” This story is based on real events, but I changed things a bit to make it more like a hollywood production, and less like my life.
10:30 - Went to work
I work as a copywriter for an internet retailer. Today nobody was there. They has all gone snowboarding/skiing/snowdogging/whatever. I was all by my lonesome. So I invited over a bunch of friends and we threw a fat party in the warehouse. There were about 300 people there and fire trucks. You can always tell a good party by the firetrucks.
3:45 - Left work
I left a few minutes early so I could make it over to the body shop. They owed me money, and if they didn’t have it for me I was going to take it from them in teeth. Fortunately, they did have it, because they’re a body shop and they make tons of money. I took a free pen on the way out.
4:30 - Visited the Chiropractor
I see a massage therapist (Jake’s cousin) and a chiropractor three times a week. It’s pretty good. Today the chiropractor tried to break my neck. I flipped backwards and knocked him out. When he awoke, he was strapped to the adjustment table and I had glued his eyes open watching LOST. His brain soon melted. I did many more rad flips. I took a free candy on the way out.
5:15-6:30 - Shopping
Being up in Orem, and having plans at 6:30 I found a gap in my schedule. I didn’t want to drive home, yet I didn’t have anything better to do. I decided to go shopping. Since I am freakishly tall, nothing fit and I got frustrated. I hopped on my private jet to go visit all the major player in the fashion industry. I made them eat cat poo until they promised to make clothes for tall skinny people. Then Lenny Kravitz wanted to borrow my jet, so I took my helicopter home.
6:30 - Band Practice
I plugged my bass into my wireless transmitter and stood outside in the fresh air during practice. It was dark and I could see some movement in the bushes. Before I knew it, I was under attack by a gang of mis-guided ninjas who hated rock and roll. I kicked all their butts with my fists of fury, and didn’t even miss a note in the song.
8:00 - Visited a friend
9:30 - Talked to a friend on the phone
10:00 - Went shopping
I went shopping again, but this time for food. I made a deal with my room mates to rotate who buys parashible items (bread, milk, cheese, etc.) Jake ousted himself from the cheese rotation because he only likes what he calls “American” cheese, which is actually those kraft singles things. I didn’t know anybody actually liked those - I thought they were just for roofing and insulation - who knew? Much food was purchased.
We were followed.
10:45 - Sandwhich
I made myself a sandwhich … actually two sandwhiches. They were poisoned, but I actually spent a few years building up an immunity to iocane powder - so it was no big deal.
11:00-2am - In bed
Watched some arrested development, the office, flipped a few channels, surfed the net, was so attention starved that I actually logged into myspace, and now I’m writing this update. As we speak (and by “we” I mean “I” and by “speak” I mean “write”) I can feel something protruding from my chest. What is that? Hold on lemme take a closer look …. oh man it’s moving … what the ? … oh it hurts! AHHh!!!!!m AN alien just popped out of my chest!!!!11!!!1! someone call th epoflk32rewg45!@#$#!#$$#
(carrier dropped)
Posted by sam at March 20th, 2006
Ah, my poor, neglected livejournal … I have regarded you as naught. Here’s an update at what I’ve been up to.
BEING AWESOME: This is pretty much a given - I’m being awesome all the time. It’s kinda my thing, in case you haven’t figured out. I just got my first “long” haircut ever. My hair isn’t THAT long, but I’m growing it out long as a statement against hitler, who had short hair. This is my silent protest.
MAKING AWESOME PROJECTS: I’ve been working on some projects for the make fair next month. Jake and I will be showing off our warez to a big crowd out in the CA. I can’t tell you which specific top secret awesome projects we’re working on, suffice it to say that they are awesome … and secret.
GETTING FAT: I seem to be getting fat. Not like, I need to buy new pants fat, but like “are you pregnant?” fat. Not really - but I can’t wait until summer so I can go run around and be a kid again. I will ride a bike (providing I am able to obtain one), skateboard down the canyon at breakneck speeds, and jump up and down in place.
BREAKING NECKS: Speaking of breakneck speeds, I’m seeing a chiropractor again, and every time he adjusts my neck I’m afraid that he broke it. He hasn’t yet.
BEING SINGLE: I don’t want to talk about it.
BEING RADICAL: Being radical is much like being awesome, except more 80’s influenced. Being radical consists of: Doing sweet tricks on BMX bikes, talking on walkie talkies, playing laser tag, and buying cabbage patch kids (or garbage pail kids). Being both radical and awesome is an art, an art that I have mastered.
Posted by sam at March 14th, 2006
The first task was to enter my automobile, which I did. Okay, for those of you who have seen my REAL car, this one is a rental.
And off we went! Ooops, I ran over the neighbors lawn. Oh well, nobody likes them anyway. We drove and drove. We must have reached speeds of 35 or 40 MPH.
Posted by sam at March 10th, 2006
I purchased a remote control airplane. It’s totally sweet, but so far it has had a rough life. My first wreck was only from about 6 feet, hooking sharp left and flying directly into the ground.
One wing repair later I was up and flying again. I narrowly avoided a nose dive, only to crash directly into the roof of a nearby gas station and break the nose off. One of the propelers was busted up, so it no longer flew straight and couldn’t be taken off.
So I had Jake hand launch it, and actually flew around with the gimped propeler for a while, but lost site of the plane behind a street light. This is where that little expirement ended up.
Posted by sam at March 7th, 2006
Have you ever heard of augmented reality? Basically it is a concept where virtual objects are displayed in the real world via a special pair of glasses or even your camera enabled cellphone.
For example, when viewing the ground through your cellphone camera, you might see a soccer ball, which you can kick with your foot. The soccer ball doesn’t exist in real life, but is generated by your phone.
It’s a pretty interesting concept and there have already been experiments where they’ve made large virtual games of pac man on a college campus. If you are wearing the glasses you can see the dots and you run around campus walking over them. A GPS is part of the setup to track your movements.
These technologies are still pretty new and conceptual, but development is picking up steam and I don’t think it will be long before we start seeing this technology become widely available. You can already download concept games for certain mobile phones if you look around.
So imagine this: let’s say ten years from now the technology has developed enough to where you can wear a pair of these glasses which are completely non-intrusive and not ridiculous looking.
You’re walking down the street and in addition to seeing real people, you are seeing virtual people who are actually sitting at home on their computers controlling a character. With a microphone and a headphone, you can even go up and talk to these people (at risk of looking completely crazy to people without the glasses).
You can see virtual buildings, objects, crazy look animals, etc. Imagine how cool it would be. The real world meets the Internet world and becomes one.
It sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel, but most of the technologies already exist. Huge virtual worlds with real world value have already sprung up, like second life. All it would take is to overlay something like second life over real world maps.
Cellular technology is good enough to provide a fast enough wireless link, and GPS accuracy for civilians is nearly good enough to do location based processing. GPS, cellular triangulation, an internal compass, and automatic ad-hoc networks with everyone else who is connected would probably be enough to fine tune the location based data.
I don’t care how nerdy it is, when technology like this becomes available (and it will so long as the world last another 10 years), you will see me walking down the street picking up things that don’t exist, putting them in my backpack that doesn’t exist, petting a dog that doesn’t exist, and talking to people who aren’t there. Unless of course, you’re hooked in - and if you’re not you’ll be the nerd.
Posted by sam at March 7th, 2006
Have any of you seen the Natalie Portman Rap video? It was on SNL this last weekend, and quickly appeared on the net hosted by youtube. Within a few days, Youtube got a cease and desist from NBC to stop giving them free advertising and to remove the video.
I can’t help but think it is really retarded on NBC’s part to discount the power of free guerilla marketing. I mean, Youtube was almost single-handidly responsible for making the “Chronic-What?-Cles of Narnia” video an instant hit and boosting SNL ratings (which have been faltering in recetn years). Do they not enjoy the publicity? Do they not enjoy the word getting out that the show now has better writers?
The funniest part is that after making sure the video was available no place else, they made it available on their own website with some stupid message about how convenient it is to have it in only one place, instead of available on a bunch of different sites. Kinda the same as how it’s convenient to only have one McDonalds in Flint, MI - and everyone in the US has to drive there to get a big mac. Man, I’ll never have to drive around looking for a McDonalds again, there’s 1’s of convenient locations in Flint, Michigan!
To add insult to injury, the rap was a rip-off of “No More Questions” by Eazy-E, but they did not credit him at all. So it’s okay for them to borrow and distort copyright, but when youtube does it, fully giving SNL credit, they get hit with a cease and desist.
My final comment is that I do not want anyone here telling anyone about my blog. No linking to me, no quoting me, no nothing. I just want all of my thoughts to be available in a single convenient location. I don’t want to gain more readers by exposing people who don’t already visit my blog to things that I write here. I want to gain new readers by magic, like NBC.
Perhaps NBC execs should enroll in a marketing class.
