Thursday, September 07, 2006

Quarter of a Century

On August 25th, I passed the quarter century mark. It was, to my surprise, my "Golden Birthday" as a co-worker pointed out. Having never heard of that, it must mean that this year will be showered with riches(i.e. Green for the Money, Gold for the honeys). My birthday lasted all weekend and it kicked ass. So, what is my reward for turning 25? Cheaper insurance and passing that threshold of asking out teenagers. Damn you, college town.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

My Mom is a Guitar Hero

As I mentioned in the last post, my mom came to visit over the weekend. Before we were getting ready to leave, she noticed the Guitar Hero guitar sitting next to my entertainment nest and asked what it was with thriving curiosity. I told her how you played a rock star and jammed out tunes with this toy guitar, living out fantasies that burrow in everyone's dreams. Now, my mom doesn't play video games; she never has. To see her excited about playing one was thrilling and I couldn't wait to get back home and endure the trials once again.

She managed "I Love Rock & Roll" (a beginner's requirement) with surprising depth and aptitude. I guess it is an attribute of a musician that you can even pick up a virtual tool and disseminate your abilities across the realm of 1s and 0s.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Forget something?

This past Saturday, my mom decided to come and visit me before heading off to stay with my grandparents. We were just out running a couple of errands when mom realized she needed to stop by the ATM to get some cash. As we were pulling up, this guy in front of us drives away done with his transaction (or so we thought). At the ATM we see the "Would you like another transaction?" screen and realize this guy completely ran off without his card. We tried to get his attention, but what can you do in a situation like that?

We decided to take his card so no one else would get it. I called directory assistance, but they were no help.

What would you do in that situation? Daddy needs a new TV!

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Boys of Summer

Inspiration struck me yesterday in the need to actually clean my car. Since moving down to Tuscaloosa, I haven't been able to fully clean my car like I used to (partly due to the fact that I hate washing my car in the designated zone of clean automobiles where I live). Heading over to Jason's house, I decided to grab my polish and wax as well. As I was washing, polishing, and waxing my car, Jason decided to clean out his garage. Several hours later we were done with both.

Sitting around the kitchen, drinking victory beers, the topic of new games came up and I suggested Guitar Hero, ignoring the fact that I don't even own a PS2. After an interesting trip to Wal-Mart to buy food, we grab Guitar Hero. This game is great. Even though it throws everything I know about playing guitar out the window, we still could not stop playing this until sometime after 1:00 am.

Now we just have to get another guitar to rock the duel.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Pictures of You

After a day and a half of trying to get this program to work, I have finally accomplished what seemed the impossible. To begin with, I had to setup a Flickr account. After that, I had to suck down every detail on their website in order to come to the conculsion that "support" was only a tiny breeze of a word thrown out there to be lost among the clutter. What's the point of going to a Wiki if no information is on there? I know it's in Beta, but come on guys!

The steps to get this working:

  1. Set up Flickr account and add pictures

  2. Get a Flicker API code

  3. Download Flapi

  4. Use Flickr's RSS feed to figure out your USER ID and whatever SET ID you want to show up first

  5. Insert these into the config.xml file

  6. Now, if you are hosting this on your own server, then you're cool. Just add the HTML object code for the Flash file and you're up and running. However, if you are, like me, hosted on Blogger, the story is a little trickier. You need to edit the FLA source file Action script to use an absolute reference to your XML file.

  7. This is easy assuming you have Flash 8. I had MX 2004 and had to download the trial in order to fix this. If you want the MX 2004 version, I can send that on your way. You WILL need this action script to compile the movie.



Want to know why you have to use an absolute reference in the AS? Because a new security feature in Flash 7 disallows cross browser data access. There are other workarounds, but they are all under the assumption you have access to the necessary server (which we don't have under Blogspot).

Anyways, check out my initial offering.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Reviews are up

After finally getting around to messing with the site again, I have finished uploading up my past movie reviews. When I get the time I have a couple more movies that I wanted to write reviews for, but haven't gathered the energy. Check them out using the navigation bar at the top of the page.

Friday, March 17, 2006

Arriving soon

After finally arriving at a conclusive state on this site, I think I am finally ready to throw it out there. Blogger is not my first choice for this, but it is free and allows me at least some variations of control. When I feel that I have the time and energy to pursue a greater means and production value, I'll be expanding my horizons, so to speak.

At the moment, I have taken liberty to post most of my movie reviews on the site. I have more, but they aren't worth reading. Also, I'm trying to find the most viable option for posting my pictures, so that section is a hazard zone and you have been forewarned.