Stuff I find to be interesting, funney and off the wall

Friday, April 29, 2005

Friday Funnies

Watch out he's got a burrito!

So a high school student brings 30" burrito to school, wrapped in tinfoil, for a class project, and some how someone sees this large object and assumes its a gun. The police barricade the school, and then the have an assembly and a boy speaks up and says I think you mistook my burrito for a gun. HA! Now he's call burrito boy! Got to love High School

Exploding toads

In German, there is a strange pond where the toads haven been exploding, scientist are dumbfounded and are not sure why its happening. I think they overlooked a big possibility! Check out the kids of that area, see if their is a run on pop-rocks or maybe Alka-seltzer! Crazy frogs will eat anything. May they should hose down the place with some Gas-X.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Nimbus

Well for those unaware I am training for my first 5k run. It is going to be as part of a relay team for the Carlsbad Triathlon. My dad is going to bike, and my brother-in-law is going to swim. Anyways I have been trying to run about 3 times a week, and have been trying to follow this guide I found, The Couch-to-5K Running Plan, but I think my running skills a just a small tad better then the starting few weeks they suggest.

So that is some background to my running endeavor. Last weekend was pretty exciting. When I was down in SD, Rob took me over to Road Runner Sports to check out running shoes. All the employees were really knowledgeable about shoes, and matching the right shoe to the right type of feet. Also if you don't believe their word, they have a really neat computer setup. There is a matt you can walk over and the computer records how and what pressure you step with. From that the operator ( in my case CJ, really excited about helping us out ) looks at the pressure points and suggest a shoe and insole to help your running style. She suggested a cushion shoe, and after trying on a few and testing them out on the treadmill, and outside, I picked the Asics GEL-NIMBUSĀ® VI and some green superfeet inserts. The biggest surprise was that it was all Rob's treat! Thanks Rob!

First Nimbus run:
Almost a weekly run now, Chris and I headed out at lunch for a run. Last week ran from work into IV to the beach. I looked it up and it was about 2 miles each way. This week I followed Chris's new favorite route (see map). Before we headed out I saw that he had his gps in the truck, so he took it along for the run. Thus he could see that the loop we ran was 3 miles, just about my 5k. Sadly I didn't make it non-stop yet! We started at marker A, marker B is the 1 mile mark, C 2 mile mark. I made it to about the 2 mile mark, only walking to climb the hill off the beach back to the bike path. Then I was able to go till about the IV school, and then ended up walking/running the last mile. On that last mile my feet were kind of feeling numb, which was strange, maybe my feet aren't used to that much work? Oh well next time I will try for more distance.

Friday, April 22, 2005

Retro Gamin'

What is this? Attach of the 50" Space monsters?
No its my very own classic arcade system. Currently addicted to Q*bert, and Mrs. Pac-Man. Almost a year ago I got the crazy notion of building my own arcade controller. So I searched around on the internet and found a controller board a nice looking classic joystick at ultimarc, and a bunch of buttons off eBay. The controller I used is even USB, so its almost plug-in-play with any computer.

But at the time I only had my computer to play games on. Since then I had purchased my TV, which I was excited to see that it had 2 RGB inputs on it. Then again I did not have an easy way to hook up the TV to a computer as I only had a hefty PC tower, and it was upstairs, and the TV was downstairs, and I am lazy. Anyways I recently got a new to me laptop and was able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together!

Enter: Home Made USB controller -> Laptop -> HD TV!! Soooo much fun

2nd Time is the Charm

So I pulled the trigger, and dropped the $150 again this year, for the chance to win a $1 Million Dollar house! Which in this area isn't to much, but would be more than I could ever buy. Your odds of winning are better then the lottery as they ticket sales are capped at 18,000. And if you signup before May 10, there are a total of 190 other cash prizes and they say your odds of winning at least $300 is 1:100. So C and I spilt the bill and we are keeping our fingers crossed.

Feeling Lucky!
http://www.sbcaf.org/raffle/

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

SWAT Monkey

If a Mesa, Arizona police department takes up the idea, they might be, big might be, training a capuchin monkey to help out their SWAT team. It doesn't sound like they are ready to give the monkey a gun, and some grandes, but hopefully it would be able to get into building and unlock doors, for fetch items. I think its an interesting idea, but I doubt it would ever pan out. Although I think the navy uses dolphins and seals to tell them were underwater mines are, so maybe there is hope yet for some monkey Po-Pos.

SWAT Monkey! a Natural for a Television Show [Reuters]

Friday, April 08, 2005

iPod Guide

If you are like me and enjoy your iPod, and are looking for more things iPod, you should check out iPodlounge's newest iPod Buyers Guide. They have done a really great job creating a free pdf file with pictures and reviews of accessories for you iPod. I know they helped me last year when I was in the market for new case for my iPod. I wonder how many times I can say iPod in this post :P