Well another year has gone by, yes yesterday was my Birthday (yay Bastille Day).  I think I’m starting to feel the 32 years I’ve been around, as will be witnessed by what I’m talking about this week..

First, let me just say, that I love fried foods.  Moz Sticks, Provago Wheels, French Fries, Donuts.. it doesn’t matter, I’ll eat just about anything fried.  So, what better way to merge two of my favorite things, into one.  I found a “Fried Twinkie” recipe on the interwebs and thought I’d try it out.  I’ve heard these are supposed to be the bomb-diggity, so why not.

Okay .. Let me just say, this was the WORST food for you ever.  This thing, I’m sure, would kill a rhino!  The batter was good, the gooey-ness of the twinkie inside was awesome.  However, the heaviness of this thing I could tell was just choking off my arteries.  It was a pretty good treat.. but the recipe called for making 6, and no one else would try them, so I felt compelled to eat three of these things… needless to say I was sick for the rest of the night!

Next, can I just say that I used to LOVE wrestling, when I was a kid.  WWF, WWE or whatever it’s called now, I can see kids enjoying for entertainment value till about their 20′s (past that, I dunno).  I myself, do not consider myself a sportsman by any means either.  Loathe most of the normal sports (basketball, baseball, bad-mitten, what have you).  But let me just say if you EVER get the chance to see a bout of roller derby, DO IT.  This was the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen in my life.  These girls were good sports and they worked HARD at what they do.  You wouldn’t think that skating for 20 minutes at a time is very taxing, but just go watch these girls work out.  It was the most entertaining thing I’ve seen since ABC’s Wipeout.  And our girls trounced the Chicago Crew by 70 points.  I’m definitely hooked, and think I will be getting tickets for every bout that I can!

Finally, on the gaming front, I finished Ghostbusters (on my birthday) on the casual “portion” of the game.  The game was pretty awesome, and I will have a review coming here soon for that, but I would suggest it to anyone who liked the movie, was just as funny.  Good to know that Aykroyd has not lost his touch!

Hello everyone..

It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve talked to everyone, I was in the hospital last week (sun – wed) with BPPV.  My type was what the therapist coined: “Extreme Horizontal Vertigo”.  Basically I had vertigo spells when I turned my head either left or right, and they would last for more than 2 minutes.  If you’d like more information on BPPV, jump here.

BPPV Canals

So far, we haven’t gotten any re-occurence of the BPPV, however they say that it’s a 10% chance that I will have it flair up again this year.

On a more positive note, more info about my world.  I have sent the Kindle back.  It was too much money for not enough return.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’d recommend it to people, I thought it was a great device, however I guess it just wasn’t the right time to get an eReader for me.

On another positive note, we had our Insurance adjuster out to see the damage caused by the storm, we have gotten a check to fix the work and we should be getting that going pretty soon, however we may be displaced for a couple of weeks during renovations.  Seems like most of the house will be replaced after this.

And on a closing note, I’ve started to do some modeling again, I’ll try to show some pics when I get them finalized.. nothing big.. nothing major.. just some “tests” to make sure I remember how to do this stuff.

The Kindle DX: First Looks

Okay, I’ve had my Kindle for over 48 hours now.  I’ve done lots of downloading and such to get some open source and sample chapters on the reader.

Here’s my quick and dirty review of the DX after about 48 hours of use.

First, let’s talk about the screen.  The screen is awesome, the 9.5″ screen really isn’t as big as you thing, it seems really natural to me.. I don’t think I could do the 6″ screen.  The battery is doing very well, on a normal CELL phone it would be “one tick” down.  The wireless coverage is actually pretty good, but as is the cell phone 3G coverage.  However, I have found that I use the USB more than the wireless features of the device.

Kindle in ScreenSaver Mode

The screen is pure awesomeness.  It’s big, it’s crisp and works wonderfully portrait or landscape mode.  The keyboard takes some getting used to.  It’s like typing on tick tacks, but it becomes natural after a little while.

Next, PDF Support.  PDF’s seem to work very very well on this device, as in comparison to the Sony 700.  The one thing I found that I really did NOT like about the PDF support is the fact that you can NOT add annotations to PDF files.  Bookmarks, yes.  Notes, no.. and this is one of my MAJOR things when looking for a eReader.

The Text-to-speech is about what you would expect from a computer.  But it’s not overly bad.  On the other token, the text-sizing is wonderful.  My parents, who both have bifocal+, loved this feature.

I did find, after reading  a few chapters here and there, that I do honestly miss having a hardcover book in my hand.  I am sure this is some sort of nostalgia, but I really do miss having that book in my hand, I’m sure this puts me in that weird “old foggy” section of tech geeks.  I love the ultra-shiny aspect of the device, and the fact it can hold all the books I can think of, and it REALLY does look like a book, but not having that paper in my hands.. I miss it already.. and I don’t really read all that often, but having the kindle in my hands has sparked my interest in reading again.

One thing I did find annoying is that, I have a reading disorder.  I don’t really remember what it is, but it takes me FOREVER to read a page, and I found that in my reading of a page, the screen saver would kick in and I’d have to turn the device back on.

So, now I’m in that “on the fence” moment of sending the DX back, and going out and buying a few books and saving the money for something else.. or keeping it and getting over my nostalgia.

Decisions….comments are always welcome.

As many of you know, I try to keep myself busy.  I found that a good way to do this is to take up a hobby, or 100.   In addition to all the other stuff I do in my spare time, Crafts is another.

Yes I sew.  Yes I knit.  Yes I Cross-Stitch (NO I don’t crochet :p).  Deal with it.  It’s fun, and you get to make things.

Well, a friend of ours was teaching a class on how to make sock creatures.  Now, I’m sure many of you have seen the Sock Monkey.  The Sock Monkey has been around since the 1930′s, and was pretty much the easiest thing to make in Arts and Crafts.  Well over time he’s budded into other Sock Creatures (just about anything you can think of), including the Spock Monkey.  I thought these things were awesome, and I figured, since I knew how to sew why not!

Cover of Stupid Sock Creatures

The class, which is 2 nights once a week, was held at Home Ec, a wonderful little Thread-Banger store in Iowa City.  They are nice people, give them a visit when you can.  The class, so far, was awesome and I have a Sock Man started.  There are, however, no plans on what he will actually be.. but it’s a start.  I’ve also been looking at maybe getting the Stupid Sock Creatures book as well and doing many more of these sorts of things.  Goodwill is a plethora of used socks I’m sure we could use and low prices.

More over, this class is  yet another attempt at trying to get the impending delivery of my Kindle.  Keep the mind busy, it won’t know how to cope.

I leave you now, with SPOCK monkey.  Live long and prosper!

Spock Monkey, attacked by tribbles