Shocking The Senses

What do I spend my Christmas Money on? Installment 2

- December 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Thoughts

If you just can’t wait to turn on the Weather Channel or click the link I just provided and type in your zip code to find out your current conditions, your money might best be spent on a Davis Vantage Vue Wireless Weather Station.  If that isn’t enough of a mouthful, the price will get you the rest of the way (*cough*).  For instant wind speeds, temperature and a gamut of other neat little feature, the just under $400 USD price tag shouldn’t make anyone balk (*cough again*).

In seriousness, for the kids out there who love the “hands on”, weather still isn’t out of the question.  Sites like discover-this.com have kits geared toward all types of different applications including understanding and measuring weather which are much more reasonably priced and will, while not providing instant gratification, teach your children (and you, if you’re like me) a bit about Meteorology.

Oh and by the way.  Am I the only geek who gets a goose-bump fit about this?

May the force be with you.  Merry Christmas!

May Baby!

- December 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Thoughts

It’s a BOY!

So far.

We had our ultrasound last week and my boy, Keiran Robert, was obliging enough to reveal his boyhood to us!  Of course, the doctor covered her tracks with an aptly placed “You see what I see, but I don’t think it’s the umbilical cord, unless it’s wrapped down under his legs.”

Thanks doc.  Love ya but, vague much?  For now we’re planning boy-hood accordingly.  My wife has picked Sherwin-Williams Ionian (we paid less than that) for the wall color of the nursery and my parents are in town helping us choose furniture this Christmas.  It’s exciting and terrifying all at the same time for me as a new father (more exciting though

I’ll take pictures as the room progresses and keep everyone updated moving forward.

Merry Christmas!

Holiday Feasting in the US of A

- December 23rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Thoughts

Our friend, the gobble head.  Turkeys, which were first domesticated in Mexico  and Central America and later brought to Europe because of their quality meat are a staple of U.S. holidays in the fourth quarter of the year.

The phrase “Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner” incites thoughts of stuffed birds garnished on a silver platter surrounded by delicious dishes such as Candied Yams, seasoned stuffing, fruit salad and green bean casserole.  If your family is anything like mine, there is the hustle and bustle of hurried adults trying to navigate around playful, sometimes screaming, children.  Precariously perched on their outstretched hands are paper plates piled with pieces of perfectly parsed tom (whew).

Setting aside the controversial origins of the Thanksgiving turkey dinner, The consumption of turkey in the United States is staggering.

According to the United States Census Bureau, citizens of the United States (as of 2007) consume an average of 13.8 lbs of Turkey per year.  Considering that an average-small turkey, bone, meat and all weighs in about 13 lbs.  Each of the 304,000,000 people in the US is devouring the equivalent of an entire bird (bone and all!) each year!

The forecasted total from sales receipts in 2009?  $3.8 billion USD.  This number exceeds the total sales receipts of peanuts for an entire year!  Maybe domesticated US elephants should start eating Turkey?

Lets keep up the trend, guys!  Make sure to keep extra room in that stomach.  Perhaps, have a second one installed!

Don’t forget all of those delicious leftover turkey recipes like Leftover Turkey and Stuffing Casserole and Creamy Turkey Pie.  Nom nom.  Enjoy your birds and their adornments and most importantly,

Merry Christmas!

What do I spend my Christmas Money on? Installment 1

- December 22nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Thoughts

Looking for something to spend that pile of holiday money on?  Instead of pouring it into surgary confections or action figures, take the next step.

oOo

Stare at the above center circle.  Train your focus.  Stare at the screen and slowly hone your concentration to the point at which the object begins to move.  It takes a fair amount of stubbornness to make it work, but eventually it may start to vibrate.

Not working?  Perhaps this test is not for you.  Perhaps instead, you are more apt to succeed when focusing that attention on a Force Trainer.  This device uses a basic EEG device to “read brainwaves”.  This apparently translates your concentration directly to an increase in RPM of a fan at the bottom of the tube.  In turn, this causes the ball to rise.  A great way to spend ~$100 USD?  I dunno.

On the slightly higher end of the pricey spectrum is the Emotiv Systems new headset, EPOC.  It only recently publically released (like, Monday) so reviews are limited but the promise of the device to detect emotion and facial expression and translate them into games is exciting.  It comes with a piece of software which can translate these items into keystrokes as well as getting you used to how the expressions affect the game.

All in all, a mind control Christmas!  I can’t want to try out my new Jedi powers on my uncle Bud.  Dude, that beer is so mine.

Have fun during the holidays!  More to come in Installment 2, but browse through the above, especially through Emotiv’s website, and keep an eye out for a review reference from here.

Merry Christmas!

Holidays!

- December 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // Thoughts

The parents are in town from out west!  We’re all revved up and have everything purchased for the holiday season.  It got me to thinking about the origins of some of our traditions.  In the next few days I plan on posting a bit of the research I’ve done.  Keep your eyes peeled, I’m back!

Keira and Bella are gettin’ Big!

- November 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Here are the two little rapscallions.  Keira is on the verge of taking off after Bella (cat) in this pic.  Just a little visual update.  They’re both healthy and happy!

Keira and Bella, Big!

What happened to the short movie?!

- October 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

The short answer is… My wife is pregnant!  My focus is re-fixing on a few things and the movie project will have to go on hold for now.  I’ll have more posts once we have more detail.  For now, it’s important to know that she’s healthy and so is the baby.  I’m so excited

Short Movie

- September 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I finally got all of the video put together!  Now comes the daunting task of separating audio and replacing.  The video looks decent considering it was put together with practically 0 budget and a hand held camera.  I had some serious fits with the codecs but in the end, DivX won out.  It worked for all of the effects that I needed.

I’ll update you soon, hopefully with a video link!

Extra Long Weekend

- September 8th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

Gotta love em…

Haven’t gotten much done though.  Started working on my Microsoft Certifications and a friend’s website.  I need to get back to my video.

I’m distracted :p  Someone suggest some focus techniques lol

Codecs suck

- September 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Entertainment, Filmmaking, Thoughts, Uncategorized

So,

I finish editing the video together and low and behold, it won’t compile.

I should have seen it coming considering that every time I split a video, a new FFDShow icon would appear in the systray.  It gets to about 30% and fails due to “disk space” (nope) or “some other error” (….??…..)

So I uninstalled the ffdshow codec and installed the newest DivX full pack.  Got to 75% this time.  I think the answer is ditching Movie Maker.  The problem is, it’s free and I don’t have the budget for anything really decent.

I may give it a go again though.  Maybe having ffdshow in there dorked up the project.  Will let ya know.  This weekend I’m going to tackle it again.