Fun fact: The system clock on a Game Boy Color drifts slower and slower as the batteries get low (they were kinda "low" to begin with, as I threw in a pair of NiMH's - 2.45v as opposed to 3.0v...)

I'm messing around with "Trippy H" (the funky looper thing that comes on the Game Boy Camera cartridge), and it just keeps getting slower and slower...

Funny thing is, the notes go slightly flat, but the pitch doesn't change beyond that point ... the tempo just starts to slump lower and lower, the noise channel fades, and notes start to get further apart in a bizarre way...

Now I know to use my Acopian variable linear power supply as part of the process if I'm ever recording these silly beats. XD

(icon related. i plugged a "naked" VFD board into my laserjet 4 to create the gif here.)





Hrmm. The PNG is bigger than the gif! I guess I should save it again as jpeg for the site. o.o

This should not be possible, but yet, it is.



It said "Wheel Scrub Photo Sensor Dirty", so I fixed that, then made it dance with the test cycle and had it wash and wax my car. XD

The latest Listening to 11.975 Mhz has what appears to be a ham radio callsign in the background...

This guy...



Serious business? XD

Ok, I'm home now, getting ready to collapse into sleep.

It was WEIRD getting home tonight... I got detoured from the Sawgrass Expressway eastbound to the turnpike northbound (instead of south as i had desired) due to a brush fire right near the exit or ... something. There are no exits for a while off the Turnpike north of Sawgrass, till like Glades Road. I wound up there, with my car totally covered in smoke residue from two nights of fires, and decided it was time to use a happy scrubbing robot.

Found some self-serve wash with a bright red Istobal M8+... or is it M6+? CONFUSING FONT! Paid for Works wash at activation terminal. Machine did nothing. Spent a few minutes figuring out how to initialize machine to home position. Success... happy green lights!! Watched machine gleefully presoak, fail to tri-foam (no big deal), but then scrub like a champ, rinse, wax, and dry. Here's the reset process, if you're insanely curious.

Got home just in time to see weird blood moon setting in the sky. Discovered melted compact flourescent bulb in laundry room, and replaced it. Threw in laundry. Splatted into bed. Done. YAY!

Yay... Elyse and I went to 4Bidden Society last night in Coral Gables, and it was great.

The Kitchen Club moved to Broward, I think, but one of their resident DJs, DJ 16 Bit, is doing this niftiness in Coral Gables on Saturday nights now. It's a small venue, but it was happily packed with people dancing. Wheeee!

... Also, I'm not saying who to protect the not so innocent... XD

This guy we know came with us, and got a ticket for going 145 on I-95. He drives a BMW ---something, and always whines about not having gas money... but then he goes 145 mph. I asked him what the MPG gauge on his dash was showing... it was reading 10.

That's right, he spent about $30 in gas and a $135 speeding ticket just getting from North Broward to Miami. XDDDD

why is the clearance rack always the best? surely, the stuff there must have been on the normal racks... somewhere... but where? and why do i never notice it there before?

location: your generic, typical Mills mall.

TERRIBLE MISUSE OF MODERN MICROCONTROLLER TECHNOLOGY!



Yes... it even BEEPS. XD

Coming someday to a CD player near you:

ＡＫＴＩＶ━━━あ(o\   |   /o)あ━━━ＳＣＨＡＵＭ

The silliest electronic album ever recorded

Expect it to feature lots of clunk, psssssssh, whirr, and rumble...

The name of course will be unpronouncible, because, well, how the hell do you say

あ(o\   |   /o)あ

?

Excuse me while I try to figure out a way to make a Zoom H-4 water resistant...

I wish to state that I feel like such a silly bork.

I changed the spark plugs and O2 sensor... and now my car idles and runs smoother than I ever knew it could.

Why I never did this long before, when I noticed the idle was sometimes rough, or there was an unexplained little shiver at expressway speeds, I will never know.

The plugs were worn out (*normal* wear), so I chose not to clean and regap them. They'd probably been there since the car rolled off the line in Canada! The new ones are some funky pointy nosed NGK G-Power ones, which are apparently the OEM part on newer Civic engines. The old ones were just... old-school plugs, with the cylindrical wafer contact, etc. *yawn*. Unremarkable. They're... plugs.

The oxygen sensor was the interesting one. I had to buy a special trimmed down socket to get that out. Being that I can't see myself needing to change another oxygen sensor in the near future, I'm tempted to just clean that up nicely and return it to the store. XD

Here are some photos of the old one. If you're wondering what the new one looks like, just imagine this, but without the rust 'n' crud. It's also got a differently shaped guard on the tip. No big difference.

Alright, I declare FLYING CHEESE upon that stupid Mobil station at Coral Way and 107th. They're selling gas for 5 cents/gal less than everyone else, which means... surprise... 1/4 mile long lines in every direction, solidly blocking the intersections nearby with unmoving lines of traffic. Yes, this does include at 3 in the smegging morning.

Yeah. You know what, guys? I'm sick of this. Here's your special offer with a fill-up...


(this deal was last heard from in the early 1990s, having disappeared around the same time as those awesome stores in the malls that mysteriously still carried those ugly-in-the-best-way-ever 1980s clothes. bloop.)

Seriously, if you're idling in a 1/4 mile line to get gas, you're wasting more than you're saving. Same if you go more than, oh, 2 miles out of your way for a few cents less per gallon. Get a life. :P

Yeah, I should have used GIMP, but it was stuck doing its font caching dance, and will be until approximately the end of time. ICHC was faster.

I think a set of new spark plugs, an oxygen sensor, some fresh oil, and a filter are needed soon. Foul'd!

From a Fark thread on Amtrak...

Posted by: Mr. Right

saintstryfe: Mr. Right: still use the French Toast recipe as given me by a chef on the California Zephyr.

Any way you could share that? Sounds like something very interesting.

This is for a single serving. You can multiply it as much as required. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Cut 3 slices of bread about an inch thick - 2 or 3 day old homemade bread is best - then cut diagonally to make triangles (food is all about the presentation, isn't it?) In a fairly flat bottomed bowl beat two eggs until pretty frothy, stir in 1/2 cup heavy cream, pinch of salt and a good dash of nutmeg. Soak bread in mixture, a few slices at a time and fry in about 1/8th inch of hot oil just until golden. Place on paper towel and pat top with paper towel to absorb excess oil and place on baking sheet. When all slices have been browned, place in hot oven for 3 to 5 minutes to puff up, sprinkle with powedered sugar and garnish with seasonal berries. If no berries are in season, a bit of warmed maple syrup tops it up nicely or you can make a compote of your favorite fruit and use that. The secret is to fry until browned but the center is not yet done, then puff them in the hot oven.

For brunches and such I have made this in advance, stopping just short of the oven step and then put them in the oven for slightly longer to finish them (as they have cooled). Not quite as good as 'made fresh' but still servable and works for larger crowds.

.... And, after I posted this, I got salmonbotted! I was able to wish someone luck with their 10 page sociology paper, thanks to this robot fish technology. Yay!

I'm 25... at least I think I am... I keep forgetting my own age. XD

Only this year have I realized that I'm actually left handed, and that training myself to do some things with my left hand feels really natural.

Tonight I bowled with my left hand for the first time... once I figured out that I need to put the other foot forward and not twist myself up, it went great.

So far, I've got these down...

Bowling
Eating with chopsticks
Eating with implements that are not chopsticks
Dialing a telephone or other keypad
Using a screwdriver
Using a soldering iron
Scrubbing dishes
Holding cameras, binoculars, and other similar frobnitzes
Drawing... somewhat

Stuff I still need to improve on:

Writing.

This has always been a tough one for me. I was trained to write with my right hand because someone once convinced me I was right handed and should have been doing it that way. Nevermind the fact that I was coloring and using scissors and everything like that with my left hand.. I was too stubborn to notice, I guess, and that made me think I just couldn't write well for 22 years. o.o

Also... I saw someone tonight fail hilariously at washing their car with a Ryko US2001 overhead machine. They parked their car as close as possible to the left side of the bay, without realizing that the L-shaped rail with spray nozzles on it actually has to GO AROUND. WTF? I wish I could have heard the pathetic thump of the rubber padded arm bouncing off their car before causing the machine to throw Error WTF?* and give up after applying nice caustic presoak to HALF of their car. Two Stage Presoak FAIL...

* Code 25. If you're curious how I know it throws 25, let me just say... ANTENNA JAM. o.o;

Elyse just won the anime trivia contest XD

Yay... we've had a great time so far. Also, I am a silly bork. I won this Kakashi figure at "Who Wants to Date a Cosplayer?". It lost.



If I can find some stupid Naruto or Bleach plushie for like $1, expect to see further silliness. XD

Dear FoMoCo:

Give up. Go away. Nobody likes you anymore.

Also, do a Google search and you'll find that Ford is keeping gas mileage info on this piece of piffle under wraps. At least you won't have to remove a gas cap when it's time to fill the fucking guzzler at over $4/gallon! XD

Oh, Ford... admit defeat and go away already.

Leaving a note not to put mini or unusually shaped CDs in a drive, RIGHT NEXT TO THE DRIVE'S SLOT, apparently doesn't work. Guiding some duct tape in with a pair of tweezers and sticking it to the disc to remove it got the cursed thing out. I left it taped to the wall with ANOTHER note saying not to use those... XD

I wish to state that I disapprove of any Christ Primus car wash machine existing that does not speak German.

Why? Because a car wash speaking German is just plain amusing.

In this case, I need to have a word with the people over at Sonny's. I've used one of their new Baywash i5 machines, and it's downright brutal, but got my car clean as a whistle. The i5 is clearly an original design, but this JPEG'd, Flash monstrosity of a page shows a Baywash i3 as existing... which is very clearly made by Otto Christ. In fact, the Baywash i5 contains what appears to be a Christ pump cabinet.

Neither the i5 nor the i3 appear to speak German. This must be remedied.

I desire 5 volt transparent latches with 3-state outputs!

Why? Well, this is why! (And here I thought I was gonna have to code that myself --- someone beat me to it! Let the Phoenixes sing!

Unfortunately, my usual way of obtaining analog chips (free samples FTW) doesn't seem to work for logic chips like 74xxx series. I tried ST Micro, Fairchild, and TI, but none of them had free samples available on any devices similar in function. Weird... I can apparently sample op-amps till the cows come home, but for 7400 I have to contact a distributor. I wonder if that's because discrete logic gates like that are less commonplace in new designs, thanks to cheap and easy to use software driven programmable devices?

Anyway... does anyone know of a vendor that still does free samples on 7400, or even an online store that doesn't have stupid shipping/minimum order costs? I'm particularly looking for 74xx373 or 74xx374 (type doesn't matter. i'm not trying for optimal power efficiency here!), or any equivalent transparent latches with tristate. I need only 4 bits for that programmer.

WARNING: The GE Phoenix SX radio is ugly enough to peel paint. Do not ever look directly at a GE Phoenix without protective eyewear. If you do happen to ever look at one accidentally, wash out your brain with something like L Caramelldansen.