I just bought this neat little monkey from a great site called woot.com. According to wikipedia:

Woot is an Internet retailer based in the Dallas suburb of Carrollton, Texas. It was founded by electronics wholesaler Matt Rutledge and debuted on July 12, 2004. Woot is believed to have pioneered the "One deal a day" business model. Woot offers one discounted product each day on its web site, woot.com. The product is available for 24 hours; it "expires" at midnight (US Central time) and is replaced by a different product for the next day.

In the past I've bought a wireless router, a bluetooth headset at the awesome price of $13.37, and a pair of walkie talkies. This monkey has also come with a green and red cape in the past, which I unfortunately missed out on. I was hoping to get a "Bag Of [Random] Crap" that they sell cheaply and throw in some nice surprises. They didn't sell one this time, but I'll keep my eye out for the next woot-off. (A woot-off is a special period where they list items on their site and replace them immediately when they sell out). I'll make a blog about my monkey when I get it in the mail!

I've seen some pretty sunsets recently but hadn't had the time or the camera to snap a shot. Here we have NYC and the Empire State Building with a colorful sunset in the background.

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Labels: flickr

I've been using GameFly to rent video games through the mail for the past nine months or so. They work the same way as Netflix. I pay a fixed amount each month, and I get to have one game out at a time, for as long as I want. The only problem lies in the fact that their shipping center is on the other side of the country. When I'm finished with a game, I have to wait a week for them to get it and then another week for the new one to get back to me. I end up losing about $7 of gaming time a month due to the post office. Their fast return has only worked once for me (the first time). This usually isn't that much of a problem since I tend to keep games for up to two months. If I was able to check a box to say I've sent my game back and they trust me and send another, that would work well, but that type of system would be ripe for abuse.

Upon reading Wikipedia JUST FOR KICKS this evening, I stumbled upon this wondrous piece of information:

As of April, 2007 GameFly will operate a second distribution center located in Pittsburgh, PA. This center was opened to help improve mailing times for subscribers across the entire United States.

Awesome! I'm also a Netflix subscriber, and their shipping center is in Pennsylvania, about 45 minutes away from here. The turn around for them is three days total including the day I send my old movie and receive my new one. Seeing as Pittsburgh is on the other side of the state, I'd expect another day or even two added onto that, but that still is a much faster turn around from the current coast to coast service I get now!

According to a few gaming websites, this Distribution center should be opening up to all users within the next few weeks. I may even receive my next game from this new place, it should ship today!

Labels: video games

This shot here is from someone I just met online, Bryn. He is a classmate of my friend Duncan who is listed in my sidebar. Bryn has some amazing knack for great shots. I don't even know where to find a place that looks like this, let alone know how to shoot it so well. I would literally have sex with this picture if the rocks weren't under exposed in spots.

Great work Bryn.

(Sorry for being late again on this one!)

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Labels: flickr

I've just realized that my blog has understated my age for the past 5+ months. This problem has now been corrected. It currently shows my correct physical age, and not my mental age, which I am sure is probably at most one third of my physical age.

Just today I got myself a brand new computer monitor. I'm rolling on dubs with 22 inches of wide screen goodness. Since this is my first foray into aspect ratios wider than 4:3 (namely 16:10), I have to get used to efficiently using the extra width. Since the only use for computers is the interwebs, my web browser is the #1 item that needs to be size managed. If you're old enough, you remember when websites were made to fit onto 640x480 screens. Nowadays the standard seems to be 800x600 for sites that are frequented by noobs, or 1024x768 for sites that may have a more sophisticated clientèle. I needed a way to get my browser to snap to that size. Height and width can be your preference, for my monitor, I chose 1024x1000 which snaps to the width and fills most of my screen vertically.

Now onto how I did it and how you can too...

1. Get to the "New Bookmark" window. You can do this by right clicking your Bookmarks Toolbar or right click the bookmarks area in your Bookmarks menu bar.
2. You should now see the window picture on the right. In the name section, add something to describe what the button does. Mine is just named resize, but since you can set multiple bookmarks to multiple sizes, you may want to mention what size this button accomplishes in that field.
3. In Location you need to type in javascript:resizeTo(1024,1000); You can replace 1024 with and width that you'd like and do the same for 1000 which would be the height.
4. Keyword is the neat field! You can basically create a keyboard shortcut for these. The simple way is to just use something like "r" like I did. All you have to do is type r into the address bar and hit Go and you'll have a resized window.
5. Add an optional description and you're set! You can follow step 6 for an advanced function that uses the keyword field.
6. Optional: Instead of placing one or both sizes in the Location field you can use strings. If you're going to keep your browser the same height all the time, you can replace the width with %s (javascript:resizeTo(%s,1000);). This will make the toolbar button non-functional, so you should best bury it in a folder in the bookmarks menu. When you want to resize a window, simply go to the address bar and type in your keyword (in my case, r) then type in your width. If I wanted a 1280 pixel wide page, I'd type in r 1280 and poof! You can do the same thing by replacing the width, the comma, and the height with %s (javascript:resizeTo(%s);) and then simply type in the entire size into your keyword. r 800,600 will get you a tiny 800 by 600 window.

A single tool bar button is good for anyone who is looking to occasionally adjust the size of your windows but go back to a set size. The string functions, or making multiple buttons with different sizes, would be good for your average web developer looking to size test new page layouts. Enjoy!

Looks like Philadelphia will be looking this way this weekend with the impending Nor'Easter. The city's skyline won't be looking like this for much longer, as the Comcast Center skyscraper is now receiving glass and is topping off within the year.

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I just got back from Atlantic City, NJ. I didn't gamble and barely drank, but I did have a nice dinner. It was also cool to see a lot of people that I no longer work with!

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The Sands, the smallest casino in Atlantic City, recently closed. It is now being stripped of its interior to prepare it for demolition. Workers removing slot machines and other assorted fixtures discovered a total $17,193.34 that has been left behind during the casino's 26 year run. The money now belongs to the property's new owner, Pinnacle Entertainment, who plan to build an improved casino on the site. Among the loose change that was found, there was even a $100 bill. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement made sure they got their 8% cut on the gaming profit, typical government!

French "Train à Grande Vitesse" or TGV today smashed a record set back in 1990 by 37mph. Their goal was to hit 150 meters per second (492.13 feet). At this speed, it would take about 3 second to reach the roof of the Sears Tower from the ground floor.
this post includes an embedded video availible here

Labels: video

This is pretty funny, and it uses the same ridiculous logic as the "popular" Loose Change video about some purported government cover up of 9/11.
this post includes an embedded video available here

Labels: video

A few more friggen tomatoes please. What are they going out of style or something?

Ignore the horrible introduction frame... I want one of these as a toy!
this post includes an embedded video available here

Labels: video