New Phone Time – Dare I go Crackberry?

It's been a while since I've posted, and this after I promised I'd be more regular with this. No problem, when I have something to say, then I'll post.

I've been considering my phone options lately. No, there's nothing wrong with the phone I have now. In fact, as I can't have my phone with me at work any device would go mostly unused during the week. Still, it's those times at home or on the weekend I find myself reaching for my phone. Not just for calls, no I'm one of those that has my phone everywhere I go. Text, twitter, e-mail, even GPS all get used fairly regularly. Can you imagine if I had a Blackberry, you'd never get it away from me.

And that's exactly what I find myself wanting. I had a Windows Mobile device before, a Palm Treo 700w. I loved it, but it wasn't perfect. Blackberrys always seemed too sterile, business like for what I wanted. Newer phones like the Voyager, Dare, and yes even the iPhone were in the right direction, but didn't go where I really needed them to. More than phones, sure, but less than a PDA which is what I really wanted. Even the iPhone, with all the apps available for it, still isn't as open as a full PDA, as only what Apple deems worthy can make it to your device.

This week I'm getting my first glimpse of the Blackberry Storm. It seems to have everything I want: Touchscreen, multimedia, expandable, and custom apps available from a variety of sources. I checked into it, and with a few discounts I'm available for It just might be doable. I have a few days to think about it, but it's looking like that's the way to go.

Want to see what I mean, check this out:

Welcome Back, Tina Fey

The day after Sarah Palin was named as McCain's running mate, one thought came to mind.  Saturday Night Live NEEDS to get Tina Fey on to play her.  Last night was the season premiere, and NBC did not disappoint.  Tina Fey and Amy Poehler together again portraying GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and Senator Hilary Rodham-Clinton.  Enjoy:

Random Musings

So it's been a mixed week so far.  Nothing extraordinary either way, actually I'd say it's been pretty even.

So far we've updated to look of the podcast, Too Old to Grow Up!, officially opened the store, and unveiled our new look, designed by artist Harold Jennett , Trusty Mutsi on The Comic Forums, co-creator of M.I.M.E.S. (See their blog on my blog list).

Then at work I find that the corporate masters have blocked a whole bunch of sites, including this blog.  Fortunately the forums are still running, so I can keep up with the action there.

Last but not least, I've finalized the reservations for our rooms for the CGS Super Show.  I've been looking forward to this weekend for a long time.  I'm more excited by this one than I was the New York Comic Con, and I was very excited for that.  Daytona24 (Art) and I are heading to Reading, PA for the show.  We'll do some recording of our own then, but spend most of our time hanging out with our friends from the forum.

Ok, guys and gals, that's if for now.  Catch you later.

The "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" Blog Post

You know, because I can.

And Dr. Horrible is AWESOME!

A broadcasting sensation?

When I first told my wife that I was going to do a podcast, her first reaction was, "You mean like iCarly?"  The new tween sensation on Nick has been playing off and on around my house lately.  No I said, not like iCarly, like Leo (Laporte) on TWiT.  She gave me a look that basically said, "Be careful honey, your Geek is showing,"

So now we have 19 episodes under our belt.  So what do we do now?  We decided to do Episode 20 LIVE on Stickam.  If you don't know, Stickam is basically a social network, like MySpace, but with a webcam.  You can log on and not only can you follow you friends, you can do with you webcam on for all the world to see.

Mostly it's pretty boring.  The more interesting folks actually perform to a degree.  Most just sit there and type, as I said pretty boring.

Leo has taken it a step further.  He broadcasts all of his TWiT network shows live on Stickam as they are being recorded.  He's basically brought TechTV back on his own.  Well with the help of some friends who join him on his various programs.

Will Too Old to Grow Up! ever be as popular as TWiT?  Probably not, but for the listeners we do have, it will be a fun way to interact.  They can watch us record, interact with us in the chat room.  Maybe we'll even open up Skype and do a call in show.

Let's get through this first recording, okay.  Watch Live at 12:30pm EST Sunday July 27th at http://live.totgu.com.

Some fun with Beaker...

It's no secret that I'm a Beaker fan.  You know, Beaker from the Muppets.  In fact, one year my friend Matt and I spontaneously broke out into a scene from The Muppet Movie with him as Dr. Bunson Honeydew and me as Beaker.

So when I found this on YouTube, I had to share.  Well timed, and a lot of fun to watch.  Consider it your Beaker fix for the day.

“Weird Al” Yankovic

I have not been to a concert in a LONG time. That changed Wednesday night when my friend Art and I went to see one of my favorites growing up, and favorite again more recently, Weird Al Yankovic.

I remember first hearing Al on copied tapes from my friends. Yoda was probably the first song I had ever heard. I'd but the odd album or two here or there. I smiled from ear to ear when I heard Al doing the theme song for one of my favorite movies growing up; Johnny Dangerously with This is the Life. You may also remember he had a song in the Transformers animated movie, Dare to be Stuipid.

After that I was a fan. I eventually "grew out" of his music, thinking it was just for kids. I barely listened to him during the 90s, but then in 1999 I saw a video for his latest parody, based on a movie coming out in May and one of the greatest, most recognizable songs of all time. The Saga Begins told the entire story of Star Wars Episode I to the song American Pie.

That album, Running with Scissors, would be the first Weird Al album I purchased in over 10 years. I now have all the songs he's recorded, and if you ever look at my Zune Card at the bottom of my blog you might sometimes see him in my "Recently Played" list.

The show itself was a great time. Over 2 sold hours of entertainment, described by Al sometimes as, "a rock and comedy multimedia extravaganza" with an audience that "ranges from toddlers to geriatrics" (from Wikipedia). The show was definitely that. He and the band has several costume changes, which I knew about going in and had wondered how the show would maintain it's momentum during these changes. Not to worry, a performer like Al would take care of that by showing clips from "Al TV" on screens above the stage that were used during the performances as well. Projected images included clips from his videos of the song being performed, including Donny Osmond dancing during White and Nerdy.

I'll be talking a lot more about Al with my co-host Art on our podcast, Too Old to Grow Up! this week. Listen in for the latest show on the MP3 player at the top of the blog.

Here's a picture of me and Weird Al Yankovic.

 

CSS is my new friend

It's been a long, long time since I've done any Web development. That's a generous term, Web Development. I wrote a few personal web pages with some PHP and MySQL programming. Sounds impressive, right? I'm an amateur all the way, I just convinced people who knew less than I did that I knew what I was doing.

Now I'm co-host of a podcast, Too Old to Grow Up! We've been doing it for about 5 months now. It's been a good time, people are listening, and they seem to like us. Our basic web presence is pretty bland, though. It's a simple Google Apps hosted site, Libsyn does most of the heavy lifting as far as hosting the show goes. Add to that new artwork from our friend Harold Jennett, the time is right for a change.

As cold as my PHP and HTML skills are, I never, ever touched CSS, Cascading Style Sheets. A few years ago CSS became the standard way to format your web pages. Much more flexible than HTML by itself. If I could learn CSS then our new home page could be the destination site I've dreamed it could be. Plus, I want to start cataloging our shows while we only have a few, so if we ever do outgrow Libsyn I'll already have the indexed database ready to go and portable.

So I got my hands on some tutorials (thanks Spano) and I'm on my way. I installed a text editor that color codes syntax, making it easier to read the code.

…Chapter One…Introduction to CSS…

It’s been too long…

Well so much for my great experiment.

Too long ago I created this blog, intending to write something, anything, each day. Maybe it wouldn't be profound, or even interesting. It would at least keep me writing, and act as a journal of sorts.

Then real life got involved. Don't you hate that. You get a new job, kids are getting busier, life gets away from you. I just didn't have the time to sit, log in, write something, even just to say hi.

Hopefully I'll be doing a little more with this. I just installed Office 2007 at work, and Word 07 now has a very nice "Publish Blog" feature. I'm trying it out right now. If you see this post it means my test was successful. Now, whenever I have a spare moment I can quickly type something up and put it out there.

See you around,

Ken

Adventures in computer maintenance

So my laptop has been giving me trouble. I've had it about 2 1/2 years now. It was dirty, the plastic was cracking, and lately the screen had been freaking out. It was at the point where I hoked up a CRT to it so it could be used. In my kitchen. Kind of defeats the purpose of a "portable" computer.

I plan on getting a new XPS from Dell later in the spring, courtesy of my fancy tax rebate. But until then, I'm short one laptop. So thanks to my good friends, the team of Google and The Internet, I found the repair manual. Turns out it's not all that hard to take one of these things apart.

So I take it apart. Turns out either the screen itself, or just inverter is bad. The screen is in rough shape anyway, and the corners of the bezel are cracked, or even broken off. So back to the internet and I find the parts I need. I'm ordering a new screen and a complete housing set for the screen.

I took advangage of the laptop being apart to really clean out the system. Dust trapped inside from the fan got all cleaned out. I was able to really clean out the hosuing without fear of getting the electronics inside wet. Once I put it back together, without the screen, I have a practically brand new looking laptop ready to go. Add in a reinstall of XP and I'm practically there.


The current state of my laptop

The only downside, for now, is the antenna for the WiFi is in the screen itself. I just installed the old WiFi card I had for another laptop, and I'm back in business.

Once I get the parts for the screen, I can assemble those and my laptop will be good as new. The best part is my wife and daughter can continue to use it, while my brand new XPS will be ALL MINE! Bwahaha!

Fun with YouTube

I love the Internet. You never know what you're going to find. Like this gem. Sir Mix-a-Lot, meet Gilbert and Sullivan:

What to do when you have too many Star Wars action figures...

You recreate A New Hope:

New Comic Day! What did you get?

Well, actually yesterday was new comic day, but I didn't get to my local comic shop until today.

• Green Lantern Sinestro Corps Secret Files & Origins - What a great resource for Green Lantern fans.  The Sinestro Corps War introduced a whole new chapter of the Green Lantern Mythos.  This Secret Files serves as a great intro to this new world.  A must read for long time fans and new readers alike.
• Green Lantern Corps #20 - I've been reading Green Lantern since Rebirth, but did not tough Green Lantern Corps.  I really only wanted to read about Hal Jordan, and wasn't really interested in the rest of that world.  Sinestro Corps War changed that for me.  Not only will I continue reading it, but the first 13 issues are on my back issue bin list now.
• Countdown to Final Crisis #16 - DC's weekly series had a slow start, but over the last few weeks has really taken off for me.  I almost dropped it.  My only wish is that more happened earlier in the series.  It's still no 52, but I find myself looking forward to the next installment, something that had been missing for the first half of the series.
• Amazing Spider-Man #546 - Brand New Day begins.  I was one of the many that did not like the One More Day story.  Despite that, when I saw the previews for this issue, I realized I liked what I saw.  I decided to give the new direction a chance and see what they make of it.  I liked it.  I can't say it any plainer than that.  I liked it and I will continue with it.

What did you get?