Name Googling

So I got bored recently and googled my name. Usually the same assortment of links comes up, but there was a new one today. Check out this page and scroll down to the bottom.

Wow

So, wow. Finally a blog post on geek shop.

I'm wondering if I should keep this blog going. I seem to have almost completely lost interest in maintaining it. This is the way I am though. I hop around from project to project, rarely finishing anything along the way. For example, I'll get excited about playing piano and learning a new song for a couple weeks. Then I'll discover some cool new software, be it a game or 3D modelling or whatever, and spend all my free time with that. Or I'll think of a cool electronic thingy to build and then I'm on to that for a while. This cycle is fun, but I sometimes feel like I never accomplish anything.

There are of course other things that keep me from blogging. Swing The Mood comes to mind. Rehearsals have been going for a few weeks now and it's like having two jobs. I don't mean to say that I feel overworked, but it puts a huge dent in my free time. How else am I to pursue my project o' the week? On the plus side, the rehearsals are hella fun and the show is going to be mind blowingly good!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I haven't been blogging because of a lack of time and I'm interested in doing other things with the time that I have. My apologies to anyone who still frequents geek shop.

Point of Interest

There are many stops of interest along Highway 1 in BC. The next time you're driving through the Fraser Canyon along that stretch with all the tunnels, stop at the Hell's Gate tunnel. There is a little cafe there called Elvis Rocks the Canyon. Just park in the parking lot, but don't bother with the cafe. There is old abandoned tunnel nearby! It runs parallel to the Hell's Gate tunnel, but it is inaccessible to vehicles now. There is small forested area right next to the new tunnel, just head into that. You'll have to climb a small hill, and then you will find what I am writing about. The tunnel is caving in. It was never built up with cement like the new tunnels are, it is carved out of the rock. The ceiling has collapsed in most places and the bottom is covered in large chunks of rock, but it is completely passable still. I could see all the way through to the other side. I did not have a flashlight with me so I didn't venture inside. I'm sorry I didn't have a camera with me, but I will the next time I visit.

Random Image Search

Here's a cool trick, go to google image search and type in something like DSC00731.jpg. Replace the 5 digit number with any number though, like DSC00276.jpg or DSC01938.jpg. I think Sony digital cameras create files beginning with DSC, so what this does is bring up an assortment of pictures from all walks of life. In one search I found pictures of the catacombs in France, a head injury, belly dancers, a chess tournament, a cruise ship, a guy dressed in a hot dog costume, the inside of a dining car on a train, penguins, etc.

In other "I'm bored, let's look at the intarweb" news, try this puzzle game. I got stuck a couple times but was able to finish the game without outside help.

i has a blog

Wow, so it's been over a month since I have posted. Things have been happening, so I'll go over them in point form.

• I was a tree in the Wizard of Oz. We did 11 shows, and they were awesome.
• I finally finished building my DDR dance pad, and it works great.
• There was a party at my house on St. Patrick's day.

Wow, that doesn't look like much at all. But it's this kind of stuff that fills my days. Oh, and here's a spiffy picture from the Wizard of Oz. Those are some fine looking trees.

I've added a couple more online comics on the right side of this blog: Bang Barstal and Gunnerkrigg Court. Gunnerkrigg is certainly worth your time. It's setting is a delightfully dark and mysterious "school", the main characters are easily likable and the story has a good mixture of intrigue, fantasy/sci fi and humour. Bang Barstal is a good sci fi romp, but updates are few and far between at the moment, just like geekshop.

I'm using facebook now. It's a social networking website. If you feel inclined to sign up, add my profile to your friends list.

Weddings, Hats and More

Alanna and I drove down to Langley on Friday to see some friends get married. It was a lovely ceremony and I'm really very happy for the newlyweds, Morgan and Sandy. I met Morgan at UNBC and he is a really nice guy, and it looks like he's marrying into a wonderful family. Congratulations to you both!

We met up with Mr. and Mrs. Carbonman on Saturday. They had just flown in from Mexico that morning to see the wedding. It was nice to know that they had not been kidnapped/robbed/murdered while down south. :) I think Carbon is going to post some stories and pictures on his blog, be sure to check Carbon's Corner. They brought me back a little bottle of mezcal. There is an actual worm in the bottle.

After the wedding the four of us went exploring. We visited a Toy Store that the Carbons frequent regularly. After that we went out to Fort Langley, which is where the reception took place. We were early so we explored the town. We had a snack at a 50's style diner, and we also found a very cool hat shop. I bought Alanna a cute pink hat, and I found a fedora for the 1940's musical show I'll be in this summer. I love it, it looks very sharp. Now all I need is a pinstripe suit.

I was asked more than a few times about my dance pad. I didn't realize there were so many people keeping track of my progress. Just like I always say when asked, it's 99% done! But seriously, when I got a Wii I completely stopped working on it. I got back to it earlier this month, and now all I have to is route a cable and install a connector. It's like, 1 maybe 2 hours of work. I'll find the time. :)

TV

My sister and I used to watch some really weird shit on TV when we were kids. Sure, there was the usual Saturday morning crap like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Rainbow Bright, 100 Huntley Street, GI Joe, Transformers, Jem, Ron Jeremy's Super Happy Funhouse, etc. But I hazily remember watching some absolutely strange stuff on the Knowledge Network, BC's public education broadcaster.

Supergran was a British show about this decrepit old lady who had super strength and a magic bicycle. She also has the power to smell like mothballs and Bengay. I remember little about this show, except for perhaps the theme song which STILL gets stuck in my head to this day. In the episode I remember, there was a huge house that some guy was driving around town. Apparently this was a bad thing.

Another gooder was an animated show called Simon about a kid who would draw rubbish on his chalkboard at home. Then on his walk to school all his creations would become real on the other side of a fence. So he'd skip over the fence and play around with his chalkboard friends. This one had a catchy theme song too, another one stuck in my head. It's worth mentioning that Mike Meyers stole the theme song from this show for one of his retarded characters on Saturday Night Live. Click the link above to watch an episode of Simon on YouTube!

Rainbow, unbelievably, has a dedicated official website. This was a British Mr. Dressup rip-off. The host of the show was a twat, but thankfully Rainbow featured a wonderful puppet character named Zippy, a puppet who had a zipper for a mouth. I remember Zippy because he was a total asshole most of the time. He was sort of like Oscar the grouch. The best part was that the host of the show would zip up his mouth whenever he'd start lipping off. Thankfully this show did NOT have a memorable theme song. Click here for the YouTube dirt!

Back when I actually watched these shows I remember thinking they were really weird. I certainly remember more about these shows than I do about the Transformers though. I think the Transformers were robots that ate ener-Johns, and could transform into major kitchen appliances.

Celebrity Similarity?

A while ago a waitress at Boston Pizza told me I look like James Spader, an actor on Boston Legal. Here's a gallery for reference. I really don't see any similarity except for maybe the eyes. He has my slothful half closed eyelids look. I can't find a good pic of myself for comparison, sorry.

Has anyone else been told they look like a famous person? I sure don't get that very often. The only other time I can remember is being told I look like James Van Der Beek, star of Dawson's Creek. Hm, two James look-a-likes! I sense a CONSPIRACY. I bet I was a beta clone in the secret James project! Once they perfected the James DNA sequence, my memory was wiped and I was re-branded as a Donald. Yeah.

Fun With Pixels

I've discovered something called Isometric Pixel Art. There are some great examples of this on the web. I modelled my bedroom using this technique, here it is!


I really like the way this picture turned out. There's a bit of a trick in doing this kind of style but it's not complicated. There's a wonderful tutorial here. I had fun drawing this out, I think I'll make more.

I'm a Tree

Hi all. Sorry I haven't posted in a bazillion years. My bad. Christmas was awesome, New Year's also awesome. I hope everyone enjoyed the Holidays like I did.

Rehearsals have started for The Wizard of Oz. I don't remember if I wrote about this or not, but I auditioned. I was sorta thinking that I would make a nice scarecrow. The part I got? Tree! An apple tree to be specific. I'm not disappointed that I didn't get a bigger role. Being a tree is going to be great. The group of guys who are playing trees are funny and upbeat, in other words we're a bunch of clowns. Apparently we're going to either be on stage or chillin' with the audience for the entire show. We're always around! How cool is that? Plus we've got a scene where we throw apples at Dorothy and make lame tree jokes. I may be going out on a "limb" here, but I think you should all pack your "trunks" and "leaf" your house to come see the Wizard of Oz the first week of March.

I'm wondering what kind of tree costumes we'll get. Here's what I'm thinking:


I could so see myself in this, minus the hairy ankles.

The Right Way to Peel a Christmas Orange: EXPOSED

The time has come to reveal the awful truth behind an old post here on Geekshop. A year ago today, I posted a how-to article on peeling a Christmas orange. The idea was simple: remove the orange peel in a single piece. However, when I peeled the orange for the 5th and final picture the peel broke into two pieces! I faked the photo and hoped that nobody would discover my crime. I'll wait a moment while you come to grips with this horrifying reality.

(The orange is cleverly placed to hide the horrible truth!)

(Here is an illustration of what actually happened that day)

I have kept this dark secret with me for a full year now, agonizing over the injustice to you, my readers! I apologize to you all. Now go eat an orange however the hell you want to. Merry Christmas!

Cuteness courtesy of YouTube

Check out what appears to be an extra puffy Gund stuffy puppy (heh) trying to stay awake.

Wacky Weekend

I did lots of stuff this weekend. I had two rehearsals for the nutcracker, two Christmas parties and went Christmas shopping in Prince George. Alanna went to PG with me and we stayed over Friday night with CarbonMan and Peanut. Thanks to our little trip I'm mostly finished my Christmas shopping. Woohoo! It was nice hangin' with Carbon and Co. again too, I wish we had more time there. On a positive note we played some Wii, that was fun. I hadn't ever tried any multiplayer Wii games until this weekend.

On Friday the four of us were in EB Games just looking around. They had a Wii kiosk and a PlayStation 3 kiosk setup. The contrast between the two is amusing. The Wii setup is white and glows light blue, and the PS3 setup is black and glows red. It was like Heaven and Hell meeting each other on the field of battle, which happened to be a game store. I've played Wii before so I decided to embrace the dark side and stood before the mighty Sony altar. The temperature was staggering, and I could smell boiling sulphur.

Through the haze of heat I could make out a display, it was some kind of motorcycle game, and I was racing through a desert with a few other vehicles. The graphics did look pretty nice, but there was something wrong with the sound. There was only music, no sound effects. I paused the game and enabled the tilt sensors in the controller. After unpausing the sound started working! Also, the tilt sensors in the controller aren't bad. Now here's the best part. I wasn't exactly doing well in the game, and I kept crashing. Well the PS3 decided to follow my example and crashed. The sucker froze right up! Now I know you're thinking that the PS3 is new hardware and the bugs have yet to be worked out, but I think this wasn't a crash at all, it's a feature. The PS3 is designed to be the God Satan of your living room. Therefore, it will make decisions for you, such as when you should stop playing it. I believe that this PS3 felt my inward leanings towards Nintendo and deemed me unworthy to wield the hallowed cursed sixaxis controller. It also left a pentagram shape seared on my right palm. What a fantastic first impression. I totally want a PS3 now!

Pimped out bicycles

If you can think of something impossibly weird and/or stupid, it's likely that somewhere on this planet it has been done. For example, check out these bikes.