Links of the day - 01/11/2005

First up we have "How to Hack Your Shower Head" one might ask "Why?" I say "Why the hell not?" plus for those of you under the age of 15 you might noticed, as the author points out, that your showering experience is now tainted by a lack of water.

Next what could be the first CGI video ever, hell you can even download the source.

Get your hack on, because you can brag but you better be able to back it up.

What gamers and hackers have been saying for years about caffeine and finally someone other than mom believes us. -Props to E

Nice little random happening when Apple announced the Intel Mac, unless of course it was freak alien insiders holding the stock tight at that price to amuse their human pets. If you're too young to get it, get your learn on.

Oh yes it will be mine, it will be, because 2 channels are better than 1 and more resolution is better than less oh and TiVo rocks.

Finally play time at work without the install, plus we all know how hard it can be to get just the right build of MAME to work with just the right ROM set.

It's list time

Well since we all watch movies, listen to music and play games maybe it's time to organize. So far I found these sites, in no particular order:

http://www.listal.com/

http://myfilmz.net/

http://www.liveplasma.com/

http://movielens.umn.edu/login?action=expired

http://flixster.com/index.jsp

well actually by the looks of it either listal or flixster seem to have the most polish, but hey look at myspace, it looked like complete ass until you edit the default profile so it's not everything. Leave comments here. Z

Thanksgiving

Had a decent meal over Thanksgiving with my family and that is what makes the holiday great. Good food, family and friends, though I missed the gravy at the cousins house on Thanksgiving day but Grandma did make up for it the day after. I mean seriously what is Thanksgiving without gravy? What do you put on your mashed potatoes, how about what to do with your biscuits or too keep your stuffing from drying out? All these foods beg for gravy, I mean gravy is the water to which the food is the land, it cries out for it, without you are just looking at the Sahara of food. Anyway I hope everyone who's reading this had a nice Thanksgiving and here's to many more.

REVIEW: Battlefield 2: Special Forces

So unlike everyone else all the guys were up till the wee hours of the morning, not playing an xbox 360 but instead playing the new expansion to our favorite game Battlefield 2, Special Forces. The best part about Special Forces is it’s at night; the worst part about Special Forces is it’s at night. Let me explain, first off the night time adds some stealth to the game and with the use of night vision you can hide and be a sneaky bitch. The flip side to this is the opposite team is also being sneaky bitches so figuring out just where you are being fired upon from can be a royal pain in the ass. Having to download an apply an enormous patch on release day really sucks, especially since I swear it takes over an hour to install both the game and the patch, not to mention the 20 minute download of the patch itself. Also the load times to get in the game seem to have jumped and the short 2 minute “optimizing shaders” warning now lasts 5 to 7 minutes. The last gripe would be the whole new weapons that aren’t new, per say, they are all variants of the G36, and the fact that unlocking them doesn’t mean you can use them in Special Forces but you have to wait until you are on the correct team on the correct level, very lame. So now for the fun stuff, tear gas in the face with no gas mask on = FUN! Just popping off tons of tear gas as the opposing team approaches to fill the area with smoke is great. Hitting someone with a flashbang while they have on night vision is also great since they act like a cat when you stick a sock on it’s head, they just back up cautiously and stay low to the ground, easy pickin’s. Less heavy vehicles and more infantry firefights is a nice change to the all out mechanized combat found on the majority of vanilla Battlefield 2 maps. Now the zip line and the grappling hook, come on, how many times as a kid did you wish you had a crossbow zip-line and a grappling hook to get to places no one could go, or you weren’t allowed but knew if you just had a grappling hook you could make it there unseen. Well now is your chance so get to hooking and zipping, however wrong that sounds. Somethings we would like to see, ability to crossbow zip-line enemy in the back, score a kill and still be able to zip-line, same with grappling hook onto someone scoring a kill and still able to grapple. More closed in space to get 64 people with less even less vehicles around and full player-vs-player combat without the worry about that shitty beat up Honda Civic rolling over your whole Seal Team, since for whatever reason the glass came bulletproof from the factory. All-in-all fun stuff and I can’t wait to loose even more sleep!

Monday update

A couple minor updates, I finally got around to taking my Windows XP certification exam, thankfully I passed, thanks C!, I always hated these cert. tests. I always feel like every question they are giving you they are trying to trick the hell out of you. It’s almost more like an English exam than it is a tech exam. I got to watch the first 2 Harry Potter films in HD on my projector, first off I knew I was going to have fun watching these because of who I was watching them with but having not read the books I didn’t get my hopes up. How’d it go? Well I enjoyed the movie, though I still feel like they left a few things out but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Otherwise a decent story, good visuals, crazy amounts of bass for some reason, made it good, oh and a Chinese food stain on my shirt along with some carnivorous popcorn kernels added to the excitement ;) I’m looking forward to watching the 3rd and 4th to continue the epic saga (said in movie phone/movie preview voice). My father and I finally finished the new desk for my room, so this past weekend I spent rearranging all my crap in hopes that by next weekend I can actually live in my room once again without reverting to moving stuff all over just to get to my bed. That’s all for now, everyone have an awesome Thanksgiving and eat a turkey leg for Z!

Steam adding coals to the fire

So first Steam gets Kung Pow, er wait I mean RagDoll Kung Fu and now comes Darwinia:



or as it was oh so pleasantly put "A game about a bunch of Tetris people who worship a giant glowing wang" and what a wang it is! Jesus that thing is huge, better sheild the eyes of neighbooring children, hell I bet you could see that from space!

Updates and Stuff

So it's been awhile since I actually did an update rather than a quiz so here goes. Went to the H.I.M. concert, got to see Skindred who were great though the crowd didn't appreciate them too much, wrong venue in my opinion. Here's a pic I took of H.I.MYeah don't try and adjust your screen I took the picture with my phone, it really is that blurry =) But other wise awsome time, minus a few jackasses that were there and a few bouncers. Anyway been working like crazy and studying for finals, too bad our Hacking professor found a better job he really knew his shit. Oh I drilled a massive hole in the ceiling, I would take a pic but you can't see it that well since I have a popcorn ceiling. I was trying to hang my projector but either the drill I have is under powered or there might be a steel beam in the concrete, either way I'm trying again soon. Work has been nuts here's my current deskI had to reinstall 4 laptop all at the same time for some new training we will be doing and they want nothing on there but Windows and Office, man what a pain IBM is. These laptops atleast had most of the drivers but their desktops now that a whole other world. You would think major company, IBM, would have a nice driver set, uh no. Install Windows 2k, detects not a damn thing, no video, no sound, no ethernet, no usb, etc. So ethernet driver was the same across the board, installed that on all the machines, went to IBM's website clicked "Detect My Machine" and then clicked "Download Drivers" now at that point it should be easy, well it ain't. It points you to atleast 3 different manufacture drivers for each item, then half the time the drivers either cause the machine to lock up or they aren't even the hardware in your machine. So basically I had to run CPUID-Z, thank god someone makes a motherboard detection utility that actually works. And then hit up Intel for chipset drivers, video drivers, etc. Time for work will post more when I get home.

Q's of the day

I'm at work waiting for the re-re's who don't know their colors from Kindergarten to match the cords to the holes on the back of their PC's which are COLOR CODED!!

1. Sleep with or without clothes on?: mostly just boxers

2. Prefer black or blue pens?: black but the good gel kind

3. Dress up on Halloween?: if I could get a sweet zombie costume together with puss and scars and shit

4. Like to travel? Yes, and my new job pays for it

5. Like someone? but of course

6. Do they know?: I've told them how they feel, if they decide to act on it, that is their choice.

7. Who sleeps with you every night? I have 5 regular pillows and a body pillow, kinky huh?! ;)

8. Think you're attractive? I'd say I can be, minus when I roll out of bed with my hair all crazy

9. Want to get married? Yes, it's a priority

10. Want kids? Psh duh, I'd be the oldest kid in the family :D

11. Are you a good student? When I apply myself

12. Are you currently happy? Yeah, I keep my head up

13. Have you ever been skinny dipping? Nope

14. Birthplace? MIA BIATCH

15. Christmas or Halloween?: Hrm I would go with Christmas but only because it seems to last a lot longer

16. Colored or black-and-white photo? Color but I did see a really nice Wedding Album done up in black and white.

17. Do long distance relationships work? It takes a lot of work and trust but given the right people anything can work

18. Do you believe in astrology? It seems to be right a whole lot

20. Do you believe in love at first sight? I do, I'm not sure the other end is so receptive

21. Do you consider yourself the life of the party? Nah, but so long as i'm surrounded by friends who cares

22. Do you drink? 1 drink a day is my max

23. Do you make fun of people? See intro

24. Do you think dreams eventually come true? Yeah

25. Favorite fictional character? Han Solo, CAUSE HE'S AN INTERGALACTIC PIMP BABY!!

26. Go to the movies or rent? Psh why do either when I can watch them @ home on my 100" screen in HD :D

27. Have you ever moved? 5 times so far

28. Have you ever stolen anything? Yup and I've been forced to steal things against my will as well

29. How's the weather right now? It's Florida what do you think? Rainy as hell and dreary, the prefect weather for a scary movie

30. Hug or kiss? I miss just cuddling up and kissing for a long time

31. Last person you talked to on the phone? The re-re's who need to go back to kindergarten

32. Last time you showered? bright and early @ 5am

33. Loud or Soft Music? well as the saying goes "If it's too loud you're too old" but I've been known to like the softer side of Sears as well

34. McDonalds or Burger King? Hrmm I dunno, I eat it all, McD's for their shakes though.

35. Night or day? Carpe Noctem

36. Number of Pillows? 5 and a body pillow

37. Piano or guitar? Piano

38. Future job? Ass kicking gamer and/or CIO hopefully both

39. Current job? Fixing 'puters all day, it rocks!

40. Current love? Uhm didn't we just go over that in question #5 & #6 but I hope one day she wears these for me

41. Current longing? Uhm why not ask if I have a current love or longing for someone? But yeah I think we would be great together.

42. Current disappointment? That I have so much love to give but no one to share it with. Yeah go ahead a laugh you cold hearted mutants.

43. Current annoyance? re-re's in intro, again

44. Last thing you ate? PB&J sandwich followed by some Mounds bars, yeah the smooth ones without the nuts ;)

45. Last thing you bought? A whole bunch of shit at home depot that still hasn't gotten my projector off the floor and about my bed, though I do have a nice hole in the roof.

46. Most recent thing you are looking forward to? Finding the one, and no not Neo, oh and food at Thanksgiving, which ever comes first.

47. What are you hearing right now? The hum, excuse me, THE LOUD WHRIL OF FANS FROM ALL THE DAMN CISCO EQUIPMENT NEAR ME!

48. Plans for this weekend? Open like 7/11

49. What did you do today? Got up, took a shower, burned some dvd's, verified some dvd's I burned last night, worked out, checked email, came to work, did some stuff, went to lunch, more work, surf the net while I wait for said re-re's

50. Pick a lyric, any lyric:
You should let me love you
Let me be the one to give you everything you want and need
Ooh Baby good love and protection
Make me your selection
Show you the way love's supposed to be
Baby you should let me....

You deserve better girl (you know you deserve better)
We should be together girl (baby)
With me and you it's whatever girl, hey!
So can we make this thing ours?