Jack La Lanne’s Power Juicer

I have little to no interest in working out or eating healthy. Jen on the other hand has adapted a healthy lifestyle by eating right and working out daily. So in an effort to prevent me from dieing, Jen came up with an idea to motivate me. She came up with a contest where the winner gets to spend $1000 on anything they want. That’s right a $1000 of cold hard dirty stinky cash. The rules are simple: On March 31st we weigh-in to see who has made their target weight. The winner is the person who reached their target weight. If only one person reaches their weight they win the $1000, if both of us reach our target weights we split the money. I have a secret strategy, Jack La Lanne’s Power Juicer. Check this quote out:

"Change your life! Save your life! You are the most important person you have. Juicing is the easy way to help save your life!" –Jack La Lanne

These words are so powerful, this coupled with the possible prize of $1000 makes me unstoppable. I'm going to juice my way to a $1000. I know, I’m genius. Please note this strategy was developed while I was drinking.. Most of my best ideas come while I’m consuming alcohol. Now what to buy with my money….. I know!! I'll get the new super duper cool (by cool, I mean totally sweet) Dell 2405FPW. I bet pictures look awesome on this monitor. I hear it’s like you are their inside the picture… Oh!

We honor all competitors’ coupons

As I await the arrival of my Mac Mini (I mean the family’s Mac Mini) and the opportunity to see if my purchase was climatic or not, it got me thinking about other anticipated purchases that weren't quite as good as I thought they were going to be. I guess it's fair to say that they were anticlimactic purchases. Here are some things that Kev just had to have and when I got them it wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be:

Audi TT Roadster I was really jacked about getting one of these and I eventually pressured my wife into letting me lease one. My excitement quickly wore off and I realized that it was just a car and it accomplished the same thing as my other car. It got me from point A to point B. I eventually got rid of this vehicle and bought a more practical car. I'm still paying for this irrational decision (literally). Pocket PC 1st Time I convinced myself that I need a PocketPC (palm pilot device but with the Microsoft version of the OS). I had the thing for a couple of months and dumped it (traded it to Rob). It had terrible handwriting recognition and was god awful slow. You would think I would have learned my lesson. T-Mobile Sidekick About 1 week after Chase (My 3rd kid) was born I bought one of these devices. I had read many articles about this highly anticipated device. What was revolutionary about this device wasn’t the device itself, but rather the service. The sidekick was a phone and an internet device wrapped in together where you could get basic phone plan with 200 minutes and unlimited data for $39.99 per month. Ultimately this device sucked as phone and eventually I dumped it like a bad habit. PocketPC 2nd Time I swore off buying another PocketPC device, but an opportunity presented itself and I had to capitalize on. Dell had a pricing mistake on their website where I could buy their flag ship PDA (Axim 3xi) that was priced at $379 for $79. I purchased one and it’s novelty factor wore off quickly. It had built-in WIFI which made it cool for sniffing out open access points, but in the end I just don’t need a PDA. Some people have a legitimate need for one; I’m just not one of those people.

My friend is a Ninja

Please note: This isn't a picture of my friend. It's a picture of someone else’s friend who is a Ninja too. Apparently ninjas are a growing problem.

I found out today that my friend Sandy is a Ninja. I’ve known Sandy for 4 years and this was the first time I had heard this news. Since Ninjas are perceived as bad and dangerous I figured I’d arm myself with information. I found this site very insightful about Ninjas and their lifestyle. Ninja Facts:

1. Ninjas are mammals.
2. Ninjas fight ALL the time.
3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.

Get the straight dope about ninjas. Ninja Information

Michael Jackson's Thriller Video Lego-Style

Somebody with a little too much time on their hands decided to completely recreate the Thriller video using Lego figures and stop-motion animation. Pretty funny, because it follows the original video exactly. Watch the video

Ghosts?

Jen called me up yesterday and was freaking out. I asked what she was so worked up over and she told me that she's been looking at pictures of our basement and noticed that all of them have anomalies in them. Several pictures have orange halos in them... What's creepy is that these halos are present in pictures that other people took with their own cameras. The photo that prompted her to call me is the one I've posted here.. Notice the faint white demonic figure near Jen's dad... Yikes!!! I suspect this ghost only hangs out in the basement because that is where the beer is... Just a theory.

The basement

Several people have been asking about the basement, so I've decided to post some pictures of it. Took one year to complete (We are slow), but I think it turned out pretty good. We couldn't have done it without my dad. Here are a couple before and after pictures, however I left out some picture of the kid/workout room because I didn't feel like picking up their toys this evening. I'll get around to posting of picture of that room later. Audio Video Setup:

• Phillips DVD 642 Player
• Kenwood 7080a THX receiver
• DirecTV Tivo 40hr dual tuner receiver
• HTPC (home theater PC) running Meedio FE
• Xbox w/live
• Infocus X1 DLP projector (Great value)
• 90" custom built screen (built by Kev)
• In-Ceiling Speaker and Some Bose Cube for the front
• A crap-load of wires and a KVM

Bar Setup:

• Mini Fridge GE Built-in
• Sanyo Kegerator (Yes, we have tap beer) 1/2 barrel
• Bar Sink (Wet bar)

I could fill up three posts with information on my HTPC setup alone. I'll spare everyone the details in this post. If you are looking for a big screen television for your basement, strongly consider a DLP projector. I can't say enough good things about them. The price per inch (screen size) can't be beat.

Top 5 Multiplayer Online Games

Multiplayer online games have been a big part of my life for many years. Tonight I figured I’d compose my top 5 list of favorite multiplayer online games to date.

1. Battlefield 1942 Glorious game! The best game I've ever played online to date. Played: 2003 - pres.
2. Sin Near and dear to my heart. One of the greatest games I’ve every played. Played: 1998 - 2000
3. Counter Strike The most popular Online FPS to date. Played : 2000 - 2001
4. Unreal Tournament The original tournament made a big impact on me. I was really hoping that it was going to be my Sin replacement, but it just wasn't as good in my opinion. Played: 1999 - 2000
5. Midi Maze It doesn’t get more old school than this. Some people believe that Wolfenstein 3D was the first FPS… Actually it was Midi Maze. What’s even more amazing is it was the first multiplayer FPS too.. That’s some major food for gamers thought. Played: 1987 - 1993

Some tidbits

Found this mac news site a couple of days ago and I like it a lot. Nice simple layout with lots of good information. Today I noticed an article posted about the GuitarPlug for the Mac. Looks like a nice inexpensive solution to get your guitar into Garageband2. I wish I would have noticed this product a couple of days ago. I probably wouldn't have order the M-Audio Fast Track. My goal was just to input my guitar only, but the fast track will allow you to connect a guitar as well as a Mic. I would recommend either one of these if you have a Mac Mini... because the mini doesn't have a line-in or mic-in only line-out (big oversight IMHO)

And so it begins...

Well I’ve finally decided to start a blog. The purpose of this blog is really nothing more than an outlet for me to ramble about my technological interests and my family. So, welcome to my ramblings. We ordered a Mac Mini yesterday for the family it’s supposed to arrive March 8th, 2005. I’m excited about getting a Mac for many reasons, some which I will share. Here is a brief history lesson. I’ve been a closet Steve Jobs fan since Steve left Apple and formed NeXT computers in the mid 80’s. The NeXT operating system at the time was revolutionary and years ahead of anything that Apple or Microsoft was offering at the time. However the NeXT computers were targeted at the Scientific and Professional community and were priced accordingly, so they were out of the general consumers reach. Despite this fact, I loved reading about the NeXT Step OS and the computer that it ran on and while I never did own one of these machines it created a deep rooted infatuation that I’ve never been able to quite shake. As the story goes, eventually Steve rejoined Apple and brought with him NeXT Step OS which he planned to use it for Apple’s Next Operation system (No Pun intended). This is somewhere back in the Mid 90’s and I remember thinking to myself that perhaps I might actually buy a Mac even though I was a big PC fan boy. It took much longer than anyone probably expected Apple to come out with their newest operating system called “OS/X”. This didn’t occur until sometime back in 2001. I guess at the time I was a bit preoccupied, because after years of anticipation I really wasn’t as excited as I thought I would have been. I really didn’t think about OS/X again until sometime in 2003 when I saw apple's 23” cinema display at the Compusa store. I actually got to play with OS/X for the first time and I was blown away, I remember thinking how Windows XP just felt clunky in comparison. At that moment I wanted to get a Mac, however the price of a Mac was too prohibitive for me. I could easily buy a PC with much better specs for a fraction of the cost and I did (Dell 8300 2.6GHZ HT). Fast forward to the year 2005 (present year), I had been reading some rambling about Apple planning to release an inexpensive Mac without a monitor for under $500 and had heard that Steve Jobs was going to announce it on January 10th, 2005. That day I watched the keynote speech from Mr. Jobs and he did indeed announce the Mac Mini…. All of a sudden the proposition of owning a Mac running OS/X was rekindled. So as usually I decided to do my research. Before buying anything I research the hell out of it. And that is exactly what I did with the Mac Mini. I discovered the Mini came packaged with a creative software suite called ILife, this really sparked my attention because my middle child Connor is very creative and loves to draw and create things. I knew that this was something we needed and we had plenty of PCs in our house running Windows XP that the kids used for playing games, but it was time to expose our kids to a computer that encouraged creativity. I believe the Mac Mini with ILife is that computer. Only time will tell if my 15 year infatuation with NeXT OS will be climatic or not. Here are the specs on the system we ordered:

• Mac Mini 1.42 Ghz
• 512 MB Ram
• 80GB Hard Drive
• Apple SuperDrive 4x DVD Writer

We ordered these additional Peripherals:

• Wacom Graphire3 4x5 tablet (for Connor and his drawing)
• M-Audio Fast Track USB Audio interface (for use with Garageband)

A special thanks goes out to my Mother-in-Law who was kind enough pay half the cost of the computer. I can’t thank her enough. She does tend to do many nice things for our family. Stay tuned for my review of the Mac Mini and all the technical hurdles I’ll have trying to find the right KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse switch) that works with my Dell and the Mac Mini.

-K