Kevin's Tech Ramblings

TWITastic

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:24:00 +0000

CCB was mentioned on TWIT.TV's Munchcast in July.

TWIT TV Munchcast

It's torwards the end of the podcast.

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while and I would like to take this opportunity to squish all the internet death rumors. Contrary to what’s been posted I wasn’t killed in a failed attempt at making Chocolate Covered Bacon nor did I die from a rare condition caused from consuming large quantities of sprinkles. These rumors are damaging and are not considered funny. Sprinkle poisoning is no laughing matter and affects 1 out of 1,000,000,000 people every 1000 years. I urge you to talk to your children about the dangers of sprinkle abuse. Please give generously to your local sprinkle abuse charities.

Critical Mass

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 18:37:00 +0000

Perhaps I'm on to something here. I was looking through the site traffic logs and I noticed that someone from Ferrero had visited my blog and read my entry about CCB. Perhaps prepackage CCB is just around the corner. This concerns me for a couple of reasons. 1st I don't believe the world is ready for such a powerful combination, 2nd this could possibly cause a bacon shortage. It's bad enough that I have to pay $3 for a gallon of gas, but $12 for a package of bacon might push me over the edge.

Ferrero representatives didn't return our calls.

Chocolate Covered Bacon

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 16:37:00 +0000

The History of CCB

Update (08/24/2008) - TWITastic

Update (06/26/2006) - Critical Mass

On a sunny day some friends and I had ordered some bacon cheese burgers for lunch. After a couple of bites someone commented on how bacon was able to make an already delicious hamburger even more delicious. This started a conversation on the power of bacon in-which it was able to make everything it came in contact with taste better. Whether it’s a filet wrapped in bacon, bacon on salads, pizza, or sandwiches it’s always that much better with bacon. We wondered if it was possible that any other foods had this special property. Someone quickly identified chocolate as a food with similar complimentary properties. Chocolate covered pretzels, strawberries, nuts, just about everything tasted better covered in chocolate. If both bacon and chocolate can make other foods taste better, what would happen if someone was just crazy enough to combine chocolate and bacon? A quick search on the internet yielded little information, which raised some serious concerns on the safety of combining two such powerfully substances. Several questions came to mind; maybe bacon and chocolate aren’t supposed to be combined? Maybe combining them could start the apocalypse? With complete careless recklessness for ourselves and the rest of the planet we decided it had to be done.

I’ve carefully documented the procedure for making Chocolate Covered Bacon (CCB) to serve as record incase I was killed during the combining process.

Disclaimer:

If you are planning on following the outlined procedure listed below please proceed with EXTREME CAUTION. This documented procedure was performed in a controlled environment with all the necessary safety procedures.

Please note: That no animals were hurt in this process (none that I specifically hurt, but I suspect the company that harvested the bacon might have).

Getting Started

You will need the following ingredients and necessary cookware:

Ingredients

1 bag (12oz) of Semi-Sweet Chocolate morsels
1 1lb of uncooked bacon
Sprinkles (optional)

Cookware

Large skillet
Double boiler | medium sauce pan and smaller sauce pan (simulate double boiler)
Cooking tongs
Cooling rack | cookie sheet
Large plate and some paper towel (2 or 3 sheets)
Big Spoon

Procedure

Remove Bacon from package (I suspect it is possible to cook it in the package, but this might make it difficult to cover it in chocolate)
Heat large skillet on high.
Add bacon strips to skillet.
Turn bacon strips over as needed with tongs.
Cook back until it’s reduced to about ¼ of its original size and appears to be crispy. (Personally I believe that the bacon should be crispy; however if you prefer your chocolate covered bacon chewy opposed to crunchy then reduce cooking time by removing your bacon earlier)
Remove bacon from skillet and place it on a paper towel lined plate. (This will absorb the excess fat and oil making this a low calorie healthy snack)
While the bacon is cooling fill the double boiler or medium sauce pan with water and bring to a medium heat.
Place double boiler top pan in double boiler bottom pan or put the small sauce pan in the medium sauce pan.
Slowly add chocolate morsels into top pan and stir while morsels melt. Do this until all morels have been added. (Be sure to keep stirring to prevent the chocolate from burning.)
Using your fingers or tongs carefully dip the bacon strips into the chocolate, if necessary use a spoon to spoon the melted chocolate over the bacon evenly coating it.
Once coated lay strips on cooling rack or cookie sheet.
(Optionally) Apply Sprinkles evenly on chocolate covered bacon while on cooling rack. It’s important to apply while the chocolate is still warm. This will allow the sprinkles to better adhere to the chocolate.
Place cooling rack with bacon into the refrigerator for 15 minutes.
Carefully remove bacon strips from the cooling rack and place into a container or place the strips directly into your mouth.
Bring container with strips to work, school, or religious event.

Moment of Truth

At this point you are probably wondering if Chocolate Covered Bacon (CCB) tastes good or is utterly disgusting. Perhaps you are asking yourself “Why would anyone even consider this combination?” I suspect the person who suggested that orange juice might not just be for breakfast anymore was subjected to the same level of scrutiny. But it was exactly this type of forward thinking that tore down the walls and stereotypes about orange juice, and made it perfectly acceptable to consume anytime of the day.

Let’s see what people are saying about it.

Reviews

“It’s like someone crapped in my mouth, Mmmm! Eh!”
Sammy Haggar of Canada

“Tastes like Chicken”
Waitress of Detroit, MI

“Three Words; Full Moon Party”
Rene of Miami, FL

If you have any questions, please post a comment. I'll be compiling the list into a FAQ.

Please donate or visit our sponsor’s links to ensure more quality life-enriching articles.

Check out Pleeke

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Thu, 19 May 2005 13:21:00 +0000

My friend Rob and I have launched a new blog. It will be a source for Technology/Media reviews, perspectives, rumors, and advice.

Perspectives: Opinions, Rants, or Ramblings
Reviews: Tech and Media product reviews
Rumors: Just what it says
Advice: Tips, Tricks, and Hacks

Pleeke.com

The Super Three

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Sun, 08 May 2005 13:25:00 +0000

Cameron and I decided to test out Apple’s iMovie HD by creating a short trailer. It was so surprisingly easy and we had so much fun that we decided to make a short movie with his friends. This is the trailer for Cameron’s up coming short movie; it was only the 2nd time that we actually used iMovie. Creating a movie with iMovie is amazingly simple, but impressively powerful. It has some great built-in special effects and a subset of Lucas Film’s sound effects library. Click the Picture to play the movie. It's in Apple Quicktime format

The Software

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 01:38:00 +0000

Coming from the Win XP world and using Mac OSX is like going through some sort of dimensional wormhole that pops you out into another world where things are the opposite of our dimension. The close, minimize and maximize window buttons are on the left side of windows instead of the right (no pun intended). Even stranger is the way these buttons function. In the normal world the close button, you guessed it! Closes the instance of the application you are running, but in the land opposites it just closes the window. You see the application is still running even though the window is gone.. Scary!!! This because Apple has decided to base their window manager on MDI (Multiple Document Interface); which an application can host multiple windows in a single application instance and this mean that when you click the close button in OSX you are just closing an instance of a document. Next there is the maximize button. One would think that this would cause a window to fill the screen, but that is not always the case. Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Thankfully the minimize button works the same as Win XP. Also in the land opposites double clicking on a window causes the window to minimize instead of maximizing. I could go on and on about the differences, but to prevent you from tuning out I’ll stop. So based on what I’ve posted thus far you would think I hate Mac OSX, but actually that’s not the case. The more I use OSX, the more I like it. It’s not perfect and there are many things I don’t like about it, but the same is true for Win XP. Despite what the zealots will tell you, OSX is no better or worse than Win XP. Sure windows has its viruses and spyware, but honestly contrary to what the zealots will tell you. I don’t think it’s that big of a problem. The reason I say this is because the time that I actually got infected by Spyware was when I was going to some rather questionable sites. So basically no mainstream site is going to give you spyware and now that MS has released a free anti-spyware program it’s even less of a problem. So, if you want to look at pr0n on your Windows machine go ahead. Hey.. What’s the point of an operating system without applications? People run applications on an OS; the OS isn’t why people buy a computer, but the applications they can run. This is where OSX shines and bleeds all at the same time. The Mac Mini comes packaged with iLife 05; this suite of Applications is what makes OSX shine. iLife comes with iDVD, Garageband, iPhoto, iTunes, and iMovie HD. At a first glance, I was initially disappointed with iLife. I really felt after I opened iMovie HD that it wasn’t much better than windows movie maker, but after I started a little movie project for my son Cameron I quickly discovered that it blew windows movie maker away. iMovie is a wonderful, ultra simple video editing application that allows even a kid to make a professional looking video. I could stop there, but it gets so much better. Once you have created a super sweet video you probably want to watch it on your TV, so you click the iDVD button in iMovie and up pops iDVD with your creation already setup. All you have to do now is select a theme and click burn. That’s it!!! It’s so easy that my Dad could probably do it. iLife really makes the Mac OSX experience. Following suit with iMovie and iDVD there is Gargeband (part of iLife) which is a multi-track recording studio. You can plug a guitar into your Mac and start recording songs using the built-in loops and drum/bass kits. I’m not as fond of iPhoto, perhaps I need more time with it to come to a better conclusion. iTunes same as the Win XP version, but it works. So if iLife makes OSX shine what makes OSX bleed? It’s the unfortunate lack of software titles. There are several applications in the windows world where there isn’t a Mac version available. This makes it difficult for me to make ever consider going Mac only. This isn’t a problem for me because I didn’t buy a Mac to replace my Win XP machine; I bought a Mac as creativity device. I can honestly say that the Mac deliveries in this category. Our Mac is really growing on us… more to come.

The Hardware

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 19:18:00 +0000

It’s been 3 weeks since we got the Mac mini so I figure I’ve had enough time with it to give my first impressions of the hardware. It’s a thing of beauty! My expectations of what a computer should look like and more importantly sound like have been completely changed. The form factor of the Mini is great; it’s so hard to believe that a rather powerful computer can fit into such a small little box. With this little box I can edit digital video with easy and even burn it to DVD. The thing that is most impressive is the fan noise, or more to the point the lack of it. I wish my windows box was half as quite as the mini. Here are pictures of my setup.

I'm a Nerd! Please help me!

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 04:14:00 +0000

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft, I guess 1.5 million subscribers can’t be wrong? I’m currently playing on the Kargarth server as a Dwarf Hunter. I also have a bear and his name is Borat. He’s so fat!!! If you would like to enter the world of ultra-geekdome then go pickup a copy of this game at your local Target. Please be advised that this game might cause marriage or relationship problems, however if you are not currently in a relationship you can rest assure that while you play this game you won’t be in one. Rob, John and I have been going on quests in the game to prove our allegiance to the uber-nerds. You should too.

Jack La Lanne’s Power Juicer

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:17:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Sat, 26 Feb 2005 14:01:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 18:03:00 +0000

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:

Ninjas are mammals.
Ninjas fight ALL the time.
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

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:41:00 +0000

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?

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 04:15:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 03:05:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 03:46:00 +0000

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.

Battlefield 1942 Glorious game! The best game I've ever played online to date. Played: 2003 - pres.

Sin Near and dear to my heart. One of the greatest games I’ve every played. Played: 1998 - 2000

Counter Strike The most popular Online FPS to date. Played : 2000 - 2001

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

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

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 20:23:00 +0000

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...

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 16:49:00 +0000

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