Xmas Wishlist 2009

Three shopping days left until Christmas. That should be plenty of time for you to pick me up one of the following items:

Nike 2015 Hyperdunks – A.K.A. Air McFlys. This was supposed to be on last year’s list, but I forgot about it.

Hattori Hanzo Sword – This one might be a little hard to get. I’ve heard he doesn’t make swords anymore.

Steve Zissou Pinball Machine – As seen onboard the Belafonte.

Spykee Wi-Fi Spy Bot – Slap a laser on this thing and it would be like something out of Chopping Mall.

GoDogGo- My dog will fetch a ball until she passes out. I can’t keep up with her. Something like this could save me from a possible rotator cuff surgery.

Injury Report

Once again, I’ve managed to fall down the stairs.  These stairs are  death trap.  This time I fell backwards catching my lower back and both elbows on the edge of a step.  Then I slid about half way down the stairs, scraping my arms up in the process.  I actually landed on the step so hard that I moved it.  In the photo below you can see the outline of where the step used to be.

I spent the rest of the day with an ice pack on my left elbow to keep the swelling down.

This also gives me the opportunity to point out the widget I made over in the right column.  It keeps a running tally of days since my last injury.

#47. Learn to drive a manual transmission.

There have been a few instances at work where the only vehicle available for me to drive was a manual transmission.  So out of necessity, I had to learn how to drive it.  I need a little more practice, but I’ve got the gist of it.

Word

It’s that time again. Time for me to switch blogging platforms and do a complete overhaul of the site. I’ve always thought Drupal seemed a little sluggish. Here’s hoping WordPress is faster.

As far as the design goes, it started out pretty simple but after I made the new logo things snowballed quickly. It’s hard for me to stop messing around with Photoshop once I get started.

The migration to WordPress wasn’t flawless. Somewhere along the way I lost all the comments made over the last two years. There are probably a few broken links and missing images, but I’ll fix them as I find them.

Fixed

I repaired my Xbox Thursday night and gave it an extensive workout over the weekend to test my work. About $3.50 worth of materials and a hairdryer was all I needed. I could probably make a little cash on the side by fixing 360s.

Red Ringed

I’ve been having the worst luck with electronics lately. Last night I started a new game of Marvel Ulitmate Alliance 2 and halfway through the first level the screen started to go haywire. I rebooted my 360 and got the dreaded E 74 error message. Unfortunately, my 360 is out of warranty. If I want to send it to Microsoft to get it fixed, it’ll cost me $100. I might as well just buy a new 360 Arcade now that they’re $200. But before I do that, I’m going to attempt to fix this thing myself.

Who you gonna call?

My mom and sister usually go to the Highway 127 Yard Sale every summer. I’ve only gone along with them once. I just don’t have the desire to look through other peoples’ junk in 90+ degree weather. But, being that I recently took up the hobby of record collecting, I decided to go with them Saturday to see what I could find.

While looking at a table full of old fishing lures in Dunlap, I heard the unmistakeable siren of Ecto-1 in the distance. I assumed someone nearby must have had some Ghostbusters toys for sale, so I looked around to see where the sound was coming from. The siren kept getting closer. Then I saw this station wagon rolling down the road.

Ecto-1

We saw it again a few hours later around Pikeville. This time it was blasting the theme song.

Injury Report

I was carrying a 12-pack of Pepsi by the built-in handle, when the box ripped open and a cascade of 12-ounce cans rained down upon my bare foot. One can landed on my index toe, busting it open and splitting the nail down the center. For such a small laceration, I lost a surprising amount of blood. I believe I have a solid case against the Pepsi corporation.

Injury Report

CRT'd

My LCD monitor suddenly developed a vertical red line down the right side last week. I’m a little over 2 years into a 3 year warranty, so I shipped it off to Samsung to be repaired or replaced. In the meantime, I’m having to make due with a 17″ CRT. I feel like a caveman.

New Stereo

I decided it was time to finally put a stereo in my truck after driving around without one for over two years. I chose one that would give me some of the features of my failed truckputer, the Pioneer AVIC-F700BT.

The model with the DVD player was out of my price range. I plugged my Zune dock into the USB and A/V inputs so I can charge my Zune while playing music or videos, and control it with the remote.

Like most in-dash units of this type, you can’t watch video or punch in navigation destinations while driving. While searching for a way to bypass this, I discovered that the unit runs Windows CE. So it’s more like the truckputer than I thought.


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