Author: Joe

Categories
Adventure

Bizarre TV Repair

The Shephard’s TV has been acting up. Luckily for him it’s still under manufacturer warranty and through many phone calls found out that there’s a place in Vineland that can repair his TV for him. We play a lot of Rock Band 2 on this TV, so it’s very important that it’s repaired.

Matt the young one joined us on this quest to fix this TV. Finding the place wasn’t a problem, thanks to the brilliance on GPS enabled devices. We all had a certain expectation of just what this place would be like, and when we got there all I can say is WOW. The place and the guys actually crushed what we were expecting to find on this day.

They were located in a little shack next to their home. Outside was a graveyard of TV’s and various parts. Oh yeah, and lots of cat food. Inside was very similar to outside, but more dirty. Oh yeah, and again a lot more cat food was to be found. There was also a beautiful pink Barbie Power Wheels Corvette in there too. We were all too afraid to ask why, and at that point pretty much hoping that we would make it out of this place alive.

It was pretty much straight out of a horror film. It was awesome. The gentleman continued to eat his sandwich while speaking to us, and had an ancient glass with some bizarre fluids now caked to it on his desk. Very gross indeed. The aroma of this most unclean little shack was quite powerful too. Making me almost gag at times, but I couldn’t leave one of those guys alone in there with them. Never split up, I’ve seen situations like this in many films and when they split up bad things happen.

Now it’ll be very interesting to see just what happens to the TV. Hopefully it won’t come back smelling of cat food or even perhaps containing any human body parts inside.

Categories
Sports

St. Pat’s 31st Annual Run

Woke up nice and early on a day off to participate in my first ever run this morning. It was the St. Pat’s 31st Annual Run, in Atlantic City.  Mr. Yuk-Yuk and I both entered and began training towards our first 5k race a few weeks ago. 

We got there nice and early, expecting to see not too many runners due to the very cold conditions. I thought it was packed, but it’s my first run so I have no idea how many people usually show up for these things. We located the registration tent and paid our $25 entry fee. In exchange I got a cool t-shirt and one of those number things to wear to identify me.  I eagerly safety pinned the number 1379 to my sweatshirt. Have to admit is was kinda cool putting the number on.

Then we kinda just had to kill 45 minutes or so of time before the official start of the race. Majority of the wait was made up of filling up on water and peeing non-stop (I dehydrate when I get nervous for some reason) to pass the time. People watching also made for quite an exciting time. 

Then as time approached we all gathered around the starting line. Again, there were a ton of people. Made it nice and toasty. Then after a live singing of the national anthem, we were off. Mr. Yuk-Yuk made a smart move to pass many people by going off the street. I wouldn’t catch up to him until half a mile in. I managed to separate from him after a mile, and by the second mile had a sizable lead on him. 

The last mile wasn’t so kind to me. The early morning and lack of hydration was taking it’s toll at this point. Also, lot’s of credit had to go to Mr. Yuk-Yuk for the late push he gave at the end of the race which led to him beating me by several seconds. Well done Mr. Yuk-Yuk, well done.

We both managed to finish under 29 minutes, which we were both very proud of. Just two weeks ago our times were around 36 minutes. So the practice had paid off. We’re anxiously awaiting the official postings online.

Categories
Development

Akismet WordPress Plugin

The Akismet WordPress Plugin is awesome. I was up to a couple of hundred or so spam comments a day on various WordPress hosted blugs, and it was getting to be quite a waste of time deciding what was a real comment of a wonderful gift of spam.

Downloading and installing the Akismet WordPress Plugin was simple.  Directions can be found on their site, it took me probably 5 minutes to get the whole think up and running. Also necessary for the install is a WordPress API key.  This can be gotten from the WordPress.  

Again, if you have a WordPress powered blog install the  Akismet plugin now.

Categories
Development

WordPress Template Errors with Dreamweaver CS4

This one had me scratching my head for a bit, so I figured I’d write it down.  While creating a new WordPress template the template name was coming up incorrectly in the WordPress admin. Instead of just displaying the name of the template, it was rendering all the info in the template. 

I kept checking existing templates that weren’t having this problem and could see no noticeable difference between mine and what they had typed. After much confusion, I decided that perhaps it was how Dreamweaver CS4 handled line returns. So I fired up a basic text editor and typed it all up and uploaded it and it worked fine! 

So now I’ll be coding up my WordPress templates in BBEdit not Dreamweaver CS4.

Categories
Video Games

Mass Effect

Mass EffectPicking up a used copy of Mass Effect for $15 was one of the better purchases I’ve made in a long time. This game is an amazingly well done sci-fi experience.  The music, graphics, worlds, aliens, and dialog were true to a traditional sci-fi movie.

The decision making that your allowed to make throughout the game makes for a very interested story. There many points where the story can go in completely different directions, with how you want to play it. Some of the decisions are pretty tough, with instances where either decision is a loss.

The voice overs are really well done. Especially with all the different alien races you encounter throughout your travels. If you own a xbox 360 and haven’t already played this already, I highly recommend that you do. After defying the odds and somehow saving the galaxy from the Reapers, I’m very much looking forward to the sequel in 2010.

Categories
Video Games

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Secrets of the Grimoire RiftEver since I played Final Fantasy Tactics on the Sony Playstation back in 1998, I’ve been addicted to strategy RPGs. When I heard that Square was releasing Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift on the DS, I pretty much circled it’s release date on my calendar like a third grader.

The game delivered as I expected it to. Tons of characters, jobs, classes, and lots of gameplay. I’m ashamed to admit how many hours this title has taken from me the past couple of months, but I guess that just shows that it is another well made game by the fine folks at Square-Enix. They addition of the seeq and gria races was pretty cool. The moogles are still my favorite, they just look funny to me. And ending every sentence with, “kupo” is pretty cool.

Not sure I ever figured out what a Grimoire of the Rift is exactly, but it was a pretty cool game.