Free Lifelock?

I've been thinking about trying this do it yourself Lifelock. Apparently you just fill out a form every 90 days.

Parallettes

These are homemade parallettes. They are like gymnastic parallel bars but minified for home use. Sure, you could just go out and buy parallettes, but those things get awfully expensive. Oh sure, you don't want to break your neck with a shoddy product. Thats why I put these under some stress tests:

The bars are about a foot off the ground and a little less than 1.5 feet of usable bar space. It takes an entire ten-foot PVC pipe from your local hardware store, and was so easy to make, even I could do it! Best part is, it cost me only $40.

You can find the directions at CrossFit. And, if you want to see someone who uses parallettes properly, you should check out Randal Setzler's YouTube video (hint: you don't stand on them.)

And before I forget, I'd better give Zane his props for convincing me to do it. These things are fun!

Reel mowing

A couple of years ago I was out on a jog and saw a guy mowing his lawn with a reel mower. At that moment I thought if I ever have a lawn I should do that. I try to save the planet as much as I can, and I thought this would be a great way to help. I now have a lawn and a reel mower. So far it has been great. The one thing I have learned is mow often. If the grass is too tall it just will not work.

This week I have heard a couple of times the mayor of Wichita talk about how Wichita has had higher air pollution then it should the last two months. He talks about how you should get a new lawn mower, because old ones are very bad on air quality. He never once says get a reel mower. I find that sad. How many people don't think about that and how much could it save?

The bottom line is if you have a lawn consider a reel mower. You never need to change the oil or gas them up, and they are a great workout if you just sit in an office all day. It is a win-win-win.

Goodbye to Agnew

I was told that Agnew is coming down this summer. A little research turned up a leader story about it. I know Agnew is an old building with some issues, but when I was at Fort Hays it was where some of my best times happened. The wild Friday nights of playing Mario cart in Shayne and Alex room. Or the times we just went down the hall and got a bunch of people together to play basketball or soccer. It was only place I have ever lived where I know almost all my neighborer. I could good on and on about all the great times, but for those who lived you already know. I was prod to be an part of agnewtions. Goodbye old friend and my the housing that replaces you be a place for others to enjoy, live, and learn.

From the agnewtions facebook page. It says it all.

Air conditioner: $98.00
Double room+15-meal plan:$5,196.00
Living in a coed dorm without freshmen: priceless

The Manga Guide to Calculus

The Manga Guide to Calculus follows a story of a young reporter who must use calculus to analyze data to discover news stories, or something like that. What I find amazing about this book is that for $20, you can get entertained while learning calculus, even going as far as partial differentiation and Taylor series expansion.

$20?!?! Man, what a deal! My stupid boring text book I used in college cost way more than that. Not only that, but there is an entire series of "The Manga Guide to..." books, ranging from databases to the universe.

I'm seriously considering getting this book, and integrating it into my life. Did I just make a stupid math joke? Yes I did, and it was a bit derivative to boot.

Best commercial ever (even if intel is evil ;)

Play Budget Hero

Budget Hero is a game about balancing the federal budget. Based on the actual economic model and data used by the Congressional Budget Office, it's your turn to decide what to spend on, and what to cut.

Not only that, but you get to choose up to three different "value badges" our of a pool of eight to measure how your decisions on your budget affect what you value. For example, you might choose the green badge, the energy independence badge, and efficient government, like I did the second time around. If you choose the card to award $30 million to the person that invents a better car battery, then that would contribute positively to your green badge. Choosing to drill for oil in Alaska would increase your energy independence (oddly, I don't think that affected my green badge negatively, though). Double clicking on the cards will tell you what your spending/cutting would do, so make sure you do that, rather than just drag the cards onto the "recently played" pile. Research, people!

Let's just say that I effectively nailed the efficient government badge. The other two badges, not quite a quarter was earned. I'm not proud of what I did, but suffice it to say that there would be more than a few old people angry with my decision to destroy social security as much as the game would allow (little do they know that the joke would be on my generation anyway). But I did reduce the national debt from $13.8 trillion in 2008 to $9.2 trillion in 2018 and delayed the budget bust from the year 2038 to 2070, so at least I've got that going for me.

All in all, it was a fun and educational game. I actually felt like this game helped my life and my understanding of government spending in a positive way, which is more than I could say for many other games I've played in the past, like Bart vs. the Space Mutants.

An article about the development of the game can be found at Gamasutra's Post Mortem: Getting Serious with Budget Hero. It provides some interesting gamer statistics, it is worth the less-than-five-minute read time.

Weird Al on Circus of the Stars

I remember watching this when I was nine or so. I still get nervous watching this sway pole act today. Watch it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8CTEEOMLgE.

Then, become a fan of his on facebook!

Tic-Tac-Toe

Paul and I are in the process of game creation. Our plan is to start small and work our way to bigger and better games.

So our first collaborative work is Tic-Tac-Toe. You can't start much smaller than that. It's finished, and now we plan working on a Tetris clone.

Google Street View: Coming to a street near you

I was talking with one of my co-workers during a break, and he revealed that Utica, KS had been Googlized! So I wondered what other places of Kansas they drove through. As it turns out, it was a bunch.
They hit Tribune (and some highway), Macksville (who is this guy?), and plenty of other western Kansas towns got hit too. An obvious one they missed: Hays! I'm sure Google will not stop until they've managed to index every town, and then move on to our very own brains. It'll be great, I can't wait.

Mario Kart!!!!!!!!!!

Do you guys remember playing Mario Kart all the time? I sure do, and I found this song on youtube that brings me back to the good ol' days.



Enjoy

Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime

It is Christmas season, and you know what that means: Instead of radio stations playing standard rotations of 5 pop songs on repeat, they play their rotations of 5 Christmas songs on repeat. YEAH!

So instead, why not listen to a catchy Christmas song set in the future? (Don't worry, you don't need to buy it, Jon offers the song for free. I'm sure he'd be happy with more money though)

If you would like visuals with it, I'm sure some YouTube goods will help out.

Paul! What's the deal with your alternate life?

Hey Paul, I just watched this video on YouTube, and you've got some explaining to do. I was just wondering when you decided to move to "Chicagoland, Illinois?" Also, when did you gain all that weight and change your vocals? I noticed that you still like to wear red hats at least.

Whew.... Gald I check this place once in a blue moon

Not much happen here in the blog world. It must be way too exciting out there. Me I'd rather be...

One Night, Three Targets.

It was a September night and needed some sauce. Not just any sauce we needed Tikka Masala. They reason we wanted the sauce was friend was over and wanted some because they could not get it where they lived. So the word was you could get it at Target. We go to a Target close to the house find where the sauce should be and no sauce. We ask the a target employee, which was very nice and told us how to find it other stores in town have the sauce. A quick check with the service desk and we find one Target close by has one jar and one Target across town has 12. We call the close Target to check and according to them they have one jar. I make the call and we go to the close one. We get there and no sauce. No space for the sauce on the shelves. We ask an employee and he has no idea. 20 minutes later and across town we hit the jackpot. 12 jars of Tikka Masala. We take 6 and go. Funny thing is I still don't know if it is any good. Guess I will have to cook some chicken :).

Famous People Punching Steve

If you want to make it big on the Internet with photography, you have to have a theme. I guess. Anyway, this guy is no photographer, and the lighting and framing are all wrong, but the shots are still striking nonetheless. Go to Famous People Punching Steve, and I'll guarantee that "You'll laugh 'til you stop laughing!*" (tm)

*Assuming that you started laughing.

The Luke Arm

The Luke Arm is an advanced prosthetic device that is, um, head and shoulders above the rest. You can watch videos about it at medgadget. I only watched part 2, but it provided a nifty and simplified version of how it works. People, listen: This thing can pick up grapes! There was another guy, who had no arms but two Luke arms, and was able to disassemble and reassemble a gun, and then fire it. All of this with minimal training too!

It may be a long video (almost 15 minutes) but there are some really neat things going on.

Firefox tweaks I can use

Personally, I use tips 9 and 10 from this guy's list of 28 Coolest Firefox About:Config Tricks.

Trick 9 is about how to handle JavaScript pop-ups, which differs ever so slightly from the normal method of pop-ups, I guess. Whatever. Ever since Firefox got the ability to open the list of tabs that were in the previous session, I was always a little ticked when I found out there was yet another Firefox window open that had an advertisement in it. Well, no more, Paco!

Trick 10 is useful for me because it enables spell check in all fields, not just the multi-line ones, and I am a horrible speller.

Take this mac

http://www.slate.com/id/2198535/?gt1=38001

Weee

FHSU has an awesome debate coach. Kind of wish I knew the guy.