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We should go hiking some time. Even if it's just a day-hike, that'd be cool. I have a nifty camera which needs to take more pictures and an overly lazy body. We should fix that.

I broke down today and bought Windows 7 Pro, full version. Sure, there are still plenty of way to "acquire" such things with little more than an internet connection, but I decided to go for the legitimacy.

I was thinking of playing around with Ubuntu, maybe installing KDE because pretty and stuff. But I'll probably opt for keeping Linux in the VirtualBox for now. It fits in there nicely.

I thought maybe we could use a separate thread for talking about client for Brad's RPG. That way he can still talk about his class design and stuff and I don't trample on his legitimate work.

That being said, I am interested in writing a PHP/JavaScript based client for this game when it comes about. Naturally, the official Braddish client will have to be made first so he can get the game API all hammered out.

If you haven't done so already, be sure to check out Brad's thread, Flash/C++ Game Project.

As Nick mentioned elsewhere, I think we should make a few dumb, super-short movies. I kind of have an urge to play with video equipment.

My first suggestion: create a short clip to slap on the end of stuff we upload to the Randomland YouTube channel (which is stagnating, by the way).

Have any suggestions / ideas?

Sometimes, playing old video games is "the shizzle." On Friday night, I busted out the old PSOne and popped in Final Fantasy VII. 1997, baby! As with all video games, I sucked severely. From the data on the memory cards, it seems that Cody has probably logged 100 hours (or more) in that game, but I had never given it a try until last weekend. I probably won't spend hundreds of hours playing it, but it can be fun to pull out old stuff.

I got a nice looking soldering gun as an early Christmas present yesterday. It came from the [Home] Depot. Perhaps I'll add some Randomland commentary on it once I use it. there are a few wires that I need to solder or wire-nut together for Eve's stereo harness. I figured soldering would be better...and it was a good excuse to get another tool that should last for years. Besides, my $2.99 Harbor Freight (or was it Fry's?) soldering iron seems to have bitten the dust.

It is this, Weller Soldering Gun, I believe. It feels very nice and solid. We'll see how it holds up to use! And cool, the reviews look positive now that I find it on the interwebs.

So, I started up my car this morning and turned on the defroster. It always makes extra noise when I turn it to defrost. I have been told that cars with A/C run that pump in conjunction with the defroster to take moisture out of the air. And my car seems to do this all of the time, except for this morning.

It was back to normal and noisy by the time I got to work. I'm not sure if something seized up because of the cold or what, but no harm done...probably.

Also, for the first time that I can recall, the heating system at work was actually pumping out warm air into the server room. It must be cold, eh?

I somehow ended up with my Dad's old Krups espresso maker. I am very thankful for the gift, but I might get hooked on caffeine-laced milk suds. I haven't tried it since I brought it home; I'm still trying to steam out of calcium deposits caught in the filter.

It should be fun though and is supposedly a very sturdy old machine. Sometimes I appreciate hand-me-downs more than new stuff -- isn't that odd?

Post links to strange stuff you find on the internet! For example, "Do llamas have dorsal fins?"

Today's fresh find: a craigslist ad about turning your dirtbike into a snowmobile: http://portland.craigslist.org/wsc/mcy/1480754565.html

Nick and I were recently talking about our favorite racing simulator games, both old and new. It is true that the only reason I ever bought a "PSone" was so I that I could play the original two Gran Turismo games. While the driving physics were great, those games are showing their age...they're over a decade old!

This past year, I stumbled across the Forza racing series for the Xbox. It is quite good and is probably on par with the GT series, though I haven't extensively played anything newer that GT2. The driving physics feel almost identical to that of Gran Turismo, and real life for that matter. I have only tried the career mode and it is sufficiently challenging -- something GT2 lacked.

Racing simulators are by far my favorite type of video game. It appears they have come out with a 3rd edition of my Forza Racing game. I might have to check that out!

All of the snow I found last weekend has made we want to go on some sort of snow trip. Probably not a camping trip (yet), but like snowboarding or inner tubing. It's not the most practical of day trips (long drive and potentially expensive), but it's fun. Let me know if you're interested.

A few months ago I bought a little Bluetooth speakerphone to use in the car. It works quite well and am pleased with it. I don't like the earpiece, alien look, so this is a nice alternative.

I keep trying to buy another one but Newegg (where I bought our current one) is constantly out of stock. Today I had another idea -- do they make aftermarket stereos with handsfree calling technology built in? Yes, it turns out they do. And there appears to be a big market for it. 

Eve's car doesn't have a cd player so I was considering this as an option. A few minutes searching turned out this Alpine unit for about $180. Not a $35 bargin basement deal, but an interesting thought. I think Oregon passed one of those laws which makes you a criminal to hold a phone to your head and drive at the same time...but don't get me started on that.

One of my many computer-related projects is to get all the video off my DV tapes and encode them in to some compressed video format which will stand the test of time (DivX and Xvid seem to be around to stay). What programs have you used to splice and encode video with?

My ancient copy of Adobe Premiere does not like Win7 at all; I can't even install it. That program performed all video-related tasks I could think of, though its video capture wasn't my favorite. It also provided many hours of entertainment with all those "music videos" I put together (which I can't seem to find anymore )

Sometimes I wish I had Microsoft Access. I know, it's gross, but sometimes you need a simple database without the hassle of writing a whole GUI, backend, etc, etc. I want to make a simple database which tracks what movies. All I need to store is:

• Movie name
• Who is it loaned out to (if anyone)
• Who is it borrowed from (if anyone)

Simple! My brain does this automatically but has crap for accuracy. :-/

I just watched Outlander (2008?). The case artwork made me think it would be aweful, but it wasn't half-bad.

Hmm, watching the deleted scenes explains the plot better. What's up with that?

Yes, Christmas tree -- not a "holiday pine" or some other sort of universally disagreeable term of homoginized blandness -- no! Christmas tree.

Ok, now that I got that out, what are people doing this year for Christmas trees? I know Nick and I traipsed around in 2 feet of snow to find a kind donor of the evergreen variety. That was fun, though they always seems a little bare once they come inside. The farmed kinds get much fuller, indeed. It's quite November, I think it's nearing Chrismas tree time, myself.

Bam! I am liking the new forum banner. It's fun. The only thing I'd suggest is adding "forums" to it somewhere to clarify that this (the forum) is not the entirety of Randomland...the "home" button of the toolbar doesn't really clarify that either, but yeah! Cool photoshoppage.

Was that done with all those wacky tree brushes?

I was thinking of making a little box out of my left over wood from the bike tree project...if it hasn't been used for some other project already. I was thinking of building a box or two to house my guitar amps. They sit in the closet a lot, but aren't very easy to place stuff on top of. So, stackable boxes would be awesome.

I whipped up this today:


I was thinking of something with a hingable, open front but would actually be quite content with a box that had a removable top. I was thinking of padding the inside with some cheap foam. If I get really into it, I may pick up a roll of speaker carpeting stuff and cover the outside.

Just ideas. Let me know if the wood has already been used for another project. It is free to use on someone else's projects, by all means.  

Should we uppost that little map you made of all our secret places in the woods? I'm certain that no one would ever care to find us or prosecute us for being so smelly during one of our camping adventures.

This topic will be for any bugs or suggestions relating to the new image gallery we are implementing. It's a little rough around the edges and I'm sure we can come up with plenty of suggestions -- post them here.