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Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Julkalender 2006
Julkalender 2006 starts in a few days! I think I'll use the old Julkalender 2005 feed to start the new one...I'll have to see how it works out....only a few days left to prepare the show and record a few episodes! Time to get busy. I recorded the theme song, so it looks like it's going to happen!
Haven't done any Coverville Idol - 1973 Edition work yet...hopefully I'll have time for that too...too many projects again.
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Friday, November 17, 2006
Coverville Idol 1986!
Finally! Coverville Idol 1986 came out! Download it here!
I'm the 4th song in, playing Sly Fox's Let's Go All The Way. Support me for the win! Vote here!
I really don't care if I win or not...it's all in the competition. However, I hope I get at least in the top 3 so they play the entire song. In any case, on to the next Coverville Idol: 1973.
Details here as I figure out what I'm going to play.
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Thursday, November 16, 2006
Ghosting
"Ghosting" is the latest trend in Halloween fun. Here's how to start the new ghosting activity in your neighborhood:
- Take two pieces of paper, and draw ghosts on them. Write "You've been ghosted!" on them as well.
- Prepare two bags with candy for the intended victims.
- Go to two houses, tape the ghost paper to the front door, leave the candy on the porch, and ring the doorbell.
- Run!
When the victims open the door, they will get the ghost picture plus the candy. A nice treat, rather than a mean treat! The neighbors can then spread two more ghosts to two other families. Before you know it, the ghosts will have spread throughout the neighborhood.
Happy Halloween!
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Paraquat - Initial Entry
Adding a new category today for Paraquat, the band that I play in. I wanted to throw down a note here and there as to what I'm recording, to maybe provide some sort of time frame in the future when I'm trying to figure out what happened when. I guess it could fall under music, but I wanted a separate grouping.
Did a second mix of "Unfortunate Delay" - the drums were too quiet, the bass wasn't boomy enough, and I think the guitar needed a bit more punch. Hopefully this mix will turn out better than yesterday's mix.
Oh yeah... Happy Halloween!
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Thingamablog Recovery
Well, I managed to find a lot of the old articles...I don't know what happened to them. At least I was able to repost them.
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Speedmaster 7000 Manual
Thanks to Matt Hurley, who got them from SIGMA Sport support, there are now copies of the Speedmaster 7000 manual available! Choose your flavor: wireless or wired.
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A Good Reason to Become a Pirate
Reading National Geographic, I ran across the story of the pirate Stede Bonnet, known as the "Pirate Gentleman", who allegedly became a pirate due to his nagging wife, Mary Allamby. Supposedly, after a particular nasty argument, he left and followed his dream of becoming a pirate.
Rather than steal a ship as any respectable pirate would, he bought a ship, renamed it "The Revenge", and hired 70 crewmen (well, folk from local taverns) to become pirates with him. He captured a few ships, but shortly met up with Blackbeard, who took him prisoner. After a few months, Blackbeard abandoned Bonnet again, and he was once again a pirate. Soon after that, he was captured, tried, and hung in Charleston, South Carolina. All in all, he was active from 1717-1718. His reign of terror had ended.
Follow your dreams.
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Update to Thingamablog Commenting
After checking out Steph's site, I added an optional e-mail and web page tag to the comment submissions page.
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Image Tooltips in Firefox
I wanted to add "Tooltips" to the commenting functions below, as well as the permalink. This way, when you hover the mouse over the button, you know what it will do. Firefox expects the "title" tag to be used in the img statement, where as Internet Explorer pops them up with the "alt" tag. According to various sites, the "title" method is the way to do it. I just did it both ways, and it seems to work ok.
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Scary Films (For A Kid) You've Probably Never Seen
When I was a kid, WKBD, TV50 in Detroit, showed "Creature Feature", a sort of B-Movie monster movie show every Saturday at 3:30 pm (to the best of my recollection). There were a few movies that still stick in my head, 20 odd years later.
Island Of Terror
Island Of Terror is a simple movie about slow moving bone sucking turtle-like creatures stalking folks on a small island. Starring Peter Cushing, the best part of the movie are the sound effects, particularly the trilling sound that they make and the slurping sound of them removing the bones of their victims. I even dedicated a sound patch on my Roland Alpha Juno synthesizer to them.
Shock Waves
Shock Waves is a sort of Nazi zombie film where the attackers are Nazi supermen that can live underwater. Here's another one with Peter Cushing and John Carradine. The best part? When the Nazis would slowly rise behind their victim and ambush them.
The Legend of Boggy Creek
This bigfoot pseudo-documentary sent chills up my spine for years. Best line: "Well, it's gettin' kind of late and the fish aren't bitin', so let's just go on home". Spoken after someone spots a creature track in the mud.
Happy Halloween!
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Shreddies
I was surfing around somewhere and I found a simulator that mentioned eating Shreddies for breakfast. If you are ever in Canada, go to the local store and pick up a box of Shreddies. I encountered these when I was about 13 years old. They are sort of a honey-sweetened wheat chex type cereal. Excellent eating! I haven't found an equivalent in the United States yet.
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Biscuits 101
Rescued article from Google!
In the same vein as making pasties, I decided to make biscuits. I looked for the simplest recipe that I could find on the internet that took the least effort and the least ingredients. As I didn't search that long, here's what I found.
Baking Powder Biscuits, from a 1933 Recipe
Ingredients
2 cups sifted flour
2 tsp. baking powder
4 tablespoons butter or shortening
1/2 tsp. salt
about 3/4 cup milk
Sift Flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift again. Cut in shortening or butter. (this is where I use my hands by rubbing the butter into the flour). Add milk gradually, stirring until soft dough is formed. Turn out on slightly floured board and lightly "knead" for 30 seconds, enough to shape. Roll 1/2 inch thick and cut with 2 inch floured biscuit cutter. Bake on ungreased sheet in a 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. Makes 12 biscuits. You can also make tiny tea biscuits that are only 1 1/2 inches wide with a small cutter or glass bottom. These are great served with tea, jam or honey. Makes 24.
The Experience
I'm not really sure what "tea biscuits" are. I assume that they are some sort of English biscuit that you eat with tea. Anyway, after mixing and following directions, the biscuits seemed a bit dry. I added a tad bit more milk than called for, to get a nice consistency, based on my vast experience (ha!) of making pancakes. Make sure that you use the floured board before trying to roll, as the dough seems pretty sticky. Also, make sure that you read the tablespoons before you get started, as I had a 1/4 tablespoon and 1/2 tablespoon, and I thought the 1/2 tablespoon was the "normal" tablespoon. I figured this out almost too late, but I got enough baking powder into the mix in time. I hope.
End Result
Not too bad. I tried to bake them a bit longer than stated above, and they were a bit on the dry side. Taste ok with butter though! Yum!
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Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Thingamablog Lost My Entries!
Somehow Thingamablog lost some of my old entries...not sure what happened....maybe I made a mistake...but I realized that some of the comments that I had previously were appearing suddently under unrelated topics...the articles had vanished! Ack! How depressing. I know I lost my nice biscuit recipe. Not sure what else vanished.
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Configuring Apache2 for Password Protection
I found lots of sites that have information talking about setting AllowOverride AuthConfig. However, my Apache2 on Ubuntu was not doing any password protecting for me. I figured out that the problem was that I needed to edit the /etc/apache2/sites-enables/000-default file to change this setting. After I changed this file, it all started working for me. Not sure why I needed to change this file in addition to the apache2.conf file, but it solved my problem. Hopefully it will solve yours.
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Erie County Pennsylvania Voting Results
I finally found the place where you can get the results for the November 2006 election for Pennsylvania: Here. Here is a PDF with the results for Erie County. I'm going to have to check out the website again next year to see if the ballots will be presented here as well.
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Monday, November 13, 2006
Coverville Idol Update ... More bad news
From Brian Ibbott:
I thought I'd better be the first to let you know. One of the judges came down with a cold, and emailed me that he won't be able to record tonight. We're going to see if it works to do it during the week this week instead of having to wait for Sunday.
Believe me. As disappointed as you are, I am as well...
Well, having just recovered (well, recovering) from a bad flu illness, I can understand that, and I'll be lenient. :-) Either way, still looking forward to it!
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