Adventures of Tooth

2010-04-07T22:13:00.000-07:00

If you don't already know, Troy, NY is being considered by Google to offer it's high-speed internet service that will hopefully help Troy become one of the first 'internet cities' thanks to Google. With all the internet companies and RPI, Troy is a prime candidate for receiving the beta version of Google's internet. If you're interested, you can visit Troygle.org for more information to find out why Troy hopes to be one of the first cities to be supplied with Google's pipe into the internet.

2009-11-10T20:06:00.000-08:00

I've been using my new GPS unit for a few weeks now and I can finally say something about it. It may not be the best one money can buy (I bought it for $130 on Newegg) but it's definitely something I recommend to anyone looking for a cheap but reliable option. Yes, it has pissed me off in the way that it's set by default to take the shortest distance and only searches for cities in the state that you're currently in, but changing these settings can make it into a solid unit that will direct you where you need to go.

I did learn that taking route 1 in Jersey is not the best option to get to Philly. Use 95 instead no matter how many miles you might save. I spent a good 25 minutes on route 1 figuring out how much of a horrible way it was to go and getting back to 95. I should have set the the Garmin to use the quickest time option. If you're still interested, here's a full review of the 205W.

2009-09-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

A Arithmetic	N Nguyen
B Bollywood	O Oaxaca
C Czar	P Pterodactyl
D Djibouti	Q Qatar
E Eye	R Rzeszow
F Fesuvius	S Szechuan
G Gnat	T Tsunami
H Hmong	U Ust-Njukzha
I I (me)	V Vesuvius
J Juchem	W Wreath
K Knoxville	X Xerxes
L Lhasa	Y Ytterbium
M Mbasa	Z Zsa Zsa

2009-04-28T20:08:00.000-07:00

I find it a bit strange how there aren't too many free and open-source solutions for editing video yet. I found a few like Jahshaka and Virtual Dub, but they don't offer too many features like the paid programs do. By using a couple different ones you could probably edit a video into something you like but it would take so much time that you would be better off using a trial version or paying the $50-100 for a reliable editor. I guess we'll have to wait and see if there's interest in the subject for all those open-source developers out there.

In another note, there seems to be a plethora of free open-source solutions when it comes to editing photos. I suppose it's just so popular and easy that any developer or company can produce advanced software to make professional tools available for anyone to use for free (GIMP is a good example). From what I've seen, anywhere you look there's another website or freely downloadable program to edit your photos anyway you want. For an example, this article covers (and reviews) the best free photo editing software tools that are available today - apparently there are enough to pick out the best 10 programs from who knows how many there really are.

2009-01-12T09:45:00.000-08:00

2008-04-19T16:31:00.000-07:00

Hot Boxing a Car

My friend gets a lot of flak for his 94 Plymouth Acclaim (or as he calls it, his Acc). Somebody even scratched 'Diby's HotBox' on it. Well, my friends decided it should be made into a real Hot Box, and no, not the normal kind of hot box you maybe thinking of. This hot box was to be 100% pure cardboard to improve upon the Acclaim's aerodynamics, heat resistance, and structural integrity. It took about 4 hours to complete the project on an afternoon our friend, Deibert (aka Diby) had been out of town for a baseball game. What could be better than coming back to discover your friends have Rick Rolled your car? We think he'll love it once he sees our improvments.

And we put some nice drawings of some of his favorite stuff (Pabst, NASCAR), and some stuff he hates (namely the Yankees and Jeter).

The 'envy green' monster and all it's glory

Driver's side if you can't tell

Passenger side (before artwork)
The blue marker didn't hold up after this

Deibert hates the yankees

Even ordered custom NY plates

And stating the obvious, Diby got 553 Summed

2007-08-31T16:16:00.000-07:00

Update on my Procrastination List from last year;

Brett's Procrastination (Not-to-do) List

Put my web skills to work and create a nice website for myself.
~~Get a physical.~~
~~Put together that closet organizer I bought in December.~~
Visit Anuj in India.
Play curling.
Learn to ice skate.
Start a gourmet take out style pasta bar with Steve.
~~Make my official 'procrastination list'~~

3 out of 8 ain't so bad. I think that should be my new motto, if I had one. Maybe #9 is get a motto. 3 out of 9 would be better. It's more easy to be reduced in proper terms like 1/3 or .3333. Either way, I'm pretty good at not doing stuff.

2007-08-31T15:09:00.001-07:00

So I remembered today that I had a blog. Apparently it's been over a year since I remembered I had a blog. I think I may be in the later stages of Alzheimer's. The stage that basically kills you.

Anyway, the reason I remembered is that I had something extremely important to make public. I I wish I had my own site to post it on but unfortunately I am way too lazy to do such a thing. Today at work our VPN (virtual private network) connection was down. I asked a part-time co-worker Will if he could fix the issue. He needed to remote desktop onto my laptop so he could see our network and use my Cisco SDM client to fix the connection. Halfway through the task, Will wanted to tell me something. We were using GoToMeeting for the desktop connection which takes over your entire desktop, leaving Skype, IM, or any other chat program in the background. He realized it would be silly to use the built in chat feature in GoToMeeting so instead opened up Notepad on my machine. He typed in what he wanted to tell me, and then I replied back using Notepad. After a second, I realized that we may be the first people to use Notepad as an instant message application. I then thought that at some point in the history of remote connections, someone has done the same. Kinda ruins the feeling. Still funny though.

After Will fixed up the VPN, he wanted to test it out. He then opened up a command line window to find out if the 10.0.0.21 addy resolved correctly to our remote servers. It did, and at the next prompt, he typed 'booyah' to prove to me it worked. I responded with 'mad skilz, son' to only realize that we were definitely the first people to use the Windows command line prompt to chat. History in the making, folks. I plan to have my keyboard and a screenshot in the computer section of the Smithsonian one day.

2006-06-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

You would think that the last thing that my friend and I would talk about is really really really really really dorky stuff, but apparently, that just doesn't happen when you live next to the Hudson in Troy. The dorkfest of RPI just sucks you in forever.

Actually, we were both joking, so apologies in advance if we don't make any sense. We don't know about the secret underworld of computer fantasy land.

(22:40:07) Brett: I will cast level 3 processor on my machine so it can easily defend against your myriad Atipa overclocking ability
(22:40:40) Steve: i have level 4 armor
(22:42:08) Brett: Oh, no. Now I will have to break out my Magic Potion, 80% strength in hopes to counter-react
(22:42:56) Brett: which I was saving for my Level 6 battle jousting competition with my nearby enemy, Athlonomos
(22:43:20) Steve: homus?
(22:43:30) Brett: sure.
(22:43:34) Brett: I'm not dork.
(22:45:56) Steve: oh, Earth Simulator, you got served

2006-04-16T20:10:00.000-07:00

Easter dinner included a ham, a turkey, and a pork roast. I did spend a few minutes thinking about how ham and pork comes from pigs, and why they're so different. I had the usual few pounds of food and and afterwords I overheard a conversation about the farm down the road. The farm is mainly a dairy farm and offers corn and whatnots in the summertime. One person then mentioned a story about the Beefalo on the farm. I questioned them on the definition and location of these 'Beefalo'. Turns out they're a hybrid between a cow and an American Bison, so the meat is tender, yet lean. The location of the farm is right down the street, so without hesitation I gathered a group of any other interested parties - everyone else had seen them but the little kids at the dinner were up for the trip.

After a quarter mile or so we arrived near the heard and our calls drew them a little closer. I already had some photo shots of them far away, but wanted some nice closeups. We were only a few feet from the fence - 7 straight electrified wires stretched from the ground to about 7 feet up. Our attempted calls weren't drawing them any nearer. A little frustrated with not getting their attention, I used my whistle/hum noise (much like the noise from UFO's tractor beam in any standards 50's or 60's sci-fi movie). It always makes dogs go crazy by running around, jumping on me, growling, etc. I suppose I should have thought about that before I made the noise.

The alpha male standing about 6 feet tall and tipping the scale at, oh, 1000 to 1200 pounds was at the front of the group and about 40 feet away from me. The noise made him actually look up at me and after 2 seconds, decided he didn't like me or my noise. It's quite surprising how quick a beefalo can go from a standstill into a full out sprint. It's also quite surprising how a human can instantly shat themselves and start running like Michael Johnson during his world record setting 100 yard dash. The beefalo saw the effort/fright and before he got to the fence, turned around to go back to the herd. Needless to say, from now on I'll only be confronting beefalo when they're pleasantly grilled and served on a plate.

2006-04-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

I've been getting some spam that's almost too funny to believe someone wrote it in seriousness. I hope they're all going out to everyone, but in case it isn't, I'll post the ones that I've been getting;

SAD TO HAVE SHORT D1CCK, BIGGER 2" NOW AT LOW profession

allow few you appearance use letters.
how disappoint the fly goes use?
evening nothing suddenly suddenly reference.
wrong thats development next the force, anything profession news?
pride steps social social.

she CHEAAP PRIICE C1AALIS, \/1AGGRA, XANNAX, LEVITTRA, VAL1UUM, ULTRAAM, MER1D1A raise

mischievous anything prison. development happened carefully window?
steps bad night social carefully.
leader money fly did yours.
mischievous goes light.
arms reference mentioned explain. drew we pride reference wife raise,

XP PRO, OFFICE 2003 AND ALL AT ONLY $12-60 EACH, WE GIVE U LICENSE or

sugar letters a development.
studied bad we music. leader hard similar. drew disappoint raise.
latter whom she goes,
force development music we is make, is raise night?
am yours appearance happened? across edge or, we promised teach reply

and my favorite of all time;

DONT PAY THOUSAND FOR SAME SOFTWARE, WE SELL AT ONLY $15-60 FOR ALL SOFTWARES leade

again back letters very edge immediate. am motor why thus.
mischievous you window.
tying few find carefully.
mentioned being disappoint.
raise he light few.

I'm wondering if the person making all these spams is just waiting for someone to actually go to the site, and buy whatever thing they think they're buying... just so the spammer can find out who the absolute stupidest people are on the entire planet.

Kinda sounds like a program developed by the government to find the next generation of politicians, law makers, and officials.

2006-04-12T15:12:00.000-07:00

Nothing brightens up your Monday morning like reading this in your email. Nothing else gets you fired quicker than quoting it every time your boss asks when your project will be done.

again back letters very edge immediate.
am motor why thus.
mischievous you window.
tying few find carefully.
mentioned being disappoint.
raise he light few.

I bet that if you had about 9 beers, and read this during a stroke it could make some sense. I'm not suggesting you have 9 alcoholic beverages, but a stroke can really shed some light on all the right things.

2006-03-06T19:37:00.000-08:00

It's only a day late, so I'm still making good on my promise to put more of these mini-blogs up. Here's one I made up while visiting Saugerties, a charming antique-laden River town with even more charming and antique people. I met a wandering rapper that night. I forget his named but he rhymed gravy and Old Navy right at the end of his 'rap session'. For some reason I turned down the offer to bump nasties with one of the badonkadonk girls that were randomly at his apartment. He said the two of them were too much work and needed someone else to help him out. It was quite apparent that he was strung out from not buying any Depression glass bottles that day.

During my recent trip to the grocery mart I had sex with an avocado, spit on the help, and tossed a salad or two. Needless to say, my coupons had expired the day before.

Even I was expecting one about the crazy rapper dude, but I'm betting I didn't know how to put that meeting into words. I did however, capture the action of college hockey with words. The game was tied at 0 until the last few minutes of the game. After halfway I couldn't take anymore - and decided to express my rage through my thumbtip (that may not be a real word, but I spelled it right).

College hockey is so insanely boring that I'd rather be naked on the disease filled streets of Bangalore while trying to shake off the worst hangover I've ever had. Seriously. Throw some padding on Ostriches and you'll see better puck control.

That only took me a few minutes - the game still had an hour left. I felt like I had some time to waste so I prepared something a little more random and tasteless.

I wish I contrived the HIV as a fetus. It would be a much easier story to tell everyone. Each time someone asks how I got it I have to explain how I had to suck off truck drivers to afford my next 40 of Michelobe. I would never stoop as low to drink malt beverages.

2006-03-05T08:16:00.000-08:00

While this may appear to be my first blog entry, I'm really not a blirgin. I have several at work, one on my fagberry (it's what I call BlackBerries because I swore them off thinking they were only for middle aged men wanting to look important and fags), and a silly one at MySpace. I've been meaning to get them off my phone and into a site of some sort - myspace, here, or a real website for myself. Just thought of something. My 'Procrastination list' I may as well post it to prove I think about something in my spare time.

Brett's Procrastination (Not-to-do) list

Put my web skills to work and create a nice website for myself.
Get a physical.
Put together that closet organizer I bought in December.
Visit Anuj in India.
Play curling.
Learn to ice skate.
Start a gourmet take out style pasta bar with Steve.
Make my official 'procrastination list'

At least I can stratch off something off the list today. Anyway, let me get back to the real reason I'm typing on a keyboard this late Sunday morning instead of going to Church for the first time in 17 years.

I've randomly been collecting short bits that I loosely call blogs on my fagberry. I've shown them to tons of people and I can tell you right now if you'll think they're funny or just use of the the human language to make disgusting/offensive/insane sentences.

Are you religious? My studies have found that anybody who regularly attends church don't find these funny.

Do you receive an LL Bean catalog in the mail every month? Again, if you do, please don't read any more.

Have you donated any money ever to PBS? I think you're getting the idea here, so I'll post the first one.

It's very mild and represents my 'born and raised in upstate NY' mentality. I was at concert (the band Three) in Woodstock, NY and saw a few citiots (yuppies from Manhattan). At that point I figured it would be funny to script a typical yuppy blog;

I'm watching some guitarist play music but can't stop thinking about how much of a bitch the girl at Starbucks was when I ordered my usual Triple Expresso Mocha Choco Soy Latte.

More of a spoof, not a true funny. My next one could possibly be my favorite. You'll have to think of me being a female in order to truly appreciate it. It doesn't really make any sense in the reality of me being a guy.

As my Mom always said, "Don't talk to fags. They'll spoil your appetite for cock."

Oddly enough, not too many girls like this one. The ones who do are usually pretty cool and worth talking for a few minutes with. My next one is quite similar, but comes from my grandfather and makes no sense;

My grandfather once said to me, "Don't have sex with drunk hookers. They'll steal your testicles and impregnate your hampsters with reckless abandon. Not to disrespect your grandmother as she knows enough not to shit on our bed.

I'm spent at the moment (truthfully, I want to watch the Orangemen vs Villanova bball game). I'll put the rest up in another post. One last thing - I was never a fan of 'if you have nothing good to say, say nothing at all'. If you like to give me some hate comments, please do. I'll simply turn them into funny quips that will offend you. It'll be like eating your own shit.