Well it should come to no surprise that this blog is not being worked on at a constant rate. Well part of the reason is finals (1 out of 5 done) coming and part of me forgetting to write and whatnot. Anyway to make up for it here is a little video to improve your spirits.
Emotional Week
Well after an emotional Thanksgiving break I figure it is about time to start this thing back up again. To update you there is a new feature to the right called MapLoco. I came across this on a web page and was intrigued so it is on trial on my blog. The next technical update will hopefully be a new background or something other than just straight black.
As I happened to be looking for some good ammo to explain to you why I believe Dr. Phil is the biggest scam in America today, I happened to run across a funny video of David Letterman. It just shows that even though people in Edina pay a lot for their houses, gas, and the plants on the sides of the roads, they really are not the smartest bunch of people. You will see what I mean in the letter that Letterman reads in the video that probably happened 30 years ago judging on his looks.
Going off on the late night talk shows, I really wanted to find a video of the Canadians that proposed on Craig Ferguson the other night. Instead I found this interesting bit about him taking his test to become an American citizen.
If that is really all they do it doesn't seem that hard. Yes it would probably take about 10 minutes of studying, but still not that hard. I did a little searching and found out that they have a list of around 100 questions that can be studied, but the INS officer can pick and choose what they want to ask. There is a test here that you can take to get a sample of a few questions that might be asked. I ended up getting 75% correct.
My new project is figuring out how to pick a lock or make a key. This idea came to me as I was leaving my room. Turns out I finally figured out it would be nice to have a key for my door since it is so close to the house door, the problem is the land lord doesn't seem to want to give us any keys. Anyway I got a movie called Lockpicking For The New Millennium in hopes that I can learn something about making a key or picking my door so I can finally lock it. I have skimmed through and they have a tutorial of how to make a key, to do so, all I would need is a blank key and a file. Hopefully with a large amount of frustration and luck I will end up with a working key.
As I happened to be looking for some good ammo to explain to you why I believe Dr. Phil is the biggest scam in America today, I happened to run across a funny video of David Letterman. It just shows that even though people in Edina pay a lot for their houses, gas, and the plants on the sides of the roads, they really are not the smartest bunch of people. You will see what I mean in the letter that Letterman reads in the video that probably happened 30 years ago judging on his looks.
Going off on the late night talk shows, I really wanted to find a video of the Canadians that proposed on Craig Ferguson the other night. Instead I found this interesting bit about him taking his test to become an American citizen.
If that is really all they do it doesn't seem that hard. Yes it would probably take about 10 minutes of studying, but still not that hard. I did a little searching and found out that they have a list of around 100 questions that can be studied, but the INS officer can pick and choose what they want to ask. There is a test here that you can take to get a sample of a few questions that might be asked. I ended up getting 75% correct.
My new project is figuring out how to pick a lock or make a key. This idea came to me as I was leaving my room. Turns out I finally figured out it would be nice to have a key for my door since it is so close to the house door, the problem is the land lord doesn't seem to want to give us any keys. Anyway I got a movie called Lockpicking For The New Millennium in hopes that I can learn something about making a key or picking my door so I can finally lock it. I have skimmed through and they have a tutorial of how to make a key, to do so, all I would need is a blank key and a file. Hopefully with a large amount of frustration and luck I will end up with a working key.
Crazy Friday Night
Oh boy, where do I begin?
Well lets start off with Friday. After a few heated debates and arguments I finally convinced Sally to let me go up to camp work weekend instead of staying in town to drive her somewhere. So after classes I rush home only to find we aren't going to leave until around 6. I then proceeded to invite Sally and Kyle over for a couple of heated bouts of ps3 monopoly. We finished up monopoly at 5:45 but Sally started freaking out because I supposedly said I would help her with her microeconomics homework. Then I proceeded to lose my computer cable so to the upstairs computer she went. After talking about how much she hates typing on my dads light up rubber keyboard I find my computer cable sitting right next to the chair.
Upstairs I go only to find John, Michael, and Theresa waiting to hop in the car and take off. Little did they know I had to figure out two tests and was already running late. After much bickering from my siblings they finally decide to go pick up Matt and Robbie and then come back and pick me up. Well when they got back we were just finishing up the first one and they made sure we knew they weren't to happy. The time we finally finished the homework and actually headed out was 7 pm.
On the ride up Michael has a book of minute mysteries and stupid questions that he was asking us. One of the earlier ones was a mystery about why a girl is gluing leaves back onto a tree. After a few minutes of asking questions and guessing ridiculous answers I finally blurted out that the doctor told her she would die by the time the leaves have fallen so she is out there trying to make them not fall. Turns out that was pretty much the answer. A few minutes later he asked us what the presidents name was back in 1984. Well we start guessing every possible president we know, from Nixon to Reagan to Garfield and even to Lincoln but we had no idea. After about 20 embarrassing minutes he finally gave us a hint.
The hint was his first name started with a B and his last name started with an O. That didn't help anyone out and everyone started making up random names or just shouting B.O. Well after another 20 minutes or so he told us the answer was Barack Obama and we all felt like idiots...
We arrived in Duluth around 9:15ish so we decide to stop in at the villa and say hello. Turns out my parents didn't think we would stop so they were moping around town. Well back down the hill to the gas station and then over the bridge into Wisconsin. After a long boring trip through Superior we hit the open road and pull up to the dirt road to camp. Michael wanted to play with his green laser pen out the window but as luck would have it there was a car in front and behind us so the only place it could go was out the side. That got boring so he decided to shine it into the trees in front of the van that was ahead of us. The instant it got to the front of the van they hit the breaks and we all laughed pretty hard.
After that it was just another night at camp. Said hello to everyone and sat in the oven warm lodge. I know you all liked the time lapse of my room, and well, lucky you! I made a new one. It is kind of dark since we happened to drive up their at night but it gives you the general idea of our trip.
Well lets start off with Friday. After a few heated debates and arguments I finally convinced Sally to let me go up to camp work weekend instead of staying in town to drive her somewhere. So after classes I rush home only to find we aren't going to leave until around 6. I then proceeded to invite Sally and Kyle over for a couple of heated bouts of ps3 monopoly. We finished up monopoly at 5:45 but Sally started freaking out because I supposedly said I would help her with her microeconomics homework. Then I proceeded to lose my computer cable so to the upstairs computer she went. After talking about how much she hates typing on my dads light up rubber keyboard I find my computer cable sitting right next to the chair.
Upstairs I go only to find John, Michael, and Theresa waiting to hop in the car and take off. Little did they know I had to figure out two tests and was already running late. After much bickering from my siblings they finally decide to go pick up Matt and Robbie and then come back and pick me up. Well when they got back we were just finishing up the first one and they made sure we knew they weren't to happy. The time we finally finished the homework and actually headed out was 7 pm.
On the ride up Michael has a book of minute mysteries and stupid questions that he was asking us. One of the earlier ones was a mystery about why a girl is gluing leaves back onto a tree. After a few minutes of asking questions and guessing ridiculous answers I finally blurted out that the doctor told her she would die by the time the leaves have fallen so she is out there trying to make them not fall. Turns out that was pretty much the answer. A few minutes later he asked us what the presidents name was back in 1984. Well we start guessing every possible president we know, from Nixon to Reagan to Garfield and even to Lincoln but we had no idea. After about 20 embarrassing minutes he finally gave us a hint.
The hint was his first name started with a B and his last name started with an O. That didn't help anyone out and everyone started making up random names or just shouting B.O. Well after another 20 minutes or so he told us the answer was Barack Obama and we all felt like idiots...
We arrived in Duluth around 9:15ish so we decide to stop in at the villa and say hello. Turns out my parents didn't think we would stop so they were moping around town. Well back down the hill to the gas station and then over the bridge into Wisconsin. After a long boring trip through Superior we hit the open road and pull up to the dirt road to camp. Michael wanted to play with his green laser pen out the window but as luck would have it there was a car in front and behind us so the only place it could go was out the side. That got boring so he decided to shine it into the trees in front of the van that was ahead of us. The instant it got to the front of the van they hit the breaks and we all laughed pretty hard.
After that it was just another night at camp. Said hello to everyone and sat in the oven warm lodge. I know you all liked the time lapse of my room, and well, lucky you! I made a new one. It is kind of dark since we happened to drive up their at night but it gives you the general idea of our trip.
Speed Up Time
Well I happen to love taking tests and lucky me, I have a: quiz today, test Friday, and two tests Monday. With that being said I put together my time lapse of my room and you can view that below.
That video was 424 pictures taken over a period of 21 minutes while I was writing up my previous post.
It would have been nice to know I could update my camera to do this when it was Halloween. Then we would have been able to do a video of our pumpkin carving journey, but I will have to wait 11 more months before I get that opportunity again. Unfortunately for you I am going to tell you of our pumpkin carving experience.
It was a normal Friday, except this Friday I was going to surprise Sally with a trip. I was planning on going up to PineHaven Farm in Wyoming, MN. I was planning on us giving blood (to get a free admission) and then going on their haunted hayride and the haunted houses and corn trail. Sounded fun at the time and giving blood is always a good thing, but that plan fell through because I was sick and it was cold and rainy. We then drove around trying to find some pumpkins and eventually landed at Cub Foods and picked up three pumpkins for the price of two. In preparation for our pumpkin carving event I printed off some where around 25 pumpkin carving patterns that ranged anywhere from the Cool-Aid Man to Mount Rushmore to Charlie Chaplin.
I chose to carve Albert Einstein into my pumpkin and Sally decided to carve a princess into hers. Sally made me cut out her pattern so she could trace it onto her pumpkin, and I just slapped my paper on with some tape and cut through the pumpkin and paper all at once. Sally's pumpkin looked neat and clean while she was in the process of etching her princess. My pumpkin looked like a war zone with paper shreds and pumpkin guts everywhere. In the middle of the chaos I realized I cut a little to close to my other cut and Einstein's eye fell out...... so now I had a one-eyed Pablo Picasso-esk looking pumpkin.
After an hour or so of wondering why my pumpkin looks nothing like the pattern, and wondering what kind of hideous mess it is going to look like, I finally finished. After wondering what on earth these pumpkins are going to look like I told Sally to cut the lights and I stuck my phone inside to see what they looked like when the were lit up. After carefully propping Einstein's eye the best I could, I realized our pumpkins didn't look half bad.
Now our dilemma. We had one more pumpkin to go, but neither of us wanted to do anything as intricate as the patterns I had printed. So we decided that I will cut the top open and carve the mouth, and she will gut it and carve the eyes. This pumpkin looked liked the pumpkins I would carve a few years ago so it brought back memories of being younger and not wanting to make an elaborate pumpkin.
That video was 424 pictures taken over a period of 21 minutes while I was writing up my previous post.
It would have been nice to know I could update my camera to do this when it was Halloween. Then we would have been able to do a video of our pumpkin carving journey, but I will have to wait 11 more months before I get that opportunity again. Unfortunately for you I am going to tell you of our pumpkin carving experience.
It was a normal Friday, except this Friday I was going to surprise Sally with a trip. I was planning on going up to PineHaven Farm in Wyoming, MN. I was planning on us giving blood (to get a free admission) and then going on their haunted hayride and the haunted houses and corn trail. Sounded fun at the time and giving blood is always a good thing, but that plan fell through because I was sick and it was cold and rainy. We then drove around trying to find some pumpkins and eventually landed at Cub Foods and picked up three pumpkins for the price of two. In preparation for our pumpkin carving event I printed off some where around 25 pumpkin carving patterns that ranged anywhere from the Cool-Aid Man to Mount Rushmore to Charlie Chaplin.
I chose to carve Albert Einstein into my pumpkin and Sally decided to carve a princess into hers. Sally made me cut out her pattern so she could trace it onto her pumpkin, and I just slapped my paper on with some tape and cut through the pumpkin and paper all at once. Sally's pumpkin looked neat and clean while she was in the process of etching her princess. My pumpkin looked like a war zone with paper shreds and pumpkin guts everywhere. In the middle of the chaos I realized I cut a little to close to my other cut and Einstein's eye fell out...... so now I had a one-eyed Pablo Picasso-esk looking pumpkin.
After an hour or so of wondering why my pumpkin looks nothing like the pattern, and wondering what kind of hideous mess it is going to look like, I finally finished. After wondering what on earth these pumpkins are going to look like I told Sally to cut the lights and I stuck my phone inside to see what they looked like when the were lit up. After carefully propping Einstein's eye the best I could, I realized our pumpkins didn't look half bad.
Now our dilemma. We had one more pumpkin to go, but neither of us wanted to do anything as intricate as the patterns I had printed. So we decided that I will cut the top open and carve the mouth, and she will gut it and carve the eyes. This pumpkin looked liked the pumpkins I would carve a few years ago so it brought back memories of being younger and not wanting to make an elaborate pumpkin.
Here is a picture of the individually carved pumpkins.
Here is our joint adventure.
Videos
After a few long nights, and internet issues, I finally have the videos posted from the concert! Before we get to those, I spent pretty much all of last night in fascination as I figured out that my camera was capable of doing things I never thought possible. I was aimlessly Google-searching my way through the internet to try and find a power supply cord for my camera when I ran across a program called CHDK.
Don't ask me what that stands for, but I have figured out that it is amazing. It enhances the features of my camera (Canon A540 Powershot) by updating the firmware off of my SD card. Once the firmware is updated, my camera is capable of taking exposure pictures up to one minute. It also has setting for taking an exposure picture up to around 5 minutes but I haven't tried those because it really drains my batteries. I can also take pictures up to 1/10,000 of a second.
Right now I have my camera in the corner of my room taking pictures about every 2 seconds to try my hand for the first time at a time lapse photo video. I might post that later if it turns out decent. CHDK can enable my camera to save the pictures in RAW format also which allows me to have better control in the post processing and even try my hand in a few HDR photos. It can also run scripts which allow it to do pretty much whatever you can think of.
Before I post the concert videos, you should have a look at this flash slide show of some facts you might not have know before. If you happen to know all of them then congratulations.... but I highly doubt you will.
http://cbs2chicago.com/slideshows/bizarre.facts.20.1243030.html
The anticipation is over. Here are some videos of the concert. Our view was actually closer and better than the video looks, but for some reason cameras always have a way of making everything look tiny.
We start out with Christmas Eve / Sarajevo 12/14
Toccata - Carpimus Noctem
The Mountain
Moonlight And Madness
Wizards In Winter (note the different color flames on the sides)
And the Finale
Don't ask me what that stands for, but I have figured out that it is amazing. It enhances the features of my camera (Canon A540 Powershot) by updating the firmware off of my SD card. Once the firmware is updated, my camera is capable of taking exposure pictures up to one minute. It also has setting for taking an exposure picture up to around 5 minutes but I haven't tried those because it really drains my batteries. I can also take pictures up to 1/10,000 of a second.
Right now I have my camera in the corner of my room taking pictures about every 2 seconds to try my hand for the first time at a time lapse photo video. I might post that later if it turns out decent. CHDK can enable my camera to save the pictures in RAW format also which allows me to have better control in the post processing and even try my hand in a few HDR photos. It can also run scripts which allow it to do pretty much whatever you can think of.
Before I post the concert videos, you should have a look at this flash slide show of some facts you might not have know before. If you happen to know all of them then congratulations.... but I highly doubt you will.
http://cbs2chicago.com/slideshows/bizarre.facts.20.1243030.html
The anticipation is over. Here are some videos of the concert. Our view was actually closer and better than the video looks, but for some reason cameras always have a way of making everything look tiny.
We start out with Christmas Eve / Sarajevo 12/14
Toccata - Carpimus Noctem
The Mountain
Moonlight And Madness
Wizards In Winter (note the different color flames on the sides)
And the Finale
A Day of Contrast
Well, I woke up bright and early at 11 am this morning and then zapped two pieces of leftover pizza. I then hoped in the car and drove back into town for an interesting night. Sally and I took off to go see the Trans Siberian Orchestra and they were amazing as always. The first hour and a half to two hours they play their slower music that tells a story about Christmas. They play a few of the songs they are well known for every few songs but for the most part they are calm songs with very graceful light shows. Then they introduce the band and some of the crowd that hasn’t seen them perform before leaves. Little did they know, TSO just uses the first hour and a half for a warm up. They then play all their up beat and pretty much turn into a rock concert. Their lights start going crazy with lasers shooting out of everywhere imaginable. It is always worth seeing them and I would recommend their show to anyone that wanted to go to a concert. Even if you don’t like their music, you will be more than entertained with their over the top light and pyrotechnics show. Taking the videos I have filmed off of Sally’s camera has proven to be more difficult than anticipated so I will try to get those videos to work and post them tomorrow so I can share a little of the experience with you.
After TSO it was another battle to try and get onto 94 E. You would think they would put a few on ramps next to the on ramps for 94 W, but they don’t. We drove for about 20 minutes to find out how to get back onto 94 E when we had to make a 7 pm movie show time.
We finally figured it out and arrived at St. Catherine University to watch a Deaf movie titled Gerald. I had wondered for the past few days what a Deaf movie would be like or what they would make it about. Lucky me today was my day to find out. First thing I noticed at the movie was that none of the movie previews had sound. There wasn’t any: talking, music, background noises, nothing. After the first couple preview I realized the movie hasn’t even started yet and accepted the fact that this would probably be a really, really, really, long 2 hours.
Turns out I wasn’t completely correct on my assumption. Yes the movie was very silent but the audience on the other hand made up more than plenty for the sound the movie wasn’t making. There were people: crinkling pop cans, flicking pop tabs, laughing, and shuffling around. The heater would even make a strange hissing noise and then some loud clicks every time it turned on. Also the movie started out pretty slow but then we were introduced to Gerald. Gerald was an elderly deaf man with autism and was always ready to make the audience laugh. Once I got into reading the subtitles I started getting into the movie. I don’t want to say anything to spoil the movie, but if you ever want to see a deaf movie for the experience, I would recommend watching Gerald. Even though it is a very quiet hour and forty five minutes it is an interesting movie. I would give it 7 out of 10. Sorry but the trailer does not have subtitles.
Yay Weekend
So finally the weekend is here and there are no tests until Wednesday.... So to fill you in since my last post: I have been busy with the test, I fixed my TV, and I had a weird dream about Michael Jackson. The big news is that I finally found out why the VCR I brought back to school was not working. It turns out that the TV needs to be on channel 4 (I am an idiot). Anyway I have the converter box and my ps2 hooked up through the VCR, which runs to my TV, and they are all hooked into the receiver that I received from someone off of Craigslist. Yup, living the good life.
Anyway, tomorrow seems like it's going to turn out to be an interesting day. The plan is to go see Trans Siberian Orchestra at 3 and then 'someone' is trying to force me to go to a Deaf movie so I would sit there for 2 hours having no idea what they were saying. Maybe a good time to take a nap. Sally and I went to see TSO like 3 years ago and it was a great show so hopefully this one will be as interesting as the last. I found a clip of them from last year on youtube so if you want to see a little bit of what they are capable of, play the clip below.
As a lot of people know I usually don't keep track of what is going on in the NBA (unless the Timberpuppies are actually winning) but I happened to check out NBA.com to see how the beloved Timberpuppies were doing (1-9). While I was looking around on the main page they had a link to a crazy dunk by Dwayne Wade.
Crazy? I think so.
Anyway enough videos. I am currently looking for some new pictures to mess with in Photoshop because the truth is I haven't taken any photos as of late to mess around with. Well if I think of anything else I will just have to make a new post.
If you want to comment under every post there is a little line that says "Posted by Steven Farmer at 9:13 PM 0 comments", Just click on the comments link and it will take you to a little box you can write what you want in. Also while you are here feel free to click on these random google links and maybe some day I will get a check for a few pennies :). That is all.
Anyway, tomorrow seems like it's going to turn out to be an interesting day. The plan is to go see Trans Siberian Orchestra at 3 and then 'someone' is trying to force me to go to a Deaf movie so I would sit there for 2 hours having no idea what they were saying. Maybe a good time to take a nap. Sally and I went to see TSO like 3 years ago and it was a great show so hopefully this one will be as interesting as the last. I found a clip of them from last year on youtube so if you want to see a little bit of what they are capable of, play the clip below.
As a lot of people know I usually don't keep track of what is going on in the NBA (unless the Timberpuppies are actually winning) but I happened to check out NBA.com to see how the beloved Timberpuppies were doing (1-9). While I was looking around on the main page they had a link to a crazy dunk by Dwayne Wade.
Crazy? I think so.
Anyway enough videos. I am currently looking for some new pictures to mess with in Photoshop because the truth is I haven't taken any photos as of late to mess around with. Well if I think of anything else I will just have to make a new post.
If you want to comment under every post there is a little line that says "Posted by Steven Farmer at 9:13 PM 0 comments", Just click on the comments link and it will take you to a little box you can write what you want in. Also while you are here feel free to click on these random google links and maybe some day I will get a check for a few pennies :). That is all.
One down one to go.
So I took my management test today and it went better than expected. Now I only have to make sure I know 5 chapters of marketing... Anyway Thats all I'm going to write about tonight due to being tired and a need to wake up early to study a little more before the test.
Here come the tests
Sally was talking to me on gmail and ran across a craigslist add for volunteer activities. I looked more into this opportunity and have found some great opportunities to help out that would be fun to participate in. You can check out their site at handsontwincities. Well I am going to watch some Letterman and study for my test tomorrow morning now and head to bed for a big day tomorrow.
One Random thought before I go. If you ever wondered how big the largest animal on earth is Click Here.
First missed chance to post...
Well as you can tell I have already missed my first day of writing on here so off to a bad start. Yesterday was kind of a low key day. I woke up fiddled around the house and then the gopher game came on. It was a pretty good game and came down to the wire pretty much. Most people think that Eric Decker being hurt would hurt this team. He was on my team in the Minnesota high school basketball all star series so I have nothing against him. But what I will say is that sometimes when teams have a really good player they always try to go to that player instead of making some smarter plays. Anyway I thought they played an amazing second half and did really good distributing the ball amongst the team, just came up a little short. Then my father and I drove off down the road to drop off our beloved freezer. Then Sally came and picked me up and we went and talked to my aunt Carolyn for 45 minutes or so and then off to her dads place in Lake Elmo. We watched the movie 500 Days of Summer. I watched the previews and they looked funny. I read online that people thought it was a great movie. But when I watched it I didn't think it reached the point that it was hyped up to be. I found it to be slow, not nearly as funny as the commercials, and a little distracting as it was flipping through the days. Overall I would give it 6 out of 10 and definitely not on my list to watch again.First Post Ever
Hello, I was just wondering aimlessly around the internet one night and stumbled upon this site so I thought I would give it a try. This blog probably isn't going to specialize on any one topic. It will probably just be what I have done for the day or something I learned or found interesting. Basically it is going to be about whatever I decide to write about for the night. With all that being said as of now I am still trying to figure things out on here so it will be a little sketchy at first but should get better as time goes on. Hope you enjoy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
