Taking Back Geek

SXSW Day 4: Crust punk, bartender, lawyer, financial planner

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:00:09 PDT

Day 4 started with another learning session. This time it was about applying the lessons of Dungeons and Dragons and applying them to the User Experience flow and mapping ways to increase traffic and brand and advertising. I’m not going to lie, there were a lot of buzzwords and industry jargon flying around, but I think the structure can be leveraged into almost any design flow where you have to create use cases. And I got these awesome dice!

I needed to swing up to the north side of campus to take care of some business, and grabbed lunch and a few drinks at the campus side Austin’s Pizza. Besides me, the only people in the joint were the bartender and a crust punk / skateboarder / musician. We spent a good part of the afternoon talking about growing old and life and music and all that kind of fun stuff that you get into when you’re three drinks in.

I managed to find myself at the Hack You - The Human Body is the Next Interface talk. Though at that point I was pretty hammered, and the lovely folks from the IEEE managed to cover some pretty advanced subjects that went a bit over my head.

My schedule was pretty light that day, so I headed over early to make sure I caught the screening for the night, Don Jon’s Addiction, the JGL movie. Turns out that I headed over reeeeealy early, so early that I couldn’t get in line yet. So I decided to grab a bite to eat at the Roaring Fork, more for its proximity to the Paramount Theater than any desire for a fancy meal.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one to come up with this idea. The place was packed. I managed to grab an open seat at the bar, ordered Jamison on the rocks and a bite to eat. I struck up a conversation with the two guys next two me, who turned out to be a lawyer and a financial planner. After learning a bit about law, quite a bit about financial planning, and talking a bit of philosophy and computer science, I bid those gentlemen farewell and got in line.

My dinner break allowed enough time for the line to grow, but not too much, so I settled in for a long wait, made a few line friends and got a couple more beers. After a few hours, they let us inside, and the movie started. I’m pretty sure that no-one is interested in an extended review from me, but I will say this. It is a pretty good movie and you should check out if you get a chance. It’s funny, it explores various addictions and one sided relationships, and stars Joseph Gordon Levitt, Scarlett Johansen and Tony Danza. After the movie, JGL and Tony Danza came onstage for a Q&A, which was pretty awesome (except that my phone was dead so I could take no pictures). All that was left of my night was a thirteen block trek back to my car (that allowed me to sober up). All in all, a day well spent.

SXSW Day 3: Dancing Robot, Dancing Ladies, and Numbers

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:07:39 PDT

By day 3, I found myself falling into a familiar pattern. The first thing I did every day was take a class designed to help out with web programming. These classes were taught by experts and really fascinating to take, but would probably come across as boring in a blog. So, yeah, no recap, but another interesting session, and another breakfast with squirrels.

Ending again too late for me to catch the keynote, I got in line to see Nate Silver talk about the Signal and the Noise, and how ‘Big Data’ reaches a point where the effort outweighs the return, and emphasized my favorite point, correlation is not causation. It was pretty cool, but I had started day drinking at that point, so it was a tiny bit harder to follow than that kind of thing would normally be.

After the Signal and the Noise, I caught a presentation by Heather Knight called Charismatic Machines and Robot Comedy. Aside from the presenter being distractingly pregnant (my hangup, not hers), and the fact that I had to keep reminding myself that this tiny little blond girl had multiple degrees in electrical engineering and electronic social sciences, the show was great. In fact, I’m going to plug her website (http://www.marilynmonrobot.com) and her film festival (WEBSITE). The wrap up was a 15 minute stand up comedy routine performed by her robot Data (named after the Star Trek character).

For the first time in the festival, I found myself staying downtown after 6pm. I was planning on seeing Spring Breakers, but that was apparently one of the festival favorites, and the line at 7:30 (for the 9:30 screening) stretched off into the sunset. I skipped it, took a wrong turn down a side street, and wound up seeing ‘And I Am Not Lying at SXSW’, a old style burlesque / comedy show that focused way more on long form story telling than naked ladies. The ladies were cute (no pictures, because I’m not a perv) and the comedy was pretty hilarious, but the star of the show was this grizzled old cowboy that spent the evening doing rope and whip tricks. His finale was to tie up one of the audience members and whip a noodle out of her mouth.

That sounds way more dirty than it actually was. Anyway, it was a great way to end the night, and the I went home feeling great.

No Dancing Ladies for you, prev, but you get dancing robots

SXSW Day 2: Come early, leave .... early?

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:05:04 PDT

Holy behind on updates, Batman! Though those of you that are fans may find that to be a common thing. Don’t worry, totally going catch up on all the days I missed. In fact, anyone reading this next week... uhm, pretend I didn’t say anything. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Anyway, this brings us to day 2. Saturday. Nice and early in the morning, because let’s face it, there’s nothing better than getting up at 8am on the first day of your vacation in order to attend a seminar on coding. Admittedly, I learned quite a bit and it was a great class, but still, needed a big cup of coffee to help with the waking up.

I actually arrived early, because traffic was better than I had thought, so I spent my breakfast hanging out with the squirrels on UT campus. This aside has no real relevance, but I am going to mention it so I can include cute pictures of squirrels right here.

The only downside to the class was that I had neglected to take travel time and wait times into consideration when planning out my SXSW. I ended up missing the Elon Musk keynote, which I was super excited about, but by missing it, I was able to get in line really early for seeing Neil Gaiman interview Chuck Lorre about Chuck’s new book. It was an interesting watch, and I actually got a bit more respect for Chuck and his productions. Little things like the fact that he never added any canned laughs, and sometimes even cut out audience laughter that went over the dialog in the scene. Also, all of the profits from the book were going to health charities, so that’s cool.

Another neat little aside, caught a glimpse of Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Fucking Palmer in the audience, once Chuck called out his boy for saving Two and a Half Men. Guess which of the two I was more excited about seeing? (Hint: she’s giving a talk that I’m not going to be able to see because I don’t have a music wristband.)

That pretty much proved to be the highlight of the day. Well, I had a bacon cheeseburger kolache for lunch that was pretty awesome, but still, not the highlight of my day. Most of the after-parties and meet ups that I went to were pretty lame, so I called it another early night and headed back to the north end of town.

SXSW Day 1

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 07:09:07 PST

Due to an unfortunate scheduling error, I had to pass up free local beer and BBQ in exchange for a 3/4 day at the office. Pretty much the definition of failing at fun. Thanks to a meeting getting canceled at the last minute (seriously, I got word at 1:29 that my 1:30 meeting was off) I managed to head downtown a little bit early, after stopping at the Black-star co-op for a burger and a Rogness Porter. Drinking mid-afternoon on a Friday is not exactly normal for me, but I’m a socially anxious person that decided it was a great idea to attend on of the largest tech conferences in the states, so a little liquid courage was in order.

Beer downed and stomach full, I boarded our friendly and helpful train, which was quite a bit more crowded today than yesterday. Between the guy yelling excitedly in what I think might have been Spanish while pounding on my chair and my seat-mate who glared at any and everyone, my nerves were pretty much shot by the time I reached downtown. This led to my fortunate decision to not walk eight blocks in the rain to learn about using data to design habits, and instead take in a session on hame design, and applying those lessons to life, thanks to Christina Woodke. I learned that I’m a ‘learner’ archetype.

Between sessions I downed an energy drink in order to be up and active for my lesson in typography (exciting, huh?). Actually, the time I took to re-energize was enough for the line to stretch out the door, so apparently I’m not the only one excited about making letters on websites look better. Richard Rutter #sxsw #webtype

There seems to be an unspoken rule in these training sessions. As a guy, you can’t sit next to another guy. One space must be maintained at all times. As a guy, you also can’t sit next to a girl, or else you’re hitting on her. Girls seem to have free reign to sit wherever they want.

The typography session taught me a bit about quite a few things that I didn’t ever think about, line widths and all kinds of technical stuff that probably isn’t of interest to you. But I learned quite a bit, and hopefully our site will be much prettier soon.

Day 1 was very much the day of being at the right place at the right time. Between typography and the Frog interactive opening party, I decided to skip dinner and make my way over to the Palmer Events center for the SXSW Gaming expo. After wandering a bit and looking at the pretty things, I noticed the next session, open to the public, was “The past and future of Borderlands”.

Matt Armstrong, director and designer of all the guns in both games, and Jonathan Ididntcatchhislastname, the man responsible for all of the character designs, walked us through the evolution of the characters. Not the art style, which has, according to them, been documented at length, but the actual starting points for the archetypes, the evolutions of their skills and backstory, and the fact that Tannis was once considered as a playable character before the PC became Lilith, which let them go wild with Tannis as an NPC. We even got a sneak peak at a bit of something they’re working on. Something they felt was missing from Borderlands 2 when they made Brick an NPC. (Which was always apparently planned, to make the PCs from Borderlands the NPCs for 2.) Their talk was great, and it became obvious very quickly that the reason why everyone loves this series. It was made by people that love it. The guns, the characters, the enemies were all labors of love. This was a seriously awesome talk.

This led me to the rather disappointing Frog Party. Make no mistake, it was pretty, there were lots of neat fancy things (pictures below), but there were way too many people and the party didn’t seem set up to handle it. The line for the bar was about 20 people wide, 50 people deep, and right at the center of the party, effectively cutting the venue in half. Even worse, the signs for ‘Food’ led into an empty lot. Hungry, anxious and over-caffeinated, I decided to call it a night.

TMI Frog Party?

The Food is a Lie

The Snake was not a lie

Lego Chris Hardwick

Light Bright for grownups

SXSW Blog: Day 0

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:14:38 PST

I wound up with an extra day off work, thanks to class being canceled. Rare as it is to get an entire day off, I used the time to get a bit of SouthBy prep done. Rode the capital metro train for the first time. It is surprisingly quick, convenient, and clean. Relatively cost effective, if you don't want to try and fight the nightmare that is downtown parking.

Unfortunately, they don't run until the afternoon on Saturday, or at all on Sunday, so I'll be getting to try out the bus routes instead. Not looking forward to that as much.

Today out-of-towners will flood my fair city, straining the infrastructure and driving prices up. Many of them will be confused by the wonderful weather. They may think that Austin is like this year round. Don't worry, it's not. There's a good reason why they don't hold SXSW in the middle of August. Tomorrow I'll see if it even matters, as most of my conference will be indoors. It seems that even during festivals, geeks, nerds, and techies will do their best to stay indoors.

The wifi on the train leaves much to be desired, but it is free, so I have little room to complain.

People blurred for their protection?

Badge picked up. I've got to hand it to the SXSW staff, the early pickup was not nearly as bad as I was expecting. In fact, I had allocated quite a bit more time than I needed. Left with the choice between trying to find a bite to eat downtown or getting food back up north, I decided to forgo the crowds downtown for the rest of the day. Besides, I”m pretty sure that the premium prices are already in effect.

Unfortunately my desire to eat local and eat mid-town was thwarted by the Blackstar Co-op not opening until 4pm on thursday. Too bad, because they are a great place to grab a burger and a brew. Instead I had to settle for a homemade pork chop covered with bacon.

I've got to work tomorrow, but will spend the last half of the day full emerged in SXSW, so day 1 will be blogged.

TBG 40: Gamma rays, sun flares and pea brains

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 17:33:53 PDT

Another episode that's just Fred and Greg. Random talking! Fun! Eureka!

TBG Ep 39: Getting Fat on Hats

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 22:21:41 PDT

Fred and Greg are Back! With David! The gang talks about the Avengers (sort of), petty name calling, deliciousness of food, apparel, and body parts, Ca$h Cats, twitter handles, birds, star craft, webcomics, and the joy of consuming your space foes. Special guest, VoiceOfTheVoid! Music provided through creative commons by MC Frontalot. Go Checkout Nerdcore Rising on iTunes or music purchaser of your choice.

Fred Reviews: LG HBS 700

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Fri, 11 May 2012 22:37:44 PDT

Hello Everyone!
Once again, your favorite Fred has returned to bring you another review of something Tech-y. We'll stick with my theme of Bluetooth, but will leave behind the waves of anger and hatred that come with that Rocksoul POS. Instead, I'm going to expound on my love of the LG HBS 700 Bluetooth stereo headset (~$60 on amazon.com)
The main reason I wanted a stereo bluetooth headset has a little bit to do with the fact that the iPhone assembly has the headphone jack interconnected with many other vital systems, and has more to do with the fact that I move with the grace and ease of a gorilla on PCP. Delicate electronics are not my friend, and I needed a way to talk and listen to my phone hands free without an extra cord that could cause undue stress on the inner workings of the mini computer that has become vital to my survival as a human being.
In the interests of full disclosure, this is just a collection of my initial impressions, I will have to follow up later once I've had more than a few days to judge how useful it is.
Let's start with the cons. There are relatively few, so this part shouldn't take long.
• The form of the device itself
It is a semi-circle that you wear around your neck, with earbuds that are held magnetically to the ends of the circle when not in use, and attached by wires when being used. My wife took one look at and said that it was the dorkiest thing she has seen me wear, and she's seen me wear a lot. But if you can get past the fact that you look like you're in an 80's sci-fi movie, then this isn't too big a deal.

The noise reduction portion of the earbuds works too well
It is less electronic noise reduction, and more 'plug your ears so no sound gets in' noise reduction. In order to interact with other humans, you have to remove the buds from your ears. Now, if you aren't actually bothered by con #1, then interacting with people probably isn't that high on your list either.
Enough with cons, let's move on to the pros.
• Sound quality
From incoming calls to podcasts to music, the sound on the HBS 700 is great. I'm no audiophile, so I'm sure there are many faults to find, but as your standard consumer, I didn't have any complaints. I haven't had too much of a chance to test outgoing call quality, so I'm going to leave off judgement of that for now.
• Range
Most of the reviews I read of other bluetooth stereo headsets complained that you had to keep your phone in your shirt pocket or else the signal would drop. As a man that rarely wears shirts with pockets, this would not have worked for me. The HBS 700 passed the initial test, can it maintain a connection while in my jeans pockets. Then, just to test it's chops, I checked if it could maintain a connection from my desk to the break room, about 50 ft away. It could not. However, it did make it around 30 ft, and the connection only broke when a big wall got between my headset and the phone. So, kudos on that one, LG.
• Integration
According to the packaging, the HBS 700 will work with the android talk to text feature, as well supporting playback controls for a wide variety of music players. I did not test any of these out, as I have the iPhone 4S, and not an android phone. The controls worked as expected for the music player. More importantly, the call button can be used to trigger Siri, the lovely little bit of software that can create reminders and calendar appointments, send and read back texts, make calls, and a wide variety of other features that I don't use nearly as much as the ones I listed. Hooray, another big win for this headset, for me.
• Battery life
This one I'm a little reluctant to review, as I've only just now recharged the thing for the first time, and that first charge from the manufacturer is rarely indicative of lifelong performance. However, it took long enough to run through that first charge that it impressed me. The instruction manual claims 10 hours of active use between charges. I made it 3 full days of listening to music and podcasts while driving and at work, and made one fifteen minute phone call, with a sprinkling of using Siri to make appointments, set reminders, and send texts. For me, that's at least 12 hours. I'm always pleasantly surprised when something performs better than advertised.
In closing, I'm certainly not saying that you should drop everything you're doing, run around like a chicken, and then buy this headset. But, if you're looking to cut the wire without losing the stereo sound and can pull of nerd chic, then I definitely recommend the LG HBS 700 Bluetooth Stereo Headset.
Peace out,
Fred G.

TBG Ep 38: Randy Newman vs The Devil

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:21:28 PDT

Fred - Greg - Quizmaster Chris
This one is pretty brilliant, Greg is aaaaaaall over the place.
We talk about memes, quizes, peer pressure, our new website, a live chronicle of our youthful indiscretions in journal form, time travel, the importance of crosswords, breakups, unicorn shit bricks, Greg's giddiness over engagement rings and musicals, 555-6309, Chris's childhood religiousity? (That's a word, right?), and much, much, much more. Like crawfish. Eewwwww.

Holy Technical Difficulties, Batman!

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 16:32:05 PDT

Wow, and after a week of outage, we're back. Sorry about that, if anyone was trying to get ahold of any of the posts and failed, there was just a bit of a DNS mixup (not my fault, I swear... ok, it might have been totally my fault, that had the blog pointing to a page with only the word 'Test' on it. But, we're back, and the wonderful writings of the taking back geek crew is available not just at takingbackgeek.blogspot.com, but also on our new self hosted site, blog.takingbackgeek.com. Yay! Anyway, just wanted to let you folks know we were back up. Hopefully going to be able to record another episode soon, and hope to have a totally new look for the takingbackgeek.com in the next week or two. Much Love, Fred G.

TBG Ep 37: In a row?

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 13:07:04 PDT

Once more into the breach, old friends! Into her breach, if you know what I mean. Yeaaaah. Ladies. Anyway, what was I saying? Right, new episode. Just Fred and Greg, and we talk about innuendo, our general lack of knowledge, social media, information availability and online privacy, and how piracy may effect creative output. (Please note, like always, we are talking out of our asses when it comes to this kind of stuff)

TBG Ep 36: Socialist Vampyres

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:46:17 PDT

In a hostful episode, Fred and Greg talk about guilty pleasures, smell-o-vision, the social contract, and chicken wings.

Fred Rants: Why do Dr. Pepper commercials suck?

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:11:26 PDT

Am I the only one who really hates the latest rash of Dr. Pepper commercials. Especially for the low carb and diet drinks. Admittedly, I might be the target audience for the claymation Diet Dr. Pepper commercials with the poorly voice acted fantastic creatures acting like jackasses, morons, and hypocrites, by which I mean I don't drink Diet Dr. Pepper. Not that I'm saying people who drink DDP are jackasses, morons, and hypocrites. I'm just saying I don't need drink it, and it doesn't claim to market itself to me. Now, if the point of the the commercials are to make someone that doesn't consume your product feel they have made right choice, then this campaign is succeeding admirably.

The set of commercials that really bother me are the ones for Dr. Pepper Low Cal Blue, or whatever the fuck it's called. Not only did it fail in it's aim to make me want to drink it, but the commercial's aren't even good enough to inspire brand recognition. The commercial's in question are some asshole riding around in a jeep in the midst of an exploding jungle. I'm sure you've seen them. If not, good for you, don't bother looking them up. My issue isn't with the jeep and 'splody jungle. I like jeeps. I like jungles. And fuck, do I love me some explosions. The problem that I have with it is the tone. Unless there is some masterful irony that I'm just missing, which could be possible. It seems to be trying to sell to guys using overblown masculinity and talking down to women. I think what really bothers it about me is the complete lack of class.

Being masculine isn't about blowing things up while talking down to women. Dr. Pepper could learn a few lessons from beer and liquor advertisers. Now, I'll admit there are some shitty beers that seem to follow the Dr. Pepper model. Coors light and Natty Light are two good example, of beer that seems to advertise based on being an ass. Note, these are terrible beers. But being a bad beer doesn't mean you have to have bad ads. Hell, Keystone Light has the ironic thing down. I love Keith Stone. Still don't want to drink their beer, but at least I don't actively hate their commercials.

But then there are the commercials that I love. Dos Equies seemed to have started the latest bunch of ads that embrace class as cool. The most interesting man in the world, no one can say he's not many, and no one can say he's not smooth. Heineken seems to have directly ripped off the concept, and are featuring what can only be the most interesting man in the world in his youth. Captain Morgan and Jameson have followed suit, crafting their founders/spokesmen into beings of legend that can say more with a raised eyebrow than one thousand words. Class. Power. Cool.

The real breakaway hit for me, the one that I've been surprised by is the ads for 1800 tequila. Extraordinarily simple. A man, a suit, a bar, a glass, a bottle. The spokesman doesn't dance, doesn't fight bears, just tells you that he's selling tequila. I don't know why it appeals to me, but not only do I like the commercials, but I've actually considered ordering it. I still usually order Hornitios, but the point is, I rarely actually want to buy products advertised.

Point being, the advertising team working for Dr. Pepper could learn quite a bit from other commercials. You don't have to be a jackass to be a badass.

That's all I'm saying.

- Fred G.

TBG EP 35: Every A-Hole With a Mic

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 11:53:00 PDT

Fred and Greg are back, baby. Joined once more by Quizmaster Chris (you'd almost think he was a cohost or something), the guys talk about alphabet words, video games, Back to the Future, trips to the past, and the depths of a man's soul in relation to children and bears. And so much more!

Fred Reviews: Rocksoul Bluetooth Keyboard Bk-103

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 22:24:32 PST

Hi Everybody!

It's your favorite Fred, here. As part of making TBG a larger part of your lives, Greg and I will be posting more updates to this blog.

Mine will mostly be reviews. Restaurants, video games, comics books, gadgets. You name it, I'll probably review it. You buy it for me, I'll definitely review it.

Today want to go over my thoughts on two Bluetooth devices. One of which seems to be made of pure awesome, the other has been nothing but pure frustration every time I try to use it. I don't think it will be hard to guess which is which.

First, we'll go over the Rocksoul BK103 keyboard case for the iPad 2. According to the packaging, it serves as a protective cover, a typing stand, and Bluetooth 3.0 keyboard. It does one of these things fairly well, one of the acceptably well, and completely fails at the third.

First, as a protective cover, it serves fairly well. On the plus side, it was aluminum, so fairly sturdy, and it snapped into place fairly easily. On the other

hand, having used the Apple Smart Cover since launch week, I'll admit I've grown accustomed to it. The additional weight is minimal, and I never realized how much cleaning the damn thing actually did until I switched to something else. As a cover, I'd give it three out of five stars.

Next, we'll measure it's performance as a stand. Fairly simple to operate, you just click it in place, and the weight of the iPad holds it in place while you type. It can be a little top heavy, and I've read other reviews that cautioned that it could tip. I want to emphasize that here. Not that it could tip, but that I actually read reviews of the thing before I bought it. But for all my purposes, as a stand, it worked like a charm. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Now on to the kicker, the performance as a Bluetooth keyboard. You know, the most important function of a keyboard case. There were problems from the start The pairing process was... frustrating. Try as I might, it just wouldn't pair. The iPad would tell me to type in 4 random numbers, hit return/enter, and it should have linked up. Somewhere between the 20th and 50th time I tried, something magical happened, and the damn thing actually worked. No idea how. Still, wasn't going to complain, because you really only have to do that once, and the pairing is good until you tell your iPad to forget that device. Yay, I'm connected! Everything is right in the world, right?

Not quite. There's a bit of lag in the keys, nothing major, just a tiny bit irritating. No big deal. Then I realize that I've misspelled a word, and auto correct missed it, so I hit backspace. The entire word disappears. Odd. I think, but I keep typing, until I accidentally hit the space bar twice, putting a period in the middle of my sentence. Backspace again. The errant period disappears, as does the entire word before it. Ok, so backspace on this thing is a terrible eater of words, I can adapt, learn to live with it. I type some more, being far more careful with my spelling than I usually am. Time for a new line. I press enter. The keyboard adds a period, and skips to a new line. "How thoughtful" I think, but surely it realized that the question mark I had typed didn't need to be followed by a period. So, in a moment of weakness, I hit the backspace key. This time, it ate not one, but two of the words preceding the question mark.

At this point, I figure I must be doing something wrong, or may be going insane from stress, so I put it aside for two weeks, barely using it for more than a case. Today, wanting to review the nifty Bluetooth headset that I got, I pick up the keyboard, and decide to have another go. The voracious backspace key has grown hungry in two weeks, eating two to three words at a time. Periods abound, filling the spaces between paragraphs with dots that should not be. In desperation, I turn to the internet. Seems that no one else is having this problem, so I figure it might be something in my settings. I hook up my apple Bluetooth keyboard. No issues, backspace deletes a character at a time, and the return key creates no errant characters.

I turn back to the Internet and realize why no one else has had this problem. No one else was foolish enough to buy a Rocksoul product. Or, if they were, all their complaints or workarounds disappeared with the company's website. That's right, in the two weeks since I bought the keyboard, the manufacturer has disappeared.

Hmm, it's getting late, and I've written more than 800 words on just this, so you'll have to wait for another day for me to review the product that I actually like. Tomorrow, I go to Fry's and try to return this Rocksoul piece of shit. Wish me luck.

- Fred G

TBG Ep 34: Happy Fredday 2012

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 20:21:37 PST

Quick show this week, as Fred, Greg and QM Chris talk about birthdays, drinking games, and the benefits of recording podcasts instead of being at a party.

TBG Ep 33: All Apologies

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:06:37 PST

Taking back geek returns in the new year. Fred G brings down the room, Greg T and Quizman Chris make with the funny. And geek. Woo.

TBG Ep 32: All I Want For X-mas is Two Giant Robots and an Arena to Fight In

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:54:25 PST

Fred and Greg are joined in the studio by the lovely and talented Siobhan. We talk about lists and stuff. And all kinds of awesome.

Music from music alley. com and is Everybody Wants Me by The Ghosts of Vegas

TBG Ep 31 : Good News Everyone!

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:57:21 PST

Another new episode. Greg, Fred, and Quizmaster Chris talk about trivia, the half life of a mayfly, video games, Once Upon a Time, and other digressions. Wee!

TBG Ep 30 : Thor Dies at the End

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:03:05 PDT

Chris joins Fred and Greg in Studio F to talk about two new movies, and lots of tangents.

Music provided by Music Alley (musicalley.com).
This week we have "Dynamite the Horizon" by Dave and Confused.

TBG Ep 29: All Good Things

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 07:13:32 PDT

In which our heros discuss things that have come and gone.

This weeks music, courtesy of musicalley.com, is 'Forget me Not' by The Red Plastic Buddha. --

TBG Ep 28: How I spent my summer vacation

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 09:47:58 PDT

Fred and Greg's triumphant return to the podcast-o-sphere. Hear why we were gone, what we are doing, and much more.

Music is "El Camino Love Song" by Chop Suzy, and provided by musicalley.com .

TBG Ep 27: Much Ado About Vagoo

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 11:03:01 PDT

Forsooth me hearties, do you grok my jive?

Fred and Greg are joined by Shakespearean scholar Bobby, and we learn that there's more innuendo in the bard's work then you can shake a spear at.

We also talk about movies, and crazy times in theatre(s).

Music was found using musicalley.com. This week's band is Ella Minnow, bringing us "Science What You Want" of their album Ella MinnowTaur

TBG Ep 26: Party Down

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 14:39:18 PDT

Holy Summer Hiatus Batman! Due to circumstances beyond our control, the month of July was a bit rough for recording or editing this podcast. But fear not, loyal listeners, we have returned, and will kick things off with a cast recorded in June, where, to celebrate half a year of episodes, we got drunk and talk about politics, porno, and pokemon. And video games.

Featuring Doc Darby, Becca, and David.

Music provided by Music Alley dot Com.
This week's song is 'Baby I'm Your Dog' by Stomping Nick With His Blues Grenade.

http://www.musicalley.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=ccbadcfc9faf42203064ecfa5e15b3fe

TBG Ep 25 : Fencing 30 Tons of Books

takingbackgeek@gmail.com (WAIDR Radio) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 18:01:00 PDT

Fencing Olympic Hopeful Adam B. joins the guys to talk about comics, books, and living by the sword.