Erm...

Well, the job still sucks.

2011-05-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

If you live in Beaumont CA, I'll ask you to please stay the hell away from any video stores there. I work at one of the only remaining stores (besides Red Box), and my boss is the most annoying, least competent person in history.

Back again

2011-01-27T12:04:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the (almost) year-long absence. I've been kinda busy, trying my hand at different projects and hating my job (and trying to find another one), and I haven't really been making time for blogging lately. I hope to change that soon, but I'm not really sure what the future holds for me.

So, for all my 0 followers, stay tuned for updates!

I have a very important question for all of you...

2010-05-05T20:50:00.001-07:00

When will the resting ancestor toe the line on top of the killer?

If anyone's reading this...

2010-04-30T12:41:00.001-07:00

Give me some suggestions for the blog. I'm thinking of completely redoing it, and I'm not even sure what I want to post about. I'll be back one of these days, when I'm not working so freaking much.

Babel Fish Blunders #5

2010-04-05T22:06:00.000-07:00

The answer to last month's Mystery Text was "Watchmen".

-As always, I'd like to note that the Babel Fish translator is a very useful and well programmed tool. These translations could very well be made by any program of the sort; it's only natural that there would be confusion when translating from one language to several others. That being said, it's simply my tool of choice-

-English Text #9-
I ran outta gas! I had a flat tire! I didn't have enough money for cab fare! My tux didn't come back from the cleaners! An old friend came in from outta town! Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts!! It wasn't my fault I swear to God!!!

-Babel Fish'd-
I moved the gas of outta! There was a tire which gets flat in me! I didn' Furthermore in t the sufficient for taxi fee there is a gold! My tuxedo didn' t comes returning from the detergent! The old friend entered from the town of outta! Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! Terrible flood! Locust!! That wasn' t me in God! My defect which you swear!!

Source: The Blues Brothers

-English Text #10-
(To Gorrath, about an evil alternate self) Listen, the only thing I hate more than you, is me! Er...him! Me! Him! You know what I mean!

-Babel Fish'd-
Rather than in Gorrath (concerning oneself of the wicked mutual difference,), being I you hear the only thing where I hate many! Obtaining -…Him! Me! Him! Those which I mean are known!

Source: Megas XLR

-Mystery Text #5-
War. War does not change under any condition. When ever since the dawn of type of human, our ancestors first discover the murder power of the stone and the bone, the blood justice simplicity from God, with all names to, spilled to rage of the psychosis.

Hint: Ron Perlman.

I'll be back soon

2010-03-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

I'm currently preoccupied with my search for a new job (my current boss is an incompetent b*tch), but I'll be back with updates a little later this month.

Babel Fish Blunders #4

2010-03-06T13:31:00.000-08:00

Better late than never, right? The answer to last week's mystery text was "Mobile Fighter G Gundam".

-As always, I'd like to note that the Babel Fish translator is a very useful and well programmed tool. These translations could very well be made by any program of the sort; it's only natural that there would be confusion when translating from one language to several others. That being said, it's simply my tool of choice-

-English Text #7-
Buddy you're a boy make a big noise
Playin' in the street gonna be a big man some day
You got mud on yo' face
You big disgrace
Kickin' your can all over the place

Singin'

We will we will rock you
We will we will rock you

-Babel Fish'd-
Partner you' Make the large noise in regard to the boy Playin' As being the large person gone, day yo' The mud was obtained; Surface large dishonor Kickin' In the place where it reaches your can Singin' As for us us as for us who are shaken us it shakes

Source: "We Will Rock You" by Queen

-English Text #8-
As Mr. Sloan always says, there is no "I" in team, but there is an "I" in pie. And there's an "i" in meat pie. Meat is the anagram of team... I don't know what he's talking about.

-Babel Fish'd-
Way the person says always, Sloan and " It is not; I" In team, but " It is; I" Pie. And there' s " i" Meat pie. Is the meat anagram… of the team where I don' As for t what kind of he' You have known whether; S which you have expressed.

Source: Shaun of the Dead

-Mystery Text #4-
All characteristics and to bubble at on concerning the west of the impureness impureness where murder was gathered, as for the prostitute and politician everyone and " of the scream; You inspect; If you exclude us! " … And I' " of the glance and whisper of ll; No."

Hint: Ramesses II.

Playstation 3 error; millions of PS3s disabled

2010-03-03T00:35:00.000-08:00

Apparently, a bug surfaced in the old model PS3s that changed the date on the internal clock to January 1st, 2000 (though some reports say December 31st, 1999). This disabled internet access and gameplay for any Playstation 3 owners that bought an older, non-slim model. Some gamers even lost their trophies.

Initially, Sony had issued statements that they were "aware that many of you are having problems connecting to PSN, and yes, we're looking into it". That was basically it for hours, until they finally revealed the following:

"As you may be aware, some customers have been unable to connect to the PlayStation Network today. This problem affects the models other than the new slim PS3.

We believe we have identified that this problem is being caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system.

Errors include:
* The date of the PS3 system may be re-set to Jan 1, 2000.
* When the user tries to sign-in to the PlayStation Network, the following message appears on the screen; "An error has occurred. You have been signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)".
* When the user tries to launch a game, the following error message appears on the screen and the trophy data may disappear; "Failed to install trophies. Please exit your game."
* When the user tries to set the time and date of the system via the Internet, the following message appears on the screen; "The current date and time could not be obtained. (8001050F)"
* Users are not able to playback certain rental video downloaded from the PlayStation Store before the expiration date.

We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.

As mentioned above, Please be advised that the new slim PS3 is not affected with this error. We are doing our best to resolve the issue and do apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Seeing this makes me sorta glad that my old 60gb got the "Yellow Light of Death" a second time last year, and basically forced me to buy a Slim (my old one was finally out of the extended warranty). I definitely feel pity for those of you going through this crap though.

Song of the day: Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra)

2010-02-27T13:38:00.000-08:00

This song has a great beat, and it's one of those classics that you have to listen to at least twice in a row. Recorded in Munich back in the late '70s, this song hasn't lost it's charm over the years.

By the way, for those of you that think Jeff Lynne was saying "Bruce!" originally, Wikipedia has this to say: "A common mondegreen in the song is the perception that, following the title line, Jeff Lynne shouts "Bruce!" However, according to liner notes, he is actually saying a made-up word "Grroosss". This is similar to a German word for "greeting", Gruß, possibly referring to the Austrian and Bavarian greeting Grüß Gott that the group would have heard while recording the album in Munich. However, after the song's release, so many people had misinterpreted the word as "Bruce" that Jeff Lynne actually began to sing the word as "Bruce" for fun at live shows."

Babel Fish Blunders #3

2010-02-26T13:09:00.000-08:00

Last week's Mystery Text was from the 1980 movie "The Blues Brothers", directed by John Landis and starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. If you haven't seen it yet, go shoot yourself. And then watch it in the hospital.

-Also, I'd like to note that the Babel Fish translator is a very useful and well-programmed tool. These translations could very well be made by any program of the sort; it's only natural that there would be confusion when translating from one language to several others. That being said, it's simply my tool of choice-

-English Text #5-
Fredo: Mike! You don't come to Las Vegas and talk to a man like Moe Greene like that!
Michael: Fredo, you're my older brother, and I love you. But don't ever take sides with anyone against the Family again. Ever.

-Babel Fish'd-
Fredo: Microphone! don' t it comes to Las Vegas, it speaks to the person like Moe Greene which is that way!
Michael: Fredo and you' Do dearly in regard to the sibling where I am older and me. But don' Anyone takes part t for the second time vis-a-vis the family.

Source: The Godfather

-English Text #6-
What do tigers dream of, when they take a little tiger snooze? Do they dream of mauling zebras? Or Halle Berry in her Catwoman suit? Don't you worry your pretty striped head we're gonna get you back to Tyson and your cozy tiger bed, and then we're gonna find our best friend Doug and then we're gonna give him a best friend hug. Doug, Doug, oh Doug, Dougy Dougy Doug, and if he's been murdered by crystal meth tweakers, then we're sh*t out of luck.

-Babel Fish'd-
Does [tora] when taking the drowse of [tora] where something is small, look at dream? Do they look at the dream of the zebra which is hurt? Or fruit of [hare] of her suit of Catwoman? Don' The head we' which has t your considerably stripe; You worry; Returning to the bed of [tora] whose Tyson and your atmosphere are good next, being able thing and we' which re-go; Next our close friend Doug and we' Finding re-go; Holding him and closing the thing close friend who re-goes. Doug, Doug, oh Doug, Dougy Dougy Doug, and he' If; tweakers, and we' of s crystal meth; Being murdered by; Every it re-is [wa] from luck.

Source: The Hangover

-Mystery Text #3-
Language This hand of my ones shines power of the just you are surprised! It' The grip whose s is hot very informs the fact that it is defeated to me! Take this! My love, my anger, and my sorrow entirely! The sword of the finger which shines!

Hint: The greatest giant robot anime EVER.

Conan O'Brien: now on Twitter

2010-02-26T10:41:00.000-08:00

It seems the ex-Tonight Show host has some free time on his hands; Conando recently joined the mini-blogging phenomenon known as Twitter. What has the funniest living man on the planet (RIP Keith Moon btw) been up to?

Post #1: Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.

Post #2: This morning I watched Remington Steele while eating Sugar Smacks out of a salad bowl. I was naked.

Even though he just started Tweeting, he already has 376,767 followers! Clearly I'm not alone when I say "we miss you Conan". I wonder what the Masturbating Bear is up to...

Geohot releases PS3 hack

2010-02-25T21:54:00.000-08:00

Apparently, a hack of some sort was just released by George Hotz (also known as Geohot), who is notorious for "jailbreaking" iPods. In a post on his blog, Geohot said the following:

"In the interest of openness, I've decided to release the exploit. Hopefully, this will ignite the PS3 scene, and you will organize and figure out how to use this to do practical things, like the iPhone when jailbreaks were first released. I have a life to get back to and can't keep working on this all day and night."

He called it the "coveted PS3 exploit", and explained that it gives full memory space access, and ring 0 access from the OtherOS. It also has been confirmed to work on version 3.10.

What does this mean for the P.S.Triple? Hopefully some decent homebrew is on the horizon. I can definitely see some emulators and homebrew games, but I hope that the PS3 homebrew scene (that is inevitably looming on the horizon) uses the PS3 to it's full creative potential, as we've already seen with the PSP. Only time will tell.

Got a feeling 2010 is gonna be a good year.

2010-02-24T00:30:00.000-08:00

So February has been great for me so far; I had a decent tax return, I have a steady job with fair pay, and I've found more rares in Phantasy Star Online: Episode 1 & 2 Plus in this month than I have in the seven prior years I spent playing it (see: Maximum lvl).

Oh yeah, I've also broken 200 hits between my four blogs, and the month still isn't over. I'm determined to make $100 from AdSense/AdSense alternatives (such as Infolinks) by the end of the year, so this is certainly decent progress so far (in my opinion).

It can be hard getting traffic initially, but I've found some websites that will get your blog indexed by Google quicker and hopefully improve your search engine result positions.

-Blog Directories-
BlogCatalog
MyBlogLog
Technorati
Blogged

Blog directories are good for networking your blog with thousands of other blogs. You'll want to make an account with the name of your blog, because you want your brand name in as many places as possible.

-Other-
Change Detection

Change Detection is a useful site that monitors whatever web pages you set, and then notifies you by email whenever it...erm...detects a change. So, say you tell it to follow your blog. Every time you make a post, CD sends you an email letting you know about it, and what the details are. This in turn gets you noticed by search engines.

I'm finding more methods all the time, and I'll post them here after trying them out for myself. Stay tuned, folks.

Song of the day: Fat Bottomed Girls (Queen)

2010-02-21T01:23:00.000-08:00

Listen to this song once, and you won't be able to get it out of your head for weeks. It's got a simple, yet extremely catchy guitar riff that just gets under your skin and stays there. Brian May is truly one of the greats, and this song wouldn't be the same without vocals from the late, great Freddie Mercury.

Babel Fish Blunders #2

2010-02-19T10:12:00.000-08:00

Let me start off by revealing the source of last weeks Mystery Text: "Billy Jean" by Michael Jackson. Congrats to the potential readers that would've gotten this, had anyone actually read it. Also, I'd like to note that the Babel Fish translator is a very useful and well-programmed tool. These translations could very well be made by any program of the sort; it's only natural that there would be confusion when translating from one language to several others. That being said, it's simply my tool of choice. Moving on, it's time for some more screwed up translations!

English Text #3: The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you do NOT talk about Fight Club. Third rule of Fight Club: someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: no shirts, no shoes. Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight.

Babel Fish'd: First rule of fight club is as follows: Fight club you have not expressed. 2nd rule of fight club is as follows: Fight club you have not expressed. 3rd rule of fight club: Someone softly goes, hits stop, it finished fighting, you shout. 4th rule: Just 2 people to fight. 5th rule: At one time one fight, farmer. 6th rule: The shirt it is not, there are no shoes. 7th rule: If fight becomes, it continues. And 8th and final rule: This fights and if in club your first night, must fight.

Source: Fight Club, obviously.

English Text #4: I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any g*dd*mn stupid useless conversations with anybody.

Babel Fish'd: As for me what kind of I' You thought whether; There was d, I' d shakes those deaf-mute people who are my 1. The method I wouldn' In t there must be original g*dd*mn foolish needless conversation with someone.

Source: J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye".

Mystery Text #2: It' s Chicago, we' To 106 miles; As for ve complete tank of gas, cigarattes and it' Pack half was obtained 1; Darkness and we' of s; The sunglasses which have been attached to the re-body.

Hint: From a movie with one of the greatest soundtracks of all time.

By the way

2010-02-14T11:44:00.000-08:00

English text #1 was from Dirty Harry, and English text #2 was from Cowboy Bebop (episode 5: Ballad of Fallen Angels).

Babel Fish Blunders #1

2010-02-13T14:39:00.000-08:00

I plan to do a segment like this every week, where I take quotes, lyrics and literature at random and use the Babel Fish translator to translate them into Japanese, and then back into English. The results will look something like this:

English text: Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.
English to Japanese: これは実質生命あるか。これはちょうど想像であるか。地すべりでつかまえられる、現実からの脱出無し。
Japanese back to English: As for this is there a substantial life? Is this exactly the imagination? It is caught in the landslide, there is no escaping from actuality.

There are funnier quotes I could choose, but you get the idea. Also, look for the mystery quote of the week. Winner gets...erm, recognition for finding the quote, in addition to the embarrassment of being exposed as a reader of my blog. Well, here we go.

English text #1: I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

English to Japanese: 私はどんなyou'か知っている; 再考えること。 " 彼は6つの打撃か5つだけを始動させたか。" それで、実を言うと、すべてのこの興奮で私はちょっとトラックを自分自身失った。しかしこれがマグナムびん.44本、世界の最も強力な拳銃、あなたの頭部を吹くのであって、you'きれいにしなさい; veはあなた自身に1つの質問をすることを得た: 私は幸運に感じるか。それで、ya、パンクはか。

Japanese back to English: As for me what kind of you' You have known whether; Reconsideration obtain. " Did he six shocks make just five start? " When with that, it is the truth, I by my lost the just a little track/truck with all this excitation. But this the magnum bottle .44 book, the most powerful handgun of the world, blows your head, you' Make clean; ve obtained the fact that it asks 1 in you yourself: Am I moved by fortunately? With that, as for ya and flat tire?

English text #2: I'm just watching a bad dream I never wake up from.

English to Japanese: I' 私が決してから目覚めない悪い夢を見るちょうどm。

Japanese back to English: I' Exactly m where you look at the bad dream where I do not awake the empty under any condition.

Mystery text #1: As for [birijin] She' which is not my sweetheart; As for s exactly girl I you insist am 1 years old, but she who is not child my son thing me is 1 years old, but it means that the child is not my son

Hint #1: The Mystery text is from a popular song, whose composer is no longer among the living.

EasyCap test (Fire Pro Wrestling Returns)

2010-02-12T12:32:00.001-08:00

Going over this blog, I realized that I forgot to post a test of my EasyCap. Well, here is my first experience recording with it. I'll probably be trying AVI next time (I chose WMV this time), though the bad quality may also have something to do with the fact that I uploaded it to a Youtube-esque site, and also that I recorded a (phenomenal, nonetheless) game with 2D sprites.

Song of the day: Young Man Blues (The Who)

2010-02-01T21:28:00.001-08:00

This song sounds like the greatest jam session ever (coincidentally, from the greatest band ever). Only heard live (to my knowledge, it didn't appear on any of their albums, but it was on disc 2 of the compilation "30 Years of Maximum R & B"), this track is a fantastic example of why The Who kicks ass.

Roger Daltrey was at the peak of his singing career, Pete Townshend was rocking out like no other, Kieth Moon was blowing out ear drums with his (still, to this day) unmatched drumming prowess, and John Entwistle was wearing a freakin' skull suit. Need I say more? Oh yeah, it's also some of the finest bass playing that has ever graced my ears.

The song is about five and a half minutes long, but by the time it's over, it'll seem like it just started. It's not outright catchy, but this track has a certain feel to it that you just can't deny. It's completely badass, and you can watch the YouTube video here.

Conan O'Brien leaves the Tonight Show

2010-01-24T14:17:00.000-08:00

It was a sad day in LA (sounds like the one-millionth Red Hot Chili Peppers song about LA, doesn't it?) Friday when Conan O'Brien hosted his final episode of the Tonight Show, with guests Steve Carell, Tom Hanks (who later appeared on Hope for Haiti), Neil Young, and Will Ferrell.

Conan was only able to host the show for seven months, but those seven months were arguably the greatest months in the history of the Tonight Show. Before a montage of his Tonight Show run set to Cheap Trick's "Surrender", Conan confessed that, as part of his buyout, he would not legally be allowed to host another show for seven months. ****ing NBC!

After Niel Young gave a moving performance of "Long May You Run", Will Ferrell (dressed as a hippie) appeared with a band to send Conan off with the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic "Freebird". Along with Ferrell and Conan were Beck, Billy Gibbons (of ZZ Top) Ben Harper, and Max Weinberg and the Max Weinberg 7.

We'll miss you Conan, see you in seven months.

EasyCap review

2010-01-23T13:27:00.000-08:00

As it turns out, the EasyCap USB 2.0 capture card is a pretty decent piece of machinery. When you order it online, it should come with a yellow cd that has the drivers for both the capture card and a Movie Maker-type program called "ULead Video Studio". After finally getting the capture card to work, I couldn't be happier with the product. It has a large variety of recording options (accessible through ULead), and the quality is better than most USB capture cards. The video studio itself is pretty impressive, better than the average movie maker.

Some things to mention: if you're getting a green/pink screen every time you try to capture video, your USB ports aren't USB 2.0. Or, if you're like me, they aren't enabled, or something went wrong somewhere down the line and they don't work anymore. Open up the Control Panel, click on System, click on the Hardware tab, and the click on "Device Manager". Find "Universal Serial Bus Controllers" (near the bottom of the list) and click on the + next to it. If there is a yellow icon to the left of "intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller - 24CD", then you have the same problem I did. Get ready to reinstall Windows.

Also worth noting: recording video in uncompressed AVI format will take up essentially 1gb per minute of recording, or so I've heard. You may want to go with WMV, or try out other options. If you have any issues with skipping or audio/video lag, just try out different resolutions and recording formats until you find one that works.

Conclusion: If you're looking for a cheap (but effective) capture card that is easy to use, look no further. The EasyCap is well worth the $5-$15 you'll spend on it. I give the ULead Video Studio an 8.5/10 (it can really eat up your virtual memory sometimes, and there is the occasional lag in either video or audio), and the actual EasyCap hardware a 9/10 (it's kind of big and clunky, and I don't care for the fact that nobody advertises it as "USB 2.0 ONLY").

Well

2010-01-18T14:22:00.000-08:00

I had to re-install Windows XP Pro, but I finally got my capture card working! I'm still kind of disgusted by the hassle I had to go through, but it all worked out in the end I guess. Expect new me to link to some of my new Youtube videos in the near future.

Hmph.

2010-01-15T20:02:00.000-08:00

My Latitude D600 has USB 2.0 ports, I just can't get them working correctly. Every download of any software I need (to fix more than one problem) seems to go to either Microsoft's website or Belkin's website, where it seems almost impossible to find the ****ing download I need. The world is overflowing with bull****.

D*mn it all!

2010-01-14T11:51:00.000-08:00

My stupid EasyCr*p doesn't work because my laptop has USB 1.1 slots instead of USB 2.0. It would be nice if that was advertised beforehand, but I guess you can't expect people to be honest anymore.

Back again

2010-01-08T17:39:00.000-08:00

I've been sick as a dog for a few days, and I've spent my time either sleeping, working, or throwing up. Anyway, I'm working on new YouTube videos. Mostly funny glitches in video games, but I may do some other odd videos. I'll link to a few when I've uploaded them.