Posture

I made a monitor stand! I came across a DYI monitor stand via stumble upon about 6 months ago and have been thinking about it since. The author paid for a fabricated stand and a custom cut steel plate with another custom cut glass plate on top. His TCO was about $125. It looked ultra cool.

I do computer work for Aloha Machine & Welding (best name evar), a local machine shop I considered asking them to cut me what I need in a work exchange, but decided I wanted to be more integral to the process and I didn't really want to spend much money on this, I don't have a lifestyle that dictates form over function.

I took measurements of what I wanted covered and headed to the hardware store. I bought a board, had it cut and came home to paint. I had some spray paint leftover from the previous painting projects: keyboard and mouse. I managed 2 coats of blue on the base before I ran out.
2 x steel cans got 1 coat of white before it ran out and the other two ended up getting several coats of black. I gave the blue base 3 coats of clear finish.

I used a liquid nails equivalent and a real nail fasten them in. I was less concerned about exact measurements but everything is more or less where is should be. My monitor now sits 5" above where it was and I'm sure my neck and back will thank me for it shortly.


Parts:
Board: $8. Still have 3/5ths of the board left
steel cans: free
spray paint: free
4 x nails: free

Photography

My friend wrote a life list. One of the items was to buy a DSLR camera. Here is my response:

I don't know how much time you've spent with a camera since highschool. I tried to get back into photography last November and it was a wonderful decision. Here is what I've learned:

1. Buy a used DSLR to begin with. Get a used bottom line camera from any of the big manufacturers like Cannon or Nikon. After 6 months you'll know if the limits are your camera or you.
2. Have somewhere to store your photos in redundancy. Storing all your photos on your laptop will work until your hard drive dies. Then you're fucked. I store them on my WHS with duplication enabled. Your Flickr account will probably suffice for the important photos.
3. Use the highest quality settings. You bought a DSLR, put that image sensor to use. Storage is cheap. Also DSLR pictures can be pretty large. My D40X on its highest setting takes pictures in the range of 3-4mb.
4. Buy a case and tripod at the same time as your DSLR. You can manage without either of them but the case will lengthen the life of your camera and a tripod enables a lot of really cool shots.
5. RTFM. I read the manual every few months and everytime I learn something new.

Here's a Mauna Kea panoramic

How to make a GIF in GIMP the easy way.

1. Open the first frame with GIMP.
2. Select all the sequential frames minus the first frame and drag to the picture from step 1
3. File -> Save -> filename.gif -> Export as animation

Published

I've been having trouble getting to bed at a reasonable hour recently, often staying awake until 2 or 3 am. Most nights I try to play some video games until I'm tired. Last night I found my way back to wikihow. I discovered a poorly written Guide to preserving your privacy at an Internet Cafe.

I work at an Internet Cafe so I lent my experience and wrote the newer and improved guide. It's not incredible by any means but it's always fun to publish on the internet and it's a big improvement over the original guide.

What is the best food?

If you answered anything wrapped in a piece of bacon, you are correct.
I would've also accepted:

• Anything wrapped in two pieces of bacon

Today I tried my hand a making musubi, a fine write up can be read in this wikipus. The actual wikipus on musubi is about a more traditional food than what I'm talking about and what is served locally.
Traditionally musubi was just a ball of salted rice. Today it's evolved into a ball of rice with a topping. My favorites have been Korean chicken and salmon. The ones I made today used Unagi (eel) and bacon as the toppings. I even made my own kabayaki (eel sauce), which is impossible to find, from shoyu (soy sauce), mirin and sugar. The ratio being 1/1/.5

Making musubi goes like this:

1. Rice compacted to a sphere or oval shape
2. topping of meat, fish or vegetable
3. wrap it in nori

Seran wrap is ideal for storage until you're ready to eat.

Tiera del fuego

The same person that devised the Santorum Slip n Slide was the same person to teach me fireballs.

Ingredients: Everclear, lighter and possibly a road flare.
Method:
1. Mouth full of everclear,
2. hold lighter 3-5" from your mouth,
3. Pucker lips like you're blowing a trumpet
4. Blow

For best results replace the lighter with a road flare or campfire. Also, best to do this in a southern state with bumperless car in yard and while intoxicated. Appropriate additions include daisy dukes, the firing of guns, beast and pig's feet.
More pictures.

Santorum Slip n Slide

Last summer I helped my friend make a Santorum Slip n Slide, named after former Senator Rick Santorum.

Here's how it's done:
We found a 1 gal jug of IDGlide. ID Lube has a list of places that sell their products. You will need 1 gallon of lube as it is to be the backbone of the 'slide, it makes all the difference, just like with sex.

The plastic sheeting we got from Lowes. If you can, buy the thickest they have. It may be a few bucks more but will last much longer. We bought the thin stuff and the plastic ripped and tore easily.

Our ingredients also included 2 bottles of dish soap, 2 bottles of Hershey's syrup, warm water in a bucket from the shower and the lube. Towards the end there was milk thrown in as well.
Anyone that goes to a slip n slide wearing anything other than old shitty clothing isn't doing it right.

It really is that much fun

WikiHow

I've published three articles on WikiHow:
1. Heal a Broken Toe
2. Cancel a check
3. Make Lock Pics with a Street Cleaner Bristle

The check canceling I wrote before I made an account. Too bad I can't claim it as my own. Post counts matter, right?

Remember when I was talking about trying to buy that minivan? Well Thursday night I got a call from the lady saying that the person interested in buying kept trying to talk her down too much in price and she finally got fed up. She asked me how much the Craig's list ad said the price was, I told her $1,500. She said it was supposed to be $2,000. Her friend's mistake apparently.

I met with her Friday morning and she drove me to her house in HPP 20 minuts outside of town. The van looked fine, but I insisted on taking it to a mechanic before purchasing it. I gave her a $500 deposit check so she didn't think I was running off with it, then I drove it to a mechanic in Hilo. While I was driving the check engine light came on and smoke was coming from under the hood. After a brief check by the mechanic he told me the following things were wrong:

Transmission and Axle Pan leaks
Sway bar ends are broken
Engine misfires
Belts cracking
2 Outer Tie Rods are worn

He hadn't hooked it up to the scanner to find out why the engine light was on and why it was misfiring, that would cost another $100. He quoted me $1,500 to fix the above problems. I called the owner and told her what was wrong and the quoted price to repair. She sounded surprised, told me she'd call me Saturday morning and hung up. I called her Saturday morning, evening;Sunday morning, afternoon and night. No word.

Getting suspicious she would cash my check and leave me with a worthless car I called and canceled my check. I checked WikiHow before calling because I didn't know what I'd need, saw there was no article and then wrote one after calling my bank.

Tomorrow morning I get to call the supervisor at the shop and explain the situation, give him the owner's contact information, call the owner one more time and hopefully be done with it. What a strange situation this has turned into.