Summer of Dan

Just a little bit

See this?

This thing rocks.

It's called the FitBit, it's a Wireless Activity Tracker. It's like a pedometer but on crack.

Good crack.

It tracks my total steps, distance, calories burned, overall health, even my sleep. 

For the most part the numbers below are accurate, but on Saturdays it registers almost no activity because I'm in season right now and obviously don't wear it during my games and I never put it on after.

When you get it you get access to their website where you can input what you ate and how much and whatnot and it will work with you to best determine how much weight you want to lose or gain or how to maintain, it's pretty awesome. 

When you sleep you put it on a wristband, record what time you get into bed and when you get out of bed, it wirelessly syncs with your PC and you put in those numbers and it shows you all sorts of scary shit as far as how often you wake up. Like when you heard bumps in the night. And saw a giant owl staring at you from your window.

Or your cat sat on your face at 4:34am.

I don't think I look forward to anything more than seeing how efficient my sleep was on a daily basis...I mean, I'm pretty damn efficient. I've yet to crack the 92% mark but Ray has a lot to do with that.

I've had it for about a month now, I love it, it keeps me honest as far as eating and my activity level and I love cracking the 10,000 step mark whenever I can. It's pretty awesome. You can get it at BestBuy and if you don't like it you have 30 days to return it for a free refund. Where's the downside in all that?

I sound like I should work for them...

Never die alone

The summer is flying by, summer nights in New England are the bomb - breezy, cool, and before long I'll wake up in the morning and use the word 'crisp' to describe the air. I love it. You can't beat New England. You can't.

• I find my random pictures I post on Fridays all over the net from a million different blogs. I try to average 12-15, sometimes I post more. I find at least 30-50 a week and post the ones that sort of capture the way I feel that week.
  
  
• Pandora One kicks serious ass. Everyone knows what Pandora is, Pandora One is just the optional service you can pay for ($36 a year). It allows you unlimited listening time, free of advertising, has an awesome desktop interface so you don't have to have a browser open all the time to control it. Not only that but you have the little fade in bar that comes up over all apps on your desktop for a second to show you the artist and song title. Awesome. Free is good, cheap is better.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Football season is going awesome so far. 2-0 with a shot to be 3-0 as we come back to Concord for our home opener next week. Offense is clicking, defense is just getting started. This season has a different feel to it than previous seasons. Hopefully that's a good thing.
  
  
• Whoever invented pound cake should be shot. Or declared a genius. I can't decide which.
  
  
• I was really enjoying this summer until the humidity recently started. WTF. I can handle the heat, just not sweating all the time. I do that anyway, I don't need any help.
  
  
• Life as a Blackberry user is mighty fine. I fucking love this thing. It has all the apps I wanted with my Dare but never got and even more than I could ever use. Amen to Verizon for getting the Tour before everyone else.
  
  
• I really want these Lightsaber Chopsticks. Seriously.
  
  
  
  
• I feel the need to address some of my self-directed fatty comments: I know I'm not "fat" physically. Sure I have a load of laundry on my washboard abs. Sure my doctor called me obese. But I don't honestly fully believe I am. I just have the mentality of a fat kid. I've always been husky and it's hard to shed the image/mentality of it. Maybe some day, it's just my self-deprecating way of explaining to myself and others of how I feel and the way things appear to me. 
  
  
• I haven't said it in a while but I will reiterate it anyway: the Kindle is still the best gift I've ever been given. Just sayin'.
  
  
• Last Suppers is an artistic website dedicated to last meals of Death Row inmates to show you the vast differences in food choices people make when they know they have one final meal. Freaky but interesting I think.
  
  
• Walking into Wal-Mart the other day I saw someone walk in, past the carriages and almost to the old door greeter guy while still smoking. What the fuck dude? Seriously, when was the last time you could walk into any place while smoking and keep doing it? He only realized it when the door greeter looked at him funny at a loss for words.
  
  Another thing to note on any Wal-Mart bingo cards you may have that might have it missing: find a pregnant teenager walking around in pajamas with her bulging stomach sticking out of her shirt as her boyfriend rubs her stomach. I bet you'll get that one pretty quickly but add it anyway.
  
  
• I've been thinking a lot about my musical tastes and came to the conclusion that 6 people in my life have had a profound effect on the types of music I have been exposed to and are fully responsible for what I listen to (in no particular order):
  
  My dad - I have very fond memories of growing up and listening to the Beatles, Zappa, Hendrix, CCR, the Allman Brothers, Dire Straits, and Tom Petty. This extended into my teenage years when he started listening to Pearl Jam, Green Day, and the Cranberries.
  
  Tom - Tom Chan changed my life. Seriously. He gave me my first CD ever (Rage Against the Machine). He gave me Def Lepard's Hysteria and told me to listen to it. He got me into Guns 'N Roses and Metallica. When I was 11. His taste in music greatly changed my life, as well as the way I listened to music and now he is creating his own. Just like back then, more awesome music courtesy of Tom. Check his band out, Forget the Girl. Don't just take my word for it, give it a listen. I'm not just pimping a good friend's music, I'm pimping music that I listen to every damn day.
  
  PJ aka Paul Bauer - around the time I was listening to Pearl Jam and Green Day and my dad was borrowing my CDs Mr. Paul Bauer Jr introduced me to his multi-thousand CD collection. Rush, 311, KoRn, Marley, Wu Tang, everything really. Rush was almost a religious experience for me, especially because we'd listen to a ton of live stuff while playing copious amounts of Playstation in his bedroom.
  
  Steve - much like PJ, Steve is a CD/music maniac. He has thousands of CDs, has burned me 100s of albums and encouraged me to listen to a ton of random stuff. Without him I would just be figuring out who O.A.R. were, he really turned me on to Coldplay at a time I was shying away from what was on the radio, gave me a shitton of Dave Matthews. This doesn't do justice to all the random artists he's exposed me to, that would take forever but Rusted Root, Keane, and Snow Patrol are all favorites of mine and it's because of him.
  
  The Niff - she's opened my mind about a lot of things in general, music being chief among them (as well as food). Listening to Sting, The Police, Counting Crows, John Mayer, even hardcore rap, it all sounds differently because of her. For one reason or another (maturity?) I hated Sting with a passion years prior, but now seeing The Police at Fenway is at the pinnacle of best concerts I've ever been to in my life. 
  
  Jessie - my sister. She listens to a lot of stupid crap, but she also listens to a lot of different stuff I'd never hear of without her. She's always been ahead of the curve in the emo-band department, but she also likes a lot of the lesser known bands and has exposed me to those as well.
  
  
• I love Kashi products: their bars, their cereal, their oatmeal/warm cereal. But dammit, I hate their healthy dinners. They are awesome for you, but I can't choke down the 7 grain mix they have in all of their dinners. Tastes to me like it's like gravel.
  
  And yes, I am whining.
  
  
• I've come up with a list of reasons why I need/want a house:
  
  I want to have a couple dogs.
  
  I want to grow a garden that is within 20 feet of my backdoor.
  
  I want to be able to better prepare for the Zombie Wars.
  
  I want to build things in a wood shoppe.
  
  I want to build an outdoor brick oven so I can make awesome pizza.
  
  I want to be able to paint whatever the fuck I want whenever I want.
  
  I want to be rid of my shitty neighbors that scream everything at their little kid, including things like "WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR BREAAAAAAAAKFASSSSST??! PAAANKCAAAAAAAAKES OOOOOR CEREAAAAAAAAAL??????"
  
  I want a library.
  
  I want to have a hammock.
  
  I want to get Rock Band and play it as loud as I want whenever I want.
  
  
• I only got 7 hours of sleep last night. I woke up exhausted. And then realized that it's because I've been averaging almost 10 hours of sleep a night. For the last year.
  

Summer is almost over. Enjoy every minute of it. It's funny, you think when you get older that time slows down a bit more but it doesn't. I remember summer vacation flying by. Now before I realize it's summer it's already over. Enjoy the beach, enjoy the sun, enjoy the water.

And don't forget to enjoy each other.

I almost shat a polar bear

Google Reader just shit the bed on me which is pretty unfortunate since that is how I read news and blogs and websites. Tried it in 3 browsers, worked fine but not in Google Chrome. After 3 minutes of absolute panic similar to catching yourself in your zipper I saw that Chrome had a new update. I applied it, restarted it, and the world is perfect again.

If you don't know about Google Reader check out my Google Shared Items in the sidebar on the left and there is a quick tutorial about it. It's badass. It's changed the way I "surf".

Professing more geeky love

Being the tech geek that I am, sometimes little things impress me to no end. 

GMail just debuted a crapload of themes you can trick your email out with and they are kickass. My first email address I got on the web was back in 1993 I believe when Yahoo first appeared on the map and I still have it to this day. It's bogged down my shittons of spam and I've since migrated all my friends and family over to my GMail account but it's still there.

If you don't have GMail or haven't moved off of it, why wait? The transition is quite easily actually: create a GMail email address, email all your peeps from it telling them that after a certain date you'll only check your other account here and there and stick to it. Trust me, it's painless.

The reasons for a switch are plentiful:

1. Way more storage than what other free email services offer and it's always growing
   
2. Google integrates Google Chat into their email so you can chat with fellow GMailers
   
3. The themes they offer are above and beyond anything that Yahoo has
   
4. It's way easier and faster to search for what you want in your GMail account
   
5. GMail Labs is a program that is linked to your email where users can submit features for testing for possible future adoption by GMail. There are some awesome features people have come up with and new ones coming out all the time
   
6. GMail is so awesome you can forward all of your email to another account if you want - for free. Email providers like Yahoo either charge you to do this or don't offer it at all
   
7. Check this out:
   
    
   
   That's right - right in your email they have links to your Google Calendar, Google Docs, Photos, and my personal favorite, the Google Reader which is fantastic for reading RSS feeds and saving you tons of time from actually going to websites.

Sorry I am geeked out by the new changes but GMail really is the way to go. There are millions of more reasons but if you don't like these reasons none of those will impress you much.

Google: It's sooooooo not Cuil (which is a good thing)

I woke up to see CNN splashing a frontpage story on their site about a company that was banded together by a bunch of misfit Google coders that are looking to take over the world. They claim they have indexed over 120 billion web pages, while Google said they indexed 8 billion…3 years ago. The company is called Cuil (pronounced like the word 'cool'), but it is actually far from it.

Open up a browser and go to Google. Type in a search for 'fuji apples'. Now do the same from Yahoo's search engine. Now MSN's. Ok, now try Cuil.

The three biggest search engines in the world all look similar. Why? Because it works.

Enter Cuil.

I typed in one of my blog names and I get some decent results, only there are completely random images thrown among them. Who the hell is that guy on the left? It's not me. It's not Steve. It's not Kraig.

What about at the bottom left? It randomly pulled in an NFL Network picture? Could that get me sued by them by using an image that I wasn't authorized to use? But it's not mine, it's Cuil's!

Even more interesting is you can search this 100 times and get 100 random images (except, that weird picture of that guy keeps popping up for some odd reason).

 

 

That is a major, major issue. Think about it: what if you search for say 'New Hampshire Pedophile List' and amidst the searches you see your picture. Or your father's. Or brother's.

I'm just waiting for the lawsuits to come pouring in over this one.

If we go back to searching for a second, it might help that you have the hardware to keep up with having your name splashed all over the place. I've tried using it multiple times and get hit with:

We'll be back soon...

Due to overwhelming interest, our Cuil servers are running a bit hot right now. The search engine is momentarily unavailable as we add more capacity.

Thanks for your patience.

Well, I checked back soon after and saw something new!

No results because of high load...

Due to excessive load, our servers didn't return results. Please try your search again.

This one made me laugh, considering all I did was go to their site and click ABOUT:

Oops! We couldn't find that page.

Please verify that the URL is correct and try again.

And a few times I was greeted with this lovely nugget:
 

Sorry, an error occurred.

Please try your search again. If the problem persists, please be assured that our team is working quickly to resolve the issue.

Oh, I did. I used Google, because after I hit BACK two dozen times and tried over and over, I figured I'd use a real search engine to find what I was looking for.

I Double Dog Dare You

I've waited. And waited. And waited.

It's been over two years since I got a new cellphone, and this is the one baby. This is all mine.

It's called the LG Dare, and is quite amazing. I'm insanely happy with it, and Steve got it the same day I received mine in the mail, which has it's added benefit that we can both learn about all the little features at the same time. That is priceless in itself.

 

It does everything I want, and then some. It was dubbed the iPhone killer when they first designed it, and I wouldn't venture to say that, but it's definitely the best touch screen phone out there that isn't an iPhone. It's also on Verizon, so that makes it infinitely better than any other touchscreen (sans iPhone). It surprises me every time I look around on it though. It's pretty sweet.

Now I just need to figure out how to update my blog from it…

Just…wow…wow…

Everyone that knows me knows how much I love tech gadgets and I love seeing new innovations.

But sometimes they go overboard. So far overboard that they leave me with nothing to say but "Wow" with a blank stare on my face. This is one of those innovations:

It's some knit sweater looking thing designed for privacy when using a laptop in a public place.

Yeah, I see no problems with putting a laptop that oozes heat in a sweater and sticking your head into it. No, not at all…

Re-KINDLE your relationship with books

I'm going to come out and say it: I want a damn Kindle.

What's a Kindle, Dan? you ask. Well, a Kindle is a neat tech toy that is basically an electronic book.

It's super sweet, and for the decent price of $399 it could be all yours, or mine if you are a really nice person. Just to make things easier on you I added it to my Amazon Wish List here on my blog so if you want to help stimulate the economy by buying me a Kindle that would be cool. Then again you could be selfish and spend it on yourself.

 

 

It uses technology similar to your cellphone where you can download any books that are sold on Amazon.com for less than $9.99 to it in seconds. It has a built in web-browser, so you can read your favorite blogs, search on Google maps, or even check your email.

 

It's lighter than a single paperback, and you can even get subscriptions to your favorite newspaper.

That's right Steve: forget looking for that new cellphone, upgrade for the cheapest phone you can get with your Verizon new-every-2 credit and run out and get one of these. Or get me one.

The battery is super long lasting, and it can hold over 200 books. You can also email things to it like PDFs and JPGs and view them on there.

-No paper = happy trees. Win-win, right??

 

Back to the Present: Backposting

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

Sometimes you'll see posts that "were not there the other day but they are posted on that day..."

You aren't crazy: its because sometimes for reading sake, I post multiple posts at the same time, but post them when they happened or close to it so I don't have 10 entries in one day. Makes it easier to read I think.   

If you don't like it get your own blog and don't do it. That'll teach me.

When 0 equals 2

I've had Comcast for a few years now. When I returned my last DVR, I forgot to return the remote and when it came time to unpack everything I found that I had an old one. When I got the new DVR, the remote was awesome...except if you tried to use the number zero. For some odd reason, zero was mapped to be the same as the 2 button. The 2 was still the 2, but the 0 was also the 2.

Trust me, I know.

So I shelved the clicker (thats what I call the remote) for over a year, opting to use the older one, but lately the older one sucks ass. Randomly it will highlight the CABLE or TV or AUX buttons and freeze, even if you are mid-channel change. It has gotten to the point where it would do that maybe a few times a day, and then graduated to the point where it does it every few times, and now every single time.

Annoying.As.Hell.

If I spent about 20 seconds on Google back then I wouldn't have had all this frustration. I found an article that basically tells me how to reset in back to factory settings in all of 10 seconds or less. I figured I would repost it to maybe help anyone that has this issue in the future:

From http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_use … the_Remote

Restore a Remapped Key

The following technique can be used to restore the original function to a key that has been remapped. You are essentially mapping the key onto itself.

   1. Press the device key ("Cable", "TV", or "AUX") for the device you want.
   2. Press and hold the "Setup" key until the selected device button blinks twice.
   3. Type in the code 994. The selected device key will blink twice.
   4. Press the key you are restoring twice. The device key will blink twice if successful.