Blog This...

Special K This...

2008-08-05T15:46:00.000-07:00

One of my all time favorite movies, Can't Hardly Wait, is hitting the 10 year anniversary of its release. To pry a few bucks from those of us that love this flick, they're coming out with a 10th anniversary edition. Amazon's got the list of new features, just click on this link to learn more.

Trust me, it's better after a few drinks.

Wingdings This...

2008-07-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

Courier Gothic... nice...

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Coffee Shop This...

2008-07-15T21:34:00.000-07:00

I'm watching you, Chalk...

Freeze Ray This...

2008-07-14T22:15:00.000-07:00

Act I is in!

Dark Knight This...

2008-07-07T08:59:00.000-07:00

It's true.

Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face

Gap Map This..

2008-07-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple constantly updated maps of the mess going on outside.

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Peel This...

2008-06-09T11:23:00.001-07:00

Direct to DVD, The Onion Movie looks pretty funny. Haven't seen it yet, but my birthday's coming up...

The Onion is one of those sites that can be a severe time-killer, but will keep you laughing. Carve out some time and check them out if you haven't seen them before.

Here's a good example of their fine journalism that's likely relevant for most of my readers.

Amazon Blue This...

2008-05-28T12:10:00.001-07:00

FYI, for those of you Blue-ray consumers, Amazon's having a blue-ray DVD sale for Father's Day - stuff up to 50% off. Might find a few gems.

If anybody wants to buy me a PS3, I'd be happy to test drive some of these flicks for you... alas, my HDTV is still stuck playing low-def DVDs. Poor thing...

Bust This...

2008-03-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

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Stumbled on this near my old stomping grounds in Cleveland. Can't quite make out the plate...

DualMap This...

2008-03-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

Just found dual maps today - very cool.

Wondering if they have a solution for the "I want to see my Google My Maps in Virtual Earth" I have here. If not, seems like an interesting collaboration opportunity.

They've obviously spent more time on their solution. ;)

Jawa Garage Sale This...

2008-02-25T16:59:00.000-08:00

Roll This...

2008-02-04T14:47:00.000-08:00

There was a presentation on the Free Wheelchair Mission at church last week - pretty impressive from a technology POV.

For 50 bucks(!) you can get someone in need off the ground. Please check it out, consider making a donation, and pass it on. Would make a great gift.

My Maps in VE This...

2008-02-02T15:13:00.000-08:00

Recently, my folks were looking for some things to do during a quick stopover in New Orleans. I'd visited a few times, and wanted to send them pointers to a few quick sites - so I cooked up a quick Google "My Maps", and shared it with them.

Shortly afterwards, I was surfing around in Virtual Earth, and realized New Orleans is one of the cities Microsoft has modeled in 3D - plus, it has Birds Eye View imagery. Cool! Now I wanted to see that "My Maps" data in Virtual Earth... but how?

I could take all those details and copy them into a new Microsoft Live Collection, but that seems like a lot of work; Google has my all my info already. So I went looking around to see if anybody had a quick solution for me - a way to take a My Maps and turn it into a VE Collection. Nothing turned up, so I started thinking about ways to solve this myself.

Hmm...

Sometimes, Google's "My Maps" provides a link to download a KML file containing the "My Maps" details

Virtual Earth has added support for KML files!

Putting all those pieces together... the data's there, just have to get it in the right place. So, I took an evening learned a few new things I could do in PHP, and cooked up this page: http://www.ringthis.com/maps/mymaps2ve.php

It takes the name of the Google My Maps-provided KML file, massages the link a bit, sucks down the KML data and hands it to Virtual Earth.

It's so much more satisfying to be able to fly around a modeled city! The script has worked on most of the collections I've tried, though YMMV. If you find a KML that doesn't work, please send me a quick mail and I'll try to fix it.

Aluminum Falcon This...

2008-01-19T21:46:00.000-08:00

You think you've had a bad day?

Adult Swim has a bunch of top 10 lists with this stuff.

Slippery When Wet This...

2008-01-07T17:12:00.000-08:00

Check this out. C'mon, Keri... you're not even trying.

Here's a Bon Jovi Drinking Game, just for you.

Try and keep your head in the game, will ya?

Pops This...

2007-11-30T16:22:00.000-08:00

Dad's a traffic engineer for the city of Des Moines, and he's been in the news a few times over the last month+. So I thought I'd post some links.

Dangerous Intersections

Crosswalk timers make busy school routes safer

DIAFREEWIFI This...

2007-11-03T17:39:00.000-07:00

Here I am at the Denver Airport on their "ad sponsored" DIAFREEWIFI wifi network. To whoever set that up, the caps lock key is right next to the 'a' on your keyboard. Turn it off.

Denver, kudos for the 'free' wifi... but it doesn't seem to work with my VPN software. I see from their FAQ that "there may be some issues with Cisco VPN software" and I should "contact my IT group for support." Um. Yeah, I'll see you there...

So right now, all the network's good for is surfing and, er, blogging complaints.

Sigh.

Shoot Up This...

2007-09-12T21:01:00.000-07:00

Posted a new Shoot ‘Em Up drinking game.

Educate This...

2007-08-25T23:50:00.000-07:00

Zaca This...

2007-08-13T18:22:00.001-07:00

The Zaca fire continues to burn north of Santa Barbara, and continues to rain ash on everything I own.

That's my roof line in the foreground, with the Santa Ynez mountains in the background. I know it's "far enough away"... but man that thing is huge.

Here's the fire line, in Google Maps.

Parent This...

2007-08-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

Surprisingly accurate, try these 12 simple steps to see if you're ready to become a parent.

Squeeze This...

2007-06-22T08:11:00.001-07:00

Thursday, my boys helped some friends sell lemonade to raise money for the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation. It made a couple news outlets, so I thought I'd post a few links:

KEYT 3 - local news
SB News Press - local paper (may need a subscription)

If you're so inspired to do the same, Sunkist makes it really easy to put together, and will provide matching funds!

Ctrl-Enter This...

2007-06-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

Finally frustrated enough by Outlook's Ctrl-Enter shortcut prematurely evacuating yet another email before I was satisfied, I consulted my therapist Google for help. There must be others who have struggled with this before and overcome it... or maybe there's at least a support group.

Success!

Seems to work, so I think I'm cured!

Ctrl-Enter has got to be one of the dumbest shortcuts for sending mail. In all other apps it's "insert line break"... in Outlook it's "what did I just do?!?"

Liverspot This...

2007-05-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

Too true...

T-bone This...

2007-04-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

For dad, who both did time in Ohio (Go Tribe!) and is still doing time as a traffic engineer...

There's an interesting story at Technology Review on some work Ohio State is doing to help model and predict traffic accidents.

Will be interesting when my GPS re-routes me to avoid a dangerous intersection. 'Course, until my car can drive itself, I'm probably at higher risk paying attention to a GPS than just driving myself through that red intersection. Hmmm.