Crappy Logo Productions

Post Holiday Hangover

2011-12-28T11:17:00.001-06:00

I just found the above picture while going through my RSS feeds. I was going to save it to post next Christmas but I don't think I would remember to do that so here it is now.

Anyway I've been laying low for awhile now while trying to get through the Holidays. With Christmas over and done with I can now move on to other things.

On Monday I hit up the hardware store and got to work in the kitchen. For those of you who have been to my house you might remember our kitchen looking like this.

Only with a bit less Kyle.

A few months back our microwave stopped working so we bought a cheap one and put it on a table next to the stove. Now that I had some free time I decided to take down the old microwave and the cabinet above it. This is how our kitchen looks now that I've done a bit of remodeling.

Not bad for a few hours of work. It's amazing how long I've been talking about doing that and it only took about four hours to finish. Most of that time was waiting for paint to dry. For my next project I think I'm going to get around to building that kitchen table I've been thinking about for a few years now.

Happy Holidays

2011-12-25T09:39:00.000-06:00

This Holiday season has been an exceptionally busy one for me. Lots of last minute running around and spending lots of time with friends and family. I'm looking forward to some serious downtime over the next few days and I hope you get to enjoy some time off too.

To help celebrate the holiday I found this video Christmas card by Terry Gilliam for you to enjoy.

New Futons

2011-12-14T07:45:00.000-06:00

I don't have much to say about this other than we have the new futons in the Bradttic. Now that they have arrived I'm not too sure about the rug or the coffee table but for now it's all good. I'll worry about interior design after the whole thing is finished.

End in Sight

2011-12-13T06:29:00.000-06:00

This past weekend I ended up getting the trim around the windows in the attic. All and all I think they turned out pretty good. Shortly after taking these pictures we ended up getting our new Futons delivered for the attic. I'll have to take a picture of those tomorrow so I can show you how they look. Very exciting to see this project come to an end.

Window Trim

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

It's been a busy week around here. School is wrapping up for the semester and the holidays are right around the corner. I'm trying to get as much done as I can in between those two major things. Tuesday night I had a bit of time to myself so I took the wood I'm using for window trim in the attic over to a buddies house to have it ripped down. Tonight I made the last of the cuts and put a first coat of paint on the trim.

Hopefully tomorrow night at this time I'll have a second coat of paint on those boards. I'd like to have both the windows trimmed out and finished by Saturday morning but that all depends on how much painting I can get in before then. With any luck I'll get two more coats on between now and then.

The Octopus That Walked On Land

2011-12-02T06:02:00.000-06:00

If you have been following my blog for a bit of time you are well aware that I am frightened of both aliens and octopuses to an almost unreasonable degree. I first brought this up back in 2008 and again last January when I found out that octopuses can use tools. I've also made mention of my Alien fears here and here.

Now for the longest time I would say my fear of aliens far outweighed my fear of octopuses. After all as long as I wasn't in the ocean I would be safe. Or so I thought.... Lately there have been a lot of discoveries concerning the cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. You see the discovery of an octopus using tools in early 2010 was pretty creepy but not nearly creepy enough for me to be afraid of an ocean dwelling creature more than a flying alien who comes in the night and could abduct you at any time from anywhere.

Then I found this video.

That's right the octopus just walked on land. Did you see that video? It fucking walked on land!

Not only is it walking on land but it is doing it in the most creepy way imaginable. Go back and watch that video again. At the 2:10 mark it even drops off the dead body of it's latest victim. I am so creeped out right now I barely have the words.

Octopus is now the new #1 fear. Aliens are a very close second. The only thing I have going for me right now is that I live in the Midwest.UPDATE: 7:39 AMApparently octopus walking around outside the ocean happens all the time.Extra super creepy now.

Finished Artwork?

2011-11-30T07:32:00.000-06:00

You would think with my long absence from blogging I would be back with a giant beard, a finished novel and a pile of new stake deck designs. Sadly I didn't accomplish any of those things while I was away from this blog. So the question I must now answer is "what have I been up to?"

It's a valid question and to be honest it's an interesting answer.

I spent some time in Vegas for a wedding.

I painted the attic and am currently working on the trim.

I spent a lot of time hanging out with friends and family.

I also spent a ton of time listening to some great new music.

I've enjoyed cooking and eating a lot of new foods.

So to be honest I've just been spending as much free time enjoying everyone and everything around me as I can. I haven't accomplished much that I can show you but the memories I've made over the last few weeks have been incredible. Sure I've started a few new projects but I don't have much to post about right now. I spent so much time this past summer just running around to various wedding and parties that I feel like I have a lot to catch up on. I sort of feel like I've missed out on a lot this summer and I'm now really enjoying playing catchup on a lot of things. Hopefully I'll be back with some new stuff soon. Until then I'm just out and about doing as much as I can.

New Projects And Other Stuff

2011-11-03T06:27:00.000-05:00

The attic is nearing completion (only trim left to finish) and our Halloween/Wedding Reception is done. With that out of the way my mind is wandering to other possible projects to start on. One thing that has been on my mind is that it's National Novel Writing Month. In June of this year my buddy Mike told me about it. The idea is pretty simple you just write everyday and at the end of the month you have a rough first draft of a novel. Not a bad idea. I may be a few days behind on this but with the stack of story ideas I have I should be able to knock that out pretty quick. Now if I do this or not is another subject entirely.

Also on my mind lately, No Shave November. As most of you know I once had a huge beard.

Do I really want to spend a month not shaving and have to put up with a week of scratch face to look like a hipster? I'm still debating about this one.

One thing I'm not debating about is designing some new skateboards. I've had a few ideas for a couple months now I just need to sit down and get to work on fleshing those out. The only thing holding me back from starting those has been the warm fall we've been having. It's too damn nice to sit inside on the computer all day. In all likely hood this will be my next project but you never know.

I've also been revisiting a few older projects that never took off for one reason or the other. Hopefully I can set my mind to one of these things and get to work. Well except for the No Shave November. I already have a few days jump on that one.

Cardboard Robocop 2

2011-11-02T06:37:00.000-05:00

This past Sunday was our big wedding reception/costume party here in Madison, WI. We had a great turnout for a party starting at 7 on a Sunday. Lots of great costumes and tons of great friends and family. We had a bunch of family members come and decorate the High Noon and Cathy, the owner, said it was the most decorations she'd ever seen there. Maybe we should have decorated on Friday and left the decorations up the whole weekend for their Halloween shows.

At any rate it was a total blast and I wanted to share a few pictures of how my Robocop costume turned out. Not bad if I do say so but I couldn't say much under the helmet.

Out Of The Dark

2011-10-27T06:28:00.000-05:00

For some time now my good friend Nick Walby has been writing some amazing stuff over on his blog. Just this week he released his first book entitled "Out Of The Dark." It is available right now on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005X0MZ78) for the low price of $3.99 and seeing as it's in the Kindle format pretty much anyone with a computer or smart phone can read it. Be sure to go pick up a copy and start reading his blog as well.

Busy Busy

2011-10-25T09:20:00.001-05:00

This coming Sunday Jacque and I are hosting a giant costume party here in Madison. It is kind of a wedding reception/lets get drunk party. Because of this we've both been incredibly busy making sure everything is set to go. Not much else is happening at the old Mackey household as of late. This past weekend I did manage to get some work done in the attic however.

Despite all the things keeping me busy I was able to put up the railing and paint it over the weekend. We also put a rug, coffee table and two bean bags up in the attic so we could have a place to sit. A few more coats of paint on the railing and that will be finished. Next up we just have to work on the trim but that will have to wait until after this party.

Cardboard Robocop

2011-10-18T06:46:00.000-05:00

Later this month Jacque and I are hosting a big costume party for upwards of around 200 people. We rented a local bar in Madison and we are going to have a lot of fun hanging out with everyone we know. The only bad thing is that we have to plan a ton of stuff to get ready for this thing. One of the things I've been putting off was building my costume for the party. I have less than two weeks to go and I need to get this ready asap. So tonight after class I came home and made some tacos. Shortly after that I started a movie and set to work on building my very own Robocop costume.

After looking around the house for suitable building materials I decided to settle on cardboard and duct tape. I'm sure something plastic would have made a better looking costume but we didn't have a lot of that laying around the house. After two hours of futzing around with chest and helmet I'm starting to look a little like Robocop. At the very least I'm starting to look like Robocop if he was built in Detroit today.

I'm hoping to get the arms and legs done by the end of this weekend but so far it's looking pretty good for two hours of work. Just imagine how bad ass it would be if I actually started work on this costume when we decided to throw this party. I bet I would have a screen accurate movie costume by now. Oh well I guess I do have an almost finished attic room so I can honestly say I haven't wasted my free time too much. I'll be sure to post some more pictures of the costume as I get closer to finishing it.

Attic Restoration Update

2011-10-10T05:59:00.000-05:00

On the left you can see my attic at 7:00 am on Saturday morning. On the right you can see my attic at about 7:30 pm later that day. See what happens when you don't have to leave town for a wedding?

Not much left to do up there now. I'm going to try and build the railing for the stairs some time this week and after that I just have to trim the windows and the floors. I'm still in awe over how much I was able to get done in just one day.

New Stairs Installed

2011-10-07T06:48:00.000-05:00

Finally!!!

Last night the only thing I had planned was to spend a lot of time playing video games and little else. Maybe if I got a huge burst of energy I would watch a movie as well. For some reason I ended up with a giant burst of energy and I finally put in the new attic stairs.

In total it probably only took about two hours to get everything installed and finished which I don't think is too bad considering I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I did have Jacque give me a hand so I could screw in some temporary screws while she held up the stairs. That was a huge help and I don't think I could have done it without her.

Of course with that out of the way this week the only thing I have to do in the attic is start installing the new flooring. I picked up the flooring for the attic at some point this week. Sadly I have no idea when I did that. It's been kind of a whirlwind week for me. Dates aren't important anyway, what is important is that I may have the attic 90% finished by Sunday if all goes well. The only stumbling block I can see is the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to putting in a wood floor. It can't be too hard right? I've made it this far just winging it. After the flooring is done the only left to do in the attic is to put up all the trim. I can tell you right now, I'm going to drink so much beer up there once this whole project is finished.

Too Much of a Good Thing

2011-10-05T10:41:00.001-05:00

Recently I've been working in my attic anytime I get free time. As a result I haven't really done anything else around the house. I have a copies of ICO/Shadow of the Colossus and Gears of War 3 just sitting next the the TV waiting to be played. I have a Halloween costume that has yet to be started and a bunch of random household odds and ends that need to be taken care of. All of these things have kind of fallen to the side over the last two or three weeks as I push more and more to get the attic finished. Because of this I'm going to take a few days off of working up there. I'll have time tonight and tomorrow to get a bunch of work done in the attic but I don't think I'll be doing anything up there again until this weekend. I need to spend some of my time on other things for a change. I'm getting burned out.

Wedding Season is Over

2011-10-03T06:06:00.000-05:00

Another weekend another wedding. This weekend we went down to Illinois for our friends Adrienne and Shawn's wedding. This was our fourth wedding in as many weeks.

Next weekend we have nothing planned at all. Well that isn't entirely true. I plan on drinking a lot of beer and getting a ton of work done in the attic next weekend. Yesterday I got a few hours to work up there so I put a second coat of paint on the walls and it's really starting to look good. I have the new attic stairs to put in this week and if everything works out well I can start putting in the new flooring by this weekend. Of course that is only if everything goes well. I plan on buying/ordering that tomorrow. I'm really hoping they have some in stock so I can just buy what I need and head home and get to work. If I have to order stuff I'll do that but it would be much easier to just get to work on the flooring.

Just for kicks I put on a few outlet covers and it really tied the room together. I couldn't believe a few pieces of plastic could make such a difference on a room. With no more weddings until November I'm sure I'll get this project finished before I know it. Tonight I'm going to hook up the internet and make sure that is working.

The DC 52 Reboot Mystery Man Is A Woman!

2011-09-30T10:48:00.001-05:00

Two weeks ago I wrote a post about the DC 52 reboot mysterious man who was showing up in every single issue of DC Comics new reboot. Now that I've read every single new book by DC I can safely say that the mystery character is in fact in every single issue. However after seeing this mystery figure in every issue I can also now say that it is a woman and not a man.

Here I present the evidence of the missing Y chromosome from Voodoo #1 page 9. Now all we have to do is wait and see how this mystery woman shows up in future issues of the DC reboot. As I said before I'm sure they have something big up their sleeve.

Attic Stairs Update

2011-09-28T08:31:00.002-05:00

I would love nothing more than to be showing you a picture of the new attic stairs installed. That, however, will not be happening in this post.

I've decided to give up on the stairs I bought last Wednesday and instead order a set of stairs online which will fit much easier into the existing opening. I won't have to move any wires or do any cutting.

I just have to wait for those to show up in the mail and I'll be all set. Hopefully next week I'll have them installed. While I wait for those to show up I'm planning on finishing up the paint job in the attic. Hopefully I'll have a more robust update about the attic soon. I feel like that project has been moving in slow motion for some time now.

I'm going to try to return the set I bought last week but we had to throw out the box to get the stairs in the car. So if you need a set of pull down attic stairs let me know. I'll give you a good deal on a never used set. I wonder if Home Depot will take the set back without a box? I'll have to look into that tonight.

OWC Is Awesome

2011-09-26T09:28:00.001-05:00

I originally started out this post with a "Nerd Alert" to warn readers that I would be talking about lot so nerdy computer stuff. Then I realized all my posts are about nerdy computer stuff so here it is.

Last Wednesday I came home to find that my MacPro wouldn't wake from sleep. The power light indicator was flashing which told me that I had a bad stick of RAM. This happened to me in June of this year so I was already ahead of the game in knowing what the little flashing light meant. I turned off the computer and within a few minutes of fooling around with the machine I had isolated the bad ram to one of two 2GB sticks I had purchased from OWC in 2008. On a whim I called up OWC to see if they had any sort of warranty on their RAM. I expected that they would have a limited one or two year warranty on the RAM but it turns out it is covered by a limited lifetime warranty instead. After a few short minutes on the phone they game me an return number so I could return all the RAM I had purchased from them in 2008 and they would ship out new RAM.

So Thursday I packed up all 4 sticks of RAM and dropped them off at the UPS store to ship them back to OWC. On Saturday I had the new RAM delivered to my door. In total it cost me $11 to ship the RAM back and now I have 8GB of brand new RAM in my computer.

Long story short, if you need RAM for a mac computer then you should order it from OWC. Thumbs up for great customer service.

Attic Stairs

2011-09-22T07:12:00.000-05:00

Last night I finally purchased the new pull down stairs for the attic. Up until now I have been using a ladder that has been permanently stored in our computer room. It has been in the way for a few months now and just generally making that room feel messing all the time.

The original plan when purchasing the new stairs was to have it installed last night. Unfortunately the stairs that are in every hardware store in town are all 54" long. The opening in our ceiling is only 45" long. So in order to install the stairs I need to cut the hole in my ceiling bigger.

While that is only a minor inconvenience the real pain is going to be moving the light that is in the way as well as the post for the railing upstairs.

So a job that should have taken two hours tops is now going to take me the better part of a day. But I don't have that much time in one sitting. So in order to keep things moving on this project I'm going to head up into the attic tonight and try and get as much as I can done.

I still have a second coat of paint that needs to be put on the walls upstairs. I also need to finish hooking up the speaker terminals and Ethernet drops in the attic. Both small jobs but something that has to wait until the painting is finished. Hopefully by the end of tonight I'll have all three finished up so I can feel like I did something worthwhile in the attic this week.

The Love of Graphic Design

2011-09-19T07:19:00.000-05:00

Below you will find a trailer for the podcast "Same Shit, Different Show." It is a podcast that talks to filmmakers about all things film. An interesting podcast for sure but this trailer really made me appreciate my decision to focusing on Graphic/Web Design for the last four years and less and less on film making. Don't get me wrong, I still love making short films and I have a stack of ideas that never stops growing. The problem is the super long hours and all the hard work that goes into making them. It's much easier to sit around in your underwear and crack out a new skateboard design or website while drinking tea. While Graphic/Web Design still takes long hours and lots of hard work, most people recognize the skill involved in making a piece of artwork. Far fewer people recognize the amount of work that goes into making a video. Even a simple video can take 8 or 9 hours if you really want it to look good. If only people knew how much time and effort goes into making movies. Years of peoples lives are gone just to make one film. So next time you see a bad movie, think about how much work went into it.

Same Shit Different Show Trailer from Buz Wallick on Vimeo.

DC 52 Reboot Mystery Man

2011-09-16T06:30:00.000-05:00

Starting in September DC Comic rebooted their entire line of comic books. If you don't have the slightest idea of what I'm talking about click here. In a nutshell they dumped 75 years of stories and just started fresh with #1 everything. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash are all completely new characters now. Forget everything you've ever known because all of a sudden it's pointless. Everything is new again. Very cool if you want to start reading DC comic books but don't want to have to learn 70+ years of history.

All that is fine and good and would make a great blog post but I don't give a shit about that. I want to know who the hell the red glowing guy is in every single DC 52 issue. Seriously who is this guy?

Above you can see the mystery man in Animal Man #1 on Page 13.

Here he is again in Men Of War #1 on Page 18.

Now you're going to have to just take my word for it but he's literally in every single comic book DC has put out so far this month. I'm not going to scan in tons and tons of comic books just to prove a point but he's there. You can find him yourself if you want. It's kind of like Where's Waldo of the DC comic book world.

I'm sure in a few months it will be some big reveal about how DC is doing something crazy to drive up comic book sales but for now I'm just having fun finding this guy in every single comic I've read so far in the DC 52 reboot. If anyone has any idea let me know.

Also of note I'm liking most of the DC reboot so far but Static Shock is horrible. I'll save you the trouble of finding the DC 52 Mystery Man....He's on page 16.

In this picture it looks like our Mystery Man could be a Mystery Woman....the plot thickens.

Attic Painted

2011-09-09T07:58:00.000-05:00

After about a week of only getting into the attic for a few minutes at a time I had a solid chunk of time to devote to working up there last night. I headed up after work with a beer and got started painting.

As you can see I got the entire first coat of paint finished last night. I'll still have to go back and put on another coat but it's starting to really look good. Other than another coat of paint, I still have to put down a new floors, finish the railing around the stairs and we need new pull down stairs. Besides those things I am getting closer to being finished and I can finally see this project coming to an end sometime soon. My goal is to have this project finished by the end of the year so I still have plenty of time to get it done. Sadly I won't be able to get back up in the attic until next Friday at the earliest.

Long Weekend

2011-09-06T09:02:00.001-05:00

When I left work on Friday I only had one thing planned for the weekend but we ended up having an incredibly busy and productive weekend around these parts. Friday was a bit of a killer day at work and as a result I was completely tired when I got home. Jacque had plans to do some crafting with her friend so I just set up on the couch and started to play video games. It wasn't long before we had a few people over to the house and we were all doing our own thing. Jacque was crafting, I was playing video games and our other guests were just hanging out with us. It was a very chill night and exactly what I needed after a hard days work. It almost reminded me of high school a bit.

On Saturday we headed out to the High Noon Saloon for the Geekesque Burlesque where we got to watch some sexy lady's do sexy things on stage. It was a fun night and I'm glad we were able to catch the show.

On Sunday we had some people over and we hung out and watched movies all day. We watched both Iron Man movies, The Incredible Hulk and Thor. I don't even know where to begin telling you how awesome that was. It had been a long time since anything like that had happened in the Mackey household. I almost can't wait until winter just so I have an excuse to do stuff like that more often.

With work being closed for Labor Day we used Monday to get a few projects going. We made some plans about the wedding party in October. We meet with some friends for a bit in the afternoon. We worked in the attic getting that ready to paint. In fact I think we may be able to paint it this week sometime. (If time permits) Then to end the weekend on a high note we visited a friends house to sit around a fire before calling it a night.

Now to get back to work....hopefully It's half as fun as this weekend was.

Two Weeks Later

2011-09-02T07:44:00.000-05:00

I find it hard to believe it's already been two weeks since my last blog post but here we are with a void of content again. This seems to happen a few times a year with this blog and I'm not sure why that is. I'll be going along strong for some time and then all of a sudden I end up with nothing to say. The sad part is the last two weeks have been pretty busy so I would have had a bunch to talk about.

This past Monday I started back up at MATC for night classes. Work is again sending me to school but this semester I'm only attending one class so it shouldn't be as much of a drain on my free time like the last two were. Already I feel ahead of the curve after one week where last semester I was struggling to keep up from day one. A good sign for sure.

It's also been a busy two weeks for hanging out with friends and family. We've spent a lot of time running around saying hello to a lot of different people. You can feel the end of summer in the air and people are moving quick to get as much of it in as possible before fall sets in. We all know what happens after fall sets in. :(

I've also spent a good amount of time working in the attic these past few weeks. As of now the drywall and muding is completely finished. It's been sanded down and is mostly ready to paint. First things first I need to get all the drywall dust out of the attic. A minor setback occurred when both the fans I was using to get the dust out of the attic stopped working. Jacque pulled them both apart and got one somewhat working but we still need to look at the second fan. I should have time to tackle that this weekend. Once the dust has been cleaned up it's time to paint and then put down the new floor and trim. After that the room will be done. Expect to see a few pictures once we get that far.

As for this weekend we'll be hanging around Madison for a change enjoying the weather and visiting with a few friends. It should be a good time and I hope to get a bike ride or two in before it's all over.

Download the original here.

I didn't take a picture of the attic last time I was up there so here is a cool wallpaper I found doing a quick search. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

The Week In Review

2011-08-19T07:21:00.004-05:00

I didn't think a lot happened to me this week so I wasn't going to post anything. That was until I looked back on all the stuff that had happened.

Monday was pretty slow but Jacque was quite sick so we didn't do much. We hung around the house and watched Tron: Legacy.

On Tuesday Jacque was feeling even worse so I made plans to work in the attic. Because it was so hot up there my buddy Jordan and I instead went into the backyard to cut down a tree that was growing through the fence. I had asked the neighbor if it was OK for me to cut it down months ago but I didn't get around to it until this week.

As you can see I still have a bit of cleanup to do this weekend. Later that night I watched Superman III with some friends via Skype. Not the best way to watch a movie with friends but it worked out pretty well. It was almost like we were all hanging out together.

Wednesday Jacque was feeling a bit better so I figured it was a good time to get her out of the house for a change. We headed off to the movies to see Captain America. I had liked the few trailers I had seen for it but I still wasn't expecting much. We both ended up loving it. Marvel has been a kick of great movies lately.

Yesterday I ended up going home from work with a killer migraine. I don't get them very often but when I do they hit me pretty hard. I spent most of the day in bed. I did get up and make some dinner and I was feeling better toward the end of the night so I finished up reading World War Z.

Thai Noodles w/ Peanut Sauce

Other than that yesterday was a bit of a wash. Lots of laying around trying to avoid sound and light. Bummer of a day.

Lots of running around planned for this weekend so hopefully I'll have a few tales to tell on Monday. Have a great weekend.

Comic Con

2011-08-15T13:08:00.001-05:00

So what did you do this weekend?

Oh nothing just went to Comic Con and got to hold Conan's sword.

More Sanding

2011-08-11T06:15:00.001-05:00

2/3 done with the sanding. :D Another few hours and I should have the dusty part finished.

Drywall Dust

2011-08-10T07:30:00.004-05:00

I have no idea who the guys on the right are but they look just like I did when I got done working in the attic last night. I should have worn a black shirt and taken a picture just so you could get the full effect of just how much drywall dust I was covered in. These guys are a good example of how messy the process is though.

For the first time since July 14th I did some serious work up there. I'm making progress but what a mess sanding drywall is. I can't believe how much dust it creates even with two fans set up to suck it out of the house. I couldn't imagine doing it full time for a living. On the other hand I am about 1/3 done with the job. Not bad for two days of sanding work (over the course of almost a month). Tonight I'm heading back up there to finish up some work I started yesterday and then it will most likely sit until sometime next week.

I must say, I love having a project that I don't have to finish right away. Normally when I'm working on something I just keep at it until it's done but this has been on going for almost a year now. I'll hop into the attic for a few hours and then walk away for a week or so. Around Christmas of last year I wasn't in the attic at all for about three months. If this was my living room getting new drywall I would have no choice but to keep working everyday. With the attic I don't even have to clean up when I'm done. I just break down the ladder and take a shower.

Computer Repairs

2011-08-04T06:19:00.002-05:00

So I've been back from vacation for a few days now and I still can't seem to get motivated to work on any of the projects I was working on before I left. Funny how a week off really made them less of a priority for me. It doesn't help that it is very hot outside so I can't work in the attic or in the yard. That eliminates a few possible projects right there.

The one project I did work on recently was repairing my HTPC that has been dead for two months. Originally I thought I had a dead power supply (PSU) in the computer. It wasn't until after I purchased a new PSU that I realized it was my motherboard that had died. After a very long return process I got a replacement motherboard free of charge. The bad part was when that motherboard died two days after getting the HTPC running again. In order for the company to replace the second bad motherboard I had to test it with a new CPU and Memory. As I didn't have either laying around I had to buy a new CPU and Memory just to get the motherboard replaced. Eventually they did replace that motherboard and the computer is now up and running again which makes us all very happy.Long live the HTPC
Of course now I have a pile of parts sitting in the corner that I don't know what to do with. With that in mind I picked up a few more parts so I'll have a second computer sitting around waiting for a project. I'm thinking I may finally start work on the MAME cabinet I've been talking about making for years. The only down side of that project is that it will cost money to build and I don't feel like spending money right now. I'll just add that to my ever growing list of projects.

Back From Vacation

2011-08-02T06:06:00.000-05:00

Well after a long Monday I'm back to the real world of work and assignments. Last week we were in Hardwood Michigan at this time. We spent a few days at a lovely cabin with friends. Now that I'm back I'm not entirely sure where to start. I left so many projects half finished they all feel like they need to be done ASAP. Lucky for me the work stuff I have to do is pretty well prioritized and the stuff I have to do around the house can wait. :D

Transformers 3 = EPIC BOOM!

2011-07-19T06:32:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mention on the blog post yesterday that I finally got around to taking Jacque to see the new Transformers movie on Sunday. We decided to skip the 3D and checked it out in regular old 2D movie format with our friend Dwayne. Although the movie felt a bit long it was an absolute blast to watch. I don't even know how to describe the movie other than a spectacle of vehicular mayhem with moments of explosions followed by more explosions. I mean so many things exploded I don't even know where to begin. I'm pretty sure if Michael Bay directed porn he would only film DVDA scenes. If you haven't seen it already I suggest you go see this one in the theater just for the explosions. After all you don't go see a movie about transformers for the drama or storytelling; you go for the explosions and the explosions are good.

Thank you Michael Bay, Thank you!

Beer Dabbler

2011-07-18T06:27:00.000-05:00

I had a wonderful weekend up north in Minneapolis MN. My good buddy Nick invited me up to attend the Beer Dabbler with him. The Beer Dabbler is a craft beer festival where you get to taste tons of different beers and enjoy a beautiful summer day outside. Live music, beers and friends. What else can you ask for in a weekend?

A Letter To The Future

2011-07-11T06:53:00.000-05:00

With the drywall up on the walls I figured now would be a great time to hide something in the walls for future generations to find.

I wrote "A Letter from the past. Hello to the future." on the outside of the letter. Inside I wrote this lovely bit of prose.

Sorry For Being Blurry. :(

This attic was renovated in 2011 but the project began with new insulation in 2010. The drywall was finished on July 7th, 2011 by Brad Mackey (Owner of the house) and his friend Jordan Taylor. I hope you enjoy this attic as much as I did working on it. I had to do a lot of research on youtube to see how to wire it up. So if that looks bad to you I'm sorry. I hope the future is awesome!

Brad Mackey

Maybe in the future someone will find that note and get a kick out of it. Most likely they will be like "What the Fuck is youtube?"

Happy Friday

2011-07-08T06:59:00.003-05:00

I have a crazy busy day today and I was up extra late last night working in the attic. Despite the aches and pains I'm somehow OK with this. I think the fact that I ate a whole handful of raspberries out of my garden helps.

Drywall is Up

2011-07-07T23:35:00.003-05:00

Well I just finished putting up the drywall in the attic and the house is a mess. It is late and I'm tired so I'll clean up after myself tomorrow sometime. Off to bed. :)

4th of July

2011-07-04T06:13:00.001-05:00

Sorry but this video isn't working. Click here to watch it.

Computers

2011-06-30T07:50:00.003-05:00

I'm still having computer problems with the HTPC. I have it narrowed down to either the motherboard or the CPU. It is expensive to replace either. Blah

...that is all

Oh and if you search for "Blah Computers" in Google Image search you find this image.

WTF

We Have Power

2011-06-29T06:56:00.001-05:00

So the HTPC is dead again. I have a bunch of troubleshooting to do before I figure out what is wrong with it but I'm going to skip talking about that for now. You see I've been making progress in the attic again. Not only do we have power running to the attic but the lights and outlets are now all wired up as well. It took a bit of Googleing to figure out how to hook everything up but now I think I could wire up another room without any problems. Or at least without getting electrocuted as much. Jacque finally yelled at me to turn the power off once I was shocked for the 30th time. Sure that is safer but all the up and down the ladder was too much. At any rate that is a bit of good news for that project. Now to finish up the drywall.

Note: I had originally planned to use the picture above as the picture to this post but when you click on it to make it bigger you can see how blurry it is. :( So I used an electrical outlet instead. But hey, blurry or not you can still see the progress that I've been making.

Dead Again!

2011-06-28T05:43:00.000-05:00

So yesterday I put the HTPC back together after having to send the motherboard in to be repaired. It was sweet we even got to watch a movie last night which was fun. Tonight I turn it on to run some updates and the computer is dead again. Not even 24 hours later the damn thing is dead again. I am having no luck with computers lately.

Goodbye Friend

2011-06-24T06:17:00.001-05:00

Recently a coworker retired and everyone was asked to make a page for a scrapbook we would present to her during the retirement party. I was having a very hard time coming up with a page to put in the scrapbook that would encompass everything Deb had done for me over the years. So instead of just making a list of awesome things she has done for me I decided to paste her face (and other coworkers faces) on images from Star Wars. I hope she found it amusing.

Chainsaw Shoes

2011-06-23T06:09:00.001-05:00

I present to you...

Chainsaw Shoes!

Before I go into further detail about the chainsaw shoes I need to explain a few things. Recently my friend Erik and I have been talking about playing some sort of role playing game. I've never really played and am a bit interested about the whole thing and Erik has spent more than his fair share playing over the years. I asked him if he would be interested in hosting a game to which he said yes. Before we can start to play he has to familiarize himself with the rules of hosting a game.

Flash forward a few weeks to this conversation we had in Google chat.

Erik: lol. Thanks! I'm excited for Deathwatch. I hope I can finish the book soon. My eyes start to glaze over after a couple pages. It is hard to suck up rule after rule.
me: Maybe we should get the basics and roll our own rules from there.
The more we play the more we'll learn the real rules.
Erik: I feel like it is the basic stuff. There is a lot to know when creating characters.
me: Two words
chainsaw shoes
character created
DONE

Shortly after typing those words I immediately did a Google search for "Chainsaw Shoes" and got not one Google image in return of shoes with chainsaws on them. How could the internet exist without a single person creating an image of chainsaw shoes? The internet had let me down and I was completely disappointed. Sure you could find knife shoe images all over the place.

I'll admit knife shoes are pretty bad ass looking. But this is 2011 and I think technology has finally caught up with the dream of our childhood. Images of chainsaw shoes should be more readily available on the internet. The formula is simple, take shoes and then add chainsaws.

BOOM Chainsaw Shoes.

An interesting aside....

...this image exists, which is awesome.

The Drywall is Upstairs

2011-06-22T07:50:00.000-05:00

On Friday the drywall I ordered was delivered to our house by a huge semi trailer. I wasn't home but Jacque said it was freakin' awesome.

The cab of the semi detaches and the forklift is part of the cab. So they pick up the drywall set it in our driveway and they hook back up to the trailer and drive away. I'm told delivery only took 10 minutes.

That was pretty much the end of the easy stuff. It took a while but Jacque and I moved most of the sheets into the house by ourselves. She was a trooper but when a friendly stranger named Alex walked by and offered help she was quick to say yes. The last few sheets were carried in by Alex and myself. What a big help and cool guy.

The next day my buddy Ted came up to Madison to help me carry it all into the attic. We spent a lot of time scoring the drywall down to smaller sheets and then we carried it all up into the attic.

In appreciation of Ted's help we went out to dinner and then we hung out, drank beers and even played some video games.

Now I just have to find the time to put that drywall up on the walls.

Attic Restoration Update

2011-06-17T06:01:00.000-05:00

The last time I talked about the attic project was all the way back in October of last year. Althought I haven't been working on it with the frequency that I was back in September and October I have been keeping busy up there. I took a few weeks off during November and December but after that I hit it pretty hard again. I tore up all the floor boards and put in new wiring. All the electrical, internet and speaker wires have been run but they still have to be hooked up. With the help of my buddy Jordan we took out the old chimney stack to open it up a bit more. Today we get 30 sheets of drywall delivered to our driveway so I get to spend all night getting that heavy stuff into the house and up into the attic so I can start finishing it up. After the drywall we only need to finalize the electrical, put down new flooring over the old stuff and put in a new ladder. I can actually see the end of this project in sight. Now if I can only get a free weekend to spend on it. Here are a few pictures to show you the progress.

This used to be our chimney

Uncharted 2

2011-06-16T06:30:00.000-05:00

Does anyone have a copy of Uncharted 2 that I can borrow?

Recently my friend Erik let me borrow his copy of Uncharted and I had a blast ~~playing it~~ watching it. Uncharted wasn't my favorite game of all time but the story was enough to keep me playing through the levels. I thought the camera was a bit bad a times and the controls were a bit loose but overall I had fun playing it because I was interested in the story. I'm now interested in playing through the second game but I'm not willing to buy the game outright. The aforementioned problems I had with the first game are my primary reason for avoiding an out and out purchase. The other reason being that I would much rather use my $30 for food than a game I may play through once. Despite everyone saying it is the best game available for the PS3, I still can't bring myself to pick it up. Call me stingy if you want but $30 is still $30. So if anyone has a copy laying around be sure to bring it by my place next time you come to visit.

My How Time Flies

2011-06-15T06:30:00.001-05:00

I look at the picture to the right and see all the collected works sitting on those shelves and it makes me think back on all the things I've written over the years. This blog was originally started in 2005 and has been in it's current form since December of 2007. In that time I've written thousands of words on all kinds of topics and yet I've never written a book before. I wonder why that is? Why is it that I can sit here and pour hours of time into writing about random bullshit when I haven't been able to consistently turn out some form of creative writing?

In March of this year I dug out all my old writing and story ideas in an effort to start writing creatively again. Instead of turning that pile of story ideas into something interesting I've instead turned it into a pile of paperwork next to my desk at worst or at best a Google Document. Sure I spent a few weeks going through all those notes and papers to see what was good but that was about all the farther I got with my writing projects. For the longest time I was using the fact that I was busy with school work to justify my lack of writing. Now that I no longer have that excuse I wonder why I'm not writing? I've even stopped updating this blog on a regular basis. I was going to write a blog about how I haven't had time to write because I've been too consumed with social activities. While it is true that I've been spending a lot of time with an amazing collection of friends and family that can't be the only reason I haven't been writing. I also wondered about the weather being a factor. With nice temperatures an almost daily occurrence I'm out in the yard a bit more. Maybe that is why I haven't been writing much lately?

I see all those books and I wonder how those writers got over the challenges of getting started. It might be the fact that I'm always focusing on too many creative projects at one time to get anything as monumental as a book started let alone finished. The truth is I'm just not doing it.

When I'm working on any other form of creative endeavor I'm always working on it. It might only be a few minutes a day but it is a daily activity until it is finished. Maybe if I make it a priority I'll actually get some stuff done. At any rate I need to write more, both for this blog and creatively.

We're Back Online

2011-06-03T07:56:00.003-05:00

And just like that the wireless router is working again. No problems at all. If I had to guess it was Charter's fault the whole time and they were sending me some bunk internet. I'm really glad I didn't go out and buy a new router. What a great surprise for a Thursday night. I come home expecting to buy a new router and instead I find the old one full of life and working 100%. Looks like my technology luck may be turning around.

The System is Down

2011-06-02T06:04:00.000-05:00

Last Friday I got home to find out that the power supply in my HTPC had died. I was lucky enough that it was still under warranty but I had to order a new one while I wait for the original to be returned. Who knows how long that will take but I have an email request in to the manufacture. Why do RMA returns always take so long?

Replacement Electronics Cost: $50.00

On Sunday a stick of RAM in my Mac Pro died so I had to order new memory for the Mac Pro. Not that I really need it but RAM is cheap and the 4GB of new RAM will keep my computer going if the other sticks happen to die before I replace the computer.

Replacement Electronics Cost: $210.00

Yesterday the internet was acting up and I'm starting to think my wireless router is dying as well. Not that it surprises me but the timing of my router going out is just crazy. Couldn't it just hang on for a few more days before going out? I got the router way back in 2004 or 2005 which is an eternity in electronics years. In that time tons of great features have been added to wireless routers so I'll have to spend some time going over all the specs before I choose a new router for the house. I'm not entirely excited about spending another $100 this week but I guess that is what happens when half the electronics in your house all lose parts in the same week. Too bad we didn't have a bad storm then I could claim a lightning strike and try and get some insurance money.

Replacement Electronics Cost: $300.00+

Well on the plus side the total cost of replacing parts is still less than my deductible so maybe I'm lucky we didn't get a storm.

Raccoon Piss

2011-06-01T06:19:00.001-05:00

Last week at this time I was ankle deep in a raccoon mess. Jacque and I had gone down to Rockford to clean out my Dad's old storage locker. When we opened the doors we found that a raccoon had gotten inside and died. Before the poor guy gave up he went on a spree of destruction that ended up with the whole room filled about four inches deep with shredded boxes and raccoon piss. A smell that I won't soon be forgetting. On the plus side we did get the whole room cleaned out and even found some cool stuff. Here are some pictures of the stuff we found.

This is everything that was salvageable from the room.

Crash Canyon and Fireball Island! No way!!!

This we gave to my cousin who is a fire fighter.

OK the Ghostbusters backpack I would totally keep if it wasn't for that smell.

Steams Kinda Sucks Sometimes

2011-05-20T06:48:00.002-05:00

I've been using the Steam services to play video games for a few years now. I've never had any complaints until last night. You see I've been changing my passwords a lot lately with all the data breaches (I'm looking at you Playstation Network & Gawker). Last night it all caught up with me when I tried to log into my Steam account but I couldn't remember my password. I'm pretty sure I was close but with so many spaces and special characters I just couldn't figure out what I changed it to. So I started down the automated password recovery road.

First you enter in your username and they send you an email. In this email is a verification code and a secret question. Once you get this email you enter in your verification code and the answer to your secret question and you SHOULD be able to change you password.

Here is where the trouble began. The secret question I received was "What did customer support last reset your passphrase to?" Now keep in mind every time you fail to get the secret answer correct you have to go through the whole process of waiting for another email.

Having no idea what they are talking about I tried a few things that could be a passphrase but they all failed. Step two was to go through all my old emails to find the passphrase. I went through about 200 Steam emails and tried about 10 different codes and nothing worked. It wasn't until after I had submitted a customer service ticket that it finally dawned on me. What they were looking for with the secret question was my old password. I'm not a tech ludite but it would have saved a ton of time if the secret question was "What was your old password?" instead of "What did customer support last reset your passphrase to?"

A quick search online found tons of people running into the same problem. Hopefully this post will help someone someday. I was just happy I was able to get my Portal 2 on last night.

"Space!"

Music Bankruptcy

2011-05-19T05:31:00.000-05:00

For the past few weeks I have been thinking about declaring music bankruptcy. I'm on the verge of creating a new music library and just adding the stuff I listen too.

You see for the past 10 years I've been slowly adding to my digital music library and now it has gotten to the point where I have so much music that I sometimes end up listening to hours of music I don't even like. Now this doesn't happen all the time but every once in awhile I'll start up iTunes and I'll end up listening to a lot of music I'm not particularly fond of just to get to the music I like.

Because of this I've been kicking around the idea of just starting a new music library filled with only the songs I listen to. Not necessarily getting rid of all my music but just starting a collection of stuff I listen regularly to. In the end I think I'll end up with a better collection of stuff I like than what I currently own. Of course I've spent so much time creating the library I currently have I doubt I'll end up putting it all in a folder and starting over but I have been thinking about it. I need more projects so I don't think about crap like this.

New Glarus, WI

2011-05-17T06:57:00.000-05:00

About an hour Southwest of my house is a small Wisconsin town called New Glarus. I've driven through a few times and it's a pretty neat place. They have a population of about 2,000 people and are in a pretty cool portion of the state. Until yesterday the only thing I knew that came out of New Glarus was beer. The New Glarus brewery makes a few great beers that are local favorites. I have even been known to partake in a few myself from time to time. Yesterday while looking up information about the new Conan BluRay discs I came across a great little fact about New Glarus. It turns out that Jody Samson, sword maker, moved his personal shop from Burbank, California, to New Glarus in 2001. This is important to know because Jody Samson made the original swords for Conan the Barbarian in 1982. After moving his studio to New Glarus Jody helped teach the folks at Albion Swords how to recreate film replica Conan swords. So besides great beer, the other thing kick ass thing that comes out of New Glarus is Conan's sword.

You can seriously order that or any of the swords from the 1982 Conan film by hitting up Albion's website. Sadly Jody passed away in 2008 but his legacy still lives on in the swords he created. If anyone is interested in a killer gift for me I suggest picking up the 20th anniversary edition Conan the Barbarian Atlantean sword for only $2,975. Don't worry they have payment plans too.

Cole Train Unlocked

2011-05-13T06:34:00.000-05:00

Well it took two days of hardcore gaming but I finally unlocked the Cole Train Thrashball skin for Gears of War 3. Maybe now I can get back to real life. Maybe.... Lucky for me it has been hot and rainy the last two days so I really don't feel bad sinking a bunch of hours into a game for some digital goods. Plus it was really fun. I can't wait to play the full game in September.

Things haven't been all video games the last two days. Yesterday I rode my bike with Jacque to the bar where she plays volleyball. I had planned on hanging out and having a beer while she played games but I forgot my money in my other pants. So rather and sitting around a bar with nothing to do and nothing to drink I headed home. On the way I saw a deer on the side of the bike path. It was the last thing I expected on my ride home but there it was munching on some goodies. I took a picture with my phone but for some reason it didn't save. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Crazy Times

2011-05-11T06:38:00.000-05:00

Wow things have been busy around here. So much has happened over the last few weeks I don't even know where to start. As of today I am done with school for the semester so hopefully I'll have a little extra free time on my hands. I have a huge list of projects that have been placed on the back burner while I finished up school so I'm looking forward to getting back into those as soon as possible. The only thing that will hold me back from finishing a few things off quickly is the Gears of War 3 Beta. I recently got access to the Beta and I plan to try my hardest to unlock the Cole Thrashball skin before the Beta ends on May 15th. I'm well aware of the nerdy implications of this but I don't care. I love Gears of War and I'll happily waste away a few hours of my time in exchange for digital goods. Plus the actual games doesn't come out until September 20th so I have a long wait ahead of me. Might as well get as much Gears 3 love as I can while I can.

Hopefully I'll have a few more interesting things to post on here now that I'm not spending all my time in school behind a computer.

Free Netflix

2011-04-27T06:54:00.000-05:00

I received a bunch of month free Netflix codes in the mail the other day. If anyone is interested let me know and I'll email you one.

Archive vs. Delete

2011-04-25T06:27:00.001-05:00

Everyday I go through lots of email. Both at work and home I get quite a few messages. Nothing of great importance but lots of messages never the less. At work I'm forced to archive most of my email because it could prove to be usefullness in the future. I can think of quite a few times where months after a project is completed someone will ask why it was done a certain way and I'll have to go through my old emails to see why. 9 time out of 10 the reason is because the person asking "why" was the person who told us to do it that way. However, at home, I never really have a need to keep old emails. Most of my email is from friends or family which, although nice to have around, isn't necessary. Still I end up hesitating for a few seconds lately before I archive or delete an email from my personal accounts. In the end I usually just delete all my email messages once they are no longer of use to me. About a year and a half ago I accidentally erased all my emails from the past five years. At first I was terrified what I could have lost but as time went by I don't really feel bad losing all that information. Now I usually hit delete and go on with my day but every time I do I still have a half second of doubt before clicking delete. I guess old habits die hard.

3rd Annual Drunken' Bike Rides

2011-04-22T06:58:00.000-05:00

Mark your calendars... June 4th is the 3rd Annual Drunken' Bike Rides here in Madison. For the past two years Jacque and I have been hosting the Drunken' Bike Rides which has been getting bigger and bigger each year. For the most part we hang out on the porch and drink beers until someone wants to go for a bike ride and then we ride to a bar and eat food and drink more beer and then head back to the porch. Pretty much keep that up all day until everyone is good and drunk and in no condition to ride a bike. It is always good times and must for anyone who is around the Madison area. If your interested in hitting it up let me know and I'll give you more details.

Writing Stories

2011-04-18T06:46:00.004-05:00

Just to prove I've been making progress on things I have pictures to show you.

How do you edit when you're writing?

Ah, sweet progress.

Change of Pace

2011-04-06T06:06:00.000-05:00

When I broke out all my old writing two weeks ago three things changed for me creatively.

For starters it feels like I'm working with a writing partner for the first time in my life. Sure that writing partner is me from 10 years ago but that guy has ideas and stories I don't think I could come up with by myself. Some of it good some of it not so good but it is fun to work on anyway.

The second thing that has changed is that I feel like I'm making tons and tons of progress on creative endeavors. I'm not going to lie, having half finished stories and detailed outlines of things helps keep the new creative juices flowing. It is pretty easy to sit down and work out a few new pages on a story when all the grunt work is mostly done already.

The big change however is in my rate of completion. When I was creating mostly artwork and videos I felt like I was accomplishing a lot more in a very small amount of time. Now that I'm working on these big writing projects I feel like everything has slowed down a bit. I've never been they type of person to just churn out artwork day after day. I tend to let me life get in the way of creating but it is plan to me that I've slowed down even more now that I'm writing again. To see evidence of this just look at my rate of blog posts. I've gone from two or three posts a week to this being my first post in a week.

So in an attempt to feel like I've finished a project here is a quick bit of art I just whipped up.

DJ Dude

Limitless

2011-03-30T06:53:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago I was inspired to dig out my pile of old writing and get to work on cleaning up that mess and finishing some projects. Ultimately there were more than a few things that inspired me to tackle such a large project but one of them was a new idea for a story.

Let me back up a minute and explain how dorky I can be sometimes. About once a week I hit up a website called Science which has a bunch of science news. For me it is a great way to unwind and it is also an interesting read. You can usually find me sitting on the futon reading their site on any lazy Saturday or Sunday.

So a few weeks back I was reading Science when I came across an article about drugs that help you remember. You see there are currently drugs that can help you remember what you are learning and there are drugs that can erase your memory. Until recently there hasn't been a drug to help you remember something you learned a long time ago. According to the article (which I can't find right now) a group of neuroscientists isolated a single enzyme in the brain that can help long-term memories remain vivid and clear. Using rats the neuroscientists found that increasing the enzyme can help the animals recall old memories. Lowering the levels caused the rats to forget old memories quickly. Now assuming this works just as well in humans this could be a very big breakthrough for age related memory loss.

So an idea started to form in my head about someone taking this pill and remembering old memories once forgotten. Maybe they remember some terrible conspiracy they were a part of and a fabulous thriller can unfold. That was the idea that got me to write again.

So last night Jacque took me to see the movie Limitless. In a nutshell, the movie is about a down and out writer who begins to take a drug that allows him to use 100 percent of his brain. He uses his new abilities to focus his attention on becoming the perfect version of himself. Eventually some bad guys come around and I don't want to ruin the movie for you but I liked it and you should check it out.

My only problem with Limitless is the fact that it was pretty close in tone to the story I was about to start writing. Not that they were the same story but it is one of those moments where you see something and it feels like someone beat you to the punch. Now this won't stop me from writing my story but it did take the wind out of my sails a bit. Now if only Hollywood could beat me to the punch on that Zombie Western or LARPing movie we would be all set.

Found Ideas and Stories

2011-03-25T06:43:00.000-05:00

So over the last few days I've been going through my stack of writing and I've come across a few good ideas that I feel I have to share with you. Hopefully I find a few more gems worth sharing and if I'm lucky I'll even find a few stories worth publishing. Until then I'm going through lots and lots of half finished ideas. Here are three stories/ideas that I really liked.

TV Game Show Idea

This idea really caught my attention because of how weird it was and because it wasn't a short story, novel, or screenplay. Unlike all my other writing this was an idea for a TV Game Show. The game show is really quite simple and kind of a rip off but stick with me on this because the twist ending is great. The show starts with three contestants finding out what they will be playing for. A car, boat or money are usually on the table for prizes but each week we get different prizes. Once the prizes have been reveled and the contestants introduced we start to play the games. Basically just think of "The Price is Right" meets "Double Dare" for game inspiration. Lots of goofy fun stuff involving slime and obstacle courses. The contestant with the most points at the end wins the prize. The only catch is at the end of the show the winner finds out if the prize was real or a joke. The game show is called "Just Kidding" and most of the time no one wins anything.

Zombie Movie Script

This screenplay can be summed up quite simply by saying zombies in the old west. This is a straight forward action/adventure zombie movie that just happens to be set in the old west. Upon reading the script I had to ask myself why no one has made this movie yet. It doesn't necessarily have to be my movie script but someone in Hollywood had better be making a Zombie Western right now or I'm going to be disappointed.

LARPing Short Story

This nerdy idea needs a bit more explanation than most. If you don't know what LARPing is allow Wikipedia to explain.

A live action role-playing game (LARP) is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically act out their characters' actions. The players pursue goals within a fictional setting represented by the real world, while interacting with each other in character. The outcome of player actions may be mediated by game rules, or determined by consensus among players. Event arrangers called gamemasters decide the setting and rules to be used and facilitate play.

So you have a state park, or someplace similar, full of people dressed like Renaissance Fair attendees all playing live action Dungeons and Dragons. So my short story on this is about a group of LARP players who are playing a game about awakening a dragon. Only this time they actually awaken a real dragon and they have to fight it off before it destroys the world. Sadly this story is pretty bad but I do like the idea a lot. In fact a funny version of this would make a great buddy movie.

Finish It

2011-03-21T05:16:00.002-05:00

(Note: Be sure to read the blog title like the announcer from Mortal Kombat to get the full effect)

Not long ago I was emailing my friend Nick about how great it would be to have an artist community who all share a common area and work together on all kinds of projects. Maybe have everyone go in on a studio space and just try and churn out as much artwork as we can. Writing, graphic design, photography, painting, music production....everything is welcome in this wonderland of creativity. In a way this is pretty much just like the idea I had for the arcade but instead of a bunch of people hanging out and drinking beer it would be a bunch of people hanging out, drinking beer and making art.

Tonight while driving home from Illinois I started thinking about this idea and I was inspired to dig into the closet and pull out all my writing projects.

What you see above is a pile of unfinished ideas, scripts, journals, novels, screenplays and short stories. Oh, and a tasty beer which I'm currently drinking.

All of them have been just sitting in my closet waiting to be finished. For years now I've been getting ideas for movies or stories and instead of sitting down and writing them I would just add them to my idea books and go about my day. Some of the lucky ideas would get a rough draft or an outline but most of them would just end up swimming in my mind.

So tonight I'm going to go through that big pile of crap and see if I can't do something with those ideas. Some of them I'll just share here on this blog for shits and giggles and others I'll actually finish and do something with them. Currently Nick has my mind running wild with the idea of creating a graphic novel.

Guess what? I have a script for that.....and the best part is that I can have an artist community without even being in the same city as other artists. I like to call it collaborating over the internet. I'm not sure if you guys have heard of it? It is this new thing that all the kids are doing.

Long post short I'm planning on working with Nick on turning that screenplay into a graphic novel. Does anyone know of any good comic book artists?

The Superman Reboot

2011-03-18T06:12:00.001-05:00

I rarely blog about rumors and the strange things that happen in Hollywood but I've been on a bit of a Superman kick lately and this ties in nicely to that. You see someone decided it would be a good idea to make a new Superman movie to reboot the franchise. Not a bad idea in and of itself when you look at what Batman Begins did to jump start the Batman movie franchise. Hell a clean start for the Man of Steel may be just what the doctor ordered.

Just today I read online that "Kevin Costner is now reportedly set to play Superman's adoptive father Jonathan Kent." Costner seems like a pretty good choice for Pa Kent when you think about him in Field of Dreams. Now I don't really have an opinion of Kevin Costner as an actor but I liked Waterworld and if Tin Cup were on TV I would stop and watch it.

The Superman reboot is even being directed by Zack Snyder who has done a good job directing other comic book adaptions so far. I thought 300 was great and Watchmen was an awesome version of the graphic novel. On paper this new movie sounds like a win win for Superman.

So why am I so gun shy about this new Superman movie? Is it the fact that the movie was rushed into production so Warner Brothers wouldn't lose the rights to make Superman movies? Is it that I thought Superman Returns was 80% horrible? Is it the possibility that they will just use Lex Luthor as the main enemy of Superman instead of someone much cooler?

The simple answer is that all Superman movies suck. The 1978 Superman movie may have been the best comic book adaptation of it's time but that time is long gone. All that is left now is one fun yet campy movie made over 30 years ago and a series of increasingly crap-tastic sequels. Although I truly hope this new movie is good it has a huge up hill climb ahead of it.

I wish the best of luck to Zack Snyder and his crew.

HyperSpin FTW!!!!!!!

2011-03-15T06:47:00.003-05:00

If you don't remember I built a HTPC last November to store all of our movies on. So far the HTPC has been more then we could have wished for. It stores all our videos in a very convenient and easy to use format thanks to Media Center and a simple remote control. Overall it has been a great addition to our home theater and we were even able to get rid of some of our shelves because of the lack of movies filling them up.

As with all projects I had to keep fiddling and since day one I wanted to install a bunch of emulators on the HTPC so I could play my favorite old video games. I was able to get Steam working with the computer and Super Meat Boy is awesome to play on a big TV but sadly I never got around to installing much else on the HTPC.

So over the weekend I finally got around to installing a few emulators on the Home Theater PC as well as HyperSpin. You see HyperSpin is a front end which basically acts as a menu system to navigate through all your games. The best part is it works seamlessly with Media Center to it the perfect video game addition to the HTPC. Tonight I was able to get controllers working and Jacque and I even got to play a little Contra on that bad boy. It will still be some time before I'm ready to show this setup off but I'm making progress. I can't wait to see it when it's done. If only I could speed up time.

Backup Vodka

2011-03-04T06:54:00.002-06:00

A few months back I made up a couple Half Life bricks and left them around town late at night for my friends to discover. Shortly after that I learned that our friend Val ran outside the next morning to see if she got a block as well. Sadly she did not get a Half Life resistance brick. She was a little disappointed but I had only made the block for friends who avidly played video games. I felt bad I left someone out but I knew I could make it right. My good friend Amethyst mentioned Backup Vodka and an idea began to take shape. You see Val has this brilliant idea that someone should make a vodka called "Backup Vodka." (Are you listening vodka distributors?) When you are out of the good stuff you can switch to drinking Backup Vodka. I thought it was a great idea so I set out to create this mythical bottle of vodka.

Step one was to soak a bottle of vodka in water until the label came off. With my clean vodka bottle I could set out to create a new vodka label. After a few weeks of little to no work I ended up with an OK design that I didn't really feel passionate about. I was kind of bummed but I knew I wasn't putting my heart into it so I walked away from the project for awhile. It wasn't until I returned to the project about three months later that I ended up with a deigns I liked.

The final product was printed on photo paper and glued to the bottle giving it a professional look. To really make the bottle something special I cut out the center of the label so you can see through the bottle to read the message inside.

It turned out so good, I had a few time thought about printing up a few of these and stashing them on liquor store shelves just to see what happened. My idea was some sort of gorilla consumerist street art campaign that would sweep the nation. That idea never got off the ground but I did end up giving this to Val not to long ago and she liked it. I also made a quick video to show you the bottle in action. The pictures just don't do this thing justice.

Be sure to click on the final label above to check it out full sized.

Programming Sucks

2011-03-01T06:20:00.000-06:00

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh with that blog title. In fact I really don't think programming sucks at all but I am having a hard time with it at school. This semester I'm taking two programming classes instead of one and it may have been a bit of a mistake to take on that much school work. In reality I have been doing pretty good up till now but I'm starting to feel a but overwhelmed. I'm not really bad at programming but it is becoming ever more obvious that it wasn't meant for me. When I'm working on a website or a graphical design, even if it isn't very good, I feel like I have created something interesting and new. No matter what I do with programming I feel like I'm doing something that a million other people have done before. I guess that is what is getting me down the most is that I don't know what I'll be doing with this new knowledge. It is all very cool to learn and play with but, grand scheme of things, I feel like I have to learn so much before I can do something new and original. Is that a time investment I want to make? I guess time will tell on that one. For now I'm going to crack open a beer and finish watching Terminator 3.

Madison Protests

2011-02-25T06:29:00.001-06:00

According to police estimates there have been over half a million people who have protested inside the Wisconsin state capital building. So far there have been zero arrests during the protests. All of this because Governor Walker introduced a bill that would eliminate collective bargaining among most unions in Wisconsin, put the control of Medicaid programs in the hands of the governor and removes sexual orientation from affirmative action. If your really interested you can read the 144 page bill here. Being a member of a union and having a general dislike for douchbaggery, I've been going down to the protests as often as I can. Just seeing first had how this will hurt not only the people of Wisconsin but the overall economy of the state I've taken to the streets to join the protests as often as I can. Yesterday my friend Karen made me the best protest sign ever that I will carry proudly into the fray again this afternoon.

"Who Runs Bartertown, Bitches!!!!"

Besides the awesome protest sign a friend of mine also posted this to Facebook which I found funny enough to repost here.

The Rise and Fall of My Dream Video Game Arcade

2011-02-24T06:01:00.001-06:00

Now you'll notice that the title of this story includes "My" in it. That is because this isn't a story of any random video game arcade that has fallen out of fashion over the years. There are a million stories like that out there and thankfully this isn't one of them. No, this is a story about "my" arcade which never was, yet one day could be.

About four months ago I had a dream where I owned a video game arcade here in Madison. It wasn't a huge arcade and it didn't have the newest games but it was mine and it was awesome. A ton of people I know would come and hang out and we would drink beer and play video games into the late hours of the night. When I woke up I realized that owning a video game arcade would be pretty awesome. The rest of the day I kept running the idea through my head thinking about how to open an arcade in Madison but every time I thought of something it ended up being too expensive to go through with.

Fast forward one week and I'm walking to class when it occurs to me how to open a video game arcade and make it affordable. The key is not to open an arcade at all but a game club instead. You see if you open an arcade to the public with three cabinets in a crappy location you don't make any money. To open an arcade properly you need a ton of games and a good location. Even then your probably doomed to failure due to the high operating costs and the fact that arcades started to die out 20 years ago. Sure you'll do good for a bit but once the novelty wears off you'll most likely end up closing your doors. When you frame it as a game club you don't have to worry about most of that stuff.

The game club idea was so simple it had to work. Weekdays members of the club can come and go at the arcade as they see fit. Weekends the arcade would be open to the public and club members. The money to keep the arcade operational would come from two places. Primarily funds would come from club members in the form of a monthly membership fee. Additional money would come from the public admission fee we charge on the weekends.

But where do the games come from?

Here is where I would have to spend my own money in order to get this arcade up and operational. In order to open an arcade of any kind you need games, lots of games. The big problem is that arcade games can be expensive. So my solution was to buy a bunch of cheap arcade cabinets and open with what I could afford. It wouldn't be much at first, three or four cabinets, but as we got more and more club members we would take that money and put it into new games. Over time we would end up with a bigger and bigger collection of games in our arcade. The more games you have in the arcade the more the gaming public would be interested in spending money to be in said arcade. Simple, no?

Now the success or failure of this arcade would depend heavily on the involvement of the game club members. If you get enough of them you can stay open for a long time and even make a little profit. If you don't have enough it becomes a money sink and you'll have to close your doors. Obviously you wouldn't see much public interested in an arcade with only a few arcade games at first so the whole arcade would be built by club members who simply love video game arcades.

My next question was what happens if it fails and we have to close the doors?

My thinking was that worst case scenario, I would own a few arcade cabinets and rent storage space for a year. Really at the end of it all I would have had a kick ass place to hang out with friends for a year. Once the lease was up on the space I was renting I could have a killer yard sale and sell off the arcade games.

How could I go wrong? To me it sounded like a fun experiment in entrepreneurship with possible benefits that far out weighed the chance of failure. I was set to find a cheap place to rent out and even went so far as to start calling around Madison to various business parks and warehouses. Everything was coming together perfectly.

If I had all the angles covered then why am I writing about the fall of my dream video game arcade?

The sad reality is that with the political upheaval going on in the state at the moment opening an arcade is not in my best interests. The budget reform bill currently on the Senate floor could adversely effect my income to the point that opening an arcade would be financial suicide. Instead of writing up a business plan, I'm sitting here writing an absurdly long blog post about all the ideas I had for my dream video game arcade. You never know, someday I might end up opening an arcade for a few hundred bucks and it will be a huge hit. Until then I'm going to just keep dreaming.

Brad's Shorts: Film Festival

2011-02-17T06:38:00.004-06:00

For those of you who couldn't make it out to the Film Festival we held on February 4th I present to you this link.

So if you missed the event or if you were there and wanted to experience it all again you now can. Just click on the image above to see all the films from Brad's Shorts.

I had an absolute blast at the Film Festival and I hope you enjoy the films as much as we enjoyed making them. I also wanted to thank all the directors who submitted a film to the festival. Without you guys it would have been just me showing my film and eating pizza. Thanks for the hard work.

Website Work

2011-02-15T06:10:00.001-06:00

So over the last few days I've been playing around in the background of my blog with various things. When I did the site redesign last year I never got around to really finishing it off and making it look the best. Fonts don't match everywhere and I kind of got it close enough and just called it a day. Not very professional but it was good enough at the time. Now I'm going to be doing a few things to make things look a little nicer around here. I doubt anyone will notice/care but that is what has been keeping me busy lately.

I've also been working on getting the Film Fest page up so anyone who missed the hugely successful "Brad's Shorts Film Festival" can still see all the videos. Most of them are online in one place or another so I just need to corral them all together on one page. Look for that soon.

(Photo Via Daniel Milner)

Happy Valentines Day

2011-02-14T06:33:00.001-06:00

(via io9.com)

Jobless

2011-02-11T06:36:00.000-06:00

So I finally got my short film online and you can watch it right now.

I still plan on getting a page put together with all the videos from the film festival in one place but that may take a bit longer than expected. So in the meantime enjoy my contribution to the film festival.

Brad's Shorts Film Festival

2011-02-08T06:28:00.000-06:00

I had originally planned to have a big write up for Monday about how well the Film Festival went but instead of doing anything this weekend I just sat around and watched Harry Potter movies. It was some much needed down time that is for sure.

So how did the Film Festival go? In a word...Great!

We had close to 60 people in attendance and we showed 9 films. Not a bad turnout for a four week turn around on this festival. Imagine what we could put together if we had a full year to plan?

There is already talk of another film festival for next year but I have a wedding to start planning for so it may be some time before I even think about doing anything like that again. I will say that I'm more than happy with how it turned out though. Over the next week or two I would love to put all the videos from the festival online if the directors are interested. At the very least I'll put my film "Jobless" online soon. I'll have more details on that when I get a chance .

Film Festival/Pizza Party Tonight

2011-02-04T06:29:00.000-06:00

After a month of setup and preparation tonight is the Film Festival/Pizza Party here in Madison. If you don't have anything going on tonight you need to get over to Rocky Rococo's west and check out some great films with me. I'll be showing my short film Jobless along with a few other films a few friends of mine have made. The cost is $8 which includes pizza, salad, bread sticks and whatever soft drink you choose to drink. They also serve beer which costs extra. In all we should have about 8 film for you to watch so it should be a great time. The doors open at 7 with the first film starting around 7:30. I hope to see everyone there but if for some reason you can't make it I will be putting as many of the films as I can up online for people to enjoy.

Snowpocalypse 2011

2011-02-03T06:21:00.001-06:00

So we survived the snowpocalypse of 2011 and we didn't even have to dig into our stash of frozen pizzas. The stash of blizzard beers on the other hand were annihilated long before the snow even came close to stopping. Actually here in Madison we didn't fair too bad for snowfall. When all was said and done we ended up with 13 inches of snow and drifts the size of me. Looking at the rest of the country we really got of lucky. It took Jacque and I about an hour to clean our the driveway and sidewalks but once that was done we had the day to ourselves.

We hung around the house and just ate food and watched movies the whole day. Safely cocooned away from the wind and snow.

While wasting away the day watching Harry Potter movies Jacque got the itch to bake some cookies for us. She decided to make Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies which I wholeheartedly supported. Basically they are chocolate chip cookies with an Oreo stuffed inside of it and baked. (You can find the recipe here) Despite how horribly unhealthy they are for you the one I ate was incredible. Jacque filmed me while I experience this delectable treat today.

I'm almost ashamed to say that the Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip cookie was in fact amazing. Much like the Denny's Fried Cheese Melt before it; I wish I was kidding when I say it is a tasty morsel that is incredible if you don't think about how horrible it is for you. The Oreo was soft and gooey and the crunchy chocolate chip shell that surrounds it is the perfect match for it. Unlike the Denny's Fried Cheese Melt which I have eaten twice now, I'm pretty sure I will never want to eat another Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip cookie again. Despite being ridiculously delectable I just don't have much of a sweet tooth. Now fried cheese in cheese and fried between bread on the other hand is right up my alley.

Film Festival This Friday

2011-01-31T06:37:00.000-06:00

Well here it is.... The last week before the film festival. This Friday if your not doing anything you should be at Rocky Rococo's west (Tree Ln.) in Madison to check out a bunch of great films by local directors. The doors open at 7 with the first film starting around 7:30. The cost of admission to this film wonderland is $8 which includes pizza, salad, breadsticks and the soft drink of your choice. They also serve beer but that costs extra. I hope to see you all there.

And here is a funny video I found on youtube that is guaranteed to make you smile on this snowy, overcast Monday.

Random Games

2011-01-27T06:48:00.002-06:00

Tonight I was walking out of class when I see this 5 or 6 year old kid in the hallway. I didn't think much of him and I walked right by. It wasn't until he caught up to me and was walking right next to me that he really caught my attention. He stared up at me until I looked at him and then he looked at the door and back at me and said "I'm going to beat you." Just like that we both broke out into a run toward the door. I slowed down to keep him close until the end when I hit the door at the same time as he did. I said "I won" to which the little guy replied without even hesitating "the race is to the second door."

I think he won on a technicality but it got me thinking about how much fun I just had. Out of nowhere I had a foot race with a little kid for no reason at all except that it was fun. I kind of wish more things like that happened in public places. Think about walking through a mall when all of a sudden someone taps you on the shoulder and informs you that "You're it." Suddenly for the next few minutes you're having fun for no other reason then it's fun.

Jacque and I tried this late one night on State St. one night but all we got was strange looks and people trying to keep their distance from us. I've posted this video before but it brings up a good point...

...think how much fun you could have just by venturing out in public if everyone around you was trying to have as much fun as a 6 year old kid.

How is it Wednesday Already?

2011-01-26T06:58:00.000-06:00

After a quite turbulent time last week this week has seen much calmer days. Even though things have been going better around here the week is flying by much faster than last week. I can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that it is already Wednesday. Between work, school and setting up a Film Festival I've been completely swamped with work. In less than two weeks the Film Festival will be over and I can go back to putting my focus on video games and personal creative projects. Until that time however I'm expecting a drop off in number of posts I have on this blog so hang in there I'll be back soon.

Film Festival Is Go

2011-01-21T06:43:00.000-06:00

Well what a difference a week makes. The Film Festival is set to go on Feb. 4th at Rocky's West and now all I have to do is get the lineup set for all the films. I'm getting pretty excited about this and I can't wait to show my film in front of an audience. Plus pizza and beer is always a good combo. If you know of anyone who has a film they would like to show let me know. There is still plenty of time to get it the show.

In other news it is freakin' cold here in Madison. I woke up this morning to -13 which is bad enough but according to weather websites the wind whipping around this damn town is dropping the temp close to -30. This I am not happy about but seeing as it is Friday I can live with it. I have only a few things to do this weekend but catch up and try and relax. I can't wait to start work just so I'll be done with it. Bring on the weekend.

Impending Doom or Big Fun

2011-01-18T06:45:00.000-06:00

At this point it could go either way. I'm talking about the Film Festival I've been trying to set up for the past month. As of today we have 22 people who are interested in attending. If we can't get another 80 people in the next week or so we may have to move the event to a different day or at the worst cancel it outright. I'm planning on having all the details worked out by the end of the week but I'm not expecting too much out of this event at this point. :-/

Busy Busy

2011-01-14T06:55:00.001-06:00

I knew starting school would take up a lot of my free time but I had no idea I would be this busy. Oh man I have been swamped all week this week. On the plus side I have been able to hang out with friends from time to time which really changes up the pace a bit. Hopefully next week will slow down a little bit so I can catch my breath.

Back to School

2011-01-11T06:53:00.000-06:00

Another busy week began yesterday and it was made even busier by the start of another semester of school. Yesterday was my first day back at MATC here in Madison where I'm taking programing classes for work. This semester I'm taking Java and Android Development. Both of these classes could eat up a lot of my free time as I'm not that great at programing to begin with let alone taking two classes at once. Even so I'm looking forward to learning some new things. Hopefully I can use some of it at work a bit otherwise they are just sending me for fun I guess.

Do I Horde Video Games?

2011-01-07T06:57:00.000-06:00

Recently I rearranged the shelves in our computer room to take advantage of the additional space we have. You see it wasn't too long ago that I sold off a ton of movies so our shelves were looking a little bare. Now we have a great little reading corner where we can chill and read or just sit and watch the fish swim in the aquarium. Good news all around I say.

The problem is that shortly after taking this picture I noticed something. Something that made me feel a little bit uncomfortable. Something that made me question my built in geek nature. I own a ton of video games...maybe too many video games?

This made me begin to wonder if I horde video games?

It wasn't long ago now that I came to terms with my video game geekiness. The realization that I was playing too many video games lead to less games being played. The flip side to that coin is that now the games I do play get more attention and love than ever before. So where did all these games come from?

For as long as I can remember I've had this thing in the back of my mind that draws me to keep games I've long since finished playing. This idea that I might want to play this again someday so keeping it around is a good idea. The sad realization is that I never get around to playing them again. But what if? What if I'm sitting around my house in 10 years and I want to play a Sega Dreamcast game? Well if I hang onto the old games I'll just dig out the old system and have a go.

All of a sudden I'm looking at a shelf full of games I don't play anymore. I would even go so far as to guess I only play two or three of those games on the regular. I'll never get around to playing those old games because I have too much new stuff to play. I can't even remember the last time I even started to think about digging into the collection of classic games I have sitting in my mom's basement.

So here I am wondering if I'm hording video games or collecting video games and no matter what the truth is I want to get rid of some of these games. The big question I have to answer is what games to get rid of and what games to keep?

Man I hope now that I'm getting rid of video games I don't end up hording books. Just look at that reading corner, it looks cozy as all get out.

Happy New Year

2011-01-04T06:42:00.000-06:00

I can't believe we are already 4 days into 2011. What a fun filled couple of days I have had. We held our annual Pajama Jama Jam on New Years Eve. Our tiny little house was filled with 30 people at one point. Lots of hanging out in pajamas, playing video games, watching movies and eating breakfast. I saw one picture from the night which pretty much sums up everyone's night.

Awesome

Now that the Holidays are out of the way I can return my focus to setting up a film festival. The first weekend in February we are planning to have a small film festival here in Madison. I have a bunch of friends that all want to contribute films as well as a bunch of friends who want to watch those films. I'll be posting more info about it this week on Facebook so be sure to email me for details if you aren't on the Facebooks.

Forgotten Corners of the Internet

2010-12-28T06:38:00.000-06:00

Recently I have been cleaning up my archive folder on my computer. The archive folder is basically a dump for all my finished artwork and videos. Once I have the final product I just fill up that folder with all my work files. Lately it has seen a lot of duplication so I've been going through that folder when I get a chance. Today while going through the website folder I found an old web page with a Photobucket slideshow on it. The really surprising thing was that the slideshow still worked.

I went over to photobucket and tried to log in and failed. A short "forgot my password" email later and I was looking at a photobucket account I created in 2007. This account, I created and promptly forgot about, was at best guess logged into around early 2008. This made me wonder how many other rogue accounts I have floating around in cyberspace? More importantly why would a company keep a dormant account like this around for over two years with no activity?

I decided to keep the account active just for the fact that the slideshow I mentioned is still in the archives of this blog. (You can see that here) I guess the only question I have now is what to do with a free photobucket account from 2007?

Merry Hulk-mas

2010-12-25T05:01:00.000-06:00

More Christmas Images

2010-12-22T06:59:00.004-06:00

OK I found one more Christmas images I felt like sharing with everyone.

Busy Week

2010-12-20T06:55:00.000-06:00

With Christmas right around the corner I'm pretty busy taking care of a lot of last minute things. As a result I wouldn't expect may updates around here. So to make up for that here are a bunch of random Christmas images I've found online.

Windshield Wiper Update

2010-12-17T06:37:00.001-06:00

I fixed it. You can all rest easy now.

Winter Weather

2010-12-16T06:51:00.001-06:00

With winter weather in full swing here in Madison the windshield wipers on your car become a very important part of your drive. You see the salt and snow combine into a mist that hits your windshield and becomes a white film of crap that needs to be cleaned off regularly. Sadly for me my driver side wipers stopped working last night on my drive home. This makes driving around town a nightmare of smeared windows and poor visibility. Lucky for me Jacque has most of the day off work so I could take her car to work today. Tonight when I get home I get to mess around with a busted windshield wiper in the dark. To top it off it should be around 5 degrees outside by that point. Which brings me to the point I wanted to make with this post. Why is it that whenever my car has problems it is always when it is very cold outside? Last time I had to replace a headlight it was 20 below. Last flat tire was in the middle of a blizzard. I guess I'm just lucky. Hopefully I'm lucky enough to fix my windshield wiper quickly before my fingers freeze off my hands.

Snow & Ice

2010-12-13T07:06:00.000-06:00

Why does it have to be snow and ice? Can't we just get snow instead? That is way easier to deal with. On a positive note I did get to play video games with my friends for most of the day which is always a good thing if you ask me.

Film Festival

2010-12-10T06:18:00.001-06:00

So two nights ago I finished up my short film and now I'm looking for people who want to show something at a small film festival. So if you know of anyone who has something to show to about 100 people let me know. I'm hoping to have something set up and ready to go by mid to late January but that is a bit flexible at this point. Get at me.

New Refrigerator

2010-12-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

Last week Jacque and I bought a new refrigerator to replace our aging appliance. It gets delievered on the 21st and I can't wait to see it in the kitchen. The funny thing is that ever since our old refrigerator now makes a really loud squeak when you open the door. I always think that it isn't a squeak but the refrigerator trying to tell me not to get rid of it. That makes me sad.

Abandoned Ideas

2010-12-07T06:03:00.001-06:00

Normally when I start an art project I have a ton of ideas in my head and I just put them all down on paper and see what looks best. Well by paper I mean computer screen but you get the idea. Usually I end up with one idea I like over all the others and so I set out to realize my favorite idea.

I don't know what other artists do but I usually file all those random ideas away into some dark corner of the hard drive and forget about them. Today I'm doing something completely different by sharing those abandoned ideas with you.

These are very rough ideas and they have zero of my artwork on them. I often use found images online to see how a finished designs layout will work when finished.

So in the end I had about seven ideas for skateboards and I made it down to five I liked. Although I like the looks of these boards they do seem a little plain. I felt like they lacked that goofiness that was prevalent on the Boba Phat skatedeck. Any one of these would make a cool board to ride on but even after I create my own artistic version of these characters I still felt like they were missing something. Luckily the idea I decided to finish has just the right amount of goofiness and originality. Now all I have to do is find the time to start yet another art project.

Weekend Projects

2010-12-06T06:55:00.001-06:00

I spent a lot of time this weekend knocking things off my to do list. The snow kept me inside for most of the day Saturday so I kicked ass in the attic and got a ton of progress made on that renovation. I also got a lot of stuff copied over to the HTPC and believe it or not I even made some progress on a few art projects I'm working on. Today I'm off work so I plan on getting a lot more done on the computer. I absolutely have to get some of these skatedeck designs out of my head before they drive me nuts.

Stop back tomorrow for a look at what skatedeck designs didn't make the cut from idea to finished board.

This image is unrelated

Unfinished Business

2010-12-02T06:41:00.001-06:00

Lately I feel like I have way too many projects that are in an unfinished state. Between the ongoing attic restoration, finishing my short film, my secret gift project, the HTPC and multiple odds & ends around the house I just don't have time to start anything new. The sad part is I'm always thinking of new ways to spend my creative free time.

Lately I've been kicking around ideas for new skateboard designs. After finishing the Boba Phat board a few months back I've been itching to start another board. Now when I'm creatively the busiest I've been in a while I get a few good ideas.

Why couldn't these ideas popped into my head a few months back before I started all these projects?

I guess that would have been too easy. At any rate I know I'll never get around to doing all the stakeboard ideas I have in my head so I'm thinking of posting a few rough drafts of my ideas on here over the next few weeks. Of course for that to happen I have to get some time to rough out an idea or two in photoshop. Man I really need to start finishing a few things up.

Brad Mackey's Guide to Building a HTPC

2010-11-30T06:30:00.001-06:00

(aka How to Achieve Movie Watching Nirvana)

I've been kicking around the idea of having a computer hooked up to my TV for years. It wasn't until recently that I decided to pull the trigger and build my first HTPC. I'm now living in movie watching nirvana and I can't wait until I'm done ripping all my DVDs to the HTPC.

This is how I pulled it off.

PARTS

I have built quite a few computers over the years but never a compact HTPC. I hit up newegg.com and picked up the following items....

SilverStone GD05B HTPC Case

SilverStone Nightjar Power Supply

MSI 890GXM-G65 Motherboard

AMD Phenom II X6 Processor

Kingston 8GB Ram (4 sticks of 2GB)

ZOTAC GeForce GT240 Graphics Card

I had a 2TB Hard Drive and a BluRay drive sitting around so I used those as well. I also ended up buying a Scythe Big Shuriken CPU fan as the stock AMD Fan was way too loud.

Note: I still think the Shuriken is a bit noisy and someday plan to replace it with an even quieter fan.

SOFTWARE

When I set out to build this I had planned on using xbmc to run my HTPC. After putting the computer together and getting everything up and running I finally decided on just using Windows Media Center and Media Browser to run the HTPC.

There are two reasons for this.

1) Windows Media Center is built right into Windows 7 and does 90% of the stuff I want the HTPC to do right out of the box without any tinkering.

2) It is super easy to launch Windows Media Center from a cheap remote control like this one.

After deciding to go with Windows Media Center I had to find a way to make it look a bit nicer. Enter the Media Browser plugin for Windows Media Center.

Just look how nice that looks after installing the plugin. All my movies can be viewed in a very nice cover flow view which is easy to flip through. To watch any of them I just have to click on the video I want and away I go. Depending on how you rip your DVDs you can have the full DVD exactly as it is on the disc with menus and everything or you can just rip the movie and never mess with FBI warnings again. Of course I still have the problem of storing all my old DVDs but that is way better than having to get off the couch.

Next step.....
Figure out how to launch video games from the Media Browser menus.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T06:20:00.001-06:00

Things have been pretty crazy lately so I haven't had a lot of time to blog between school and work and life. I just wanted to post a quick update and tell everyone that I hope they have a great Thanksgiving.

Weekend Alone

2010-11-19T12:34:00.001-06:00

It's Friday and Jacque is going to be in Rockford all weekend. That means I get the whole house to myself. That can only mean one thing....VEGAN CHILI DOGS!

Life is good.

Commence Movie Watching

2010-11-17T06:45:00.000-06:00

It has taken a few weeks but I finally have a HTPC that is capable of showing me a growing list of movies. The sheer convenience of having all your movies on demand whenever you want is pretty cool. It is only made better by the fact that I don't even have to get off the couch to put in a disc.

The only downside in all of this is that it took me a lot of time to figure out what programs I needed and how to use them in order to get the seamless operation I was looking for. Some of the programs I initially thought I would use I didn't end up using; others I never thought I would need I ended up needing badly.

Now the HTPC is far from complete. I still have a bit of tinkering to do and I still haven't really tackled how I want video games to work on the new computer. When I finish everything up I'll be sure to write a long post about how I built the computer and what software I'm running. Until then I get to enjoy movies very easily and I can't wait to get home tonight and watch some.

NOTE: Cannonball Run will not be one of the movies I watch. The picture above just popped up in a Google image search for "Watch Movies."