We don’t have cable. Sure, it was part of the plan to get cable after we moved to California. But financial conditions conspired against us, and we’ve just never been able to afford it. Fortunately, not long after we got here, on-demand TV over the Internet was just starting to mature. Back in 2007, my sister gave us an old Medion computer she no longer needed. We were incredibly lucky that the computer’s video card included a composite video-out port so it could be connected directly to our TV. After adding a Wi-Fi card to the Medion, we were able to stream shows from sites like hulu (which was still in beta at the time). It worked well for awhile. But eventually, the video card stopped working with the TV. I gave the Medion away (to Andy Melton – I wonder if he’s still using it?) and, being an Apple enthusiast, decided to replace it with a used G4 tower. I performed some upgrades on the G4 to make it as powerful as possible. But its performance was always inconsistent. I blame it on the fact that the machine is just too old to handle streaming video over Wi-Fi. (I still have the G4 and have been trying to sell it.) From there, I moved on to using the PlayOn server software to stream online video to my XBox 360. And PlayOn isn’t a bad solution. But, like the G4, it tends to be inconsistent. Especially with hulu. (I really do like PlayOn, and I think it’s got great potential, and I’m not entirely giving up on it, yet.) Really, the best way to get online video on to a TV at this point is to have a good, fairly modern computer connected directly to the set. Late last summer, we purchased an ASUS EEE PC Netbook, as Jen was in the market for a laptop. It dawned on me a couple weeks ago that we could probably use the Netbook to do the video streaming. The challenge would lie in getting it connected. The Netbook has a standard VGA-out port, and our eight-year old Toshiba TV only has composite video and S-video inputs. Some type of signal conversion would be necessary to make it work. Some quick googling turned up a converter box on Amazon that I thought would work. I placed an order, and the converter arrived a few days later. Last night, I got the converter, the laptop and all of the cables together to get it hooked up.

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Tags: Amazon, Apple Computer, ASUS, Flickr, hulu, TV
Posted in photo, text | 3 Comments »

A couple days before Halloween/2006, I recorded this song called “Halloween Is Awesome.” I did it for fun, but also as a way to try and get some promotion for Hyper Nonsense. Since Hyper Nonsense has ended, I’ve decided to make this page the official home of “Halloween Is Awesome.” You can see a (mostly) complete list of all of the places that the song had been played on the Hyper Nonsense site. I’ll keep track of any future plays on this page.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:03 — 1.7MB)

Tags: Halloween, Hyper Nonsense, music, podcast, podcasting
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Here’s my most recent contribution to Nathan Lott’s Rental Reviews podcast. Comments welcome here.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 5:25 — 6.2MB)

Tags: film, podcast, Rental Reviews
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I went for a walk earlier today. On my way, I stopped at a nearby market to pick up some potato chips and a case of Pepsi. It’s about a half-mile walk between the market and home, and while I’ve carried many cases of Pepsi (and today’s was an 18 pack, mind you) along that route, it’s never fun. As I left the market, groceries in hand, I was greeted by a neighbor who had stopped at the Mexican place next door to pick up some lunch. He offered me a ride home. it was awesome.

Thanks, Enriquemobile!

Tags: California, car, Flickr, San Luis Obispo
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My first in a series of cooking videos.

The song at the beginning of this video is by Deirdre Flint.

Podcast: Download (32.0MB)

Tags: Deirdre Flint, food, podcast, YouTube
Posted in video | 6 Comments »

Earlier today, I sent this support request to Canon in regards to my ZR800 camcorder:

The camera’s LCD display is stuck in constant upside-down mode. The display is supposed to do this when it’s flipped so it’s facing towards the front of the camera. But it’s supposed to revert back to its normal right-side up display when flipped back so the display is facing towards the back of the camera. But now, no matter which way the display is facing, it’s as though the display is set so it’s facing forward. This means that, when it’s facing back, the images on the screen show up as upside-down. When looking through the camcorder’s viewfinder, the image is properly situation (right-side up). And recorded video is also properly situated. It’s just the way the video appears in the display when the display is set to face towards the back of the camcorder that’s a problem. I’ve looked through the manual as well as your website but haven’t been able to find a fix for this. I also disconnected the camcorder from A/C power and battery power for 24 hours, thinking that is might’ve just reset itself. If you have any suggestions on how I can fix this problem, please let me know.

This is what the camcorder’s display looks like:

I received a surprisingly fast response from Canon. That response contained only one suggestion, though. And that was to remove the main battery and the backup battery to see if the camera might reset itself. As it shows in my original support request, I had tried removing the main battery pack already. But I had forgotten about the backup battery. So this time, I removed both batteries and let the camera sit wthout any kind of power for about 20 minutes. Then i reassembled the camcorder and powered it on only to find that the weird upside-down display problem is still there. I haven’t been able to find anything online that refers to this problem. The only other thing I can do at this point is to send the camcorder in to Canon for repair. It’s outside of warranty, so that repair will cost money. And it’s hard to say whether or not that repair cost is justifiable. Also, the camcorder still technically works. It’s just the display that’s borked.

If anyone out there has any ideas on how to fix this, feel free to contact me.

Tags: Canon, Flickr, podcasting, ZR800
Posted in photo, text | 7 Comments »

Jen recently shared the album meme with me. I decided to make my own.

The rules of the meme are as follows:
1.) The name of your album’s artist is the name of the first random article you get from Wikipedia. (Here’s mine.)
2.) The name of your album comes from the last four or five words of the very last quote on the random quotations page. (I can’t link to the actual random quotation page I got, but the last quote from my page is this one.)
3.) Your album art is the third photo found on this Flickr explore page. (Again, I can’t link to the actual explore page I got, but the third photo on the page at the time I visited is here.)
4.) Mix it all together using Photoshop or some other type of image editor.

I’m not much of a graphic artist, so mine’s pretty basic. It also seemed like this situation definitely called for Comic Sans. If anyone out there makes their own album art based on these rules, let me know. I had fun with this one. It also dawns on me that the logical extension of the album meme would be to take it to the next level and actually record the album. Something to consider for another time.

Tags: Flickr, music
Posted in photo, text | 4 Comments »

As promised, the rain has arrived. It began to fall early Tuesday morning and is still coming down as I’m typing this on Wednesday. I ventured out into it to see if there was anything worth documenting. I took some photos and compiled a short video.

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Podcast: Download (14.4MB)

Tags: California, Flickr, podcast, rain, San Luis Obispo, YouTube
Posted in photo, video | 2 Comments »

It’s fall here in the central coast area of California. And the rain is on its way. But unlike the rolling storms I grew up with in the midwest, a California rain takes its time to arrive. Today, the skies are filled with a variety of clouds, a precursor of what’s to come. During my afternoon walk, I snapped some photos with my iPhone.

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Tags: California, Flickr, rain, San Luis Obispo
Posted in photo, text | 1 Comment »

After our visit yesterday to the Central Coast Railroad Festival, Jen and I stopped in at nearby Del Monte Cafe. We have been to Del Monte a couple times before, but because of the restaurant’s location (not exactly downtown), we don’t go there often.

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Tags: California, Del Monte Cafe, Flickr, food, San Luis Obispo
Posted in photo, text | 4 Comments »