It has not been a good day.

This morning I flushed my keys down the toilet. Yup, the toilet. You're probably wondering how anyone would manage to pull that off - and let me tell ya, it was easier than you would think! The whole thing happened in slow motion...

Just before leaving for work I decided I would use the toilet. I had my keys in my lap and as I stood up they slipped down and went right in! By the time I realized they were in the bowl it was too late - they had caught the very end of the flush and were beyond the point of no return. I was hoping they didn't go all the way through the pipes and were still sitting there in the toilet's trap so I pulled out my trusty iPhone and found a local plumber's phone number.

The guy I talked to on the phone didn't sound all that surprised. Does this happen often!? A "Jack Stephen" van pulled up out front a few hours later. If you grew up in southern California then you probably remember the "Jack Stephen" commercials on TV.

"Jack Stephonovich? No! Jack Steffen!"

The plumber looked nothing like the guy in the commercials... My guy was more like Juan Steffen.

Juan easily removed the toilet and fished for the keys, but had no luck. They weren't in the trap or in the pipes. I paid him for his fishing efforts ($93.00) and came to terms with the fact I will never see those keys again. Luckily I had an extra set of keys for the apartment. I had to get another copy of my mailbox key and will eventually need to get an extra laundry room key. My dad had my extra car key so I had to ask him to drive down from Hesperia to give it to me. We had lunch and a good laugh about the whole thing.

It's looking like this week is going to be a rough one for me... Stay tuned!

Labels: keys, toilet

I finally made the jump to the world of HD!

I got my first High Definition LCD television last night from an interesting salesman at Best Buy. Raul was his name and he reminded me of the Indian guy in the movie '40 year old virgin'. He had one of those wired cell phone ear pieces that he would occasionally remove from his ear as he talked me into joining the Best Buy rewards club and the extended warranty. He even loaded my TV onto a dolly and navigated it through the store aisles with me on my way to the exit. We shoved the 42" beast into my car's backseat and I was headed home. Getting the TV out of the car wasn't nearly as easy as it was getting it in there. Two of my neighbors helped me squeeze the beast out the backseat and up the stairs. Soon enough my cat Star had a new giant box to play in and I was loading up Call of Duty 4 on my xbox.

After I figured out the HD cables for the xbox had a switch for HD or standard TV, I got to experience what everyone has been talking about - HD! The TV is so much larger than what I had been playing games on for the last few years - I was seeing things in the game I never seen before. I was (and still am) blown away at what a difference there is. I'm looking forward to popping in my older xbox 360 games and seeing the difference - Splinter Cell... Gears of War.... GRAW2! I checked out the scary game I rented a few weeks ago 'Condemned 2' and it was much creepier with all the extra detail and subtle lighting changes.

After I get past the learning curve of playing on a larger TV, I expect my gaming to improve - how could it not!?

Labels: HD, High Definition, Television, video games

Another After Effects experiment - The creepy ones... and zeros:

In this video I used a concrete wall photo I found to create all 4 walls - then told After Effects to repeat the walls (creating a hallway). I tossed in the ONES and ZEROS logo at the end of the hallway and added some creepy lighting. I then flew the camera down the hallway and added a little wobble to it.

This took me about two hours to create. Unfortunately, the quality got knocked down quite a bit when I uploaded it to the web - so it looks a bit grainy... ah well.

*UPDATE

Here is a revised version - with music!
The Creepy Ones... and Zeros (part deux):




It reminds me of a creepy video game...

Labels: After Effects, ones and zeros, video

I've been learning to use a video compositing software named Adobe After Effects. It allows you to mess with video the same way you would mess with photos in Adobe Photoshop.

Here is my first "clone" experiment - it took me about 4 hours to create from start to finish...

I used my Xbox Vision Camera to capture the two videos - composited them together in After Effects, added some color correction, and then mixed the music with the video in Final Cut Pro. I made the Ones And Zeros logo animation using After Effects as well.

I am having a blast learning this software - I can't wait to experiment some more!

Labels: After Effects, video

It's no secret that I have always loved playing video games. When I discovered gaming online with the Playstation 2, xbox, and eventually the xbox 360 - I was hooked! Think of it as a giant arcade with the ability to play against hundreds of thousands of real-life people from all over the world. Naturally, when you play games - you play to win. I remember playing the arcade game "Street Fighter: II" at Round Table Pizza when I was a kid. In between games, the top scores would flash on the screen and I always wanted to be on that list, let alone at the top of that list! All I wanted to do was play that damn game when my family would go there to eat. I would bring money that my parents didn't know I had, just so I could have an extra $2 to play with, on top of the $3 I begged them to give me.

Well, robots and fembots... it only took me 15 or so years, but I have arrived! I finally hold a legit number 1 in the world rank on a video game leader board!


I know, I know... its just a stupid game - but damn it, I am numero uno out of at least a couple hundred thousand people and it feels good! The game is called "The Club" - a game I rented about a week ago. Fundamentally, the game is a strait up arcade shooter - your score increases the faster and more accurately you kill enemies. This rank was on the games most difficult setting - "REAL". I channeled into some kind of robotic state of mind and was effortlessly pulling off head shots, death rolls, and crack shots. So, there it is... my moment of glory. Too bad I couldn't save a replay of the round...

The closest I ever got to number one was on the xbox game "Ghost Recon 2". I got all the way up to number 8!


Oh, and there was that whole tournament thing last year with the game "Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2" - where my team, ONES and ZEROS, finished as one of the top 8 teams in the world... but, no one really wants to bring that up again...

WIN - or don't play at all...

Labels: leaderboard, Number 1 in the world, rank, stats, The Club, video games, xbox 360, xbox Live

Kendra from the E! show "Girls Next Door" has a scary laugh.
I made this video from an interview I found on youtube.

Neigh!

Labels: evil, Girls Next Door, Horse, Kendra, laughing