BotEoC » Miscellaneous

Happy 4th of July!

David — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:58:58 +0000

I hope everyone has a happy 4th of July. Enjoy all the fireworks, just make sure you have the same number of fingers at the end of the night as you had when it began.

July 4th How to take pictures of Fireworks

Gee, He Was Just Here a Minute Ago …

David — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 01:00:09 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

The soul of George Carlin, the master of observational humor, now resides in one of two places: Inside a garage in Buffalo, or on top of it.

I grew up watching and listening to him and in the summer of 2004 I finally had the opportunity to see George’s act, in person, while on vacation in Las Vegas. It would be nearly impossible for me to sit here and write something about him that hasn’t already been said.

Though, that will not stop me from trying:

While in high school, an assignment was given to my class to write an essay about the country and what we would do to fix things. I used this opportunity to borrow parts from his idea of ridding the country of the four worst kinds of people (As seen in George Carlin: Back in Town), by grouping them together in what (by todays standards) can only be chracterized as the most extreme of reality TV ideas. That being said, I got an average grade on the paper, mainly losing points for getting a bit loose with the language. Hopefully, George is sitting there at the garage in Buffalo, proud of the impact he’s had on the world at large.

RIP George, may your ashes reach the four corners of the world and all points inbetween.

Eight Hundred Minutes of George Carlin [ Slate.com ]
How George Carlin Changed Comedy [ Time.com ]
George Carlin: 20 Career Milestones [ Photo Gallery @ EW.com ]
George Carlin Obituary [ CNN.com ]

Faith-Hope.com

David — Fri, 30 May 2008 23:32:05 +0000

I’ve have created a website for Faith Hope at Faith-Hope.com. If you feel so inclined, please visit. At its start, there is little more than a gallery of photos, but as you will see, we have plans for more.

You Call That News?

David — Wed, 07 May 2008 01:00:19 +0000

Stop the presses, everybody listen up! Alex Rodriguez passed out during the birth of his daughter … 3+ years ago! Give me a damn break. Is this really newsworthy? Does anybody care? All New York Yankees fans want to know is when ARod is coming off the disabled list.

Springtime and Hidden Updates

David — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 02:25:47 +0000

Well, springtime in Chicago has finally, well, sprung! 71 degrees today, windy as hell though. If you believe the 10 day forecast, and I don’t, the lowest temp for the next week and a half is 52 degrees. Some lovely spring showers, too, of course. It’s about time we had a little bit of baseball weather to go along with the start of the season.

Enough about the weather, before I bore myself to sleep. I found this amazing little gadget to use with my blog here, called Zemanta. Zemanta is a firefox plugin (IE plugin coming soon) that attaches itself to your blog when you write a new post/article. It helps by suggesting related images, articles, links and tags to liven up your articles with relevant items for your readers. A very nice touch as it sits unobtrusively to the right of your writing area you will see relating images and articles. Below your writing area is the suggested links and tags. All of it, updating itself every 300 characters, or sooner if you wish. I think I’m going to be using this a lot as I try to get back into blogging more regularly. Well, since I’ve completely veered off course from springtime, I figure I’ll toss in a few of the suggested additions from Zemanta while I’m at it.

Bottled Goodness

David — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 03:13:06 +0000

I remember in my youth, drinking A&W Root Beer Floats like they were going out of style. Now, as I approach my 30th birthday, they’ve concocted “A&W Floats” A&W Root Beer and ice cream IN A BOTTLE! This is so awesome. To me, it tastes pretty close to the real thing, it just looks, well, melted. I’ve seen comments saying it was too sweet, or that it tasted like sweet, flat root beer and melted ice cream. My solution: Put the bottle in the freezer, for 20-30 minutes, gives it a good chill, which is always how root beer floats tasted best anyways.

Oh, and root beer floats were never quite right unless it was made with A&W, period. Kudos for re-introducing a classic concoction. As of today, I’ve only found them at 7-Eleven in single bottles, they retail for $1.79 and supposedly 4-packs will retail for $5.99. Its worth it for the occasional treat. Or, in my case, the daily treat.

They’ve also come out with Sunkist Orange Floats, which are damn tasty themselves.

Tragedy … Too Close to Home

David — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 01:19:51 +0000

Add another shooting rampage on a college campus to the ever-expanding list. This one happened in my own back yard, so to speak. Roughly 60 miles southwest of Chicago in DeKalb, IL a gunman opened fire in front of a geology class, shooting 21 students, before killing himself. Three victims were killed on site, two more victims died following transport to area hospitals, where two victims remain in critical condition. This is a new and disturbing chapter in the book of life as we know it today. A new chapter of the same old story; the senseless killing of innocent people. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those involved, directly or indirectly, in this horrifying series of events. I really can’t begin to completely put into words the sadness that I feel right now. What really can be said?

Unbelievably, this is the fourth shooting at a school here in the US, within the last week.

Vector TD2

David — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:01:19 +0000

Candystand.com just released the newest tower defense game by David Scott, Vector TD2.

VTD2 follows Flash Element TD, Flash Circle TD, Vector TD and Vector TDx, all of them addictive as all hell and a complete waste of way too much time. The maps are harder than previous editions, but that doesn’t diminish the game play. Thankfully, I can’t get to Candystand from work, or I’d probably be out of a job.

VTD2 brings a few new game modes to the table:

Normal Mode: Standard game play, 20 lives to defend interest on money earned starts at 3%
Time Attack: A constant flow of vectoids but only 10 lives to defend, no interest earned on money
Lightning: Standard game play fast forwarded
Puzzle: $50,000 to start with, no money gained for vectoids destroyed and only 5 lives to defend

Also, there are 6 new maps to work with: Pathways, Bottleneck, 2 in 1 out, Slim Pickings, Void and Ladder

If you’ve played and enjoyed the previous TD games by David Scott, you’ll be extremely happy with the VTD2.

03/08/2008: Void - Normal, Completed w/ Score of 4,308,889
03/08/2008: Slim Pickings - Normal, Completed w/ Score of 4,300,963
03/24/2008: Slim Pickings - Puzzle, Completed w/ Score of 1,275,480
05/18/2008: Slim Pickings - Lightning, Completed w Score of 3,801,563

Only in Chicago

David — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 06:52:03 +0000

In the span of less than a week, we will have experienced two decent snow storms, a thunderstorm and another snow storm. I’m getting a little sick of seeing the white crap falling from the sky. After tomorrows expected snow storm, maybe I’ll start skiing to work, instead of driving. God knows, I could use the exercise. You’d think in a city where the standard line is “If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes, it’ll change”, I’d be used to it. Year after year, the weather keep getting stranger, pretty soon it’ll be snowing in June and sunny and 85 degrees on Christmas morning. Now to wait and see what comes next.