Yeraze's Domain 3.0

This weekend Laura & I managed to make it out to see Ghost Rider (Official Site) starring Nicholas Cage.  It was alot of fun, and a surprisingly good movie.  So many comic book movies turn out like garbage, but this one was surprisingly good.  It’s no Lord of the Rings, but it’s got a pretty good story and I love the camera work.  Alot of work was put into the camera angles and lighting to closely approximate the look of a comic book.  Also, the special effects are amazing and well used.  I’m gonna have to buy the DVD when it’s released just to see how they made the motorcycle accident shot at the beginning of the movie, where he breaks his neck and shatters his helmet visor.  It didn’t look CG, but no stuntman would have attempted that.

So if you have the chance, go check it out.  I never did read the comic book, so I can’t comment about it’s relevancy to the source material.  It’s fun, action packed, and any movie with a cover of "Riders in the Sky" (by Spiderbait in this case) is worth checkin out
[tag:movie][tag:ghostrider]
Update 3/22/2007:  Looks like someone finally posted a music video for Spiderbait’s Riders in the Sky on Youtube, using video from the movie and the PS2 game. 

I saw on The Consumerist today that the CSC & FDA are recalling certain jars of Peter Pan Peanut Butter (Original Story). Possibly linked with a long-running outbreak of "Salmonella serotype Tennessee", it goes back to August.  I normally wouldn’t even comment on something like this, except I just checked the 2 jars of peanut butter in the house and both of them are from the contaminated lot (Product with lids starting with "2111").

Now I have to wonder if Rhianna had more than just a stomach virus back in December.
[tag:fda][tag:cdc][tag:salmonella][tag:peanutbutter]

I own a Wii!  Woohoo!!!!

I’ve heard rumors floating around the net that Target has been getting Wii shipments about every weekend.  On a whim, Laura decided to head over there Sunday Morning and see if they had any, and to pick up some other essentials for the house.  As she walked across the parking lot toward she door, she caught the manager handing out his business cards, each card guarantee’ing one Wii.  She got the card marked "5", the last one they had.  Had she arrived 30 seconds later, she would have missed it.  I’ve got one of the kewlest wives in existence.  She detailed the whole event on her new Myspace Blog.

I was able to get everything setup pretty quickly, and I was able to get the Wii working on my 801.11B WEP encrypted network with no trouble at all, and even added a few friends.  The motion tracking takes a little to get used to, but is amazingly intuitive.   Just point the controller at the screen, and click the "Big" button to make things happen.  With everything wireless and so simple to work with, it’s easy to see why Wii’s are flying off the shelves while PS3’s languish.  I’m still somewhat astonished as how small the system is.   I knew the size of the Wii (Seen it on display), but the sensor bar & Wiimote are about half the size I expected.  And given what’s inside the Remote, it’s even more impressive: Motion tracking, the buttons, extension port, Remote communication stuff (Bluetooth or RF, not sure which), and even Flash Memory storage.

I’ve been playing the Wii a pretty good bit since I got it, just playing Wii Sports & Twilight Princess, both excellent games.  I downloaded the Wii Internet Channel and surfed for a bit, much to my surprise my website came right up with no trouble.  So far the big hit has been Wii Sports tho.  It’s so simple that even Rhianna has enjoyed Boxing & Baseball.  She loves holding the controllers and "bam"-ing the other guy.  She likes to try at bowling, but her hands are too small to really wrap around the controller well.  I did manage to get one fun action shot of her playing it yesterday morning. 

Once I’ve gotten a bit more into it, I’ll post more.  In the meantime, between the Wii & the MythTV, I feel like I need a Systems Administrator for my living room   Luckily, everything is working 100% so far.

[tag:wii][tag:nintendo]

Two weekends ago, my dad surprised me with an unexpected gift: a DFI RDX-200 LanParty UT Motherboard with an Athlon 64 3700+ already installed.  He got it from work, where they were using it’s Karajan Audio Module to test integration of their power amps, and summarily blew up the integrated audio. In addition, they blew out one of the Gig-E ethernet ports on the motherboard, so the board wasn’t really useful to them anymore.  As an added bonus, he even drummed up four 256M DDR memory modules for me, totalling 1G of memory. 

When I got it home, I quickly hopped on NewEgg and ordered another Spire CPU Fan and Passively Cooled GeForce6200 (With SVideo) from MSI.  When they arrived on Tuesday, I anxiously began assembling the system.  What arose was a lesson in working with "used" components and the sheer bliss of a fully functional MythTV rig.. Come on inside for the full scoop.  (Warning: Long Article)
Update 3:15pm – Added a few more discoveries I had to make, and a few benchmark results
[tag:mythtv][tag:pvr][tag:hardware][tag:linux]

Laura’s been bitten by the MySpace bug and spent last night putting together a small Flash movie with the services of OneTrueMedia.  For your viewing pleasure, here it is.

[tag:family][tag:onetruemedia][tag:movie][tag:myspace]

One of my New Year’s Resolutions this year was to lose weight & get in better shape.  With alot of help from Laura, I’m starting to do alot better.  My biggest problem has always been in simply figuring out if what you’re doing is helping.  Sure, everyone says "Eat less, exercise more" but never how much less or more.  I can run on the treadmill until my knees give out, but I feel like I never lose any weight.  I can fast for 3 days and again, feel like I’m not losing any weight.  So how does one know?

Given that I’m an engineer by training and geek by trade, numbers make everything make sense.  To that means, I discovered the Harris-Benedict equations and the Basal Metabolic Rate formula.  It’s a simple formula that computes the number of calories you burn in a day doing nothing based on your age, weight, and height.  That number can be used as a maximum for daily calorie intake.  When I run those numbers, I come up with roughly 3000 calories a day so when I look and see something is 100 calories or 500 calories, I know how much of my "daily allotment" I’m using up.  It makes things alot easier to keep straight in  your head, and gives you a target to aim for.

Also, I decided to go ahead and script it up and throw it up on my website.  If you look up top you’ll see a new "Scripts" link with a link to the "BMR & Caloric Intake Calculator".  Hope you like it [tag:exercise][tag:health][tag:bmr][tag:calorie][tag:diet]