This is an example of having a heck of a lot of time. This guy designs a level for Super Mario World which requires absolutely 0 input by the user. Full of bouncing off power-ups, riding on animals, and using the physics engine gravity to propel Mario. When I saw this, I was absolutely floored by how much pain staking details went into this level design. It even has a boss battle at the end, again with 0 input by the user. Check it out:

Holy mother of everything that his holy. I swear to God sometimes this kinda dog poop really makes me wanna pull my hair out.

Starving, its 2 AM, I go to open a can of whatever the hell I happen to have in the cabinet. Ah Chef Boyardee, you never let me down when I’m in a crunch!

I pull out my can opener from the drawer and clamp down on the Chef’s dish. I begin to turn the handle with visions of small ravioli pillows about to dance in my mouth! Turn the handle again and …

The MOTHER F’er BREAKS!

Honestly this wouldn’t have got me steamed as normal, I mean yeah it sux, but this was only the second time I used the stupid thing.

Holding the broken remains of my can opener, and considering how I am going to open this thing with only a steak knife at my disposal, I start to feel my blood pressure elevate. I think to just how many I have bought over the two years here in San Antonio. The number really pissed me off!

5 Freaking Can Openers In 2 Years!

I mean honestly how the hell hard is it to make this thing? This was modern science back in 1810! Yeah dude, I Wikipedia’ed it here.

Yes I am a freaking dork for looking up “The History Of The Tin Can” on Wikipedia…

I have realized that each time I have had one of these break, I have been progressively getting a more and more expensive one thinking maybe I just got a crappy “cheap” one. Now I am up to almost 15 dollars for a stupid can opener. Does it really require this kinda cost to make something not suck? You wont find a can opener for less than 7 bucks, believe me I tried.

Which leads me to another tangent. How come when we get food for the poor we collect canned goods? I am sure you are going to say “cause it stays fresh.” Well no sh*t but think about it, if you are poor, you don’t have money and can’t buy a damn can opener! You are going to be like:

Thanks asshole for the food I can’t eat! Why not just give me a picture of some delicious food too while you are at it!

WTF you think he can use a rock to open that thing up? Give the poor guy a jar instead or something! Jebus! Is this some sorta conspiracy to balance donated food and resources? Donate food, make up the loss money with profit on the only freaking utensil that you can use to get said food out with!

Anyway, back to my plight. After spending an hour, yeah a freaking hour, looking at all the choices at Target for a replacement, I came across this little beauty:

There were any number of a thousand kinds and variety, but the kicker … none of them were “dishwasher safe!” This is another freaking annoyance I have to deal with. Why the hell do they still make kitchen stuff that cant be put in a dishwasher? I mean seriously! I can understand in the 80’s or the 50’s when no one had one, but I think you will be hard pressed nowadays to find a home without one. So the only one that is dishwasher safe also turns out to be designed by this designer who I am supposed to give a crap about.

Oh, how nice, its so pretty … WHO THE F CARES? Designer can openers? Puhleeze! Give me one that wont break for goodness sakes!

If this one breaks, I really don’t know what the hell I am going to do. I am just going to start going old school and use my Swiss Army Knife with the hook can opener.

The Swiss Army Knife is an example of quality which has not died … yet. I was reminded of the time my Father gave me one when I was in Boy Scouts about 20+ years ago. If I wasn’t afraid the TSA would steal it from me trying to bring it back in my checked luggage, I would have it on my person right now. I actually ordered this one:

from Amazon after buying two for my Father for Father’s Day. Buying them for my Father made me realize how much I needed one myself. So I spoiled myself and got the “gothic” model above. I keep this thing on me all the time. I had truly forgotten how great a tool it is. It has really saved my butt in quite a number of situations.

So I implore the manufacturers out there. Stop making things that SUCK. Take a note from Swiss Army (Victorinox)! You can make good quality tools and still make a profit. Stop scamming the little guy with your B.S please!

I came across this post at Gizmodo here. Apparently back in 1978, being the forward thinking and scientist old Jack is, Jack had a hydrogen powered Chevy car. It was a simple, by today’s terms, converted regular engine with a modified carburetor which used hydrogen gas for fuel. The kicker, the hydrogen was produced by the first solar panels ever. Here is the video:

So what the hell happened? This was over 30 years ago WTF! This is the kinda sad stuff that happens. Some awesome new scientific discovery which would kick ass and then … PFFfff … nothing. From the sounds of the video it would have been a really simple conversion to already existing engines. Really upsetting.

Oh well Jack, you were ahead of your time.

On the phone with my sister and my phone keeps cutting out on me.  All of a sudden it shorts big time and my call drops.  I try to call back but none of the damn keys on the stupid thing work above the row of 4.  Well I have just absolutely had it with Motorola and Verizon.  This is the 3rd Razr V3C I have had as a replacement.

Man back in the day when the first iteration was released on October 2005, this phone was the shiznit.  It put Motorola on the map.  Freaking PC World listed this damn phone #12 in “The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years.”  Can you believe that?  There was nothing out there like it.  This damn thing sold for $600 dollars with a contract and $800 without.  So yeah, when you guys complain about the new iPhone wah wah it costs so much, wah!  This was only 3-4 years ago man how quickly you guys forget.  Just think about this P.O.S and its initial cost!  This was THE fashion cell phone to have.  You can read all about the nifty background story and the thousand variants and colors here at Wikipedia.

They made so many variants of this thing with only tiny adjustments like colors, screen sizes, and media features just to reclaim that initial innovative.  All they really was just milk the crap outta that cash cow, slaughter it, and feed it to the golden goose who was later eaten by the dead beaten horse.  It didn’t matter though, no matter the tweaking, they will not come back to that original blockbuster public acclaimed release.  That hasn’t stopped them from blaming everyone but the idiots in charge at that company.  Laying off their design team, read here, and cutting their R&D team, read here.  What could you expect them to come up with when those in charge of making new products were put out on the street.

At any rate, enough with the history lesson.  The thing that pissed me off was that this was the third damn phone I have gone through.  I said enough of this crap and took it apart to see what the HELL was going on here.

Well to my surprise I find a fully exposed coper connection almost the full length of the flex cable as well as a connector pad which has tiny contact points for which to communicate.  This was done on purpose, I mean it had to be because this is a pressed/printed.  However, having the copper exposed like that?  Here is the relacement part.  Here is what happens when you leave copper exposed with no oxidation protection:

I am not an engineer okay, but I can see no other reason to do this than to design this product to fail.

Now let me be clear, I don’t recommend nor condone taking apart your cellphone and take no responsibility in your own actions.  So don’t be a dumb ass, be smart and just ask for the phone to be replaced or fixed under warranty.

In the interest in Science and cause I am a tech head, I wanted to see if I could fix it myself.  Now, I am prally sure there is a fancy dancy cleaner for oxidation on copper, but having done this before, I made a solution using equal parts white vinegar, distilled water, and salt.  I am not really sure this is recommended but this is what they use to clean copper pans and appliances.  This stuff instantly took off the oxidation with no residual damage.  Oh and here is a tangent, I found this cool video of cleaning your computer with vinegar:

I am sure it will make it smell like crap and I am not sold on using it on my screen.  Anyway, so after cleaning off the oxidation, I put the cell phone back together and ….  BOOM TADA!  It works like a champ and shows none of the problems I was having before.

Freaking P.O.S phone, thats just bad design, I mean really WTF people.  I don’t wanna hear “oh you dropped it in water” or “it got wet”, I tell you what, this thing has been taken care of like a queen okay.  Humans sweat, and even just a little is just enough to get this to start oxidation over the course of a year.  Just enough time to be out of warranty and for you to need to buy a new one.

As if it wasn’t the only thing to hate on this phone!  The fact that Verizon locked all the cool stuff this phone is capable of like blue tooth file transfer, making an overlay menu which makes this phone crazy slow to navigate, etc.  I am sure they did this so you have to pay Verizon for a MMS message to get your photos off this thing.  If you don’t have a plan with MMS included, its like 3 bucks per MMS!!!  Oh and even when it was brand new, talk time of only 3 hours!  More like 1.5 hours in my real experience, and now about 5 minutes on this year old battery.

I HATE this phone!  I cant wait till this weekend when I replace it with a iPhone 3G.  I am off this ride you hear that Motorola and Verizon!  Enough with the nickel and diming!  Enough of your crap phones which prove you have no sense of the market, don’t listen or care about your clients, and which show your lack of innovation by your constant recycling of old boring crap to the public!

When I get that iPhone, I swear … I SWEAR!  I am going to crush this RAZR with a sledge hammer!

I have had Sirius Satellite Radio for almost 2 years, and have honestly only been using it in my apartment. I love it though and listen to it every day in my place. Oddly enough, I get great reception inside my apartment. The last car I had, the RX-8 woulda been a serious pain to put in, so now that I had the truck, I thought it was about time to start using it on the road.

The only thing I had to really do to install this was to put an FM modulator between my factory radio and the FM antennae. This way, while using the FM modulator, I wouldn’t have any interference and the sound would be clear. No big deal, this is a MAYBE a 30 minute job. Well you know shit like this would never go easy for me right.

I opened the truck and removed the top panel on the dash. Then removed the front dash panel easily with my new multi-trim pry tool set which made the whole thing really simple. It also kept me from making any scratches. No problem, I thought now that I see the radio exposed, its a matter of unscrewing 4 bolts and putting the FM modulator. Welp, I bust out my cordless drill to remove those bolts, and get the first one out then …

CLUNK CLINK CLINK CLINK CLUNK TINK TINK

WTF I thought, I looked and the bit at the end of the drill fell off along with the screw into the air conditioning. SON OF A BITCH!

Well its about 8:30, and its getting dark now, all I got is this tiny little flash light to see with:

Of course, before I had started this whole affair, I had unplugged the battery in the truck to not set off the airbags etc so this is the only source of light I have in the dark parking lot. I proceed for the next 3.5 hours to take the whole MOTHER F’ing dash apart in the dark. Managed by luck to get the phillips bit and screw out of the AC and then finish the modulator install. Got it all done at about 11:30 at night in the parking lot. What a freaking pain in the ass, 4 total hours in the dark for a stupid simple install.

Good news is, it worked, and holy crap if it didn’t, I woulda been pissed. The FM modulator works awesome! Now I can finally listen to this thing in the truck. Yeah I know, look at the above, the wires are still laying out, its because I am still deciding where to place the satellite antennae permanently. I am running an experiment for a few weeks to see if the dash will give any big issues. I don’t want to put it on the roof because it will ruin the paint, and I think it looks seriously shitty to have this rat tail running on the body of your vehicle. I wish they would sell the shark fin type that the OEM installs have and BMW uses, but oh well for now, on the dash hopefully it will look okay when I clean it up. I was actually happily surprised too that the suction cup mount proved useful and actually fits inside this slot on the truck’s dash:

KICK ASS!

Man it is so great to have Sirius in the truck. No commercials, no interruptions, and good clean great sounding music. If you have ever been to San Antonio, you will know that this place only has 3 freaking English speaking radio stations! The rest are a hodge podge of Mexican salsa, Mexican organ music, Mexican rap, and mariachi music. Of the 3 English ones, there is only the college radio station and the rock station that is actually semi passable. The problem with the rock station though is that they play the SAME FREAKING 4 songs every day. Literally, I will go to work hearing one song, and go home that day hearing the SAME FREAKING SONG!!! OMG you have no idea how crappy that is and stuck in traffic will want to make you tear your face off. Not to mention sitting through lame advertisements every other song! Satellite radio is a MUST and worth it!