Category: Local

Reading (and Watching) Material

Top Gear’s “Stig” Revealed and subsequently canned, called a “Greedy Twat” by one of the hosts. Apparently the upcoming U.S. version of Top Gear will have a stig as well.
25 Mario Facts for the 25th Anniversary.
Speaking of Mario, here’s an adaptive Mario game that gets easier or harder depending on how and where you die (or how quickly you finish the level).
You may have read Stuff White People Like, but here is the real stuff that white people like.
From Canada to Mexico on a single tank of gas.
Three Ways Facebook is Killing Your Website.
More Facebook news: Facebook lets publishers contact “Likers.”.
AMD to take stand against laptop stickers. Too bad the problem stickers on most laptops are put on by the manufacturers and are usually a pain to get off cleanly.
Turn your blog into an iPad Web app with Padpressed.
10 Free WordPress Themes for Small Businesses.
According to one politician, Girl Scouts breed “pro-abortion” lesbians.
A good post 9/11 column by the late Hunter S. Thompson that everybody should read.
Young gamer goes back and tries playing games older than him, and gets his rump kicked by a couple classics (I finished Contra with a friend of mine, but only because of the Konami code).
I’m amazed that space shuttles can ever take off, consider the amount of satellites orbiting our planet. You can see the entire mess in Google Earth.
Why our government never gets anything, reason #4817: obscene flowcharts.
Install the new versions of iTunes without the bloatware.
A local blogger (and friend of mine) is working on an Oregon XC Documentary and I’m sure I’ll know quite a few people in the final product.
Every app has a scary basement.
A good list of netbook operating systems to Windows.
A stamp I need for the oddball crap that ends up on my desk.
Ozone allows you to get instant suggestions from 15 sources to find what you’re looking for fast.

Check out some videos after the jump.

September 13, 2010

It’s Snowing. In August.

It’s August, and it’s frickin’ snowing outside. It was over 100°F last week, and this morning, it’s cold, nasty, and snowing in many places. Here’s what Mt. Bachelor’s Web Cam looks like right now:

The office web cam is giving me fits (and isn’t very good quality), otherwise I’d take an image from there, but we’re getting a mix of snow and rain right now in Sunriver.

As usual, Barney’s all over it.

August 30, 2010

Reading Material

Where’s my red turtle shell for that guy that just cut me off? Mario Kart Symbols appearing on bike lanes in Portland.
If you have an iPhone 4, here’s a pretty good collection of wallpapers.
I’m doing a bit of research on creating a iPhone-friendly version of a site for my day job and the UiUIKit CSS and HTML framework is going to help out quite a bit, I think. PhoneGap, Appcelerator and Sencha Touch also look interesting as well. Booking marking that all for my reference.
I’m terried of older web developers because I’m becoming one.
Introducing JITB. a Java-based Flash player that runs pretty dang fast.
Because you never know when it will come in handy: File I/O in Every Programming Language.
Looking for a way to compress JS and CSS? Convert it to a PNG.
Great list of Lifehacker’s best Android apps.
What’s my computer doing? is a simple way to figure out what programs are thrashing your CPU and hard drive.
A graphic illustration of music industry licensing madness. That flowchart makes my head hurt.
How to disable Facebook’s new “Places” feature.
12 Great Ways to Customize Your Facebook pages.
Need to see if a site is safe for work before visiting? Variably Safe For Work might help.
100 Quality WordPress Themes.
That’s going to sting a bit.

August 24, 2010

Congrats To Central Oregon’s Best Blogs

The Source’s “Best Of Central Oregon” is out, and congratulations go out to Jon at Hack Bend for winning (again) and my ol’ buddy Josh at Central Oregon Athlete for taking the honorable mention prize.

Congrats to both of you, and as soon as I can find the mention online, I’ll link to it (I just checked this in this morning’s print edition). Their “Best Of” URL still goes to the 2009 edition.

Update: Looking through the “Best Of”, there was mention of the “Best Bend Stereotyping” and I honestly had not seen this:

(more…)

August 12, 2010

Weird Al Is Awesome

I’ve always thought Weird Al’s songs were hilarious, and that he was quite the talent, but seeing him perform live at the Deschutes County Fair tonight just made me appreciate him that much more. I had a smile on my face the entire time, and haven’t laughed that hard in a very long time. Thanks for coming to Central Oregon again, Mr. Yankovic.

Anybody else make the show?

July 31, 2010

Post Vacation Reading Material

Since getting back, I’ve been trying to catch up on all the email and news that has been sent my way (you’re always welcome to send more using the contact form on this site or e-mail utterlyboring at gmail dot com). Here are some of the headlines I found waiting for me when I got back (some newer, some older):

An interesting look into how Xbox’s achievement system was designed and why it was done that way.
Despite Apple’s antenna research, they’ve admitted they have a problem and are giving free cases to every iPhone4 user. Steve Jobs pointed out that other companies have similar issues with their phones to which RIM, Nokia, and HTC didn’t take to kindly to. If you’d rather jump from the iPhone to an Android device, this will help.
Online retailer PlayOutdoors opened their first brick-and-morter store here in Bend.
Those hilarious Old Spice commercials that are taking the web by storm have a great back story and many good parodies.
Poor BP: They were deeply affected by the coffee spill parody.
Common products from 2010 if they were designed in 1977.
One mapping feature Bing maps that Google maps doesn’t: Napkin-sketch view.
Several different ways to give your photos a vintage look.
Science finally solves the greatest mystery mankind has ever faced: The chicken came first.
Need to learn how to train yourself reverse code engineering, buffer overflows, shellcode development, web exploitation, and SQL injection so you can fix them in your code? Damn Vulnerable Linux makes it easy.
If you’re an Apple product user, and need some friends to talk Mac with, Apple has created a Friend Bar.
Because you never know when this will come in handy: Make a paper clone of yourself.
Amazing photography of trees shot in infrared.
Common optical illusions illusions.
For future reference: Don’t argue with an ibex.
Reddit illistrates why you should never trust “experts” when it comes to traffic estimates.
The most objective and unbiased video game review I’ve ever read.
I knew I was on to something: Not making your bed may keep you healthy.
HideMyAss has a great list of free proxy servers.
Great list of free security tools for your PC which hopefully won’t bug you like this.
Top Secret America is a great Washington Post investigation that describes the huge national security buildup in the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
If you’re like me and enjoy Top Gear, this fan site is a good place to get your fix.
I think I’ve seen these before, but what if Steve Jobs was part of the Calvin and Hobbes strip?
100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time (naughty language warning).
Because some people have too much time on their hands: Mr. Steam Potato Punk Head and a ton of My Little Pony modifications.

July 19, 2010

Have A Safe And Happy Fourth

As you all should know by now, I live in the war-zone near Pilot Butte, where they launch the annual Fourth of July fireworks, and my street is already packed with cars and drunken revelers ready to celebrate the holiday by finding more creative ways to set parts of the neighborhood on fire. As per our usual tradition, we plan on spending as much time away from this chaotic area before the main fireworks get shot off The Butte, where we’ll then plop on our couch and watch the show. This morning I was at work (I work every holiday, minus Christmas — one perk about working in the tourism indusry). I spent this afternoon performing with the band in an outdoor Americana concert in Redmond. There was a healthy breeze coming through the stage so we spent a good chunk of time chasing around music (despite it being pinned to our stands) and picking up blown-over stands. Now, I plan on turning on the sprinklers for a bit (as we’ve had many an illegal firework land in our yard), locking up the house, and weaving my way through the party-goers before they start getting too sloppy and stupid that they won’t let us out.

Anybody want to make any bets on how much they burn the Butte this year? With this breeze, things could get messy.

Have a safe and happy holiday, everybody. Have a designated driver. Don’t do anything stupid. And please don’t set my house on fire.

July 4, 2010

Best Of Central Oregon Voting Is Now Open

The Source Weekly’s “Best Of Central Oregon” survey is open for nominations. They have a best local blog category that Hack Bend won last year (rightfully so — he’s got a great blog). Just to mix things up, though, I’d like to encourage you all to check out the huge list of blogs over at Bend Blogs. Jon’s Hack Bend is a great blog, but I’d like to get central Oregon exposed to some of the other great blogs out there, too. There are a lot of good ones in Central Oregon, some of which, unfortunately, aren’t updated as often as I’d like (I’m looking at you, BOR). So get over there to BendBlogs, find your favorite and go vote. Or you can just go nominate Hack Bend or any of the blogs that Jon runs, as you can’t go wrong there, either.

Note: No, this is not a cheap plug to nominate me or any of the sites I’m in charge of (though I wouldn’t argue with it). While I’m one of the area’s longest-running blogs, going since early 2002 (only have archives since late 2002) with nearly 6000 entries and nearly 20,000 published comments, quantity doesn’t always equal quality. I’ll be the first to admit a lot of stuff I post here is worthless time-killing crap and is mostly for keeping links I don’t want to lose. I’ve gotten plenty of media mentions for this blog, and The Source has already called me “The Godfather Of Local Blogs.” It’s time some other folks got their due, too, which is why you need to get over there and vote.

July 1, 2010

Time Killer For The Day

Put in a couple twitter usernames, and have your avatars battle it out. Wasn’t even remotely what I expected and different skills are given depending on the colors of your avatar. The twitter avator for this blog’s feed does pretty well at random encounters, but I’d bet that not too many folks are going to be able to beat HackBend’s avatar as it creamed me and most of what I threw at it. The BendBlogs avatar just kind of sat there and did nothing, but held on pretty well in a defensive role.

June 16, 2010

Reminders

Tonight is the last chance to enter to win the USB Video Card. There aren’t a load of entries, so your chances are good (and it’s a neat little product). I’ll be drawing the winner at random tomorrow morning before the concert, so make sure you get your entry in.
Speaking of concert, like I mentioned before, the Cascade Winds Symphonic band concert is tomorrow (Sunday). It’s free, and will be a good time. Click here for more info.

June 5, 2010

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