technology

Where-Fi?

I’m sitting here writing this column on Friday night. I will schedule it for publication as soon as I finish it, for Tuesday morning, the 4th of May. Why, you may ask, am I sitting here writing a column on Friday night when I could be out slipping warm ones into garters and Cold Ones down my gullet? Well, like I told you on Friday’s column, I’m in the hospital with my recovering wife. No, that wasn’t a joke. She really did get surgery. No, it wasn’t really a whoopie cushion. But wouldn’t that be bad ass?

She’s doing well, I guess, or as well as well can be after getting gutted like a fish. She just went for her first walk and made it like twenty feet before having to turn around. She’s hurting pretty bad. And I know you guys probably think I’m an asshole for not tying her gown up in the back for her, and – in fact – telling her it was tied in the back. But I just figured I could give a little back to humanity. And that’s a good way to do it. The Hispanic family in the hallway sure appreciated it.

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  • Reading time:5 mins read

Top Five Camping Must-Haves

My wife and I (and most of my close personal friends) are avid campers, as most of you who aren’t my close personal friends probably know. And those who are close but are not personal might know as well. But definitely not those of you who are personal but not close. Wait. Let me go through that again. Those of – you know what? Forget it. Let’s move on.

But yeah, anyway, as I was saying, we are pretty serious when it comes to camping. We like to be prepared. Now I say we, actually here I probably mean “me” or “I”. I like to be prepared. And of course, my wife and buddies tag along. I know they like to be prepared too, but not to the extent where people would laugh at them. Like they laugh at me. Yes, they mock me for having a shower box full of shower supplies, toothpaste, medicines, soap, Q-tips®, tampons, razors and everything else you could ever need in the medicine and bathroom department. This also includes the first-aid kit. Bandages, snake bite kit, water purifiers, needle and thread for Rambo-style arm sewings, fingernail clippers, triple antibiotic ointment, anti-diarrheal pills and, well, you get the idea. They laugh at me that I carry a convenient box with all this stuff in it, neatly organized, but then who’s laughing when they get bit by a snake? Or need good clean shave? Or have to sew up a wound on their arm? Huh? Who’s number one now, bitches?

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  • Reading time:7 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: Avatar

I can’t really say much about this movie. It’s one of those things you have to have seen to be able to discuss with someone intelligibly. There’s just so much going on and so much detail and so much intensity that you really can’t do any of it justice by describing it to someone. But I will say one thing. You must see this in Real D 3-D. Seeing it in regular 2-D movie style just wouldn’t suffice. It would still be a great movie, but the 3-D is so incredible that it really puts you in it. You feel like you’re there.

It’s more than just a movie, too. Obviously, the 3-D effect is half of the experience. But the other half is the picture itself. And it really is an experience. Not just a cinematic one. But a life experience. You simply must go see this film, in 3-D, before it leaves the theaters forever. And before you die. I think it’s something any true movie buff should experience. It really is good.

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  • Reading time:3 mins read

The Day of the Turkey

I guess to those of you in New York, it would be Day of the Toikey. Well either way, I hope it’s a happy one. I thought I would sit down here on the sofa and write a little post to fill everyone in on what’s been going on lately. It’s nice to have a family day with Step and the girls. We don’t have the boy this week, but it’s still cozy. We’ve historically always gone to the parents’ houses or to be with extended family, but today we decided to stay home and have our own intimate little turkey eating experience.

I haven’t had internet connectivity at home over the last few months, and working the odd hours and schedules that I work now haven’t had the time or the passion to update the site. I brought home a modem last night from the Clear guy to try it out and see what kind of connectivity and speeds I get, and was amazed at how the first thing I wanted to do was write a post on the Brew. Lucky you.

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  • Reading time:8 mins read

Toy Review: The Rubik’s TouchCube

I’m sure some of you came over here from my Facebook. Yeah. I really did buy that Rubik’s TouchCube. See, the thing is, since I work at the Geek Squad, and since Geek Squad owns Best Buy, I get an incredible employee discount. I still spent over a hundred bucks for the damn thing, but yes, I really did buy one. Let me explain.

I bought a Rubik’s TouchCube. What’s there to explain?

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  • Reading time:5 mins read

Connected

Everyone has a facebook now. Myspace, apparently, is dead now. It’s like an electronic wasteland scarcely occupied by the ghosts of old emoticons and status updates. Are we okay with that? Well, certainly we must be. So long as we have something to fall back on, like a twitter or a facebook, we’ll migrate like boids to the next big thing. So the cycle goes.

Remember the iPhone? Remember the long lines of people waiting to get them on the day they came out? Like the line of idiots waiting to be the first people ever to see Star Wars Episode I when it came out. And I’m not talking about the group of guys with whom I went. We only waited about an hour and a half – and I do admit, got a little excited about the long awaited new film, seeing as how it had been twenty years since its predecessor had arrived. Nay, I’m talking about the idiots who waited outside that theater for like two weeks. Asked off work so they could stand in line dressed as Boba Fett or a Stormtrooper and wait in line. Seriously, people.

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  • Reading time:5 mins read

Industry Standards

Why is it that when I walk into a barber shop, which is like twice a year at best, someone always turns to me and says, “May I help you, sir?” Yeah, I’m here to get my tires rotated and pick up a meatball sub for the girlfriend. What the hell do you think I’m here for? Yesterday (which was actually October 9 – I know, we schedule these columns way in advance) I walked into the local SpaceTown Barber Shop, which has been there for over thirty years. And this little Asian guy turns and says that very thing to me. “Can I help you?” So I looked about real quickly, and responded, “Uh, yeah. I need a haircut. You sell those here?” I don’t think he got it.

When I walk up to the fresh seafood bar at the local Snostrebla, I expect the worker there to ask me what she can help me with. There’s a variety. I could get the fresh jumbo shrimp, the frozen popcorn shrimp, the Alaskan King Crab legs, the lobster meat, the imitation krab meat (yes, it’s spelled with a K :rolleyes: ), the fresh Atlantic salmon, or whatever else they sell. Of course she needs to ask me what she can help me with. A barber shop sells one service. A haircut. Does anyone really go to the barber shop to buy their haircare products? I mean, obviously they try to upsell you while you’re there, and sometimes people buy the tea tree oil shit, but no one actually just goes there just to buy the products, right? Well this old town barber shop doesn’t even sell them. They, therefore, sell one thing. Haircuts.

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  • Reading time:5 mins read

Multi-Use Material

So I was lying there last night, thinking about some awesome things we have, and I came up with what I think might be the most brilliant idea any man has ever had. This column, though, unfortunately needs to be divided into two sections. One is partly a rant, and the other is the brilliant idea. Which one would you like to read first?

Okay, so here’s the genius: you know that memory foam shit that they always tout was developed for NASA? Yeah, they make mattresses out of it. Well I have come up with an alternative use for it, that I think you’ll agree is probably the smartest thing you’ve ever heard in your entire life in the world. You ready for this shit? Okay. Here’s my idea.

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  • Post category:science
  • Reading time:3 mins read

Help Me Fix My Time Machine

I was working in the hangar this morning, trying to get my temporal matrix delineator running again. Something is wrong with the flux bank. It’s getting ridiculously complex though, and I’ve downloaded every manual I can find for it. Something has burned through one of the wires on the fonga assembly, and now the stupid thing smokes whenever I engage the cryostat.

So long story short, I replaced the two bad nodes on the flux bank and rewired the cryofuse with an Atometer 4000 Barker Plug. You know, one of those platinum-plated bad boys? Yeah. No shit. It set me back about two grand. This shit ain’t cheap like it used to be. Anyway, after I got those replaced, my camber light started blinking. NOW WHAT?!? Ha! Good lord, if it’s not one thing it’s another, right? So I removed the camber coil box, and guess what I found. Seriously. Look at this picture:

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  • Reading time:3 mins read

Ringtones Are For the Birds

Okay, I guess it’s time to admit something to you, great readers: I don’t really work in a high-rise condo-style office building with a swimming pool in my office and a glorious view of downtown Dallas. Gah. Man, now that I type it out like that it sure does look good. Actually, never mind. I really do work in that. I have a four thousand-square-foot office overlooking glorious downtown Manhattan. Or did I say Dallas? Whatever. The point is my office is probably better than yours. I have more leather in here than a cow farmer in Fort Worth. I would put up a form that allowed you to submit to me your office square footage and value and it would return to you a value of whether or not mine was better than yours. But it’s not worth the time coding it because all it would ever say was, “Nope, sorry, Space’s is better.”

So anyway, to my point. Let’s say I didn’t work in a high-rise luxury office. I would, in that case, probably work somewhere lowly like the rest of you, like a cube farm. Okay, screw it. I can’t really tell my story if I keep up this lie. I will go ahead and shoot straight with you. For the last two weeks, while my office was being renovated with solid platinum and diamond stuff, I have been working in a temporary location at a normal office, in a cube farm. It’s a step down, but it’s also a way for me to keep in touch with the people. The normal people. And I’ve come to learn one thing for sure about cube farms: I hate ringtones.

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  • Reading time:4 mins read