Ryan & Amanda Keefer's Personal Site: Cycling, Family, Tech, Music, Software & Game Reviews, etc.
// July 21st, 2008 // No Comments » // Home Projects, Personal Crap
Someone please remind me of this project when I attempt another one… Though I really had a lot of fun and I think the end result is exactly what I had imagined, it was A LOT of work and it was extremely time consuming. That said, I can definitely say I’d do it all over again….being creative is always rewarding.
Check it out! What do you think?
// July 19th, 2008 // No Comments » // Home Projects, Personal Crap
So we bit the bullet and finally did something with the soil bed we setup oh so long ago.
We got 10 cubic yards of shredded mulch from a local garden center delivered yesterday morning and Amanda went yesterday and got 30+ plants from a nursery out in Apex where she could get her dad’s discount applied.
The initial setup is in and done. Let me tell you, moving ten cubic yards of mulch to that back bed and various other places around our property was a lot of work in the heat and sun of the day. But man, Amanda and I are really happy with the end result. The brown of the mulch is great contrast, and I think the initial set of plants we put in are really going to spread and setup that bed nicely.
Eventually, we want to put a bench out back there, with a stone pathway, along with some larger trees. But for now, we’ve got a great setup that’s a wonderful upgrade, with room for incremental jumps forward down the road.
// July 18th, 2008 // No Comments » // Home Projects
So last night I finally decided to push forward on my project. I hadn’t really touched the project in a week or so, other than puttying a few seams. Anyhow, Last night I primed the plank wall and tape the rest of the room for paint. I am pretty pleased with the “white” effect. I think it does exactly what I wanted it to do. Some had suggested leaving it the natural wood, but I just didn’t like that idea.
It’s definitely beginning to shape up. I am hoping to be done with this project and have it all put back together by the end of the weekend. That may be too ambitious, but we’ll see.
// July 17th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Gaming, Personal Crap
So soon after we got Rock Band in the Keefer household, we had friends over to play Rock Band. That first weekend, the included guitar’s strum bar went soft and almost completely non-functional. That guitar also was iffy with lifting the guitar to activate “star power.” I contacted support and sent it back and got a replacement guitar a few weeks later.
Fast forward a few months later and this replacement guitar won’t activate star power at all, without hitting its back button. So I sent that one back. Last week, I got its replacement. Same problem. How about some 1) testing before bringing this stuff to market? 2) How about testing the replacements before sending them out to people that have already had problems?
I’m on my third Rock Band guitar and still don’t have a fully functional guitar. Meanwhile, my guitar from Guitar Hero II is working as well as the day it came out of the box.
Anyone else having defective Rock Band equipment? Please comment below.
// July 16th, 2008 // No Comments » // General Posts
So here’s John Mayer covering Van Halen’s Roth-era song, “Panama.” Mayer really got into character there on guitar, even getting the latest Edward Van Halen look down, with his shirtless jumping around. Good stuff. Mayer’s a really competent player to be sure.
// July 15th, 2008 // No Comments » // General Posts
So a co-worker is going up to Kings Dominion this weekend and it got me and another co-worker into a reminiscent mood about that old amusement park just north of Richmond, Virgina. I’ve been going to Kings Dominion since the late 80′s/early 90′s, when I lived in Maryland, Virgina and then North Carolina. I even had season passes for multiple seasons.
Kings Dominion has gone through so many changes, expansions, etc. When I first started going, it had Hannah Barbara tie-ins. Then, it was bought by Paramount and we got ride tie- ins to all their movies and characters from those films – guys in race jump suits from “Days of Thunder” and Vulcans and Klingons from “Star Trek.” Now Paramount has sold off its parks to Cedar Fair Entertainment Co., owner of the Sandusky, Ohio Cedar Point – site of my first roller coaster ride.
// July 15th, 2008 // No Comments » // Gaming, Music
Yesterday, Harmonix announced the full 86-song setlist of on-disc tracks (to obviously be vastly supplemented with lots of tracks in the form of downloadable content, like the original Rock Band).
It’s also cool because it’s been confirmed that tracks from the first game can be ripped from the original disc into the sequel, basically doubling the possible setlists you can have in Rock Band 2 for all of us many Rock Band original owners.
I’m loving the setlist from the 60′s – 90′s. It’s great and features varied music styles throughout! Most of the stuff from the 2000 is crap, but I guess that is kind of reflective of the music industry as a whole. Overall though, this is going to rock to play.
My only other complaint is one that people have had since the original Guitar Hero. Sometimes, the game includes strange entries from bands. I don’t know if it’s a cost of licensing, or the band’s choice or whatever. But we finally get AC/DC, but instead of an anthem like “Back in Black” or “Thunderstruck,” we get “Let There Be Rock.” It’s a decent song, but not one that everyone in the room is likely to know. Here’s to hoping for a DLC AC/DC “Back in Black” album track pack (or the entire album) consisting of “Shook Me All Night Long,” “Back in Black” and “Hells Bells.”
// July 15th, 2008 // No Comments » // Film, Gaming, Internet / Web, Tech
This is great – another way to get movies to the TV quicker. We tried doing the unofficial plugin route. We got that working, and while I give them credit for making a free plugin to stream from a Media Center PC to the Xbox 360, it was close to unusable in our network setup.. very laggy to the point that movement on the joystick translated to multiple seconds until there was an-onscreen response at best.
Regardless, this new official support will be great and will keep all of us Netflix/Xbox 360 users from having to shell out another $99 for the Roku Netflix Player.
Can’t wait for this *free* update to show up in the fall.
Netflix & Microsoft Partner to Bring Watch Instantly to The Xbox 360
// July 14th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Apple
Do I need Apple’s new MobileMe service? That’s the question that’s been in the back of my mind since Apple announced MobileMe as the replacement and facelift for their aging .Mac service.
I used to use .Mac. I first started using it when I was working for Apple and we were given free accounts to it as one of the many perks of working for the Cupertino, CA (albeit I was in Durham, NC at their retail store). .Mac at the time broke down as being advantageous as it gave a free backup utility, free (though not really needed) virus protection, 100MB of online storage via their iDisk setup, a way to sync Safari bookmarks and other data between multiple machines, an email address, and a way to host photos and web pages. After leaving Apple, when my account came up for renewal, I renewed it for a year at the $99 price, but never renewed it the following year.
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