Agonizing Pleasure

All geeks love secret passages, right? Well anyway this is just for kicks! Enjoy.

“I love Deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make when they go by.” – Douglas Adams

These words were written by one of my favorite authors of all time, Douglas Adams. He wrote the literary wonder that is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Originally a series the book was recently turned into a movie. Here I am going to talk about the movie because, although the book is better, there is no way on Beetlejuice that I am EVER going to right a book report for a six novel series. Here is the trailer from the movie to give you an Idea of it.

The movie follows the story of Arthur Dent, a common British Man. He wakes up one morning and finds a demolition team outside his house wanting to build a bypass. A huge argument results which is interrupted when Arthur’s friend, Ford Prefect ( yes named after the car), barges in with a shopping cart full of beer. Ford rushes Arthur to the bar where, rather maniacally, he buys everybody in the pub beer. Arthur reacts to the beer by saying ” Two pints each, at lunch time!” to which Ford responds “Time, is an illusion, lunchtime, doubly so.” After a talk about the ending of the world, with some remarks towards idiots and fancy dress parties, Ford and Arthur go back to Arthur’s house. They return to find the house a heap of rubble upon the ground. Ford disappears inside the rubble saying that he needed a towel as all the demolition crew runs away screaming. It turns out that earth was scheduled for demolition by aliens to build a “Hyperspace, expressway.” Go figure!

Luckily while human race is destroyed Arthur and Ford escape on one of the demolition spaceships. They are found out though, and are forced to listen to poetry. They then get tost out into space, where this happens.

After getting rescued, and spending a brief moment as soft furniture, the heroes reunite with long lost friends. (The girl from the fancy dress party:  Trillian.) Ford finds out that the president of the galaxy, Ford’s childhood friend Zaphod Beeblebrox, has kidnapped himself and the Heart of Gold an revolutionary new spaceship. The gang decides that they are going to go to Deep Thought. A super computer that had calculated the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything, which is of course 42. However the question to this answer was never actually calculated. Zaphod desides he will find the ultimate question and travels to Magrathea, a Planet that specializes in luxury planet building. On their way to the planet they are attacked by homing missiles but, by using the Improbability Drive (key feature of the Heart of Gold), they are turned into a bowl of petunias and a confused sperm whale.

The ending is to good to reveal so I will just say it involves intelligent mice, stolen brains, drugged tea, and a whole heap of depressed vogons. I higly recomend the movie and I hope you enjoy it as well as this post.  I think the videos at a lot to the finished product. Well, anyway, thanks for reading. So long, and thanks for all the fish!

I love those dolphins!!

A common geek must carry a variety of gadgets to qualify as a “geek”. Here I will outline the most common gadgets and give some reflections on each one.

The most important gadget for most geeks is a computer. A computer must be powerfull enough for the geek to do all his geeky duties.

An MP3 player is a necessity. Definitely cash in for an Ipod. If you can’t afford a touch buy an older one and hack it with rockbox.

Many usb disks for extra memory. Alternatively you could just purchase a portable hard drive but the USB drives definitley enhance the geek image. I personally carry around 3 or more every day.

Now that you have all your geeky gadgets, you will need to carry them. Currently I acomplish this with a pair of baggy cargo pants with many pockets. My newest Idea, and I will gladly post a how to when I am done, is a bag with a built in computer, tons of memory, plenty of pockets, and a seat. This “Geek-Pack” will be enough for a geek to live off for days.

I plan to create this bag from recycled material received off Freecycle. When it is finished it will be a statement to geeks, and other people, everywhere.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I recently received an Ipod touch 2G and, from day 1, I have wanted to program it. Sadly, however, my knowlodge of Java is minimal and of visual C is nonexsistant. Today I am going to talk about how to program games for the ipod without needing to program. This will not bve an indepth tutorial, I will post better directions someday, for now it will be a reveiw and an overview of a cool new program that lets you create apps with minimal effort.

You will need:

-an idea

-a computer

-internet access

-a camera (or you can use computer made pics)

-some time

The program I am going to review is Adventure Maker a first person game maker that lets you make games for computers, ipods, and psps. The games work by using different pictures, or frames, as the visual and then using hot spots on the frames as a means to shift between frames. Therefor your apps can be anything you want as long as you have the time to photograph, or, photoshop it. I am currently working on a first person tour of my house and will post a link to it when i am done.

Overall Adventure Maker is a very good program for basic users.

We all get plastic bags when we go to the grocery store but, let’s face it, how many of us actually ever use them again? Well I am going to teach you haw to reform them into a strong, waterproof material that can be sewn into anything your heart can imagine. To start with you are going to need the following materials:

• An Iron and Ironing Board
• Wax paper or parchment paper
• plastic bags
• needle and thread ( If you want to sew something)
• scissors

Step 1: First you have to ready the bags. Take the bags and lie them out flat. Now take your scissors and cut along the top of the bag, to take off the handles, as well as the bottom of the bag. You should be left with a tube of plastic. If your bag has writing on it turn it inside out.

Step 2: Now take a peice of wax paper and use it to cover your ironing board. Now fold your plastic bag tube in half twice so you have eight layers of plastic. Place it on top of the wax paper, and then cover it with a second layer of wax paper. Set your iron around polyester and rayon, you will have to experiment to get this right.

Step 3: Run the iron over the whole sheet of plastic. Keep the iron moving and make sure to keep the heat even over all of the plastic. Every so often flip the plastic over and iron the other side.

Step 4: Now peal the plastic off the wax paper and check the edges. If they split repeat step 3, but if they are sealed take it off and start with a new piece.

Now you can make them into anything you wish. Search online for templates and patterns of what to make it into. You can also expierement with making designs out of colored plastic bag. Maybe make a reusable grocery bag! Good luck and happy making, yours truley -Frozen Fire

The Second Generation Ipod Touch is a great device by apple. One of the most versatile in the Ipod line it sets itself apart from the other Ipods in two very important ways. The first way is its multi-touch screen. The second is the ability for developers to code and sell ” apps” miniature applications that run on your Ipod. I recently received the device and am in the process of figuring out the limits of it’s use. The most interesting feature I have found is the ability to run Skype on the Ipod. For those of you who don’t know, Skype is a free Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service that let’s users make calls, video calls, and chats from user to user for free. For a fee users can also use the Skype program to make calls from a computer to a phone. The downside with Skype for the Ipod touch is that it can not be used without a microphone, something the ipod doesn’t have built in. I am experimenting with a Do-it-Yourself version but will probably end up buying a commercial one in the near future.

Another app that lends potential to the Ipod Touch is Amazon’s Kindle App. Most of you know what the Kindle does as an ebook reader. The touch screen action on the Ipod makes it a wonderful environment for ebooks. The kindle app does just that, allowing users to read kindle books on their ipod and turn the pages just by swiping a finger across the screen.

I would like to end this post by clearing up some internet controversey. When the Touch was first opened up owners were suprised to find what looked like a Bluetooth chip, un mentioned by Apple’s released specifications. The chip is infact used to communicate with the Nike + Ipod shoe device. It communicates on the same frequency as Bluetooth and could pottentialy be used as a Bluetooth receiver but, as of May 2nd, 2009, it is not Bluetooth compatible.

Being a geek I take pride in creating websites for every venture I take upon myself. I have spent countless hours trying to find the best way to create a website that looks proffesional with none of the costs. You could even end up making money through this guide!

Step 1: First we have to create a site email to prevent a small chance of spam. Sense we are going free use www.gmail.com On the bottom left click on the button that reads “Create an account >>”. Fill out all the fields except the secondary email field. You now have an email.

Step 2: Now we need to get web hosting. Direct your browser to www.webs.com in a new tab and fill out the two main boxes with a) a site address (not your real adress yet, just make it close to what you want), and b) a password. Click on the create a website button and fill out the forms on the next page.

Step 3: Let’s make a domain. In another tab go to www.dot.tk. Before we continue let’s look at what this is. We have all heard of .us and .de and .uk ect. Well anyway every country pretty much has a huge amount of domains to do what it wants with. Well Tokelau is a small country with few people so they don’t need all the domains, so to spread awareness of the country they give them away free. Now when you get to the site copy and paste your webs.com address to the text box and click next. Fill out the two fields and click confirm.

Step 4: There are plenty of tutorials for creating the webs website so I will deal the editing in a later post. Now for the web store. First you need a logo. If you are a amature I recomend paint or some other easy program. Or maybe picnik online? It’s up to you. Then go to www.cafepress.com. Click on Start Selling at the top of the page. Click on get started under basic shops. From there you have to fill out a form and then start adding products, one again the site will help you. Now go back to your webs website site manager. In the top right of the editing window is a button that says insert nav link. Click on this and paste the location of your cafepress store.

Step 5: You now have the shell of a website, it is time for you to do the work to make it look proffesional. There are many places to learn from and I will post more tutorials if you ask. Good luck!

I can’t call myself a blog about geeks without talking about the greatest geek website ever created, Thinkgeek. Thinkgeek is an amazing site that sells all types of geeky things. I have many favorites and will give reviews of some of the products I purchase. For now I am not going to tell you what’s on the site because you should be able to find that out for yourself by clicking on the above link or on the link in my blogroll. May the geek be with you! Yours Truly, Frozen Fire

Okay so one of the Geekiest movies ever made is Waynes World. I love that movie. In the sequel (also great) Del Preston is helping wayne and telling stories from his days as a tour manager. Here is my favorite clip from Waynes World 2.