Buy me this

It's so simple. I want this.

Actually, I want to know the measurements (height, volume, whatever) more than just that it's "upscaled 10 times" from the original

Posters for movies that never existed

It's a bit of an odd thing: to make posters for movie sequels that never existed.

But it worked pretty well.

I particularly like...

Let's play the alphabet game

Threadless has a t-shirt for sale with the following design, an alphabet of male musicians...

Let's see how many I can name.

A moderately expensive joke

In what I'm guessing is a reference to a joke in Portal, water bottles with the following warning are being sold: "WARNING: May cause diaphoresis, micturition, and acute tissue hydration."

See, it's funny.

Sadly the bottles being sold by the Portal folks look kind of lame and have a giant Portal logo on one side...

 ...and it doesn't expressly say that it has that warning on the backside. Other sites, however, do show photos of the backside of the bottle...

At $9.99 plus S&H, that's not a bad price for a decent little gag, but I really don't like the Portal logo.

For a scant $31.05, however, I can get the same warning on a bottle of my chosen color thanks to Zazzle and can change the bottle size for an extra buck - or change the text color and other stuff, too.

Is a red bottle without the logo worth paying the extra $20 for?

I'm thinking that it might be.

Play good - to go

I'm a Lego fan. I love building the sets, love collecting the minifigures, love occasionally playing with the put-together sets, and love having and owning the sets.

That's why I don't necessarily see the attraction for Pleygo, a subscription, mail-order Lego service in which they mail you a complete set, you build and play with the set, and eventually send the set back.

I like the idea that you can try out the new sets, but I don't like the idea of sending the set back.

I like having the parts, especially the minfigures.

I think Pleygo is not for me.

Amazon Prime Air?!?

Really?

It's sort of odd timing for an April Fools joke, so maybe Amazon Prime Air is actually a real if very early prototype program?

Handmade Legos

I'm a Lego fiend. You should know that by now if you've been hanging around this blog long enough.

Recently I went hunting on etsy to see what interesting things people had done with Legos. Here's the most interesting stuff I found. All are, of course, unofficially Lego-related.

Lego crayons - like 'em...cute...wouldn't want to own 'em...would like 'em more if they were swirled wax colors rather than monochromatic...

Lego couples heart necklaces - I really like the cuteness of this one. I'm tempted to get these.

Lego brick/minifig ice cube trays - These are just being resold. They're official Lego products. I'm pointing them out because I'm pretty sure I know how those Lego minifig crayons were made.

Lego family car decals - cute...not something I want but cute...I like that they offer pets, too...

Custom wall letter - I like this one but wouldn't dream of buying it. The idea's cute enough that it could be made for a kid's room (or my school room) and would leave lots of room for play with it being adjustable and customizable over and over again.

I will never lego print - witty...

Lego Christmas ornament - This is stupid. Anybody who has seen a Lego could figure out how to make that with a little hot glue.

Lego soap - glycerin & olive oil - Two problems here: one, that top guy's not a Lego figure...two, those would hurt like heck after the soap starts to rub away

Lego Ninjago switchplate - seriously, $50?...it's a cute idea, but it's just frickin' superglued Legos...c'mon, folks...

Lego block pillow - Finally, this is handmade and kinda cool. It's Lego-inspired but not just a bunch of Lego bricks glued together.

The miracle of evoshield...and the hilarity of their next steps

Calen's kid is a bit of a baseball player, and he got a new toy that's pretty fascinating.

He got a new wrist protector from a company named evoSHIELD. A new wrist protector in and of itself, of course, wouldn't really be much news if it weren't for the outstanding science that the wrist protector seems to exhibit.



See, the evoSHIELD is a two-part system. It's got a neoprene compression sleeve that holds the protector in place...the same exact place every time. That's kind of important because of thhow the second part works.

The second part starts out as a gel material that's sealed in an air-tight foil pouch. Once the pouch is broken, the gel material is placed in the neoprene sleeve and worn as it would be in a baseball game. The very flexible material - sort of like a gel shoe insert - starts to harden then, taking the next twenty or so minutes to turn to a remarkably rigid plastic molded exactly to the shape of the wearer's wrist.

When that rigid plastic then takes an impact - from a pitched ball, for example - it distributes that impact over the entirety of the rigid plastic all of which is in even contact with the wearer's body, spreading that impact until it has a lot less power to do any damage. If the hard plastic wasn't molded so perfectly, the impact wouldn't be spread as evenly and would instead concentrate that force on one place on the wrist, leaving the wearer open to injury.

The physics here is pretty cool, sure, but that's nothing more than snowshoes - spread the force out, do less damage.

The chemistry, however, is phenomenally cool. The material turns from soft and pliable to rigid and permanently formed in about twenty minutes upon exposure to air. And once it's formed, it's formed perfectly. It's not going anywhere.

That does mean that the evoSHIELD can't be loaned to anyone else, but it also means that it's a spectacular protective device. The company makes the same product in pads for football, softball, baseball, lacrosse, even to protector your shoulder when shooting a rifle. The can protect your ribs and thighs, chest and back, shoulders and pretty much whatever you need - even if it's a special medical need like an enlarged spleen, missing rib, or implanted device in your chest.



It's pretty spectacular materials science right there, folks. It's a cheap material ($14 for a replacement wrist protector without the neoprene sleeve) that can be molded by anyone with almost no training, and it's rock solid once it's set. I teach chemistry and run materials science workshops, so I wanted to find out how the material works.

Step one after I check the limited 'how it works' info on their website was to give the company an email. Ask 'em how it works. Here's what I sent...

I am a high school science teacher and am leading some of ASM's materials science teacher camps this summer...

http://www.asminternational.org/portal/site/www/foundation/educators/teacher-material-camp/

One of the other camp leaders today showed me her son's evoshield baseball wrist guard before/after/during fitting today, and I was blown away. The material that your products use is absolutely fascinating, and I was hoping that you might have some literature that I could share with the teachers in the camps over the next few weeks. Do you have any such literature explaining any part of the science behind the hardening process that I could have and share?

Simple enough...just asking for some background info on the material. It couldn't be that simple, however... Here's what I got back.

Hi Lonnie,

Thank you for your email and for reaching out to us. The only person who can describe specifically how the technology works is the chemist who patented the technology and he is no longer with the company. We are not sure specifically what the patent entails, but the main premise is that our shields harden when exposed to the moisture in the air. I apologize for the vague response, but the details of the technology are not well known at all.

Best,
Justin
--
EvoShield Customer Service
300 Commerce Blvd.
Bogart, GA 30622
PH: 770-725-2724 | FAX: 678-753-0100

Wait. Your company is making this materials - an admittedly phenomenal material - and you don't have anybody on staff who knows how the stuff works? Seriously? That's hilarious and outstanding and brilliant. But I'm determined, so I asked further. (I do now at least know that the material cures on exposure to moisture not air.)

Thanks for sending me something to start with as an answer. Do you happen to know the patent number under which the material is registered? I'm curious enough to do a little more research. Or would you be willing to share the chemist's name so I could see if I could contact him? I promise that I'm not looking to compete but rather to get students and teachers excited about some of the exciting/revolutionary materials being made today.

I figure I can do some research on my own. I'll go looking. Let's see what they offer up.

Hi Lonnie,

Thanks for the interest and the enthusiasm. I really wish I could help more, but unfortunately all of that information is kept very secretive, even from most employees. It's treated just like Coke's secret formula. I know you're not looking to compete but there have been several copycat attempts already and they are very protective and cautious about giving out any information at all. Very sorry and have a great week Lonnie.

Looks like my searching via evoSHIELD is a dead end. Now I need to find out how to search for a patent on a material.

In the mean time I'll just be impressed with the awesomeness of materials science and evoSHIELD. Thanks, Calen.

Are you not entertrained?

I've been dying to visit EnterTrainment Junction (home of the world's largest indoor train display) since they opened up a few years ago. I mean it's the (self-proclaimed) world's largest indoor train display, and it's only like six miles from my house (maybe less if I could go overland).

When Groupon dropped in an offer of $15 for two all-features passes a few months ago, I snapped that right up. Sadly, however, the groupon expires in three days, The Girl is locked up with school, I'm leaving for the weekend, and Calen is out of town. So, solo I headed to the Junction yesterday. Might've been wasting a ticket, but at least I got to relieve my curiosity.

Here's what I found...

First off, the train layout is actually pretty cool. It goes through three time periods of railroad development - early (around the Civil War/Old West era), middle (1940's and '50's), and late (vaguely current time). Each has a massive arrangement with the latter two having city scenes and the oldest being entirely wilderness/small town.

(I warn you...lots of pictures coming...)

Gimme a little something...

...if you want me to give you my business.

This past week I got a simple postcard advertisement in the mail for Portable Miniature Golf.

The card was addressed to resident, so it appears that I'm not on any miniature-golf-specific mailing list, or at least that this advertisement didn't come from such a mailing list...which kind of surprises me, honestly.

The postcard, however, isn't today's story. Today's story is the website that the postacrd lead me to. Here's a screencap...

The top header has three rotating images - the one shown, a closeup of a kid trying to blow a golf ball into the hole, and a closeup of the green and hole with no context. So those other photos don't give us any more information than does the rest of the page.

I like the general layout of the page, particularly the simple background imagery. The black, green, and yellow makes for an attractive enough presentation, and the use of the light grey in the bottom right draws the eye to the pricing request form, the real meat of the page.

In general, there's not much else on the page, however, and that bugs me a little. I want to see the quality of the hole construction. I want to see if the various holes have any bumpers, any obstacles - like the one we maybe see in the header picture on the right. I want to see people standing next to the course so I can see what a 12' long hole two looks like. I want to see the pencils, scorecards, balls[,] & putters that they say they provide.

I guess they're assuming people don't want to know that stuff, that they assume people will sign up having not seen the holes in any detail. I'm hoping their business model is working, but the lack of detail is driving me nuts. Gimme some sort of photo album of people at the church festivals, corporate events, and the birthday parties. Lemme see that you've put a little work into making the hole frames sturdy. Show me that your carpet is nice, clean, unworn, and evenly, firmly glued down.

Of course I'm crabbing about their website with absolutely no intention of ever being one of their customers unless I hit the lottery.

Cincy Shirts

I'm not a born and raised Cincinnatian, so there are a number of shirts for offer by CincyShirts.com that I don't get, but they're still fun.

Realignment

Realignment in the past few years...

• Big Ten (now 12 teams) - got Nebraska...rumored to get (but probably not gonna get) Notre Dame, Texas, Missouri, Iowa State, Rutgers
• SEC - got Texas A&M...rumored to be getting Missouri and dozens of other teams
• Big Twelve (now 10 teams) - lost Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M...rumored to be losing Missouri...getting West Virginia, TCU...rumored to be losing pretty much everybody at one time or another
• Pac-12 (formerly -10) - got Colorado and Utah
• Big East - lost West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Syracuse - rumored to be getting Central Florida, Houston, SMU...rumored to be losing Connecticut, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Louisville - rumored to be falling apart entirely
• ACC - got Pittsburgh, Syracuse
• Mountain West - lost BYU, Utah, TCU - got Boise St, Fresno St, Nevada, Hawaii
• WAC - lost Nevada, Boise St - got Denver, Seattle, UTArlington, UTSan Antonio, Texas St - San Marcos
• Big Sky, MVC, OVC, all the other conferences - lost relevance - got screwed in the deal

Clear advantages here...

• Chaos makes for thoroughly entertaining chatter for a very short while.
• Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money (for the already wealthiest college athletic programs)

Clear disadvantages here...

• Incessant chatter from sports talk radio/television about rumors and half truths and things that they generally have no idea about at all
• Inability of most any sports fan to name the full roster of teams in his/her favorite conference
• Lack of stability of conference rules
• More conference championship games (in football and basketball, further cheapening the regular seasons)
• Continuing lack of football playoff system
• Continuing hypocrisy of college sports 'student-athletes' (The link is to a long article; I warn you. It is, however, an excellent article.)
• Ever increasing lack of me giving a crap about any conference
• Ever diminishing profile of college basketball relative to college football
• Big 10's new logo and Legends and Leaders divisions

I need some Chucks

Clearly...

Baby steps...rolling baby steps

I've a number of things that I want to be able to do - juggle four balls, play a guitar, ride a unicycle - and today I take step one toward learning one of those skills.

And, in the process, I made my first foray into the wonderful world of Craigslist.

(Speaking of which - Craigslist...Craig'sList...Craig's List...craigslist...?)


I'm a buying myself a unicycle.

Endorsing the Tweakers

I got a set of speakers for my laptop a while back - Philips SBA220 - mostly because they were half off when a store in Kenwood Mall was going out of business.  I think I paid around $15 for the two connected speakers, and - once I started using them, roughly when I blew my laptop's tiny speakers - I was pretty happy with them.

They produce pretty good sound for their size.  They light enough and have a decently long cord so they can sit on each side of my admittedly larger laptop easily enough.  But there is one significant drawback to them. 

They take six AAA batteries.

And they use those batteries like nobody's business.

And it sucks recharging a half dozen batteries over and over again and not being able to listen to music for the few hours it takes to charge 'em back up.

So I went and stole The Girl's laptop speakers instead because they don't take any batteries (technically they run on one internal, rechargeable battery but I've yet to kill the full battery after having used them for months a couple of hours at a time).  Admittedly, the sounds a little thinner, but the speakers are smaller, more attractive, and have way awesome battery life.

I'm all down with and can officially endorse the Tweakers.

If you're in need of speakers for you iPod, laptop, whatever, get yourself a pair.

They frickin' rock.

I shouldn't spread this, but...

I StumbledUpon this video over the weekend...



...and was entertained.  I know it's a viral video.  I know it's an ad for Capital One and all, but it's chucklesome to me.

There are a bunch more of their videos - done by a bunch of basketball players and coaches - on their YouTube channel.

Last minute Christmas reminders

When you're in need of a Santa, only go with a member of the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas, and make sure that Real Bearded Santa gets his Santa suit from Adele's of Hollywood, maker of the finest Santa suits in the land.

It's amazing what you can learn from NPR.

But, if you're looking to just kill some time with a Christmas movie, check out the best ever.

Whoring out this blog

So, the time has come when I have to take down the Ad-Free Blog icon down in the bottom right.

I have succumbed to the man, to the greater corporate machine and turned this blog into a money-making venture.

Admittedly, it's because Blogger Buzz announced a new gadget teamed with SocialVibe. The new gadget - which has been up since Thursday morning - allows you to click through, rate a clip or do some other thing that engages you with the advertisers (my first click through made me choose which Melrose Place character I am - I didn't have to watch the clips, just picked one). Once that engagement is made, the advertisers make a small donation - and I'm not really sure how much they're making, need to check on that - to the charity of my choosing.

I, of course, chose the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and I'd ask you to take a minute from time to time and click through on the gadget. It's a minute or so out of your time, but any donation can do an amazing amount of good through the Society.

Help the economy and the LLS this weekend

The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is having a fund raiser this weekend. By printing this coupon, you can save 30% at any Gap, Old Navy, or Banana Republic store in the US or Canada and have 5% of your check automatically donated to the LLS.

So, do your American duty and get out to help fight the recession monster, folks.

Put a shirt on, people

In case you hadn't noticed, that left coast artist that I mention from time to time continues her brilliance and is now hoping to supplement her income with a few ducats via the sale of her artwork on shirts.

So, if you've been pining for an angry uterus t-shirt (in ladies cut only, of course), then head over to her shirt site and check things out. I'm leaning toward the space monkey shirt, but I'm still waiting for some of her other genius images to show up.

Seriously, I think I'd buy the synesthesia color explanation chart shirt in a heartbeat.