Apropos of Nothing: Fun

Showing posts with label Fun. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Pizza Boss 3000

This handy gadget combines two of my favorite things, pizza and power tools, granted not quite as awesomely as the blender and food processor attachment I am working on for my router, but it's close.
http://www.worldwidefred.com/pizzaboss3000.htm

Friday, October 16, 2009

The Top 5 Grossest Things That Ever Happened to Me - Number 1

When we lived across the street from Bellingham Bay in WA, our cat the Woo (a lifelong outdoor cat) was constantly dragging in rats through the cat door. Being a cat, they were often dismembered and displayed Hannibal Lecter style. The Woo's all time best rat body part arrangement involved some glistening, unidentifiable viscera and the rat's neatly severed nose cone complete with whiskers and top teeth. Occasionally the Woo would loose interest in the victim before it expired, leaving us with a very freaked out rat in the house. One fine morning, I open the "stuff" drawer in the kitchen and am surprised and very perplexed to find an energetically wiggling earthworm in the drawer. Whilst trying to make some sense out of the situation, I resolved to remove it from the drawer. I grasp the worm between my thumb and index finger and all hell breaks loose inside the drawer, at which point it becomes apparent, even to me, that; HOLY SH!T, THERE IS A F&#CKING RAT IN THE F&#CKING DRAWER. While I am busy freaking out, the rat jumps out of the drawer and dashes into the living room and under a stuffed armchair. Enlisting my now freaked out wife to open the front door, I grab a broom and attempt to get the rat out from under the chair and herd it out the front door. The rat was having none of this and immediately scooted under the cover of a baseboard radiator. Luckily, the Rat's tail was tail was sticking out of the baseboard, so I don some thick welders gloves and attempt to pull the rat out from under there by its tail. So I start tugging on the tail, but the rat was digging in with his claws and wouldn't come out. I pull harder and harder and the rat pulls harder and harder and that's when it happened. One minute I am pulling and the next I am holding what looks like a deflated earthworm or an empty hot dog casing, only it's no longer attached to the rat. The skin came right off the tail. Now what's sticking out of the radiator is this disgusting skinny, spiny, veiny thingy. So I grab the rat again by what's left of the tail and this time manage to get it out of the radiator and outside the house. The image of that squiggling skinless rat tail still gives me the eebie jeebies.

Friday, September 25, 2009

My Lame LOTR LOL

Took this picture of the Chipmunk that live's under our patio keeping a watchful eye on me.

This scene from Lord of the Rings was all I could think of:

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Bring The Noise ! - Chrysler-Bell Hemi Powered Air Raid Siren

At 138db @ 100 ft these Chrysler V8 powered sirens generate what is purportedly the loudest signal sound ever made. How loud is 138db? Well, in Stereo terms 30,000 watts of sound energy, that's nearly twice as loud as the noise you'd experience 50 ft. away from jet fighter taking off at full boil. For a video of one of these being run up at a car show hit "more"
More...

Friday, August 14, 2009

Hive - The Game

I first read about Hive in wired and I finally got around to ordering it last month. Hive is a turn based strategy game played on any flat surface by two players using chunky six sided Bakelite pieces emblazoned with insects. Each of the insects have a different pattern of movements and only one may be moved during a turn. The object is to surround the other players "queen bee" piece on all sides with a combination of your pieces and the other players pieces. I played it with my 3rd grade daughter and she was able to understand it pretty easily and in fact beat me. Definitely a good game to take on family trips for rainy days and buggy evenings.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Speaking of Bacon

Monday, June 29, 2009

Battleship Massachusetts at Battleship Cove in Fall River, MA

I took my daughters and their cousin on a day trip to Battleship Cove in Fall River MA last week. When I was a kid in the 1970's I loved going there, but after 30 or so years, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. More... In addition to the battleship and it's long time neighbors the WWII submarine Lionfish and the Vietnam era destroyer Kennedy, they had two complete WWII PT boats displayed in a covered shed and an Eastern Block missile corvette from the 1980's, very cool. The place was also hopping and all the boats were mobbed with people. The Massachusetts was a bit worse for wear topside than it was 30 years ago, but there was a lot of restoration work ongoing, so hopefully they have a handle on it. The ship made a trip to the huge drydock #3 in Boston for a thorough reconditioning below the waterline (photo above). The most impressive thing as an adult visiting the ship, is the sheer complexity of it. The engineering spaces and fire control rooms boogle the mind. In the digital age we are used to sensors and embedded processors doing all work for us. One may as well be on an alien space ship, and ultimately as an adult, that is the best part, trying to piece together the whole of the ships pieces, how did it work? That and trying to imagine what life was like for those aboard in the 40's.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Hawk Attacks a Remote Controled Plane

Raptor attack! from Billwhit on Vimeo.

via Jalopnik

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Sarah Haskins

Sarah does some clever bits poking fun at advertising targeted at women that I think you

may enjoy, there is more here if you are so inclined: Sarah Haskins on Current. Some of

the ads really are cringe worthy.

BallDroppings

This is a fun and oddly riveting little physics time waster. Click on the image to check it out.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Atari Tempest Arcade Game

In it's original 1980's arcade format, this was one of the most fun games out there. Well, at least for me, because it was the only one which I could consistently get the high score. Well, that and the fact that it's vector graphics were very crisp for the time. The trouble of course is that Tempest's main controller was a spinning knob, making it very difficult to replicate the play on a PC or console. If you have ever played it you'll know precisely what I am talking about, it's just not the same without it. If you haven't played the game, you're in luck, even without the spinner, you can still get the idea via this Atari online flash game which absolutely nails the sounds and graphics.

Tempest Online Flash Game.