Categories
Tech

Xbox live pwns PS3 marketthingy

A new xbox live update is rolling out for Call of Duty 4 that will add kill cam to explosive deaths (yippie! NOT) and it adds the feature to allow game host to get rolled over, which means Darin, that no more closed game lobby alerts b/c the host status just gets bumped to someone else and play goes on… pretty slick. Can’t wait for my Xbox live bday present. Also I wanted to mention how lame the VOIP is on PS3 the only time it didn’t sound like a modem from the 90s was when people were yelling swear words. GO MICROSOFT!!

Categories
Tech

Poop makes energy, some of us already knew that


K so this is the new idea for India… but can you imagine if one of these things breaks and springs a leak!?!

(Fortune Magazine) — Sintex Industries, a plastics and textiles manufacturer in Gujarat, India, is betting it can find profit in human waste. Its new biogas digester turns human excrement, cow dung, or kitchen garbage into fuel that can be used for cooking or generating electricity, simultaneously addressing two of India’s major needs: energy and sanitation.

Sintex’s digester uses bacteria to break down waste into sludge, much like a septic tank. In the process, the bacteria emit gases, mostly methane. But instead of being vented into the air, they are piped into a storage canister.

A one-cubic-meter digester, primed with cow dung to provide bacteria, can convert the waste generated by a four-person family into enough gas to cook all its meals and provide sludge for fertilizer. A model this size costs about $425 but will pay for itself in energy savings in less than two years. That’s still a high price for most Indians, even though the government recently agreed to subsidize about a third of the cost for these family-sized units. “We want to create a new industry for portable sanitation in India that’s not available now,” says S.B. Dangayach, Sintex’s managing director.

Government officials plan to end open defecation by 2012 (hundreds of millions of Indians use railroad tracks or other outdoor locales instead of toilets) and say biogas plants are part of the solution. A.R. Shukla, a scientific advisor in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, says India could support 12 million such plants, but only 3.9 million – mostly pricier models big enough to accommodate entire villages – have been installed to date. And last year the government fell far short of its target for new installations.

-Source

Categories
Chase

Dino-rrific! (<yes, that’s a stretch)

Yesterday we had the privilege of visiting the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving point for the first time. It's strange that we haven't ever gone there before, but I guess we just didn't know how awesome it would be! First and foremost I would like to give a shout-out to Brad and Tiffany, who not only invited us to go with them, but also had a Thanksgiving Point Pass, so we got in for less than 10 bucks! Definitely worth it. Thank you, Kecks! And luckily, Chase already knew what dinosaur bones were (thanks to Curious George). As soon as we got there, Chase wanted to climb up and touch one of the dinosaur skeletons, but I reminded him that Curious George had knocked a big dino skeleton down at the museum in his attempts to climb them.

Chase was great after that-- his words of the day were "bones" and "Tool!" (= cool!). He and 2nd cousin Kyle just wanted to be free to roam about the museum, really. Fortunately, it's a very kid-friendly place and there were plenty of activities for them. Chase's favorites were the giant sand/water/play area, and the other sand area where they got to participate in archeological digging. Overall, we were impressed and had a great time! And the best part is that Chase slept through the WHOLE night last night-- so we will be returning to this Dinosaur Museum regularly! ;) And I'm sure Pace will be posting some new McVideos soon, since he took like 10 videos or something. Oh yeah, and the first photo below is arguably the cutest ever! Be sure to click on the photos to see them better.

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Categories
Tech

Xbox 360 blues end


So I love this Xbox 360 I got for Christmas, except I was feeling angry whenever it would go to play a game. Here’s why, I would insert the disk and get an error saying that I should put this disk in a 360, and then while I was playing, I would get errors saying my disk was dirty or scratched even when it wasn’t. So I figured I got a bad 360 since I got it off ebay and saved a bunch of money. Here I am figuring I would have to ship it back and argue with the guy about sending me a broken one, or shipping it to Microsoft so they can fix it. Well, today I grabbed a laser lens cleaner from Gamestop (10 bucks). Now I’ve always thought these things were a joke, and just stupid people bought them, b/c how is this cd supposed to clean the laser lens? I’ll tell you how, on the cd there are lil fiber brushes melded in at certain spots. So I pop in this cd to the xbox, let it play for about 10 minutes, enough for track 2 to play a couple of times b/c that was when the brushes were hitting the laser lens. Then I pop in Halo 3 which wouldn’t load at all, and BAM I’m shooting aliens. I put in Ultimate Alliance which usually took 5 tries to get going, ran perfect the first time. Ahhh! Gamin heaven! Moral of the story: Even if something sounds stupid, just try it, especially if it is the cheapest and easiest option.

Also, we had a great time at the Dino museum with Brad, Tiff and Kyle, but I’ll let Joy talk about that.

Categories
Stories from N.C.

Fishin’


A redneck was stopped by a game warden in Mississippi recently with two
ice chests full of fish. He was leaving a cove well-known for its
fishing.

The game warden asked, “Do you have a license to catch those fish?”

“Naw, sir”, replied the redneck. “I ain’t got none of them there
licenses. You see, these here are my pet fish.”

“Pet fish?”

“Yeah. Every night, I take these here fish down to the lake and let
’em swim ’round for awhile. Then, when I whistle, they jump right
back into these here ice chests and I take ’em home.”

“That’s a bunch of crap! Fish can’t do that.”

The redneck looked at the warden for a moment and then said, “It’s the
truth Mr. Government Man. I’ll show ya. It really works!”

“Okay.” said the warden. “I’ve got to see this!”

The redneck poured the fish into the lake and stood and waited.

After several minutes, the warden says, “Well?”

“Well, what?”, says the redneck.

The warden says, “When are you going to call them back?”

“Call who back?”

“The FISH’, replied the warden!”

The redneck said, “What fish?”

Moral of the story: We may not be as smart as some city slickers but
we ain’t as dumb as some government employees.

You can say what you want about the South but you never hear of anyone
retiring and moving north.

Categories
Ranting

No more adult content spam


So Utah just got this bill passed that is similar to the national do not call list (the one that stops companies from calling during dinner), if you get on the register. This one creates a list of you aren’t allowed to send to these emails/cell phones/pagers/whatever b/c there are kids in the home and they don’t have to be subject to adult ads. So if you no longer want adult content related spam/text ads then sign up on the Utah kid protection registry.

Categories
T.V.

New tv to be back soon?


On “Fast Money” Michael Eisner annouced that the strike is over. “They’ve made a deal, they shook hands on a deal. The deal is going on Saturday to the constituents (for a vote)…I think it’s impossible that they turn it down. A deal has been made and (the writers) will be back to work reasonably soon!” At this point we do not know how this will effect the current sesaon of Lost. Keep your fingers crossed for a full 16 episode season.

Categories
Personal

I’m a “Happy Camper”

I just wanted to mention that I was called a few weeks ago to be the Assistant Ward Camp Director. (This is in addition to my new-ish calling of teaching Sunbeams). So obviously, this means that I will be attending Girls Camp again this year in July! Last year I went for the last couple of days, and it was enjoyable. It’s a good thing because I was recently released from my Beehive Advisor calling, which I came to enjoy. So this way I will still be able to bond with the girls! I am concerned about leaving Chase for six days, but I suppose I don’t need to fret about it too much yet! …And here I thought I was done with Camp after my teen years back at the beautiful Camp Navarro, but I guess this is where I *still* belong! Luckily we get to sleep in little cabins like the one pictured here. Yessss! 🙂

Categories
Chase

“JUMPING!!!”

That was the word of the day today, because Chase and I went with Rachel (and the 3 kids she’s watching for the weekend) to “Jumpin’ Jacks,” a dirty yet fun place near our local Wal Mart. I have been looking for some place like this for a while now for our energetic child, because these dreary winter days are not very conducive to playing outside (unless you love to be freezing cold). Since both the mall play areas are currently non-existent, we have been wondering how to let all Chase’s energy out– always a big task. But I think we succeeded today, because he was exhausted after two hours at this place full of inflatable slides and bouncy toys!

Overall, I had a good time bouncing around with him. I wasn’t very happy those two times when some rowdy kids trampled little Chase, but we “bounced back” quickly (haha). I also had to try to ignore the yuckiness of all the jumpy toys, especially after I saw a loogie on something we were climbing– yeesh! Chase was afraid to go on the medium-sized slides at first, but then all of a sudden, in a burst of courage, he informed me that we were going to slide. So we went on the medium slides twice!

The cost to get into this place was reasonable; I think it was 5 bucks per person, and I had coupons per usual, so it was 6 bucks for the two of us! Hooray. Now let’s cross our fingers and hope we don’t catch any of the sicknesses that may have been lurking in this place. Check out McVideos sometime in the near future to see if we’ve posted the exciting “jumpy videos!”  

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Categories
Personal

Chase Chase Bo Base

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Thank you everyone, for your support in my time of trial– losing the longest blog post I’ve ever written was hard, but I must go on. Really, I hardly even REMEMBER what I even said. It was a “Chase post” though, so as you can imagine I was going on and on… I could actually sum it up in four words: Chase is so cute. (He is talking up a storm and it entertains us/makes us chuckle on a regular basis.) Maybe I will summarize what I said before with bullet points to make it more approachable.

–I was reading Chase a book the other day in which a boy was putting his bib on for dinner. Upon seeing this picture, Chase shook his head and firmly stated, “No, I doh-wannit.” (He does not enjoy the bib.)

–Chase’s favorite activity lately is to drag a chair to a desirable location (usually a location that is generally forbidden to him) and exploring/conquering the area. In this case it was the front door, which he repeatedly unlocked and locked, then announced laughingly, “I lock the door!” (This is one of the full sentences he has been saying lately).

–Tonight Pace gave Chase a piece of a pickle to eat and I said, “That’s pretty huge!” And then Chase refused to eat it. He kept saying, “No, HUGE!” Pace thanked me for my influence on our son. 😉

–Just now we were having a big family hug and Chase said in a sentimental tone, “Family.”

–Chase loves saying prayers, with our help. He has even gotten to the point where he’s about to have a big bite of food, but he’ll put it back down to have the prayer first. 🙂 When one of us is saying the prayer, Chase likes to insert his own words to have his say. His favorites are: food, car, Rachel, Daddy, Audrey (his friend), and shower. What fun!

–I am glad to say that Chase has finally been sleeping through the night again for the past few days. I don’t want to jinx it by assuming that this will be the new trend, but I will just say that I am grateful for the current circumstances!