Project Wonderful

You may have noticed that I have rearranged my ads once again. I test drove Project Wonderful on HD-Trailers.net and had great results so far. I’m pleased with the system and just how simple it works. At first I wasn’t clear on what “bids” actually meant, but apparently bids are the amount they’re willing to pay for the entire day of showing their ad. So if someone bids $0.24 and the ad is displayed on your site for an hour, you’ll get $0.01 minus the commission. Once you hit $10, you can withdraw to your PayPal account, or you can immediately use the funds to place ads on other sites.

The selection of sites they have is still pretty limited and I don’t want to bother going over the things I went over already on HD-Trailers.net: Project Wonderful.

AdBrite’s system just didn’t work that well as I was just getting random ads. Text Link Ads was pretty awesome while it lasted, but they have a black box approval process which I don’t quite understand and for some reason HD-Trailers.net still hasn’t been approved yet. And when people stopped purchasing ads on my site, I had an empty area for months, at which point I decided to return to AdBrite since they added a new text-only ad feature.

The Gallery has also been updated to use Project Wonderful.

Valerie’s Potluck Dinner Party

Why is it so freaking hot?!?! Last week we were still in the high 60s low 70s. Last night I went to bed at 6:30am and guess what, I woke up at 11am because I was sweating. I guess I can’t really complain:

krunk4ever: it’s so freaking hot
ungsunghero: )(#*%()#*$()*!(#@$*())(!$*!)(!*!!!
ungsunghero: DIE
ungsunghero: NOW
krunk4ever: haha
ungsunghero: it is ONE HUNDRED AND THREE FREAKING DEGREES HERE
krunk4ever: good thing i didnt tell you our temp
ungsunghero: let me guess
ungsunghero: 83?
krunk4ever: close, 82
ungsunghero: DIE
ungsunghero: you are banned from IMing me
krunk4ever: haha
ungsunghero: for the next three minutes

I did my biweekly (that’s every 2 weeks) Costco run today and there was a section where there were fans and air conditioners and that area was crazy! I swear practically every 1 in 3 shopping carts had either a fan or a/c unit. The drink area was crazy too. I guess if Costco had anticipated this heat wave, they wouldn’t have discounted their Snapple and Gatorade. I also picked up so Lipton iced tea and Sobe Orange Carrot Elixir (both were 10 for $10 at QFC). I also picked up some Dibs ice cream since my sister recommended it to me. It wasn’t on sale, but I needed ice cream and those darn bite-size ice cream is awesome!

So back to the main to topic. Valerie had invited us to a potluck dinner party over at her place and I was contemplating to go or not since I had to put a couple more hours at work this weekend. I decided since I had to do my Costco run and do my laundry this weekend, I would try to complete the work on Sunday.

On my way over there, the 520 floating bridge came to a complete halt. Apparently there was some motorcycle accident in front and given that the bridge doesn’t really have shoulder space, a lady came and told use to move as close edge as possible so emergency vehicles can get through. We literally sat around for 15 minutes enjoying the beautiful setting sun and lake. People were taking pictures so I thought why not:

IMG_1184IMG_1185

When I passed the accident, both parties seem to be okay. The guy in the leather suit (I assume is the motorcyclist) was standing there was some young Caucasian guy, which looked very scared (presumably he was the one who crashed into the motorcycle).

I finally get there and there’s tons of delicious stuff! I also met some new friends. Monique made these fried yucca and fried bananas and they were delicious. Valerie also baked some bread which was yummy. There was awesome fried battered corn which was actually really good. Now I have new ideas to try with my deep fryer. I discussed this over with Ungsunghero and here’s a set of new things I might try:

  • yucca
  • banana/plantain
  • taro
  • chicken wings, drumsticks, thighs

After dinner, Stanman got around teaching some people how to play BANG, a card game which is similar to Mafia in some way, but not really. We played several rounds of it and I was surprised how sneaky Anja was on her initial game. I was completely stumped.

Afterwards, Sathana insisted on playing this drinking game called Bitches Bitches (which appears to be a combination of Tap Tap and The F*ck Game). The rhythm was tap tap clap clap. While you’re tapping, you say your assigned name (which could be Bitches Bitches, Fuck Me Fuck Me, On The Table, Doggy Style, etc.), basically a naughty 4 syllable phrase. When you’re clapping, you say anyone else’s name and they have to continue. Whoever breaks the flow or screws up has to drink. It was rather hilarious to watch. I declined to play since I had to drive home and don’t exactly like to drink, but they said I could play with ice tea, but I felt a drinking game isn’t really fun unless you’re drinking (sort of like playing poker for “fun”).

And therefore my night ended there.

Here are some pictures from the photo album:

Explaining Bang's Rules (___, Felix, Anja, Joe, Sathana, Perry)Explaining Bang's Rules (Perry, Sathana, Pita, Philipp)Sathana scooping vanilla ice creamMaking vanilla ice cream with taro balls (Valerie, Sathana)Valerie's vanilla ice cream + taro ballsPlaying Bang (Felix, Anja)Playing Bang (Philipp, Joe)Sticking tongue out (Saran, Pita)Chatting (Carolynn, Monique, Valerie)(Sathana, ___)Felix drinking soda(Perry)

Comcast Blast Speed Tier

So Tekman IMs me today about this new Comcast Blast Tier (16Mbps down / 2Mbps up) and says that the D-Link DCM-202 cable modem (which I recommended) wasn’t compatible with it and it maxed out at ~8Mbps.

So I started digging around the internet for this and apparently many users were having problems getting the higher speeds from Comcast with this D-Link cable modem. Some people claimed that Comcast uses some proprietary “Burst” technology which wasn’t compatible with all cable modems. According to their FAQ, if you’re renting a modem from them, you can always ask for an upgrade to a newer model which is compatible. Others were saying that even though the Burst technology required DOCSIS 1.1 and the D-Link cable modem was DOCSIS 2.0 compatible, there was some header configuration screw up, where Comcast would only detect the cable modem as DOCSIS 1.0, which capped the transfer speeds to 8Mbps/768Kbps. Apparently if you call in and keep on escalating to a knowledgeable tech support, they would be able to manually set your DOCSIS to 1.1 and you’ll be able to get the higher speeds.

So first thing I go check is what tier I am on. Apparently I’m on the 8Mbps/768Kbps tier and Tekman said he was able to get the 16/2 Burst Tier for $42/mo. A bit bummed, I decided I could live with 8/768 for $30/mo.

However when I got home today, I received a letter from Comcast stating:

RE: 16 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload High-Speed Internet for no additional charge

I didn’t even bother reading the rest of the letter till later and went ahead decided to try flashing my modem. Apparently there’s a Comcast specific firmware you’re suppose to use. You can find the firmware on D-Link’s website: Product Support Resources for DCM-202. I thought it was a bit weird that the Comcast firmware was 2004 while the newest one was 2007, but I decided to go with the 2.0.1 Comcast firmware anyway.

The included PDF documentation was pretty straight forward, though they only included instructions for Windows XP. There was one missing instruction and that was the fact you should connect your computer directly to the cable modem’s ethernet port. When I was first trying to connect over the switch, it wouldn’t see the cable modem. Once I was able to ping it, the flashing was pretty painless. They did screw up the login information. The web login information remains dlink/dlink and not admin/hitron.

My newly flashed cable modem shows:

  • Class ID: 2
  • Max Downstream Rate (bps): 17600000
  • Max Upstream Rate (bps): 2200000
  • Upstream Channel Priority: 1
  • Guaranteed Min Upstream Data Rate (bps): 0
  • Max Upstream Transmit Burst (bytes): 0
  • Privacy Enable: 1

Unfortunately, I don’t have what it showed beforehand as I was too excited to get the newer speeds.

So I went and did a speed test and the results are:
comcast burst tier speed test

Sweet! 16/2 Burst Speed Tier for $30/month! I guess that might be ending soon, since it was only a 6 month promo. At 16/2, this matches Verizon FiOS’ $52.99 plan. Did I mention how sweet this is?!

UPDATE: Apparently it wasn’t the fact that Tekman wasn’t getting the higher speeds with the D-Link DCM-202 cable modem, but they weren’t as high as when he had tested the connection with a Motorola cable modem. He was getting 12000-16000Kbps down / 1000-1500Kbps up with the D-Link DCM-202, while with the Motorola cable modem, he was consistently getting 18000-20000Kbps down / 2000Kbps up. I did notice my upload speed was a bit on the weak side for 2Mbps. Looks like the cheapest Motorola cable modem on Amazon is ~$55.

More Deep Fryer Goodies

So last weekend, I went to Costco and picked up some chicken nuggets (or as they call it, Breast Nuggets) and also some Minh egg rolls. I was thinking about picking up some Ling Ling egg rolls, but once again their box didn’t have any instructions for the deep fryer. I think Ling Ling has something against using the deep fryer. Oh well. The most shocking of all, is that apparently Costco doesn’t carry frozen french fries. The closest thing resembling frozen french fries was either the hash brown or the potato wedges. They also had some battered fish and shrimp that I’m thinking of trying out next time.

Here’s how they turned out:

Chicken NuggetsChicken NuggetsFried Eggrolls

I had also baked some cookies to put it into the penguin cookie jar that Cari had given me. Otis Spunkmeyer chocolate chip cookies are just so awesome!

Chocolate Chip CookiesChocolate Chip CookiesChocolate Chip CookiesChocolate Chip Cookies

I also found it interesting that the hot oven rails get captured as magenta color.

Last bit about food. I had just started watching the 3rd season of House, M.D. and one of the earlier episodes was a case about twins. How does this relate to food. When I was about to fry some eggs for dinner tonight, I cracked open an egg found this:

Twin Fried Eggs

I guess chickens can have twins too!

Tri-Weekly Top Posts (4/20/2008 to 5/10/2008)

Here’s this past 3 weeks’ top post:

  1. How to download HD Trailers from Apple.com
  2. Six Flags Discount (~50% Off)
  3. 4 Free Xbox Live Arcade Games
  4. Last Week: #9 Windows Update Error: 80070490
  5. Last Week: #7 Reindexing Media Center Library
  6. Last Week: #5 Missing Codecs in Firefox to Play Video in Gallery2
  7. Last Week: #6 Free AutoCheck Report (Similar to Carfax)
  8. Haloid
  9. Last Week: #10 LeekSpin
  10. Last Week: #4 Spinning Dancer

3 weeks ago…

I can’t believe it’s been 3 weeks since I posted a weekly top posts entry. Maybe the next time I post one, it’ll be a month. ;p

Once again, summer is approaching and it appears people are desperate for some Six flags discount. Unfortunately that deal I posted last year has already long expired.

I do want to bring up #11 (even though it’s not in the top 10): 組曲『ニコニコ動画』 – Kumikyoku [Nico Nico Douga]. Recently I saw this video from Digg: This Hands-Free Super Mario World Level Plays Sweet, Sweet Music. The music that it’s playing is nothing other than Nico Nico Douga!!! I never knew different colored Koopa Troopa shells made different noises!

Hopefully I’ll have posts queued up for you guys for the next few days. Finally finished watching House, M.D. Season Two. Not a nice way to end a season as I was desperate to see how he turned out.

House, M.D.

Ohfuee had introduced me to House, M.D. a long time back, but I was never really a fan of hospital shows like ER or Grey’s Anatomy, so I never really bothered looking into it. However Xyon convinced me to give it shot and it has turned out quite interesting.. The fact that Xyon owns both season 1 and season 2 on DVDs gave me another incentive to watch. It meant I didn’t have to go “procure” them some other way.

You can blame House for my absence in posting blog entries for the past 2 weeks, but who besides Gregory House can make words like “me likee” and “thingies” sound cool.

I was also very intrigued by the intro music. Apparently the song is called Teardrop by Massive Attack. Once again it has that dramatic feeling that I like.

There was a funny thread going on at work. Someone had claimed they missed Monday’s episode of House. Someone replied saying he’d save him the time from watching it:

Someone was sick.
House tried to cure them but it was only 20 minutes into the show so the cure made them worse.
Then someone else tried to cure them, and House got mad. The second attempt was at 30 minutes so it didn’t work either.
Cuddy got mad, House made a pass at her and was rejected again.
The patient got worse and they couldn’t figure out why. Someone said it was an infection, someone else said it was a fungus, someone else said it was a tumor. None of them could prove it.
House came up with some great idea and everyone said it wouldn’t work but he did it anyway.
The patient got better and everyone was happy.
13 still doesn’t have a name.

Then there were these responses:

That must be a unique episode from the rest, neither MRI nor lumbar puncture was involved.

You forgot Lupus.

And of course someone shouted:

Spoiler space man!!!

I will admit that it does get repetitive, but then again, I watch Detective Conan religiously, which is 500+ episodes in and the theme is basically:

  • Someone gets murdered
  • Conan looks for clues
  • Conan figures out how the culprit did it
  • Conan tranquilizes Mouri Kogoro (Ran’s father)
  • Conan uses Sleeping Kogoro to explain the case (who would believe in a elementary boy?)

I sort of got screwed over watching Season 2. For some reason Media Center had listed them out of order (partly blamed by the My Movies plugin, partly blamed by the fact my file server doesn’t list files in alphabetical order). Apparently the 1st disc I watched was disc #5. When things started to not make sense like why *cough* needed an HIV test or how *cough* miraculously got cured with no explanation, I realized I wasn’t watching the DVDs for Season 2 in order. After resorting them, I was still wrong and actually ended up watching disc 2 out of 6 2nd to last.

I’m down to the final disc of season 2 and then I’ll have to decide if I want to continue watching House instead, or should I resume blogging. ;p