Insomnia

So last night I couldn’t fall asleep? Tried to go to bed at 2am, but twisted and turned for over an hour. I finally got out of bed and started to exercise to tire myself out. Did some sit-ups, some push-ups, and some DDR. I was now tired as my eyes were getting heavy into the 7th song of DDR. However, now I was too hot, so wearing a t-shirt and short, I took a stroll outside to cool down which worked wonders. I think I fell asleep the moment I hit the sack when I returned.

So what is causing this insomnia? Could it be the stress? I’m pretty sure it’s not work related as I’ve never had problems falling asleep before. The only conclusion I could come up with is the condo I just purchased, and I guess I’m pretty stressed out after looking at so many houses, already got declined 3x, and finally got my 4th offer accepted. The listing price was at $436,000, but I got it at $421,000. It has 3 bedroom and 2.5 baths and is a pretty nice condo in a pretty neat location. However, I think the thoughts keep on going through my head thinking, what if this isn’t the right house? What would happen if I put in a few extra thousand dollars and gotten the other house? What if I could’ve gotten a better house if I waited? Many many “what if”s are going through my head. Now there’s the finding a mortgage with a cheap interest rate. What if I can’t get a loan? What if I don’t have enough money for the down (although my dad’s assured me today that’s taken care of).

It’s been a pretty scary roller coaster and I think it’s the reason I had insomnia last night. I finally went to bed at 4am and woke up after 12pm.

Random Crap

Criss Angel pulls a lady apart!? (from RayAlome) – the video is both shocking and funny at the same time as the woman splits apart. Was he using midgets?

Cancelling AOL (from /.) – I first heard it from YTMND.com (from RayAlome) over a week ago, but this was finally posted on /. and someone posted the link to Vincent’s blog. You can listen to the recording here. I don’t know if this is real, but for some reason, being able to locate the account with just the name and last 4 digits of his credit card seemed a bit weird. You’d expect him to at least tell the CSR what his primary account’s screenname is. But even so, assuming it’s real, AOL is renown for such tatics. It took me ~15minutes the last time I tried to cancel my account. A bunch of us were having contests on trying to set the record for the quickest cancellation. There was a deal that rewarded us $100 back in college for trying AOL.

Teacher-proof ringtone hits the US (from RayAlome) – British kids were quick to sample the sound and turn it into a ringtone to be used in class – they can hear it, but teachers can’t. Apparently the sound is just car traffic, though I’m not sure what to think about this article. Was this a joke? Is it that adults automatically tune out these sounds?

2006 USA Rock Paper Scissors Tournament Championship Round (mirror) (from RayAlome) – The first ever USA Rock Paper Scissors tournament where the winner walks away with $50,000 was held in Las Vegas in 2006. The contestants in this final round is “Fast-Twitch” Twitchel vs “Drill” McGill. What’s hilarious is the announcer before the match when hey does the hand motion while saying, “… as one player with do this for $50,000 and a place in history.” When I saw that hand motion, I immediately thought of something else that looked like that… The commentary during the match was hilarious too: American Hero, RPS Immortality, formidable opponent.. hahaha!

Non-scents from Nokia (from /.) – Students from London’s CSM College of Art and Design have been working on new designs for futuristic looking cell phones. Check out the pictures at BBC.

Drug stashes found at Home DepotsPolice are investigating Massachusetts outlets of Home Depot Inc. after discovering caches of cocaine and marijuana stuffed into merchandise at three local branches of the retail chain. Low on cocaine? Visit your local Home Depot and purchase a bathroom cabinet.

Liquid Armor (from /.) – Flexible full-body protection that could save our troops’ lives and limbs is at the top of the list for many researchers and technology companies. One such product could soon make its way to Iraq. As this ScienCentral News video explains, the secret ingredient is a liquid that could turn lightweight material into full-body armor.Do check out the video.

Hybrid DVD/HD DVD discs arriveNow, Warner Home Video is hoping to change this equation somewhat by releasing “hybrid” titles—discs that are regular DVD movies on one side and HD DVD on the other. Interesting…

DNA test to clear up Confucius confusionNow his countrymen can establish a genetic link in a test that will cost more than 1,000 yuan ($125), according to the Shanghai Morning Post. “We would like to help these unconfirmed claimants to test their DNA and to establish a Confucius-DNA database,” it quoted Deng Yajun, a DNA expert from Beijing Institute of Genomics at the Chinese Academy of Science, as saying. How the scientists had obtained a sample of Confucius’s DNA was not explained. Smells like a scam…

The Corruptibles! (from /.) – EFF distributes an animation showing you how evil thes media companies can become.

OpenSky (from /.) – a Nausicaa project where the try to make the flying device that was used in Ghibli’s animation. Do check out the videos they made.

if the earth were a sandwich (from /.) – it’s a new craze! It seems the first people to complete the sandwich were these guys: 0009 Earth Sandwich.

D1大整古-滑雪場按摩椅 (from Ohfuee) – *not work safe* the title translates to “D1 Big Prank – Snow Sliding Massage Chair”. The only reason it’s not work safe is because when the victims flip over, their towel comes off. The hilarious one comes later when the massage chair actually laucnhes.

UBC Engineers Create Vehicle that Travels from Vancouver to Halifax on a Gallon of Gas (from /.) – The UBC design, which required the driver to lie down while navigating it, achieved 3,145 miles per US gallon (0.074 litres/100 km) — equivalent of Vancouver to Halifax on a gallon (3.79 litres) of gas — costing less than $5 at the pump.

Fully Internal Watercooled Xbox 360 (from /.) – It’s not the first time we see a watercooled Xbox 360: x-scene forum moderator Xboxexpert made one and we’ve also seen one from hardocp.com. But unlike to the 2 previous one, this one is fully internal … it’s all inside the Xbox 360 case.

HAJIKERO! iincho – Apparently they made another video with the same CG as Funky Cat Maybe.

Exam cheats score high marks for ingenuityA student in Wuhan, capital of China’s central province of Hubei, used earphones so small that they slipped into his aural canal and perforated his eardrum, the China Daily newspaper said. Another student’s earphones required an operation for their removal, the paper said, while an electronic device connected to headphones and strapped to a third student’s body exploded, leaving a bleeding hole in his abdomen. Sigh… they need to make more universities…

Animal rights protest shuts restaurantBanner-wielding animal rights protesters swarmed into a restaurant serving cat meat in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and forced it to shut, Xinhua news agency said Sunday. The 40 or so, mainly female demonstrators — holding banners reading “cats and dogs are friends of human beings” — entered the Fangji Cat Meatball restaurant and demanded the owner free any live cats on the premises, Xinhua said. Any animal can become a friend of human beings. I’ve never heard of cats being eating in China, but dogs are common delicacies.

Pregnant pause as Moms wait for baby bonusAustralian hospitals are bracing for a baby boom in July as expectant mothers try to delay imminent births to take advantage of a new welfare payment, researchers said Monday. From July 1, a baby bonus paid to the parents for every newborn child will increase by A$1,000 ($740) to A$4,000. Government at this point should just move the bonus starting date earlier…

Soccer-mad monks too tired to take almsThe Nation quoted a woman in the northern city of Chiang Mai who said her birthday celebrations were ruined because monks at a city temple were not awake to receive her morning offering, a mandatory religious ritual in the predominately Buddhist country. The woman, who declined to be identified, said she was told by a senior monk that most of his young colleagues were still asleep because they had stayed up to watch the games which can go on well past midnight.

Tailing a monkey man in search of healing powersThousands of people are flocking to an impoverished Indian village in eastern West Bengal state to worship a man they believe possesses divine powers because he climbs up trees in seconds, gobbles up bananas and has a “tail.” … Tucked away in a hamlet in Banarhat, over 400 miles north of Kolkata, the state capital, devotees wait for hours to see or touch Oraon’s 13-inch tail, believing that it has healing powers. Doctors said the “tail” — made up of some flesh but mostly of dark hair — was simply a rare physical attribute. Is this the reincarnation of 孫悟空?

HSBC Direct bumps interest rates to 4.8% APY

Just heard from SD: HSBC Direct just bumped the interest rate on their Online Savings Account to 4.8% APY (from 4.65% APY)

Pretty neat!

I’ve been with them for about 4 months now and have been pretty pleased with their service. Though I did find out there’s a max number of bank to bank transactions per month (limited to 6 per month), but that’s usually true for any online savings account (ING, Emigrant, Citi, etc), though I don’t know if all of them have the same limit, but there’s definitely a cap.

Cascada – Everytime We Touch

I first heard this song on the radio and thought it sounded very much like Disney’s Electric Parade’s Theme Song: Baroque Hoedown (mp3 from Jean Jacques Perrey MP3’s), or maybe I was just crazy. However, the tune was catchy and I jotted down some of the lyrics and found the song when I got home. You can preview the song (mp3 from Juno Records) or watch the music video. Apparently she’s German and you can visit her home page at Cascada-Music.

Lyrics: (from MetroLyrics)

Everytime We Touch
by Cascada

I still hear your voice,
When you sleep next to me.
I still feel your touch,
in my dreams.
Forgive me my weakness,
But I dont know why,
Without you it’s hard to survive

(chorus)
‘Cause every time we touch,
I get this feeling
And every time we kiss,
I swear I can fly
Can’t you feel my heart beat fast,
I want this to last,
Need you by my side
‘Cause every time we touch,
I feel the static,
And every time we kiss,
I reach for the sky,
Can’t you hear my heart beat slow
I can’t let you go,
I Want you in my life.

Your arms are my castle,
Your heart is my sky.
They wipe away tears that I’ve cried
The good and the bad times,
We’ve been through them all.
You make me rise when I fall..

(chorus)
‘Cause every time we touch,
I get this feeling
And every time we kiss,
I swear I can fly
Can’t you feel my heart beat fast,
I want this to last,
Need you by my side
‘Cause every time we touch,
I feel the static,
And every time we kiss,
I reach for the sky,
Can’t you hear my heart beat slow,
I can’t let you go,
I Want you in my life.

‘Cause every time we touch,
I get this feeling
And every time we kiss,
I swear I can fly,
Can’t you feel my heart beat fast,
I want this to last,
Need you by my side.

You can get this song from her Everytime We Touch album.

cascada - everytime we touch album cover

Find Me Guilty

This movie was pretty enjoyable, though it took a very serious court case and made it a laughing matter, so I wasn’t sure to find it funny, serious, or sad. That was probably my biggest problem with it. If I categorized it as a comedy, it had it’s moments, but wasn’t that funny. If I categorize it as a drama, the tone wasn’t serious enough. If I categorize it as tragedy, well, once again, not serious enough. It tried to put way too many elements into one movie, though like I said, I still found it enjoyable.

Official Site
IMDb: 7.2/10 (643 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: C+ / Yahoo! Users: B-
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 56% / Average Rating: 5.9/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD

find me guilty poster

Spoilers: (Show)

Ultraviolet

Horrible horrible movie. Story line sucked, computer graphics were incredibly bad, this movie basically had no redeeming feature.

Official Site
IMDb: 3.6/10 (5,398 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: D / Yahoo! Users: C
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 10% / Average Rating: 2.9/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD

ultraviolet poster

Spoilers: (Show)

Xbox 360, TOSLINK, and Audigy2 ZS

So I got my TOSLINK cable (optical digital audio cable) from Amazon.com on Friday and went ahead and installed.

First of all, I didn’t know there were these little plastic stubs I had to remove first before plugging it it. So for a few minutes, I was trying to jam it in, but it wouldn’t stay in. I made sure I was aligning it correctly to it’s weird 6 sided shape. I finally noticed the hole and the pin were different sizes. At first I thought I purchased the wrong cable, but as I yanked on the plastic, it came off and it fitted nicely into the Xbox 360 hole. I had to do the same with the other side to stick into my Audigy2 ZS dashboard (comes with the platinum edition).

The cable was super thing. The reviews had already said so, but it was a lot thinner than I had expected. As I mentioned in my previous post, monoPrice.com would probably be the best place to purchase online. Their cable pricing is just awesome, and tack on cheap shipping and you have a winner! The 10ft of cable was more than enough to connect from the back of the Xbox 360 to the front of my computer.

But then I hit the problem where at first no sound was coming out. I thought I had to switch it from analog to digital within the Xbox 360 system settings, but it seems that you can have both digital and analog audio on simultaneously. I made sure that S/PDIF-in was enabled, but still no sound. I finally ended up playing with the digital audio settings inside the Xbox 360 and apparently changing it from Dolby Digital 5.1 to Dolby Digital Stereo worked and audio started to come out! Sweet! Not sure why that was the case since the Audigy2 ZS supports upto 7.1 spearkers.

So Stanman, ChemChampion and I played PGR3 and Perfect Dark Zero from 10pm to 4am.


Speaking of which, there’s this interesting article on Game Console Energy Consumption (from /.). From the article the Xbox 360 uses 2W when it’s turned off, which seems a bit high when compared to the others. However, the article states:

Console       | Energy  | kWh Wasted | Annual
              | Leakage | Each Year  | Cost
---------------------------------------------
Playstation 1 | 0.2W    |  1.752 kWh | $0.26
Playstation 2 | 2W      | 17.52 kWh  | $2.63
Xbox          | 0.4W    |  3.50 kWh  | $0.53
Xbox 360      | 2W      | 17.52 kWh  | $2.63
Gamecube      | 0.4W    |  3.50 kWh  | $0.53
Dreamcast     | 0.4W    |  3.50 kWh  | $0.53

As you can see every single console is a victim of energy leakage to some extent. The losers here are the Xbox 360 and PS2, however the PS2 is the biggest loser of the group. There are a few points that need to be made. While both consoles need to power their internal clocks, they also need to keep their IR ports constants scanning for remote controls trying to power on the console explaining the added power requirements. The Xbox 360 also has to keep its internal wireless card active otherwise it wouldn’t notice when a controller is sending a request for the machine to turn on. So while both machines require the most power, the Xbox 360 has the most components that need to remain powered in standby making the energy leakage a little more acceptable. The idea of spending $2.68 just to have a PS2 plugged in the wall is less then desirable.

The comparison of the consoles when they were running was shocking:

Console       | Dashboard
              | Energy Use
--------------------------
Playstation 1 |   4W
Playstation 2 |  23W
Xbox          |  61W
Xbox 360      | 145W
Gamecube      |  20W
Dreamcast     |  17W

It’s shocking to find that the Xbox uses almost 3x as much energy as the PS2 and the Xbox 360 uses almost 2.5x the energy that the Xbox uses. It’ll be interesting to see how much energy the PS3 would end up using.


Speaking of which, I was looking for ways to obtain cheap Microsoft Points to use in Xbox Live Marketplace just yesterday. eBay wasn’t a good source as the pricing there was even higher than what Xbox Live was selling them for online. The online pricing comes out to be 80pts/$1. Everywhere else either is at that pricing or higher. I decided to wait a bit and see if people end up throwing away points to sell online. Guess what, Outpost is now selling 1600 points for $14.99. There’s even free shipping! That makes it over 106pts/$1. Unfortunately, they charge sales tax in WA (Please note that we charge sales tax for AZ, CA, GA, OH, TX, NV,WA, IL and IN.) making it $16.31 including tax, so the point to dollar ratio is now down to 98pts/$1. Still a really hot deal in my opinion since I couldn’t really find points cheaper elsewhere.

Alarm Clocks

So on Friday, I had a 11am meeting. I set my alarm clock to go off at 9:23am (the reason of :23 is just because when I’m changing the hours, sometimes I hit the minute button on accident, and so far it’s been 3 mistakes since my last reset to 12:00). When the alarm went of, I hit the snooze 3x:

Once at 9:23am
Once at 9:32am
Once at 9:41am

At this point, I decide that I want an extra hour of sleep, and change my alarm clock to go off at 10:23am. However, the alarm clock doesn’t go off till 10:50am. After showering and getting dressed, I ended up 20+ minutes late to work, all the time I’m wondering why the alarm didn’t go off at 10:23am. Could I have been so asleeped, I hit the snooze button 3x without realizing it (I’ve done that before).

However, the more I think about it, the more I understand what really happened (and could explained why I was late to one of my finals back in college).

There needs to be a way for the clock to remember when to set off the alarm in the case of multiple snoozes. I’m guessing it remembers the delta between the alarm clock time and the next alarm. So when I hit snooze at 9:41am, the next alarm would be at 9:50am, giving it a delta of 27 minutes. However, when I change the alarm clock time, the alarm was not turned off, meaning the snooze wasn’t reset. So when 10:23am came around, it remembered the snooze delta and didn’t go off till 10:50am.

I haven’t tried this again to prove this, and I don’t know if that’s how it works with every alarm clock, but if you have time, I’d like to hear how your alarm clock works in this situation.