Bloggin Bowman

2008 is the year things get done

2008-02-11T01:58:00.000-05:00

Just like anyone else, I have made a few new years resolutions for 2008. The main things I want to accomplish are financial and fitness based. Unlike any previous new years resolution I've made and not stood by this year is hopefully going to be different. This year I'm going to get things done.

Initially I'm setting my goals low and ratcheting them up as I accomplish them. Each week I will be going to the gym 2-3 times. On the financial side I will be setting a hard goal of combining my high interest credit cards and getting out of debt completely in the coming years.

I have been going to my gym, Club Fitness - Power House, consistently since December but only recently have I been able to be there 3 times or more per week. Its given me more energy that I've had in years. I've never done much in terms of fitness since high school so hitting the gym this much is actually very empowering. I'll be keeping track of my progress mainly just to hold myself accountable but here goes nothing.

Xbox dashboard feature request: Video Sizing

2008-02-06T01:46:00.000-05:00

Now that the Xbox 360 can playback most of the videos I want to watch from my computer I've been using it as my primary 'media center' in my living room. Every time I startup a video I'm forced to change the resolution of the video to 'Stretched' or 'Letterbox' manually. Having to change the resolution each time is tedious and poor UI design. It is also counter intuitive considering that Microsoft is expecting their customers to control the UI through their controller. The controller turns off after only a few minutes of inactivity. Since most movies and TV shows last longer than 6 minutes users are then forced wait another 20 sec after every video to turn on the controller again. I have a nice enough remote that I don't need to rely on the controller for playback but this would just be the extra layer of polish that video playback on the 360 needs.

Allowing the 360 to playback divx and other popular video formats is great but why the hell won't it auto adjust the size of the content to your TV's resolution. Its a small feature request but after constantly dealing with customers that can't even recognize that their 1080p TV is only showing content in 480p.

Top Fuel Dragster: Warm Up Shockwave

2007-09-24T13:46:00.000-04:00

Watching top fuel dragsters race is a sensory overload. Your body shakes as they pass. Your vision literally blurs as they go by. And your ears take a serious beating by the end of the day. At least once in your life go and watch them because its unlike anything you've ever felt, seen or heard before.

Jackson has been broken... and fixed again

2006-11-19T13:47:00.000-05:00

Jackson had a broken leg on Friday night. I'm still not sure how it happened or who did it to him but I'm certainly not done looking into it. He was running about the house (tearing stuff up as usual) around 6:30 and then a few hours later is locked up in my room with a shattered back leg. He had surgery the following morning to place a pin in his broken leg. Upon going through surgery I had the vet check for additional bruising and such that would show how the leg was broken. The vet did find bruising around his butt and knee areas that shows he was obviously hit in that area to cause the break and didn't get himself stuck in something and break it while he tried to get out. In my room nothing was laid across his body when he was found by Jessica at 9:00 to suggest he ran into something that fell on him and broke his leg by his own actions. I can say that whenever I find out what happened that Friday and find out did this to my dog I will respond legally and to the fullest extent of the law. I have talked about taking legal actions to those I know in the past who have stolen from me (a considerable amount actually) and I eventually calmed down and did nothing about it; however I'm not going to stand idly by this time while someone that I know abuses my dog. It may have just been an honest case of Jackson running underneath someone's foot and being stepped on but even so, no one is talking which is making the entire situation all the more evil.

PS3.. probably not for me

2006-11-15T23:50:00.000-05:00

Originally I had planned to camp out for a day and a half to buy the PS3 as soon as it launches 11/17 and sell it to make some big easy money. But as of right now (midnight of 11/15) every store within a 50 mile radius already has 10-20+ people waiting outside their doors. Of all those stores Best Buy is the only one I know of that is even receiving more than 10 total units. So much for making an easy $800+ dollars. As of now the average price of a PS3 on eBay seems to be about $1,500 with bundles going for as much as $2,300+. If people are already waiting to buy one 30 hours before launch then I can only imagine what the price of a PS3 is going to be around Christmas. I'll even bet that the average price of the system alone will reach as high as $2,500 maybe even $3,000 come Christmas time. I don't think there will be another big shipment of PS3s until spring, April'ish per Xbox 360's precedent. If only I was a little quicker to hurry up and wait in line I'd be rich too. I may be waking incredibly early to try and snag a system somewhere around town but only time will tell.

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-Update- The average price is already climbing to $3,000 and ps3's aren't even available yet. I guess my prediction was a lil low. Don't be surprised if you see game consoles reach upwards of $5-7,000... maybe even $10,000 at Christmas time.

Jackson has arrived!

2006-10-30T13:53:00.000-05:00

I've never had a dog before, but I've always wanted to have one. Last Friday Jessica and I picked out a beautiful Italian Greyhound to take home with us. We named him Jackson. I'm not sure how well he was treated while he was at Critter Corner as looked like he was cowering in fear when they were getting him out of his cage. The first few days he was very skittish and scared of almost everything. Now that he's in a good home and being spoiled rotten he seems to be doing much much better. View More

Million Dollar Idea?

2006-10-17T00:58:00.000-04:00

Everyone has customized ring tones and everyone has vibrating phones; but, does anyone have a ring tone that actually vibrates to the beat?

First House?

2006-10-12T23:33:00.000-04:00

My entire family, Jessica's included, went and looked at a house today that I might possibly buy. Things didn't look as good as I had hoped. The house is old and probably needs another 10, 20 or even $40,000 put into it to get the wiring and everything else up to code. The search continues...

Top 0.3% Gamerscore

2006-10-05T11:33:00.000-04:00

Most people can say that they graduated in the top percentile of their high school or college. *(I was in the top 10% of my high school...thank you very much)* But there aren't many people that can claim to be in the top .3% of the world at anything. I am now ranked as the top .3%... or rank# 2592 out of 702,889 gamers on Xbox Live.

Those 702,889 are only the people tracking their score over at MyGamercard.net. So its very likely that there are even more people out there who aren't on Xbox Live tracking their score. Woo, go me.

"Store Use" a laptop

2006-09-12T22:06:00.000-04:00

Our new general manager is now allowing Derek and I (the two DA's for our store) to have Laptops in our car to asist in trouble shooting clients problems as well as to help us possibly sell them more products/services, uh, I think. Its a nice new Sony VGN-FE660G. Dual core with a gig of ram. Not too shabby if you ask me.

My next project is going to be getting Knoppix to run smoothly enough on this new laptop to make use of that shiny new wireless card :)

Sad/Happy

2006-08-23T20:08:00.000-04:00

Well in the midst of some incredibly bad news lately there is a small ring good fortune. By bad news I'm referring to my sister Jenny's recent and tragic mis-carriage. We were all very excited to hear that she was finally going to have a baby and unfortunately lost it only a month into her pregnancy. So I would ask anyone that might be reading this right now to pray for her since it is such a hard thing to deal with. It makes it especially hard when she is a pediatrician and deals with small children and babies daily.

The happy part of what has gone on lately is that I have recently received a promotion at the 'ol GeekSquad. I am now a Double Agent. For those of you that don't know, that means I am now the one driving around in the car from home to home fixing computers and am no longer chained behind a counter in the store. Its already pretty clear how drastically different this job is going to be, and I say that in a very good way.

Gabrial Gene Stout

2006-06-09T14:20:00.000-04:00

My sister finally had her first child yesterday on June 8th at 4:58. He was a big fella at 8 pounds 7 ounces and 21 and a half inches long. So that now officially makes me an uncle! I'm sure we're all going to spoil him rotten and enjoy every minute of it. Pics

Wisdom Teeth SUCK

2006-05-19T13:20:00.000-04:00

Walk into the surgen's office. Get a prick in my arm for the IV that'll make me unconsious in about... now! Wake up and stumble home for a whole day of throwing up any food or pills I try to eat while having my entire head wrapped up with ice packs. No matter how many times I would try to take my pain pills they would just be rejected and thrown up in a matter of minutes anyway so its now been well over 24hrs since my last dose of happy pills. Luckily, through the hour long surgery there were no complications and everything went smooth even with some of my teeth being sideways. Now its time to go take pictures of my cartoonishly swollen face and jaw while searching for a new job.

Rubbers is home!

2006-05-06T22:20:00.000-04:00

Its true! The awesomely amazing yorkshire that is Ruby has returned to her rightful home. Someone snatched her off the street after she was running around our off of her leash. But, after a hard fought battle involving one newspaper ad, a cop and some creative detective work by Cory we've finally got our awesome lil yorkie back.

Hire me

2006-05-05T22:10:00.000-04:00

No seriously... Hire me. I'm already a poor recently graduated college kid and now my hours are being cut in half of what they once were. I'm looking for a new job asap. If you know any company looking for a computer guy and/or tech intern... anything really, let me freakin know.

Ruby is gone!!! OMFG!?~

2006-05-01T00:29:00.000-04:00

Not sure whos to blame or what the reason was for Ruby to run away but our awesome ball of fur that used to live out our house is no longer with us. That is until we post reward flyers around our block convincing our neighbors that they may actually get a monetary reward out of poor college kids for returning our cool ass dog. Hopefully she will come back, but if not she'll be sorely missed.

Indianapolis Museum of Art

2006-04-30T18:22:00.000-04:00

Went to the IMA (Indianpolis Museum of Art) with my sculpture class Friday. I ended up taking 4 rolls of film. There was just too much stuff to look at, and it was all great. I actually got to see a real Alexander Calder piece. Even though Walgreens screwed up most of my film by not cutting it right or editing the film to be brighter than it should be, I still had quite a few good shots turn out. Check the flickr.

Toys toys toys

2006-04-17T18:48:00.000-04:00

Not even a month after getting my new tv my house is going to get another upgrade. We're getting a hot tub. Not just any hot tub. A freaking 8 person lighted tub with jets, waterfalls and pop-up fountains. Granted we have to now build a deck in under 10 days to accomidate it but we'll have a freaking hot tub! Our neighbors already hate us enough to call the cops on us anytime we have a party so now I guess the cops will just be called even quicker since the parties will be outdoors. The fun begins April 27th. No swimsuits required.

Drink, Tan, Drink and Drink

2006-03-19T00:52:00.000-05:00

New pics up from Spring Break 06 in Panama City, FL. One day after returning we had a crazy St. Patrick's day party at my place. Got pics of that too.

Spyder

2006-02-15T22:12:00.000-05:00

Loaded up some new pics from my phone to flickr. The majority of the new pictures are of the sculpture I'm working on. I guess its a sort of 'tribute' to my old black eclipse spyder.

Its been a minute

2006-02-06T15:05:00.000-05:00

Alright so yea, its been a while since I last posted anything. Although I haven't heard many complaints about my absence I'm sure I was missed. Well what better way to post again than to bring out some of the crappy pictures from my camera phone for everyone to enjoy.

check out my flickr for more

Schwimin in da Xbox 360's

2005-11-22T13:42:00.000-05:00

Got off work last night and sat in line for my Xbox 360. Some stupid people had been waiting in line since 8 o'clock that morning. I waited for an hour and still got mine. Not only that but once Blaine moves in we'll have 3 Xbox 360's in our house. Pathetic isn't it? Although when it comes closer to xmas and the prices on ebay start to rise... our house might end up makin a nice profit :)

Its seemless how everything works on it though. Music, Pics and Videos* (once I install WinXP Media Center) are all streamed to our Xbox's whenever we want. We can even use all the tons of songs on my computer as soundtracks to play as background music during any game we're playing When an iPod is hooked up to it you get the same options for playing music and using it as an in-game soundtrack, and its just as fast.

Greg's gonna be a badass

2005-07-17T17:25:00.000-05:00

Just found out the other day that Greg will be leaving for basic training on the 25th. So of course, he had to throw a going away party. This party raised the bar compared to the 4th of July party at Dietz's. We had to play medic for 2 people this time. Until next weekend, this is a record. By the end of the night both Jamie and Dietz were toasted. If you don't beleive me... oh well. Dietz has 90 pictures to prove it!

Cubs win!

2005-07-15T13:26:00.000-05:00

Went with John to see the Cubs game Thursday. They actually won! They almost shut out the Pirates with a score of 5-1. We ended up leaving at the top of the 8th to beat the traffic of the sold out game. It was a good idea until we both fell asleep on the way home and ended up driving all the way to South Bend before we actually made it home.

Here's some photos from the game. Take note of the wife leaning in on one of the pictures. She was hitting on John everytime her husband would leave.

I met the Legend, a star, and some other chick

2005-07-10T03:29:00.000-05:00

I just got back from doing a promo at Big Daddy's with Cory. Its crazy what kind of people you'll run into at a dirty strip club. Of course the promo was because of Ron Jeremey doin his thing for 2 nights in a row. The crazy part is that we also met a star actress from Nickelodeon. Chelsea Brummet is on the show "All That", and she's absolutely gorgeous in person. NOT ONLY did we meet her, but got her to take her shirt off in exchange for a Miller Lite shirt. Her bodyguard wasn't too happy with that, but I really don't care. I think her friend was Brooke Allison. Yea, I haven't heard of her either, but from the looks of it she had a cd come out in 2001. Must not have been a hit :P

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Update: check my Flickr page for some Ron Jeremy pics.

John's new camera

2005-07-08T17:47:00.000-05:00

My buddy John just got a new digital camera. Expect us to use the crap out of it. Here's what we've got so far.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/89647762@N00/

Anger Management 05

2005-07-08T17:40:00.000-05:00

Went to yet another concert last night. Cory got 6 free tickets to Anger Management and spread the wealth. It was a great show. Eminem had the best stage display I've ever seen. It was like his entire stage was one huge high definition TV. It kept playing movies, cartoons, and putting his big mug up there for everyone in the lawn seats to see. It was kind of crazy that Lil Jon, Ludacris, and D12 were all there but a huge majority of the audience was white.

Mayday Pics

2005-06-24T14:03:00.000-05:00

I don't have many. But it was all Greg and I could do to wrestle these pics away from those hungry horny hippos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zbowman/tags/mayday/

Long Live the Albers

2005-06-19T15:54:00.000-05:00

We had to drive an extra hour on top of the 4 it takes to get to Cincinnati because of some horrible directions. I forgot my sunglasses at Greg's grandma's house. My watch fell apart while playing cornhole with his family. I then got so drunk that after I took out my contacts, I dropped them between the passenger seat and console in my car. But that was the best family reunion I have ever been to. We got to drink free beer all day. Every female there was so hot that you have to see it to believe it. I'm going to see if the Albers will adopt me if for no other reason than to go to their family reunions from now on.

Retard wants his shirt back

2005-05-23T20:42:00.000-05:00

I finally got a good Sublime shirt the other day. I didn't even make it out of the mall before I forgot it somewhere. If you find a Sublime shirt looking like this still in the bag somewhere in the Markland Mall... give it to me. I need it. Cause I'm a retard.

She's not hot

2005-05-22T12:44:00.000-05:00

Everyone has their favorites. Fugly. One bagger. Two Bagger. But sometimes those just can't describe her good enough. So in those desperate times when you can't invent your own, use these:

"I'd do everything.... "

Butterbody
Butterface
Butterass
Butterboobs
Butterteeth

Wanna hack me?

2005-05-22T10:52:00.000-05:00

Sounds like you could completely take over my old wireless adapter if you wanted. You don't even have to be that smart. ~~Even I could do it~~ (maybe). The exploit resets the administrator's password giving you complete control. I'm not sure exactly how to do it. The example given sets the administrator password to a blank password:

http://www.example.com/changepw.html?data=........................

But if my house is so far away from civilization that I can't get a cellphone signal, I doubt my tiny wireless adapter is at any risk.

Major Nelson thinks the Xbox will be on top

2005-05-22T10:46:00.000-05:00

Major Nelson has just posted an analysis between the 360 and PS3. He works for M$/Xbox and the anlysis was done by Xbox engineers. They seem to think the 360 will actually outperform the PS3.

Neither the 360 nor PS3 have finalized their hardware. This comparison could likely change to favor the PS3 once its closer to launch.

It won't be on top forever

2005-05-13T14:19:00.000-05:00

After Microsoft unvieled the Xbox 360 on MTV they released what will actually be inside it. The specs really don't mean too much unless game developers can put it to use. It will be fun to finally see photo realistic games. This generation of games, as far as graphics go, went to the Xbox. The most obvious reason is because the 'box came into the game later than Sony.

Even though M$ is bringing the new 'box to store shelves this holiday season it would be foolish to think that it will never be toped. Especially since PS3 and Nintendo's Revolution will debut almost a year after the 'box. The Revolution will be “thickness of three standard DVD cases and only slightly longer”. Just like this generation, Nintendo will probably be the smallest.

The PS3 will be featuring Cell processing and have more processors than the 'box. They are also dedicated to backward compatibility where M$ has only said they are 'working on it'. Having an entire library of games to play on a PS3 available as well as the launch games might be enough to swing some buyer's decisions.

Since the PS3 will be out a year after the 'box I may just have enough money saved up again to have both systems. As for the Revolution. The games are probably going to be more inovative than the standard FPS or racing game, but I don't have any desire to play the next generation Pokemon.

Internet from Generous Neighbors

2005-05-13T13:30:00.000-05:00

I don’t know how many close neighbors you have but this router from Linksys could come in handy. The Wrt54G actually runs Linux. If you hack it you can turn it into a ‘client’ as well as a router. It will let you log into your neighbor’s WiFi as well as bringing the internet to any computer you have connected to the router.

I could be moving out soon and into a place with lots of close neighbors. Surely you don't expect me to pay $40/month for cable when I could find a generous/clueless neighbor that will give it away for free.

Base Closure Hits Home

2005-05-13T09:50:00.000-05:00

The Navy Marine Corps Reserve Center at Grissom is on the list to be closed. CNN has the entire list of bases that could be closed. Only the ~~Marine~~ Navy portion of Grissom is listed. So, I would assume the Air Force and ~~Navy~~ Marine personnel will be staying at Grissom. Not that it matters to me. I'm fired in July :(
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Update: The losses are going to be devistating. Grissom will lose 7 people. Indiana overall will gain ~2,200 jobs.

I suck at soldering

2005-05-12T08:24:00.000-05:00

Soldering is easy so long as you have time, patience, and skill. Its just too bad I don't have any skill. There are 4 things you need to solder onto the Xbox motherboard to get the mod chip to work:

Pin Header (where the chip attaches to the motherboard)
LAN indicator light wire
HD indicator light wire
D0 wire (tells Xbox to boot from the mod chip)

The final wire I needed to solder, the D0, to finish installing the new mod chip is where it all went to hell. Soldering everything else was actually pretty easy. The D0 wire was soldered on there just fine, but I tested it just to see if the wire was secure. It was. So secure in fact that it ended tearing the "D0" lead completely off the motherboard ruining the entire thing. I suck at soldering.

Eventually I'll fix the problem by going to the Llama and getting a replacement motherboard. This time I'll just fork over the extra cash and make them to the soldering for me.

Shortcut to XBMC binaries

2005-05-08T22:47:00.000-05:00

XBMC can't give you the files you actually put on your Xbox to run their media center. Why? Because somewhere along the line its illegal. They make it known on their site that the files are out there but refuse to give you any pointers on finding them. I'm not like that. I'll help a brother out.

Earlier I pointed you to a tutorial that basically points you to a channel on IRC, #xbins Efnet. After going there, the channel bot informed me that there is an easier way. The shortcut is to just ftp into:

host: xbmp.uk.xbins.org
login: xbins
pass: homebrew

From the info in #xbins, builds of the XBMC are posted to that ftp very frequently, if not nightly. It is worth it to see what other homebrew apps #xbins has to offer. There's alot of them. The only reason for the shortcut to XBMC, I would guess, is because its downloaded more often than anything else they offer.

Google maps Area 51

2005-05-08T16:32:00.000-05:00

Ever wanted to use Google Maps to see something you weren't allowed to see? Me too. I don't really care about Area 51, but these pictures are fun to look at. These are some of the more interesting things Google Maps is actually allowed to show you about Area 51:

First
South of that
A little east of the base (Whats in the dried up lake bed?)
Crop, uh, triangles? in the desert
About 5 miles east of that triangle

Other interesting Google Satellite Maps like the Neverland Ranch or Bill Gate's house.

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Update: Don't believe everything you read on the net... The google maps of 'Area 51' actually map the area around Groom Lake in Southern Nevada and don't really show where the aliens landed.

Xecuter3 is coming

2005-05-08T16:18:00.000-05:00

I placed the order for the Xecuter3 today and should be seeing it in my mailbox by Wednesday. Time to put down Forza and start dismantling the old Xbox.

I found a way to get Xbox binaries thanks to NiNo. It sounds alot like the process you go through to get free software from #warez on Efnet. Just get on #xbins and follow NiNo's step-by-step tutorial. It may not cover everything, but it will show you how to grab the files you need to get XBMC or any other app onto your Xbox.

I’ll post what sites I used for guidance and/or problems I ran into while installing the modchip and XBMC. Same goes for when I pickup the Xecuter3 faceplate w/LCD readout.

Podcast review

2005-05-04T19:58:00.000-05:00

I listened to the previously listed podcasts. Most of them in their entirety. Overall, I'm pretty impressed.

While the Geek News Central may not be for everyone. (probably not even for me) It did have quite alot of useful info for those of you in the Tech industry. Subjects ranged from Creative Commons and its new applications in Flicker to general discussion over the new Tiger OS X release.

Dawn and Drew are definately not for everybody. Like most comedy radio talkshows, it has its funny moments. I just find it hard to recommend a husband and wife 'shooting the shit' talkshow over Bob and Tom's '5 million listeners can't be wrong' radio program.

The iPodlounge podcast contains alot of useful info to those new to the iPod world. Since I have already scoured most of their site in search of info for my iPod most of what he had to say was old news. It covered low to high priced headphones and standalone speaker systems as well as a few new features to their website. It did make some comparisons of the iPod to the PSP which would definately be of interest to those shopping the portable media player market. Not bad overall, but since this was only their second podcast future versions may prove to be more informative.

Now I've got to get back to making my new 400GB Segate HD play nice with Windows and convince my old beatup Thinkpad that Linux is good for it.

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Update - The thinkpad puked when I tried to feed it Linux. Piece of crap.

Trying out podcasting

2005-05-04T11:18:00.000-05:00

I've heard the comments on podcasting before and how great it is. Now I'm trying it out for myself. Over at iPodder.org there is a great little app that will keep you up to date on all the podcasts you can throw at it. It also includes a few lists that will hopefully bring me some good content. There is a list of the top 50 podcasts they track. Also, some other popular lists are there to help you sort through the podcasts that might not be worth your time.

I'm currently subscribed to:

Reel Reviews Radio
Inside Mac Radio
Engadget
iPodlounge
Geek News Central
The Dawn and Drew Show

If any of these suck, I'll let you know.

First of Many?

2005-05-02T21:24:00.000-05:00

I'm just doing this to keep track of stuff I find on the web. Maybe I'll put it all to use one day. Probably not. Here's today's finds:

X-Ecuter X3 Mod chip for Xbox

teamxecuter.com (bios for the modchip)
X-Ecuter X3 Control Panel

Xbox Media Center source code on SourceForge

Absolutely no place offered binaries of XBMC (shit!)

Let me know of anywhere that offers XBMC binaries. Microsoft is ok with me; but, there's no way I'm going to pay for a XDK just to compile some code that will make my Xbox illegal and banned from Live.

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