O' Yee Of Good Faith

Enjoy 2013 everyone

I'm going away for a bit. A hiatus of sorts.

Watch this space.


Dav out

I'm at a payphone trying to call home
All of my change I spent on you
Where have the times gone, baby it's all wrong
Where are the plans we made for two?

Greetings,

I caught this on the news today:

"Starbucks to phase out coloring from crushed beetles"

I'm like, yeah, so maybe its on their logo or on cups or something. Turns out I'm wrong. Oh. So. Wrong.

"Starbucks Corp said on its blog on Thursday that it will stop using a natural, government-approved coloring made from crushed beetles in its strawberry flavoring by late June, bowing to pressure from some vegetarian customers."


Wow. Crushed bugs? Seems like Starbucks has been using the extract in its strawberry frappuccinos and smoothies, as well as some deserts like raspberry swirl cake.

1. Lucky I'm not a strawberry frapp kinda guy
2. I'm more of a cheese cake person

Turns out that this isn't a new thing. Wikipedia says that the dye has been in use since the 15th century to dye material a deep crimson colour.

Now, FYI, this is what goes into your drink (ground up of course):

Shaken, not stirred please

Once you get over the whole "There's BUGS IN MY COFFEE?" it seems like this is pretty much a normal thing, the US FDA says its ok with them.

Uh, mom, why's that barista crushing something to a bloody pulp and adding it to my drink?

Well veterinarians vegetarians all around the world should be able to breathe a sigh of releif as Starbucks will be amending their recipes to make use of lycopene, a natural, tomato-based extract.

Next we'll have this happen and give up on that as well.

We should have used beetles instead!

Dav out

I like it like that!
Hey windows down, chillin’ with the radio on
I like it like that!
Damn, the sun’s so hot, make the girls take it all off
I like it like that!
Yeah, one more time, I can never get enough of everybody
Sing it right back, I like it like that!

Greetings,

So yeah, that's pretty much it. Wrote up a resignation letter, and have some stuff packed for my move to Estonia, flight and train ticket booked (but have not paid the full sum till the house rental agreement is written up!).

Pretty excited, the role I've taken up is something completely out of my normal range of skills, I've been given the opportunity to work as a junior tradesman for a local Viru Valge brewing company. Pretty wild, pretty out there kind of job but this is something I've been thinking about my whole life.

Estonia's Coat of Arms

For the past 3 weeks everyone I know has practical given me the riot act on why I shouldn't move. Well, I've weighed my options, and in the worst case scenario, I can always go back to IT if I need to.

Read more on the amazing country here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia
http://www.visitestonia.com/en/
http://estonia.eu/

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/en.html

Gives you an idea where Estonia is

My first concern is the weather (never really been a cold weather guy) and second would be the language. Food, I think I can resolve.

I may have to change the blog title soon to something more appropriate, and I might be posting in Estonian or Finnish soon.

Wish me luck!


Dav out.

Greetings,

Well I spent the weekend thinking of how I could execute a plan I had in my head on building a note / recipe holder that could double up as a sign or marker board (that I could clean easily). "Clean" being the key word here.

I've been toying around with the general idea and design in my head for a few weeks, and since I wasn't getting any work done just thinking of it, I thought lets just jump in and get this done.

Pictured are recipe's stuck on my new holder / marker board. Behind it is a doorway to hell. So uh, stay away

Generally I wanted to get rid of some spare scrap aluminum I had lying around. I really wish i had some more ferrous material instead so this little hack could have turned into something I could use magnets with as well. *shrug* next time I guess.

No use re-writing it, click on the link below to get sucked into a detailed run through:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Kitchen-recipe-holder-sign-board/

Enjoy!

Dav out

Skies are crying, I am watching
Catching teardrops in my hands
Only silence, as it's ending, like we never had a chance

Greetings,

Recently I've been peppered by a different kind of pop, namely K-Pop. I blame MTV (MTV Asia to be precise) because they tend to lace their normal music video programms with K-Pop music videos.

From what I've seen so far Korean Pop (K-Pop) comprises of a special formula:

1. Male artist - androgynous
2. Female artist - as many as you can pack into a bus
3. Female artist - legs, as many as you can pack into a bus
4. Any artist - must be able to say these words in English - "Yeah. Oh baby. Yes. OK etc"
5. Not afraid of glitter and makeup

Seriously, some of these Korean bands have up to 13 members.

Thirteen.

Hi, can we just have the band in here please? Oh, you ARE the band?

For the Korean won before the North–South division, see Korean won.

These aren't cute girls, they're actually Voltron in disguise. You just need to know how to assemble them the right way

Greetings,

2012 has been a blur. Happy New Year. Happy Chinese New Year.

I can't seem to sort things out to make some breathing room, but I'm working on it. 2012 started out rough, its been a challenge but its not going to be too difficult to pull through.


Dav out

I can taste the tension like a cloud of smoke in the air
Now I'm breathing like I'm running cause you're taking me there
Don't you know...you spin me out of control

Greetings,

I use a LOT of Excel in my everyday life. I blame work (of course I blame a lot of things on work, but that's for another blog post).

Crazy, but not that crazy

Excel makes things..orderly. Order is good! Order is next to Godliness I hear. Anyway, I'm sidetracking.

I periodically (re: every Friday) send out an email to some of the guys at work with some weekend music, and after a while I was receiving requests for spesific songs and couldn't keep track of what I've sent out and what I had cued on for the following weeks.

Cue Excel!

So from a 3 column sheet, I progressed on to a 8 column Excel sheet, and more importantly, a drop down for song status where I could select 'Sent' or 'Not Sent'.

After a while (22 new rows) I was sorting each row by Status and I realised the way I was managing the 'Sent' status could be done in a more logical, automatic manner. So I fired up Google and looked up IF statements as well as Nested Statments.


Microsoft's Help page was not so much help because I was not looking for a complex macro. About.com's page on nested IF statements hit the nail on the head for me. This page had a simple to understand example, and got me thinking that I could just simplify an IF formula in Excel to do what I wanted.

My requirements were simple, if I put in a date in a column (Sent Date), I wanted the column (Sent Status) to change to "Sent". If there was no date value, I'd want the column to say "Not Sent".


Warning, formula below!


Sample excel below FYI
http://www.mediafire.com/?ksktpp1aqraljxg

So I've nerded out this week. I am ashamed.

Dav out

I resolve to call her up a thousand times a day
Ask her if she'll marry me
in some old fashioned way
But my silent fears have gripped me
long before I reach the phone
And before my tongue has tricked me
Must I always be alone

Greetings, It's one of those dates that's really memorable. Pretty neat date / time, the next we'll have would be next year when its 12/12/12, 12:12:12. So we've almost maxed out the 12 hour count, lets enjoy it while we're able to. Another added advantage is that its a Friday, so TGIF.

Shown - cool date and time. Not shown - the crazy drinking planned for later

Greetings,

I've been putting this off for a while, mainly because I didn't want to jump on the bandwagon. So, here it is. RIP Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011).

There are so many photos out there of him, and some of them have been used on every site possible. Instead, I'm opting to have this photo, to remember him by. Taken in 1979 (wow, special year that eh?), you cant but help think that he's a natural born sales person. A pioneer even.

Steve Jobs poses with an Apple computer, September 1979. Photograph: Ralph Morse/Time & Life Pictures/Getty

His passing was pretty much a shock, mainly due to the fact that the new iPhone was launched not days before.

I've never really been a fan of Apple products, but my issues with Apple were mainly centered around the proprietary way Apple's products worked. iTunes nearly cost me my sanity once, so never again I promised myself. Did their products work? Yes. Did the products do things in a new, unique, human way? Yes. And that's where Jobs excelled. That's where I think Apple excelled. Pushing the envelope.

Let's see who picks up the mantle now.

Jobs - the man with a vision, the money to pull it off, and the insane mad drive to make things happen

Huge loss. Would love to read the full autobiography when it comes out. For now, there's a great review here.

Dav out

Oh my life is changing everyday
Every possible way
Though my dreams, it’s never quite as it seems
Never quite as it seems

Greetings,

Its a huge pet peeve for me, that in this time and age, we're still using pieces of glass and silver paint in vehicles that can cost up to $1 million. I'm talking about rear-view and wing mirrors.

Imagine that! We're placing our lives and very expensive automobiles in the hands of glass, that costs maybe say $5 (just the glass, the case etc might cost you more). The automotive industry has improved by leaps and bounds since the first Ford T, but we cant seem to get away from rear-view and wing mirrors.

If you sneezed just right I'll shatter

Its 2011! We should have like, laser rangefinders with video cameras and FLIR built into them!

Pictured - FLIR. Not pictured - deer he just ran over

I can see the issues related to having a bunch of video screens or cameras built into your car and dash, but they cant be any more distracting then having to look at 3 separate pieces of glass. With the technology available, we're able to build in proximity detectors, distance (rangefinder) measurements (great for parallel parking) and, if you're feeling really high tech, an Idiot Detector 7000™. Just maybe.

Me? On top of getting rid of those silly wing mirrors (how many times has someone smashed yours off?), I'd want to mount a machine gun on my car. Just for those special moments when you have someone cut you off or jump queue. Would be perfect.

What? Too much?

So yeah.

Maybe its just me.

Dav out

Hey, if we can't solve any problems
Then why do we lose so many tears?
Oh, so you go again
When the leading man appears
Always the same theme
Can't you see
We've got ev'rything going on and on and on 

Greetings,

Well, now that we've set the tone below (that I'm playing Fallout: New Vegas), I think its safe for me to come out with my very own New Vegas drinking game. I'm pretty sure someone's done this before (no, I haven't Googled it just yet) but here's my spin on things. We'll be using tequila shots to measure the potency of each item, ranging between 1 to 5 shots (at 5 shots, you're the winner, champ!). So get that bottle of José Cuervo (aged, none of that white clear stuff) and your shot glasses, because we're headed to New Vegas!

Note: Drink sensibly.
Note # 2: I just noticed the almost pun (really?), Mexico, tequila, Vegas... you feeling this?

1. Take a shot every time you shoot a coyote or scorpion (any type)

This might be a small problem, because at some point in time, you'll end up killing quite a few of these pesky critters (see Hidden Valley, huge spawn point).

Potency: 3 shots of tequila







2. Take a shot every time you run out of ammo (of any type - bullets or energy weapons)

VERY small chance. You might run out of ammo for ONE specific weapon you might have on you, but you're almost never dry in this game. Unless you're that guy that insists on carrying one weapon and it runs empty during a run in with a Deathclaw.  Bye, it was nice knowing you.

Potency: 1 shot of tequila (and maybe some milk on the side)







3. Take a shot every time you hear a profanity

DANGER Will Robinson! This might put you over. I cant remember what the rating is on this game, but the colourful language will make it hard to stay sober. Or pick fights with your TV.


Potency: 4 shots of tequila (and a body shot)









4. Take a shot every time you hear an NPC say "Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter" (or something alike)

I'm sorry ma'am, your son died while playing a drinking game based on New Vegas. There's not much left of him, his body burst into flames when we tried to pry him out of the couch. He was just that flammable.

No, seriously.

They say these phrases ALL the time! Among others:
- When I got this assignment I was hoping there would be more gambling.
- We won't go quietly, the legion can count on that
- Ave. True to Caesar.
 
Since the longest gaming run I've had so far has been 6 hours, I've been tortured over and over again with these lines (I'm on the NCR end by the way). At one point, I saved the game, and then went all Apocalypse Now in an NCR encampment. That was satisfying.


Potency: 5 shots of tequila and Charlie Sheen crazy eyes thrown into the mix. Good luck and god bless you my son.


 











So, now you're drunk, and you're crazy like Charlie Sheen. Congrats.

Me, I'm going to play me some more Fallout New Vegas!

Dav out

Nevermind
I’ll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best
For you too
Don’t forget me
I beg
I’ll remember you said
Sometimes it lasts in love
But sometimes it hurts instead

Greetings,

So I've been playing quite a bit of Fallout: New Vegas, and I must say, its a pretty polished game. Then again, this is in theory my first exposure to the Fallout world, so what's new and mind blowing to me, might be something old and stale for other people who've played the previous few Fallout games. By now, the developers would have had plenty of time to tweak and fix things that aren't working in terms of gameplay mechanics.

Oh. this gun here? I'm uh, just happy to see you, that's all.

As for the general storyline, I think the developers have managed to build up a very rich atmospheric post apocalyptic world. Interactions with the NPC's, random things to kill and the general world is pretty tight. Of course you cant escape the usual need to grind, but the game spawns plenty of things to shoot and kill, though after a while these chance encounters get a little more easier. I remember cursing the very gods that came up with a Giant Radscorpion, but these days the only things that really give me pause are the Deathclaws (I found me some armour piercing bullets!).

I'm just happy to see you, and want to give you a nice big hug. Just mind the claws there

I'm pretty sure I'm 70% through with the game, and because the game pits you against yourself in 'moral' / 'karma' based activity, I think there should be at least 2 - 3 more rounds of replayability left in the game.

Look out for more!

Dav out.