Lewies Blog

So a while back, Aurora posted an entry about some creative desktop wallpaper. A group of individuals have taken a picture of there computers environment without the computer screen. Editing the photo, they were able to crop the area where there monitor should be and reshape the image to fit on the screen. The screen was then displayed with the image while another picture was taken to achieve the effect of a transparent screen.

I have been wanting to try my hand at this for a while. I finally decided that I was in the mood for a quickie and went to work. My pet cat Gizmo was setting next to me. This cat never wants to leave once he has found a nice spot to set near me. What a perfect centerpiece.

The first image was easy. I just set up a tripod and took a picture. I placed my laptop in front of him and then took another picture. Now I knew what area to pull out of the picture. Now at this point, I could just cut out one picture and let the second picture show through - but that would be cheating. I needed to take a picture of the laptop with Gizmo as the background wall paper.

I pulled out a portion of the image that I needed and reshaped it to be a rectangular image to fit the entire screen. I used scaling and perspective transformations. I then loaded the image onto the laptop as the background. I then set it up to a screen saver too so that I could get a picture without all the icons and the start bar in the way.

The tripod was still in the same position from the first photograph, but the laptop was not. I had used the computer and moved the laptop to get to it. I didn’t even think before I took the picture. I forgot to line everything up! Of all the things to do wrong.

Gizmo at this point had spotted a more comfortable spot where the laptop wasn’t setting against him and moved himself away. It will have to do. I now have experience of the process of doing this. If there is a next time, I will put more effort into perfecting my technique.

Tags: Photography, Transparency, Wallpaper, Pets, Gizmo, Experiments, Tricks

I started to clean my gerbils many different compartments today. In each compartment, they have different bedding material. I do this so I can give them a choice. They can choose from wood shavings, sand, cotton-like bedding, Dusting Powder, Alfalfa, and … Toilet Paper.

That’s rite - toilet paper. Of all the different types of bedding, they prefer the toilet paper. They play in all of the other materials, but home is where the softness is.

My wife and I discovered the use of toilet paper after one of our cats decided to play with a new roll of toilet paper. Angel just picked it all up and handed it to me in a big bundle of fluff. It was clean so I just handed it to the gerbils.

These guys can build some pretty mean nests with the stuff. I didn’t even bother derolling the stuff today. I just put an entire roll in the cage and let them have at it. I may have to rethink my decision because it is taking them some time to chew through it.

Besides the toilet paper, they go crazy over the toilet paper rolls. They love to chew things and the stiff paper keeps them happy. I kind of look forward to change the roll just so that I can give the cardboard roll. If I don’t get to it first, everyone else throws them out from habbit.

Tags: Gerbils, Pets, Toilet Paper, Bedding, Nests

What a busy day. I was awakened early and spent a while going through finances with my mother in-law. We headed on out and got all of our shopping done. By time we were done with everything, we had second thoughts about taking the kids to the Renaissance Festival. We were tired, it was hot, and finances would be much better when the next pay check rolls around.

To make up for it, we took the kids out to McDonald’s and then headed on over to Toys ‘R Us. I went outside and took many pictures of my niece in her princess outfit. She got changed and we all started playing hide-and-seek. After that, the kids and I were playing in the back yard and bugs started to come out so we went inside.

Earlier, I had picked up an Atari Flashback 2 system at Wal-Mart for roughly $30. It has 40 games built in and two joysticks. If you find yourself acquiring one of these things, the first thing you want to do is throw out the joysticks. They just don’t work. You have to press the joysticks very hard in the direction you want to move. Fortunately I had 5 joysticks in the attic from my Atari 400 (God rest its’ soul).

My niece started begging to play it as soon as I started getting things running. My nephew soon followed suit and they were occupied for hours. My mother in-law just looked at me and laughed. It was amazing to see these young kids get a kick out of playing the old games when they have the newer game consoles to choose from.

I’m all beat, but I’ve been told that they had just as much fun today as if they had actually gone to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. That’s a relief and makes me feel all nice and happy.

Tags: Video Games, Family, Shopping, Finances

I found out through Atomic Bombshell that apparently today (August 31st) is a special day for bloggers. It is called Blog Day. It is up to us bloggers to find 5 new blogs that are not so much like our own blog, and present them to our viewers. This in turns helps get the blogosphere connected even tighter and introduces people to new blogs.

I’m not too sure about the “new” part, but here are 5 blogs regardless. They are not so much like my own, so have some fun and check them out. Just remember to come back after you’re done.

1. Advent Game
2. Hecho en Mexico
3. A Family Guy
4. Unspoken-Life
5. Seriously Trippy Art

One thing that I thought was interesting was the logo “Blog”. It is actually the number 3108 wich in turn is the 31st day of the of 8th month. This reminds me of hacker/gamer text known as leet speak.

Tags: BlogDay2005, BlogDay, Holiday, Blogging, Blog, Blogosphere, Blogs, 3108

So I was starting to wonder about my own name, Lewis. What is the meaning behind the name of Lewis? The mystery of names is sometimes so powerful that you can not stop wondering about it. There was only one thing to cure this curiosity that I had about my name.

A common dictionary will state the following:

Lewis: A dovetailed iron tenon made of several parts and designed to fit into a dovetail mortise in a large stone so that it can be lifted by a hoisting apparatus. Also called lewisson.

I am not a thing, but it is a little funny to see Lewis in a dictionary. I was really happy to see that there wasn’t some foul picture next to the term, as children often tease about. I did a little searching on the internet and found many different meanings for the name Lewis. Most meanings were of a famouse fighter or warrior.

1. Famouse or renowned fighter
2. (Teutonic) “famous war.” Another form is Louie. Lewis is also an English adaptation of the Celtic Llewellyn. Heroic, self-sacrificing. He is inclined to be headstrong but has an unimpeachable sense of honour.
3. (German) Famous in Battle; famous warrior
4. (Old English) Famous Warrior
5. (Old German, French) renowned fighter.
6. (German) Famous Warrior
7. lonely, sad git, bit of a tosser

All seemed reasonable meanings for Lewis except the last one. It looked like a list of funny definitions of common names.

I also came accross a few links showing how to write my name in other languages. I found the Mayan and Elvish languages to be attractive and tried my hand at writing “Lewis” with them. I think I got a little carried away with the Mayan one.

Here are som links to the different languages that you can try out on your own.

• Mayan Glyphs
• Inuit (Eskimo)
• Egyptian
• Babylonian
• Viking Runes
• Chinease
• Japanese
• Hawaiian (Lewis is Kaulana and Lui.)
• Elvish
• Latin (Lewis Moten of US is Lodovico Moten)
• Baybayin

Tags: Lewis, Names, Glyphs, Meanings, Mysteries, Definitions, Languages

My brother is a health nut. Actually, he’s just a vegetarian. I check in on things from time to time about vegetarians, organic food and what not. I came accross an article advising how to be frugal about organic foods. There were some helpful tips to avoid the high priceson being frugal.

One tip that caught my eye was the following:

If you have room to raise your own meat, you can save even more.

I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say that I’m a dirty thinker. I almost died laughing. Anyhow, my brother doesn’t eat meat at all. Last I checked, that was pretty much the definition of a vegetarian.

The article went on with a few other tips. Some were “no-brainers”. Others had me wondering what planet the auther was from. I’m sure my brother already considered most of these tips. Any how, for the rest of my readers, here is a summary of the tips:

• By in bulk
• Buy direct
• Cook from scratch
• Make your own soy milk and tofu
• Grind grain for bread
• Join a co-op
• Buy uncertified food from farmers
• Hunt for coupons on the internet
• Grow your food

Tags: Brother, Health Nut, Vegetarian, Organic Food, Organic, Food, Tips, Frugal, Meat, Dirty Mind

I listen to dance music pretty often. In fact, my favorite XM station is 81 BPM. One song that comes on every now and then is Satisfaction, by Benny Benassi. Angel started describing a song to me that she heard once and I knew rite away that this was that song. As I found it on my iPod, she got excited.

I keep telling her that she has to see the video because she’ll crack up laughing. It looks like a commercial for heavy duty appliances. Anyhow, if she reads this post, then my deed is done.

Tags: Satisfaction, Benny Benassi, Dance, Music, XM Radio, Song, Video, Music Video, iPod, Angel, Link, Advertising

A few weeks ago, my wife noticed a bush growing on our property with green berries. She said that when she was young, she and her sisters would collect the berries when they became ripe.

Her older sister had taught them how to make leprechaun traps with them. They would burry the berries under the ground and wait. They had caught a leprechaun once in the trap, but let the older sister have him since it was her idea.

Kids are funny with how they think. Things don’t need to make sense in order to work. As an adult, I’m thinking of how impractical this is. Of course, I was missing the bigger point. Leprechauns are not real in the adult world, and this was having fun with a childs active imagination.

Growing up, I would have an active imagination myself. We had a long piece of plywood behind the garage that was never used for anything. I got a toilet paper roll and imagined building a vehicle to give people tours of our back yard. Wheels would go under the plywood. The kitchen chairs could be used as seats. Umbrellas could be used as shade. The toilet paper roll would be used to broadcast my voice.

There were so many things left out of the picture for my imaginary tour guide transporter. As a child, these didn’t concern me. I was having fun just thinking about it and looking for other junk that I could use for it.

Tags: Leprechaun, Trap, Leprechaun Trap, Berries, Imagination, Children, Active Imagination, Tour, Tour Guide, Childhood, Memories, Childhood Memories, Junk, Treasure

I thought it was a joke, but sure enough Gizmodo advertised a real product called Liquid Ass. The first thought through my mind was diarrhea. Apparently it is supposed to mimic ass sweat. Its sole purpose is to scare girls in a childish way. The company even has a video on its site where some girls wouldn’t go into a portable toilet due to it.

This has just as much humor to it as the variouse names of chili sauces that I see at the DC 101 Chili Cookoff Festival each year. However, the portable toilets over there are untouchable due to the pile and stench of “stuff” that overflows the toilets.

I’m thinking that your average stink bomb or fart spray would do the same trick. So now it all comes down to price, and how often you plan to pull this gag. If you really want to get economical, there are a few do-it-yourself instructions on the internet to make your own stink bomb.

Tags: Liquid ASS, Perfume, Smell, Stink, Girls, Odor, Nasty, Funny, Humor, Liquified Horror, Discusting, Repulsive, Ass, Butt, Liquid, Stench, Smelly, Products

Yesterday I received a shelving unit from work to place all of my computers on. I was able to assemble it and place the computers and monitor on it before I headed to sleep. Today was the real challenge. I had to determine how I was going to bring power to the unit as well as the internet.

My sister in-law woke up while I was untangling cables in the lounge and started to help out. I moved the firewall downstairs so that the hub could be moved to the shelves. I got all three computers set up in the lounge but I was having a problem figuring out how to run a long enough wire over to the hub in the other room. No matter where I placed the firewall, I started running into variouse problems. It looked like I was going to have to get out the crimpers and create a new cable.

My sister in-law and I played out several scenarios. We decided to bring the cable modem itself downstairs so that we could then use a shorter wire to connect it to the firewall. The longer cable could then be used to connect the firewall up to the hub. She helped me get the coaxile cable through a hole in the ceiling and things really started going smothely.

Not only were we able to get the internet working for the three computers in the lounge, but I was able to also attach a splitter and get cable working on the TV that they had down there. We had some problems with the internet connection and I took a trip to wal-mart. I saw that there are now two different types of Coaxile cable (RJ6 and RJ59). Rather then getting a signal amplifier, I settled for the better cable, RJ6, and got a gold-plated signal splitter to replace the old one that we had. My sister in-law did the honor of connecting them and all of our problems vanished. I’m going to call the cable company about getting a second digital cable box for the lounge downstairs.

After the lounge was up and running, I concentrated on getting the quad up and running. The shelf is nice in that I can run wires through the sides and they don’t clutter up the back of the shelves. I have a KVM switch that lets me use all four computers using only 1 mouse, keyboard and monitor.

With the help of my sister in-law we started running wires for power and network cables under the floors. She had a hollow tube that she would drop a rope through. She then slid the tube under the rug and held one end of the rope from the other side of the hallway. Pulling the tube out from the rug, we were left with just the rope with each end exposed from the carpet on each side. She tied one end around a cable and pulled it through to the other side. What a nice trick.

I spent a good while getting all the wires connected to everything in the rite order. I need better network cables as the ends are busted off of most of my existing cables. They keep comming out of the sockets.

I was able to bring up each computer one at a time. Everything is working just fine. The Mac is a little hard to use because I can’t use the regular keyboard or mouse with it. I have a Mac keyboard connected directly to it rite now. I got a special adapter so that I could use a PC monitor with it.

In other news, I found a top for the two 10 gallon aquariums that I have that is compatable with habitrail tubes. I’m starting to rebuild my gerbils playground. My cats love it.

Tags: Shelf, Shelving, Rack, Shelving Unit, Furniture, Hardware, Router, Firewall, Hub, Cables, Connections, Lounge, Sister In-Law, Organizing, Computers