I judge your chili harshly!!!

I realized today that there are very few things in this world that I am more judgmental about than Chili. Let me explain...

Casie and I went to a chili cook off. The even started at 11:00 in the morning and there were about 30-40 participants. Both the top and bottom levels of the local expo center were filled with booths serving out all sorts of Chili, two live bands, and lots of places to get some beer.

While tasting the various chili, I found myself passing very harsh judgment on a lot of the different chili. Some were too thin and soup-like while others lacked essential spices that give that quintessential chili flavor. I walked away from this even with a few pearls of wisdom:

1. The investigative reporting team at KY3 couldn't manage to investigate themselves up a descent chili recipe and instead served chili-esque soup.

2. The chemistry department actually makes some pretty good food...as disturbing as that is.

3. Signing a waver to eat some food is just too troublesome for me.

4. Stripper chili is just inheritly off-putting.

5. "Chili cook off" is code for "an excuse to start drinking at 11:15"

A quick post that requires little to no work on my part...

So I was talking to Walter and he directed me the following video...




But I thought that everyone should be exposed to the following creepy-fantasticness:




Side note: How do you like the new layout and style of our blog? I didn't know it had changed either. I think I like it. Good job Casie!!!!

Unicycling

Yesterday I made my first real attempt to ride my unicycle. Joe and I walked over to the tennis courts at our apartment complex and I used the chain link fence around the courts to help me balance on one side, and Joe on the other. It went better than I expected, not once did I even come close to breaking anything, but after forty minutes of trying to balance, my legs had turned to noodles and I had to call it quits. Joe has Tuesday off work because of the holiday so he is going to help me try again, I am very excited.

Spooklight

Saturday night we went traipsing around the countryside looking for the above paranormal phenomena with some friends. It is called the Spook Light and resides somewhere south of Joplin, MO almost into Oklahoma. As far as weird apparitions go, it fairly well documented and we had high hopes for our potential ghostly visitor. Needless to say we did not find it. To many drunken teenagers getting there kicks out there must have scared it off. Oh well, we had a lovely drive and fun walk down a few spooky roads. As for ghosts, maybe next time.

Joe's Future Career

Last night, while walking Una, Joe was explaining to me how HTTP Proxy Servers work. Now, of course, I don't have the faintest idea why I asked, but from this conversation we have discovered Joe's calling.

As the discussion waned Joe stated wistfully, "If I ever live out in the country I think I'll make a server farm."

So many questions came to mind. How will he harvest his crop of servers? Will a heavy frost reduce his server farm's production? Will I be needed to help plow the server field? I literally fell to the ground laughing with all the silly server imagery floating about in my brain.

Joe's future is clear, he will be a fabulous server farmer.

Glory?

I know, I know. Where is more information about the controller coffee table? Why hasn't there been a deluge of new information causing small fits of glee to break out across the country?

Well, all of our visitors just left. And I haven't gotten around to posting any new information yet. When you combine those two reasons you wind up with some pretty solid footing I think.

On the bright side, the last round of visitors out here (Danielle and Walter) were both mighty impressed at the quality of the project that Seng and I have so painstakingly worked on up to this point. Casie was mighty impressed as well. She is begrudgingly less reluctant to have it as a coffee table, if only a little bit.

I was also asked to clarify some information because it was apparently not clear from my earlier posts.

I initially described this project as making a "giant, working, Nintendo controller coffee table" ...and I meant every word of it.

By "giant", I meant relative to the original Nintendo controller not giant as in a really huge-ass coffee table.

By "Nintendo controller", I meant a controller from the original nerd-tastic NES gaming system.

By "working" I meant functioning as in it will have a cord that you can plug into an NES and play Super Mario Bros. or Track and Field or Zelda or any other game that used the original Nintendo controller. Thats right folks, once its done I am throwing a come-over-and-use-the-giant-ass-controller party. It will also be "working" as in able-to-hold-drinks-magazines-and-trinkets.

More Glory Value For Your Dollar

I know, I know...its been far too long since the last (and first) update of the Giant-Working-Nintendo-Controller-Coffee table. This may have lead some of you to believe that progress had not been made. I am happy to report that this is not the case.

Me and my collaborator (I can't spell accomplis ... acomplis ... accompliss ... achomplisc ... $#@%!!) have been working on a scaled drawing to base our wonderful invention off of. Thank you AutoCad!!!

Here is part of our scaled drawing (a scale of 1:11 thank you):



Dimensions are EXACT.

Also, we are more than just great minds. We have purchased two sheets of MDF and they lay at my father's wood shop waiting to be transformed from mere slabs of boring wood chips glued together under high pressure into something truly awe inspiring and joyous.

We leave momentarily to work further on our project. Today we plan to actually cut some wood, hopefully assemble it and, if all goes well, start to paint it.

I will update again tomorrow (read that: sometime this week).

Let the Saga Begin

I am back and more determined than ever to blog at a consistent rate. Casie is soon to be leaving on here clinical and I figure that I should blog up a storm while she is gone.

Luckily, I have a subject in mind for the grueling series of blogs before me.

As many faithful readers of our blog (aka: our friends) already know, a friend of ours is visiting this week. He has an interest in nerdy things, much like me. In a rather ambitious move, we have decided to make a giant, working, Nintendo controller coffee table for the living room.

Thats right, bask in the awesome-ness of that statement. I'll let it soak in.

...

Alright enough soaking.

My excitement is tempered by the feeling of looming disappointment though. "Why?!" you may shout in shock, awe, and inquiry (as indicated by the punctuation "?!"). Well there are 2 reasons that I may be disappointing. The first is that our current progress is as follows: we have decided on a scale (11:1 in case you were wondering) and after several hours of cumbersome measurements and re-measurements, we have decided to use the metric system for our project.

The second reason that I feel the looming threat of disappointment is this projects overall ambitiousness. It is quite the task to construct a 4 1/2 foot long coffee table, whether resembling a Nintendo controller or not.

In any event it should be entertaining to read along as we attempt to construct a giant, working, Nintendo controller coffee table. If it works, its pure brilliance may blind some of you when we post the pictures. If it doesn't work, you can all laugh at the near-audible shattering of my self-esteem and the life-crumbling effects of drastic failure as I am reduced to a shell of my former self. (more likely, if we don't succeed, it will sit, unfinished, in the corner of the living room where most of you will get to see it when/if you come to visit us)

More goats

Me: "So, are you going to take your pet goat for walks?"

Z: "Totally."

K: "Or maybe you could take it jogging."

Me: "I don't think that goats can run so fast."

Random guy in the back: "They do if you give them epinephrine."

What If?

Last night found Joe, myself, and some friends sitting around a table reading/answering questions from my "what if" book. Both of the boys where more than slightly inebriated. From this experience, I have learned that being the sober one at a big group over share is totally fun and entertaining. Also, alcohol really does help people unclench.

Rock Climbing

These photos are super blurry because we had to use the night time function on the camera and we were all a little shaky and tired, but here is proof that we did it: