What else is new? On call all this week for work, so I'm kind of in standby mode all the time. Gotta go to sleep early, eat well, avoid drinks....you know sometimes a constant state of preparedness can be more draining than an actual event. Guess that falls under the stupid but true category. - Best 11 seconds I've spent all week, Hamster learns about inertia. - Jimmy Kimmel's best of unnecessary censorship. Not really sure which of the two are best, but I've watched that damn hamster like 5 times....

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So one of the last things to do in order to get that room painted and done was to paint the door. You remember....we ordered 9...or enough to replace every door in the house. Guess what, painting a 6 panel door is really really hard to do by hand. Both Jen and I took a turn at putting a coat of latex paint on it, and it's just back breaking. Queue the Wagner Powersprayer. Now this belonged to Jen's father, and her mom was nice enough to ship it to us so we could use it on the trim and other things a few years ago. I tried using it when doing the office, and it just didn't work right for us. So it's been sitting unused in a cabinet for a while now. Well, yesterday I got an idea, that maybe we could give it another shot. But the problem is that these things just aren't neat....they get paint everywhere. And it's way to cold to paint outside, plus I really don't want white grass. So I thought, why not try to make a paint booth in the basement out of plastic drop cloths that we had lying around (never were gonna use them, red rosin paper works better). Many staples later, this was the result:
Know how long it takes to paint a door now using the power sprayer? 5 freakin' minutes baby!
And the results look 100% better than using a brush. Of course, now I'm covered in a fine white mist slightly....but man...super cool. The only real trick to make sure you thin the paint enough to come out evenly....otherwise it'll never work right.

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God...I hate to paint so much. In other news, while picking up painting supplies at Home Depot we tripped across this deal:
$99 bucks for a Husky 1750 PSI pressure washer....man, you just can't pass that buy.

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I'm not sure about the idea, but I'm sure Jen would win gold at it. Of course, I also sure that I'd hate to be the judge in that category. The instant replays would probably kill my appetite. - Super cool 2500 megapixel picture that's zoomable. Really cool, haven't found anyone naked yet, but you can really get super close. - Who said curling is a boring sport? There's plenty of excitement with all the yelling going on, challenging teams, oh yeah and the naked guy with a rubber checking taped to his groin wearing a diaper and clothespins. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that was orginally part of curling all along. - A computer desk built around a treadmill. I swear to god I was just thinking about this very idea this morning...of course except with an elliptical machine. - Man found guilty of felony aggravated animal cruelty for kicking and killing a 9 week old kitten. I'm just gonna throw this out here....if anybody did this to my cat, I'd end their life. There are differences between hunting for food and killing a 14year old girls domesticated pet. And while there are people who would say that 3 year max sentence is a little high, I would counter with the fact that people who senselessly abuse defense animals are usually not the material you want out in the gene pool. Still playing with that Netgear SC101, but so far so good. The temp in the equipment cabinet has only gone up 3 degress higher than the outside temperature. Even though I'm transferring 28gb's of MP3's to it right now (which should take about 1 hour and 20 minutes).

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Got a new toy...errr...valuable tool today. Picked up a Netgear sc101 from circuit city. They had a deal going where it was only $99 after two mail in rebates. Been looking for a network based storage solution for a while now to backup mp3's and email files. Computers are cheap, but data is priceless. Plus I think it makes toast somehow. Now I can make delicious toaster strudels at my desk without having to endure the hardship of physical movement.

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Probably a few years ago, I bought the cheapest controller I could find at the time for a Sony Playstation 2. It was a madcatz dual force 2, and it was just for when Jen and I were messing around with fighting games, nothing major. Well since my dual shock died a few days ago, i've been forced to use this to play Star Ocean. And I've come to a conclusion about it. It sucks donkey balls. I can deal with it being a huge xbox wanna be, or the sluggish D pad, but when my characters magically decided they want to always run to the right that's just to much. Even reseting everything to force a recalibration of the controller didn't fix it. Every now and then, for some unknown reason, the left analog joystick would just think it needed to be registering me pushing it right. Even when the knob was perfectly centered. This is something I can only attribute to cheap parts, or a defective analog joystick module. Eitherway I don't care....I just couldn't barely stand to play with this damn thing, and almost took a hammer to it the other day. It's basically a worthless turd if it doesn't control the damn character right. So basically I've got one fried dual shock controller, and one good for nothing piece of shit Madcatz controller. Even though I'm planning on investing in a Logitech Wireless controller here soon...having a backup is still preferred, and of course necessary for 2 player games. So it occured to me...what are the odds that the analog joysticks are built with the same physical specs for each controller? Maybe I could take the analog joysticks ouf of the playstation one (shock destroyed the IC, but probably not the controls) and put it into the Madcatz. Turns out you can....just a simple matter of soldering. So let's take a look at the comparisons of the circuit boards:
So as we already know, everything matches up perfectly. But the two joysticks were obviously made by different companies. So the only real next step is to remove the parts out of the Sony controller using a solder sucker and copper braid, and then put it in the Madcatz....pretty straight forward:

And the finished product, a Madcatz Dual Force 2 with the analog joysticks from a Sony Dual-Shock: ya can't even hardly tell....and it works like a charm. Anyone need some dual shock parts?

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I guess photoshopping olympic stuff is now a habit for me. And why is curling so damn interesting...somebody explain that one to me...

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Last night I was playing Star Ocean: till the end of time and I moved over to reach a remote control real quick. When I picked the controller back up I got this massive shock from it (the humidity's been real low here lately). It killed my controller
Now I have to use my crappy backup guest controller....feels all weird and stuff in my hand, and the analog controller is to touchy. I guess this isn't as uncommon and you'd think, seems to be a known issue. I guess I'm just lucky I didn't fry the PS2 itself....oh my lord the amount of suck that would generate would affect the earth's gravitational constant.

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I wonder what perverted google searches will hit here now Today we did a lot of work in the spare room, painting and hanging up one of the doors.
Don't they look nice? Well they are...except some of the hinges just weren't chisled right (or probably more correctly, jigged right). Plus some of the screws were stripped from the get go. Honestly, it's really irritating, cause to do it right you have to fix all that before you can hang the door. But we were able to get most of it taken care of I think. And honestly, anyone else would say it looks great. I'm just anal. Oh, also, a buddy of mine Tim got a new motorcyle a few days ago. Now....I don't know quite exactly who in their right mind buys a motorcycle in 20 degree weather....but you have to admit it's hella sweet. BMW K1200R

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That and other interesting questions to be answered here, on dennisjudd.com! So, a few weeks ago we decided, that if we were going to paint the upstairs we should replace the trim (cheap ranch crap). The reasoning is pretty simple, Painting it, and then putting it on makes for a real nice clean look, and you don't have to fuss with tape and painting straight lines. Trust me, if you've got the money, it's the best way to go. Rip off the old crap and put new stuff down. Well during those discussions turned to door casing, and eventually our unhappiness with the cheap crappy little hollow core doors that all these houses seem to have around here. Then while we were walking through Menards we noticed they were having a pretty good sale on solid pine 6 panel prehung doors. So we did the math, and ordered 9 interior doors with silver hinges (which we would have had to replace anyways in the future) for about $730. We also needed to pick up 50 7' lengths of colonial door casing, 4x12' 3 1/4" wall trim, and 16 3 1/4" lengths of mdf wall trim (an extra $250) What does all that look like? I'm glad you asked:
Now, certainly that did not all fit in my little car. So how might you ask did we get this home? Through the kindness and generosity of our real estate agents and their capable staff. We purchased our home from them almost 2 years ago, but they were still willing to allow us to use their truck as long as we simply refilled the gas tank when done. Now, I'm really not trying to kiss ass here, but you simply can't grasp how nice it is to have access to a truck of that size for free (as long as you don't damage it of course, are moving locally and call in advance). Of course I'm sure this is only as long as it isn't abused, but I remember last time I rented a U-haul truck it ended up running me like almost 100 bucks, not to mention the hassle and pain in the but it was to do all the paperwork. I just can't say enough nice things about it, if you tried it, you'd agree too. And that was just one of the things we did yesterday, it was really quite a busy day. First we had to stop at our financial advisers to discuss our mutual funds performances (they've really started picking up since Nov), then stop by Gamestop to see if they could help me with a little problem. See, I've been playing Star Ocean: Till the end of time and am over 100+ hours now on it. So I was messing around in the Maze of Tribulations when I accidentally caught my foot on the controller cable and made the PS2 jerk to the side....hard. I thought at first that everything was fine, but when I tried to head down to level 4 a window popped up "reading disk data" but unlike other times, it never went away. It seems that since the disk was spinning when it got jerked it hit either the lens or part of the retention tray...there by effectively scratching the living hell out of it. So I stopped by the Gamestop hoping they've have one of those Skip Doctor thingies (I assumed they'd have one open for store use) and that I could beg them to run it through for me. They didn't, but the guy behind the counter was super nice and swapped my disk for another used copy they had (even though I didn't have my receipt from buying it there). How cool is that? I rarely get that lucky, but really it just cements why I recommend buying and selling via Gamestop, they're usually all really cool guys. Between getting the truck, and that happening I felt like it was a really good, productive day. Despite it raining almost all day and even hailing. It's the little things sometimes that can make a lousy day good.

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Happy Valentines from almost every current internet meme.

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I was able to pick up a refurbed Dell 3100cn printer for my Sister a few weeks ago for only $244 online w/ free shipping. Today Jen and I lugged it's 95lbs box out to her house to set it up and get rid of that crappy ink jet HP she's been suffering with for so long. Now I'm still working the kinks out of the system, and I didn't have a whole lot of time to play with it, but something interesting did happen. We got the thing all assembled, and on top of it's tray 1 base. Put all the color toner cartridges in....and everything seemed to be good to go, but for some reason it wouldn't print. It just kept saying paper jam in tray 1 no matter what we tried. We added more paper, took out some, swapped paper types....didn't matter, it just always said paper jam. Of course there never was any type of paper jam anywhere. At first we thought that I had missed a piece of tape or something, but we couldn't find anything. So after looking at the tray for a while, and how it integrates into the mechanism it finally occurred what was wrong. Turns out each side of the tray has a spring loaded "plate" the paper sits on, which in turns pushes up the paper with tension against the rubber roller that feeds the printer. Well it turns out that 1 of the 2 small white plastic bumpers that release the spring (when the tray is fully inserted) had vanished. The left one was there all by itself, but the right one was missing. With that realized, Jen remembered seeing something like that lying around in the box. I sketched a quick pic of it:
Now that we had it, the reason why it fell off was pretty clear. If you look at the pics, the dotted lines indicate where the clip was when we found it. So obviously putting it back on wasn't gonna be a long term solution, so what next? Glue? Tape? Zip ties? None of those sound like really good ideas if you think about it. In fact the best option is to heat the plastic and remold it back to proper shape, but how? If you've ever worked with plastic in the past you'll know the difficulties of heating it to just the right temp to avoid burn, yet achieve relative fluidity. Turns out the solution was quite easy. Hold it up to a light bulb, against the glass of it for about 3 minutes. A little light pressure and it bent back into shape....actually a little bit farther than originally, so honestly now it's tighter than it ever was. What makes this post worthy? The damn thing is 95lbs, and the size of a small refrigerator. It scares me to think what calling tech support, or trying to RMA that thing would have been like. All because of some cheap .001 cent part... Now if you'll excuse me, we're very busy around there writing the next great American novel. The working title is: I lick my own butt.

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Sure has been a lot of comment spam within the last 24 hours. I mean, not like the good old days, but a lot considering it's been quiet lately. Thank god they are all idiots's. Gee...how ever could I block the one IP posting to my site. I'm not sure...why it would require some type of ip blocking ability that just is beyond the comprehention of man to create..... F'ing morons.

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Go watch the trailer here on yahoo. Looks freakin' sweet.

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- For the cutest thing you've seen all week long, check out this link to a lion cub who's best friend is a puppy. - Brokeback to the future. Kind of a stale link, but if you haven't seen it funny in a disturbing way. - And if you can't tell, i've gone smilie crazy. I found a link about how to add them to movable type. - Did anyone watch the puppybowl? It's strangly captivating honestly. That reminds me, we saw some Great Danes last weekend while at PetSmart picking up ralphie stuff. Those damn things are HUGE! Cute dogs, I'd love to see what the cat's do around something that's 6 times taller than them. If we didn't already have 5 cat's I'd consider it....but damn, I already have enough problems changing the litter box every other day. Last thing I need is something around this house that takes bigger shits than me. ...ok, i'll lay off the smilies...promise..

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My Sister's been putting the finish touches on a theater room for the house she built a few years ago. Now, the room has a lot of touches; rope lighting, in wall speakers, theater style wall sconces, and even a carpeted platform to put lazy boys on. But as custom as that all sounds, she really really wanted to padded door. Both for looks, and for sound dampening. Now, I have no clue where you can buy these, or who makes them, or anything like that. So we did as much as we could ourselves, brought in an upholsterer at the end, and this is basically the story of it. Along with my small part in it, and the pictures I took. But first, some lessons learned:
1. Typical door hardware is designed to handle a max width of 1 7/8". Make sure the board and material are thin enough so you don't have to buy special hardware made for thicker doors. (at least I had this problem with Schlage F style locks)
2. You can get foam real cheap at a mattress wholesale place, as opposed to like JoAnn's Fabrics or some other craft store Ok, well the premise is real simple. Take a think piece of plywood, cut it to size, and then have it upholstered w/ buttons. Let's start with the door. First thing I did was take a pencil and trace around the door while it was closed. This give me an idea of where the door jamb perimeter is. Then I took the door down, and measured a 1/4" inside that line (compensates for expansion, fabric width and human error) snap a chalk line, and the cut with a jigsaw. Now keep in mind, no door is straight. So don't even try to measure and cut the board manually. It's just really impossible to do. The easiest thing to do is to pick a side and cut all the others around it. And of course to cut the holes for the doorknobs.
So flash forward about 3 weeks, and it's back from the upholsterer, and we're a couple of hundred dollar poorer. The only real reason we went with them was simple. There was no way we could do a better job then them, plus making custom buttons with the fabric is kinda hard....although, if I was to do this again, I'd like to give it a shot. So anyway the next part is just as easy. Take the door down, dump a tube of liquid nails (or generic construction adhesive...doesn't really matter) and then place it down on the door. Of course making sure that it falls within the pencil marks. Then have somebody roll over it to make the glue stick and flip it over carefully (don't let it move). Then place heavy things on it for 24 hours.
And here are the finished pictures of the door back up:

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We've been looking to pickup an elliptical machine for a while now, well at least Jen has been. We both agreed we didn't want to spend $100 bucks on a pos, but then again we didn't want to spend a grand on what would become a glorified coat hook. So I finally found one online that looked like it was what we wanted, and the price was pretty much about right for a decent used elliptical. So after some negotiations via email we drove out yesterday to pick it up. We arrive about 45 minutes away from our house a little early. No biggie really, except when we actually head downstairs into the basement to check it out it turns out that the seller has not yet actually turned it on to make sure it works. Guess what it doesn't do? If you said work, then you'd be right. Long story short, I spent the next hour or so taking the whole damn thing apart in this guy's basement trying to isolate the problem. Turns out there was a problem in the wiring harness where the upright console connected to the frame. The +12v male pin stress tabs had crumbled (probably from somebody inserting the opposite tab on an angle) and pushed back out of the harness. Noting to major to fix, but super glue wouldn't really work, and hot glue would be a good temp fix....but not what I'd call a permanent fix. So, now that I knew the problem and how to fix it (worked fine when I manually connected it) I was ok with buying it. But there was no way my time was free. The guy was all like "Ok, well that easy to fix, we're good to go". No way is that fair, i'm not gonna pay full price for something that you didn't even verify worked, and that had something wrong with it. Plus, what about all that effort I spend fixing it? Bah! I told him that I'd buy it if he knocked 20 off for my time, and it still felt to me that it was like trying to get blood from a stone. But he agreed (albiet reluctantly imho) and we loaded it up. They were nice enough actually, but it just seemed like he was really pissed (maybe at himself) that I got him to knock the price down because the last person to put it together fubar'd it (which was probably him). If some smart ass little shit came into my house to buy something, and it was broken, and then he fixed it....well i'd be pissed to. Of course I'd have automatically said "hey, sorry about that, if you want to still buy it I'll knock "X amount" off it. Oh well.

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The casters on my office chair are noisy as all hell. I suspect because they were made by the lowest bidder. Since I sit in it so much, and am on a hard floor, it's driving me nuts. So I was looking around and really wanted to get a set of these:
Isn't that a great idea? Skate wheels instead of these cheap plastic ones. The only problem is cost....stupid things are expensive. I mean, I could just barely justify the $35 cost...but $8.50 for shipping? Christ thats more than 1/2 the cost of this damn chair I think. Any thoughts?

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I'm always trying to think of ways to make content on my page more dynamic, and usually I like to change up the header every 6 months or so. Sadly, my photoshop skill fall far short from my grandeous ideas, so usually I have to beg for help, or .....well yeah that's pretty much it...beg for help. So I was f**king around in photoshop a while back, and tripped across a way to make a chrom style bezel while I was just playing. So I dropped some LCD looking font into it and because I was running out of time, moved on to more important things. Well, last week I went out to collect some fonts. And damn if I didn't end up downloading over 200....I just keep seeing them and saying "wow I could really use that someday". So I finally implimented a rotating header script, kindly provided by this website, so now everypage load will show a new header. woo hoo! I'm cool! Of course, right now it's the same damn header....just with different fonts...but they're all so coooool.

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I installed the IE7 beta that came out yesterday the minute I saw it. I couldn't help myself :) So far, aside from cosmetic issues with the toolbar layout up top, everything's been just like normal. Except now it has integrated tabbed browsing support (something mozilla's had for years) and probably some other bells and whistles I just don't care about right now. There was really only one negative thing, I couldn't read any text for shit. I mean....sure...I could see the text, but it looked all blurry and wavey, like it was phasing in and out of this dimension. I swear it ended up giving me a headache. Turns out that IE7 turns on cleartype (ironic) by default when installed. And not just in the normal monitor preference tab, but in tools-> options -> advanced under multimedia. You have to uncheck that and then shut down all IE7 windows to make the change. Now to wipe the blood from my eyes. Donna sent me this a while ago, been meaning to post it. I present to you, the buffalo theory:

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