Car video part II

Okay, maybe it wasn't that great of a video. I didn't find it as entertaining until I saw it, or one like it, on America's Funniest Home Videos (AFV). I then had my youngest son watch it, concentrating on it closely, which gave the same type of reaction as it did from many shown watching it on AFV.

Virtual CD-ROM

The Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel for Windows XP sure is handy when dealing with ISO images and Microsoft Virtual PC.

Per the Microsoft Site

The tool for Windows XP allows image files to be mounted virtually as CD-ROM devices. This tool is provided here for your convenience, and is unsupported by Microsoft Product Support Services.

Spam Blog

Lotusphere Blogging

I could see where the audio blogging or e-mail posting from a mobile device might be handy for those attending Lotusphere.

Check out this car video

Check out this car video (Click the picture or Link). You might want to turn up the volume to hear the background music and pay close attention to the car when it gets to a curve in the lower left hand corner.

Enron Trial

It looks like the Enron trial is to start today.

Gmail Mobile

That is cool. I was wishing they had that back when I had my old phone which had Internet access.

Audioblogging

As the audioblog posts are in .mp3 format and one can subscribe to the blog, I guess you could call it podcasting as well.

Not sure that anyone would really want to download them and take them with them to listen to on another device.

With Audioblogger there is a five minute limit per post, but while on the phone you can create more than one post at a time.

Posting issue.

Check your tax refund status.

First Audio Post

More Free Music

Another site that has some free music is SoundClick.



The only problem with it is that there appears to be music by a lot of American Idol rejects. You can find some worth listening to though.

Freeware

I thought I might mention a couple of freeware items that may be of interest. I have mentioned 7-zip before. It is easy to use and supports multiple compression formats, but another one worth mentioning is Zip Genius. The thing I like about it is that it allows one to create self-extracting zip files. These are a bit different as they include a Zip Genius GUI interface when executing the self extracting file.

Another one to mention is PDF reDirect v2. It allows you to create simply pdf files. Open Office allows one to create a PDF document and I have heard that the next version of Office will too. The nice thing about this little piece of freeware is that you can easily create them from any application. It simply sets itself up as a printer selection and when wanting to create your PDF, simply select it from your list of printers and you are on your way.

SprintPCS site not available.

Not cool.

Egg Noodle Recipe

Recipe


Ingredients for Egg Noodle Recipe.


Get a small dish that you can crack your egg into.


This is a handy practice when cooking anything requiring eggs. You don't want to end up with a bad egg just dumped directly into something you are making, thus ruining it.


Scramble the egg.


Add 2 tablespoons of milk to the egg and beat. Set aside.


In a separate bowl add 1 cup of flour.


Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt.


I use the back of a knife (as it has a nice straight edge) to level the flour in the measuring cup. I use the same knife to mix the salt in with the flour.


Once mixed add the egg and milk mixture.


Then using the same fork you beat the eggs with, mix everything together.


It may end up a bit crumbly. If you need to add a bit more moisture (I usually do) then add a few drops of milk. No more than half of a teaspoon. You would be surprised how far a bit more liquid goes.


If you add to much milk the dough will be to sticky. Once you have it mixed with the fork, go ahead and use you hand to mix it into a ball. Kind of kneading it, picking up any of the crumbs or loose pieces. When you have it all worked into a ball you are ready to roll it out.


First add a bit of flour to the surface you will be rolling it out on (table, counter, wax paper, etc..).


Spread it around a bit.


Then put the dough ball on the floured surface and roll it around so that it is a bit floured all over.


Then roll it out.


You can roll it out to your own desired thickness, although you probably don't want to go to thick or you will have doughy noodles.


If you are working on a surface that you don't want to cut on, then transfer the dough to a cutting board and roll up. There are endless options of how you can cut it, etc. You may need to lightly add a bit of flour to the back of the dough as you roll it. You want to make sure that it doesn't stick, keeping you from unrolling the noodles later.


Once rolled you can cut the noodles to desired width.


A knife with a serrated edge works well. Simply keep cutting until you have completed the roll.


You then unroll the dough disks and you have noodles. It you are an anal Martha Stewart wannabe, you might not want to use the noodle on the end that comes out so irregular shaped, but that is your call. I however am not worried about the looks.


You could cut the noodles from the dough without rolling it up if you wanted. As you can see you can decide how long and thick you want them as well.


If you straight noodles you can cut off the edge as shown on the left side. If you want shorter noodles you can cut the dough before rolling it, which would make shorter noodles.


You can see the unrolled noodles in the upper left corner and rolled noodles in the lower middle of the picture.


It is best to lay out the noodles and let them dry out for at least a few hours. If you make to many they can always be frozen. Next simply drop them into the broth of your soup and let them cook until done. Note that the flour on the noodles will thicken the broth a bit.


I almost always make them when my wife makes a big pot of Chicken Noodle Soup. I make a quadruple batch of noodles for the big pot of soup. Chicken Noodle Soup is also great atop mashed potatoes. Really.

Hannibal, MO

My son had a basketball game in Quincy, Il today. The A Team won and the B Team lost. On the way back we stopped in Hannibal, MO for a bit.

Password Administration is a Pain

We all know it is happening and these days with the number of ids and passwords required for so many sites on the internet, I can only imagine it is much worse than it use to be.

The Burger King

That Burger King mascot is just scary.

Acura RDX

Looking more like many of the others. Mixup a large part of a Lexus RX, a little Suzuki Grand Vitara, a little Mercedes Benz ML 350, a bit of Toyata (Matrix/RAV4) and the brake calipers of a Porsche Cayenne Turbo S and you have a new Acura.


A bit surprising that they would stick a four cylinder in it, but it appears to have some good horsepower (240 hp).

You just can't make this stuff up.

Story from our local paper.

Teen faces felony for promoting prostitution
By RYAN SMITH
News Tribune

A Jefferson City teen was charged Monday with a Class D felony for his alleged involvement in a prostitution incident Sunday.

Terrill L. Blackmon, 19, was being held in Cole County jail on $5,000 bond late Tuesday morning. The other two people involved have not yet been charged.

According to a police probable cause statement, Blackmon flagged down a man driving in the 400 block of Lafayette Street at about 11 a.m. Sunday and asked him if he would pay $30 to have sex with a woman.

The men eventually agreed on a $20 payment, with the man refusing Blackmon's request for a $5 advance payment, the statement said.

The woman agreed and got into the car with the man and left the area.

Five minutes later, an argument ensued over birth control and the man asked the woman to get out of the car.

She refused and said she wanted at least $10 for her time or she was going to tell the police.

The man then allegedly said "No, you didn't give me what I wanted," and honked at a nearby police car.

After talking to them, police arrested the man, woman and Blackmon.

Blackmon reportedly told police the woman was supposed to rob the man and not get into his car.

Video Stats

I had not noticed the tab on Google Video that says reports. It gives a count on the number of times your videos have been viewed and how many times they have been downloaded. Downloading is another feature they have recently added. The video without a link is the most recently uploaded video that has not been verified yet.

Google Video

Google Video has added a "Put on site" link, which gives you the code to embed the video on your web page.




Example of embedded video.

VIN Info

I am sure it is not what Ford had in mind when they made it available via the web, but Ford's Fleet site has a VIN Lookup. It states that it has info between 1982 and 2005. The interesting part is that trying a different VIN per a question someone had posed to me, I found out that it is not limited to just Ford vehicles.







There are also links to PDF versions of VIN guides for Ford Vehicles that give you further insight on Ford VINs.

Dropping DNS entries

Some time ago (approximately 2 years ago) the State started moving away from the old .state.mo.us domain name to the .mo.gov (.missouri.gov) domain. This was later implemented on e-mail addresses. Resolving the old addresses was suppose to go away a year afterwards. Most pages were updated to use the new addressing. I think the last hold out was the legislature. It was decided that the old addresses would be left in DNS for some time. Well on January 1, 2006 the DNS entries for .state.mo.us were basically dropped. Thus no resolution for those linking from sites that had not updated their links. Being a large organization it is a pain changing your domain name. There are large sites, individual sites, that could potentially be pointing to the old site that you may not be able to get one to update. The old addresses are also on old forms that have been sent to individuals that they may refer back to years down the road. Next week we should have the .state.mo.us address resolving for our site again with a re-direct page in place pointing one to our newer address.

If trying to get to a .state.mo.us site, you might try using .mo.gov in its place.

Peanuts - Hmm, I am Marcie.

You are Marcie!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Plumbing Issues

Today was one of those days. My wife said something from the bathroom. I thought she said that the bathtub was draining slow. Nope, that wasn't it. She said the bathtub wasn't draining. Ugh! Not the way to start the day.

She ran to the store and picked up a sulphuric acid based drain opener. I was able to determine that it was clogged somewhere before the main line and down from where the bathroom sink and bathtub run into one pipe. Needless to say, you run water in the sink and it was coming back up in the tub. A bottle of opener and 30 minutes later. Nothing.

I ended up pulling the pipes apart under the sink so I could get a snake in it. I was able to run the snake out into the main line and free up the blockage. Yeah. That saved me a buck or two.

Kind of interesting

It is kind of interesting to see the text of the State of the State prior to hearing it completed on television.

Hold the Applause

Irrespective of party, wouldn't it be nice at State of the State and State of the Union Addresses if the individual introducing the Governor/President, would simply say, please hold your applause until the end.

State of the State

The Missouri Governor will be giving the State of the State Address tonight.

Will he mention any consolidation of commissions with the Department of Insurance? We will see.

Update: Now we know the answer to that. Nope.

Free Radio

I heard a commercial on the radio the other day, something to the affect that radio is free and it should be kept that way. It was brought to you by the radio broadcasters association. They say radio should be free, but I imagine when most advertisers walk through their doors they sing a different tune.

E-mail

I got an e-mail from the Governor today. Okay, so did all of the other State Employees with e-mail accounts.

Toyota FJ

Configure your own FJ

Jeep Patriot

I do not mind the looks of the Jeep Patriot, kind of a cross between a miniaturized Jeep Commander, an old Jeep Cherokee and a Ford Escape/Mazda Tribute.

Jeep Compass

A bit of a cross between a Jeep Liberty, Pontiac Aztek, Toyota Matrix and a Lexus RX. I have heard that it is being marketed to women (Jenny to be specific). I don't care for it, although the red stripe on the tires reminds me of the old Triumph TR6.

Microsoft vs Google

It looks as though Microsoft and Google continue to go at each other. Windows Live Ideas versus Google Pack.