Category Archives: Attack of the Robot Monsters
Essential iPhone Apps (‘Cause Everyone Else is Doing It)
It’s June. That means I’ve had my iPhone for about four months and it has already become extremely hard to live without. In fact, I have no intention of trying to live without it. Not only does it sit in … Continue reading
Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha has been around for a few weeks now, having debuted to a squawking chorus of voices. The initial reports from Mashable and Lifehacker sounded intriguing and promising but the talk on podcasts like TWiT and the virtual water … Continue reading
Mario and His Stars
I am the proud creator / owner of a Super Mario Galaxy save-file in which the full complement of 241 stars have been collected. And when I say proud, I mean bring it up in conversations at cocktail parties and … Continue reading
Resting Places
Trying another post from the iPhone, this time with photos. Yesterday, my wife and I went to put flowers on her dad’s grave. He’s interred at a beautiful temple / cemetary near our house. We took a quiet walk around … Continue reading
Songbird
While it isn’t quite ready for prime time, Songbird is an excellent music player with the potential to be a one stop music application. The biggest thing that differentiates Songbird from other library managers like iTunes is the built in … Continue reading
Crayon Physics Deluxe
Crayon Physics Deluxe is an innovative and charming game that uses the iPhone’s touch screen to demonstrate a new way to game. The premise is simple: On each screen there is a ball and a few simple elements, like a … Continue reading
Pocket Cocktails
Back in university, my roommates and I had a poster on the wall that gave the recipes for a few dozen different shooters. 44 Shooters or something like that. Dan’s favorite was one called Nutty Irishman. Anyway, in college, we … Continue reading
The New York Times Crossword for iPhone / iPod Touch
There is something compelling, even obsessive about a good crossword puzzle. And the New York Times is one of the best crosswords around. So finding out that they had put together an app for the iPhone was fantastic news. However, … Continue reading
Switches
I have to get used to having a video camera. Having a camera, and taking pictures is second nature. After all, I’ve been doing that since high school. Having a video camera, however, well, I’m still learning when it’s going … Continue reading
Muxtape
This morning, while browsing Twitter, I noticed that both Warren Ellis and Casey McKinnon posted links to Muxtape, which I had never heard of. Being the social media junkie that I am, I immediately dropped everything and rushed over to … Continue reading
Sculpey
Several weeks (months?) ago I picked up a brick of Sculpey at the art supply store. I had no real ideas for using it in mind, it just seemed like something fun to play with. (Yeah, I know, I can … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters, Left From Seattle
Legos
Last weekend, my friend’s little boy came around for an afternoon while my friend played rugby. The boy and I played Nintendo for a while (Super Mario Galaxy, MarioKart 64, and Pokemon Snap for those who care) and then we … Continue reading
Searching for Reasons
Several people seem to have followed the move to Tumblr as a single place in which to read all my collected postings and doings around the internet. However, there have been some complaints as to the dual nature of the … Continue reading
Keep Up
Just a quick note: I have a new site up at smiley.tumblr.com. This new site is a Tumble Log, which means, basically, that almost everything I do on the web, whether it is photos, an essay, random links, whatever, is … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters, Left From Seattle
Flash Post 5
The Democracy Internet TV player is extremely cool. It lets you subscribe to and watch video feeds on and offline. Lots of nice features like sharing options and how long you wish to save which videos. Very cool. New web … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters
Super Action Figure
Way back in the day, Groove Neuter and I used to sit around and joke about the action figures we could make out of the people in our lives. There was the two of us, obviously, and our nemises (nemisi?), … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters
House Hunting
M and I have been spending our weekends house hunting. Well, just last weekend, and it was only two model homes, but still, we have been looking at houses, with the idea that we ought to buy one. We decided … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters
Wii Sports
All the rumors are true. This game, on this system, rocks. M and I are both finding that Wii Sports is a fantastic game for us to play together. It brings out a lot of the competitiveness that could show … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters
RPG
Yesterday, while I was out photographing and meeting friends, I ended up in the big electronics store that I like to go to. I had been there first thing in the morning to try to buy a Nintendo Wii and … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters
Street Photos
JPG has put out the first theme for their next issue – Street. The editors have put in a clause mentioning that this is meant to be examples of Street Photography, not photos of streets; Street Photography is candid, natural … Continue reading
600
Kinda hard to believe, but it’s true. This post, this post right heah, that you is now perusing, is number 600 on Left From Seattle. I should get some kind of award for that, right? I mean, do you have … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters, Left From Seattle
Turning Off the TV
This morning I deleted several hours worth of programming that I hadn’t gotten around to watching yet. A lot of other things got deleted as well. A lot of projects got taken off the back burner and just filed away … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters, Left From Seattle
Storage Problems
I find that the programs I use the most these days are either specialized word processors, like Copywrite, or, more usually, collection management software like iTunes or Comic Book Lover. The trouble is, my collections are housed on an external … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters
One Game At a Time
This month’s time waster is the new port of Lode Runner to the DS. I picked this up cheap from the used game store down the street and have been having a ball. The flash backs to eighth grade started … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters
iPod Linux
Out of sheer curiosity, I installed iPod Linux on my iPod this morning. It’s an interesting concept, and I hope this doesn’t over-geek some of you, in that the software opens up a lot of options that the iPod hardware … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters
Freakin’ Kanji Game
I bought a game for the Nintendo DS the other day. It’s a kanji game, where the player needs to read a word in katakana or hiragana and then write it in kanji. In the correct stroke order. In the … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters, Left From Seattle
Classics
I came home and found my wife watching Casablanca today. It may not sound like much, but it made me pretty happy. I’ve been picking up a lot of the classics recently, as a company here in Japan has been … Continue reading
TV Is My Only Friend
Well, ok, that’s so far from being true that it shouln’t be made into a joke. However. Something occured to me last night while my wife was watching tv. It’s no secret that I get most of my tv from … Continue reading
Left From Seattle
Left From Seattle Originally uploaded by SunToad. The official seal of Left From Seattle! Feel free to copy it from here and proclaim your allegiance! Or, go make your own: http://www.says-it.com/seal/
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters, Left From Seattle
Ubuntu on You
Argh. I have spent way too much time and effort this week trying to get Ubuntu Linux installed on M’s old laptop. M bought a new computer last fall, and since then her old Fujitsu Lifebook has been sitting in … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters
Music, eMusic
A couple of weeks ago, a couple of friends told me about a new(ish) music download service they were using called eMusic. I took their advice and signed up for the trial version and then immediately upgraded to a full … Continue reading
Continuing Edjamakation
Four of my friends are currently back in school, through various ways and means, and studying various things. One is studying the very practical field of accounting, another is working on a masters in applied economics, one is studying something … Continue reading
The Last Final Frontier, Finally
The One Man has an interesting post (titled “Faustian Gore” in case the link breaks) on the nature of science up on his blog. He points out what he feels are some of the problems with today’s science and highlights … Continue reading
The End of the World, Again
Well, if there is one thing you can always trust the media to do, it is ruin my good mood. I have been pretty happy lately, even feeling optimistic, which, in retrospect I can admit was extremely foolish. However, the … Continue reading
Random Thought About Google Video
Google Video is hosting the new Paris Hilton video for her single, “Stars Are Blind”. What I find interesting is how Google Video and YouTube are replacing MTV. Everyone complains that MTV no longer hosts videos, and yet, the reason … Continue reading
The DVD Habit, Part II
This is part two of a post talking about the new DVD formats, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray DVD, and a few reasons why I think they are completely unnecessary. The main reason I do not think the new formats will take … Continue reading
The DVD Habit
For those who may not know, I spend the majority of my working hours at either the Sharp or Toshiba campuses. The two companies have found themselves on opposite sides of the forthcoming format war. Toshiba has created, with its … Continue reading
CSS
I’m thinking about building my own website again, just so I can have a little more control (yes, it’s all about control) over the layout and design. However, to do this, I need to learn CSS and Javascript. That’s a … Continue reading
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
Cory Doctorow is one of those people you can’t help but hear about if you spend as much time on the web as I do. He’s a copyright activist and lecturer as well as being one of the co-editors of … Continue reading
Speakeriffic
By the way, I picked up one of the Logitech mm50 Portable Speaker for iPod last weekend. It’s fantastic. If you have an iPod and want a cheap, easy way to get some good sound, this is it. It’s small … Continue reading
Flocking
Some of the more observant among you may have noticed a new tagline appearing at the end of recent posts, “Blogged with Flock”. All this means is that I am now using the browser Flock to create my posts. Flock … Continue reading
eBible.com Invitation
My invitation to join eBible.com was in my gmail when I got home from soccer tonight, so I went over to check it out. My first impression, after about five minutes of playing is that this is a great service … Continue reading
Hanging Out by the Pool
Hanging Originally uploaded by SunToad. The One Man and I met for coffee this morning and I tried to explain my growing fascination with the virtual world of Second Life. Our exchange went something like this: The One Man: So, … Continue reading
Blogged Out
At last count I have something like 12 blogs. I’m not using them all, by any means, but they’re all there, available to me should I want them. Hell, some of them (Bloglines) are available to me whether I want … Continue reading
eBook
Currently, sitting in several boxes, in several locations, are the approximately 300 books that I just do not want to give up. This is a problem. We have a good sized apartment, but, nothing compared to a house or, well, … Continue reading
iTunes
I blew off Saturday and Sunday this weekend and just watched Battlestar Galactica. Fantastic show. Love it. Great stuff. But that’s not what I want to write about. What I want to talk about is iTunes. I bought the BG … Continue reading
Filed under Attack of the Robot Monsters
I Should Be Writing
Mur Lafferty has a couple of great Podcasts. I had been listening to Geek-Fu Action Grip for a while but only started listening to I Should be Writing recently. She’s got a lot of great advice for writers and wanna-be … Continue reading
Gadgets that Don’t Exist but that I Want to Have
In lieu of a real post today, I thought I’d put up a list of what I’m currently jonesing for, tech-wise. First, a Bluetooth enabled iPod – I love my iPod, as does everyone I know who has one. However, … Continue reading
