The Simpson Blog

Its been about a year now since I started using my HTPC (Hainsworth Television PC). Mr. Michael and I went to Canada Computer and bought a pile of parts, and he spent a day and a half cannibalizing stuff from my old desktop and fashioning two fantastic computers, which I named The Stallion and Little Eddie Dingle. Stallion was designed to be my audio-video production machine, outfitted with a Soundblaster Audigy Platinum sound card, ATI All-in-Wonder 9800 pro video card for digitizing video and playing big ass videogames, a big RAID for video capture and encoding, a dual-layer DVD burner, and a new motherboard with an AMD Sempron 2GHz and 1GB RAM. I added a Datavideo TBC-1000 time base corrector for improved VHS capture. Problem is, I never learned the software side of video editing, despite majoring in video editing back in my Ryerson RTA days, so its mostly been used to check email and suck BitTorrents. Eddie, OTOH, has had a lot of use. Michael took the old mobo out of my de

Michael sent word of a guy who crafted an alarm clock that wakes you up to the smell of bacon. How? By cooking real bacon. When Sallin first woke up to his Wake n' Bacon alarm clock -- constructed from a gutted Wal-Mart alarm clock, a PIC microcontroller, and two 100-watt halogen lamps -- everything came back to him again. "My first thought was 'Mom's in the kitchen,' soon followed by "The apartment's on fire." Wow. And I thought programmable coffee makers were cool. I don't drink coffee, but I likes me my bacon. Some of you may recall the year that I made "Eat More Bacon" my New Year's resolution. The only one I ever really kept. Following year was "Eat More Velveeta" but that got old really fast. I'm not sure what 2005's resolution was, if any, but I have a feeling that if it was something big and life-changing, I've done at least a half-ass job of it, since nearly everything big in my life has changed

You can get a peek at the News95.7 studio tomorrow when CPAC broadcasts live tomorrow. CPAC is bringing cameras into the station to simulcast Maritime Morning with Andrew Krystal during the morning: Building on its popularity from the last election campaign, CPAC's Talk Radio listens in on even more of Canada's most provocative talk radio shows. Starting in Atlantic Canada and moving west, Talk Radio offers viewers regional perspectives on campaign issues and invites them to call and participate. Watch for it December 7 at 9am AT / 8AM ET / 5AM PT and you might catch me lurking around at the end, waiting to do the noon news.

Manda's 1999 Suzuki Swift failed Nova Scotia's mandatory annual safety inspection, big-time. $900-$1400 worth of work required to make it street legal, apparently. Not quite the road equivalent of a Sea King helicopter, but the car was given ten days' driveability before the red stickers thereupon become a flag for police to pull it over and take it off the road. She needs a car for her job, and she needs the job to help pay the rent etc., so after much gnashing of teeth and fretting and such, the decision was made to look into leasing a new car. Extensive research on the Internet followed, and Manda hit up a few dealerships this week to get prelim figures. With the Car Death Clock ticking, today came the test drives. Halifax has a stretch of road near the radio station loaded with car dealerships and food joints. O'Regan's and Steele dominate the car market, each handling several brands in multiple locations. Wendy's, Harvey's, McDonald's, Swiss Chale