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Piggy clock and long ramble

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 in the past year. More on that in the coming weeks, I imagine.

Check out some of the new goodies over on my flickr page. I've upped myself to "pro" member which means no worries about uploading a ton of crap, all the time, and creating an endless series of unconnected photo collections. It also lets me get my own dub-dub-dub dot flickr dot com slash whatever web address, but I haven't done that yet. Recent updates include photos from last weekend's Big Ass Snow Storm (of which we're getting a repeat tonight, says the meteorologist with Brian Hill's weather knowledge but Russ Holden's sense of puns), a collection of some of my favourite pictures from the years I've had a digital camera, and a bunch of shots of the kitties, Kitty and Kitty. Oh, and some shots of when CPAC was in the studio for a TV broadcast of Maritime Morning with Andrew Krystal. I tried to tape it, but some night-before messing with the BIOS on my HTPC (Hainsworth Television PC) (code name: 'Little Eddie Dingle', little brother to Big Ass A/V PC 'The Stallion') crashed the machine without my knowledge, so the show went un-TIVOed. One of those "keyboard missing - hit any key to continue" errors. I was futzin' with it because it keeps losing track of time, despite being ordered to get time updates over the infernet each week. Stallion's clock keeps adding minutes, too. Maybe it's this Atlantic time zone. I can't keep track of time either.

Hopefully the next update will have pictures of the new car. Amanda settled on the Kia Rio5. It's a black hunchback with .... uh .... I dunno, car stuff. It's an automagic instead of a stick-shift, though, so I'll be driving it some time. I'm sure car people know stuff about these things, but all I know is it has bum-warmers in the seats, an MP3 CD player in the dash, power windows and locks, and the lights fade out when you hit the button on the keychain. Anyway, she loves how it drives and it's performing well in the winter weather.

I've got my fresh new oh-fish-al Nova Scotia ID -- new drivers' license and health card. The government operations here are so gosh-darned efficient, it's enough to make you wonder if there's a catch. Instead of dealing with disgruntled drones at the MTO, the folks at the Nova Scotia drivers-license-whatnot office were friendly, cheery, and insanely fast. Health card people were the same, even though that was a simple phone and mail deal. Almost makes me want to see what else I can do at a government office. Almost.

Gonna start putting together the Definitive Magic 8 Ball CD package in the coming days, so get those photos in if you haven't already. I've gone through years of basement footage for a bonus disc of outtakes, and found some good stuff. Only one rare track I'm missing, though, and that's the improvised gem titled "Moderation". If I can't source a copy of that one, it'll forever remain The Lost Big Ass Track. I've even invested in the best stock photography money can buy for the cover art -- seriously, I paid for stock photography. Gorgeous.

Other than that, things are alright. Still tired. Still not hitting the gym enough. (At all.) I've done so much walking since arriving here in September that I've worn a pair of nearly-new shoes right down to the insole. But finally getting into something of a routine. Hopefully a groove, not a rut. Later, dearies.

Comments

  1. Nice to see that the principles of applied baconeering can now benefit the laypeople.

    ReplyDelete

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