Guess what back to school means to me…a longer commute to and from work. Dodging coeds isn’t as fun as it sounds. Well, maybe cutting extremely close to bikers is fun. Actually, that is very fun.

The only real bonus to this time of year is for the barn-burner sales that pop up for technology aimed at students. If there is any chance that a college bound dude or dudette will be shopping for a tech item of some sort, chances are high that that item will be super cheap, somewhere.

Case in point…how about some discounts at HP

swantron on droid on HP

(say what you will…I still want one of those damned HPs with the flip around screen…badly)

I was poking around Savings.com, and noticed that they have all sorts of deals that are aimed at students. Free shipping and all sorts of discounts on HP notebooks, ink, you name it. They also had some deals from Verizon regarding Droid phones and $50 off. I’m somewhat upset that I bought my Droid 2 without checking out the back to school deals.

Anyhow, hit that link to see what I’m talking about. I’ll be playing with my phone, and wishing I was playing with a picture of my phone on my swivelly HP netbook.

This is not a chipper tale of how-to boastery. Far from it. I cartoonified the shit out of the following pics, in order to further convey the surreal darkness that was involved in this seemingly trivial task. Buckle up…it is not likely to be pleasant blog-reading.

The mission objective was simple enough: hang a heavy bag. The mission-turns-out-to-be-a-little-cooler-and-a-little-more-involved moment came when I realized there was approximately one punching bag length between the ceiling in my garage and the spot where I wanted the top of said bag. I’ll let the pictures tell the story, for the most part. My knuckles are all sorts of funked up, which is an indication of the title’s eventual success. Or aptness. Or giant fail…I’m still very confused.

Enough rambling…first thing I know, I’m standing on my Honda Trail 90, wondering how I ended up with a heavy bag (and Honda Trail 90) before I managed to end up with a goddamned ladder.

Unsafe at any Speed

When in Rome…snap a pic. It’s pretty much all about the photo-documentation at this point.

uh...

“Uh” is incredibly right. That sucker was bouncing around looking down…not so stable when my arm and or both arms were above my head. Good thing I’m limber. Huh?

My grand idea involved two threaded rings. Innocent enough looking…

oh, nice

…fucking wrong. Far from innocent, when said threaded ring is dropped into spider-central…

darkest hell

Well, I managed to knock most of those webs out of place with my trusty framing hammer. Unfortunately, I knocked them right on that stupid shiny thing I was attemping to arm-fish out of the hole between the particle board, studs, spider poop, drywall, and darkest hell.

I got the stupid thing, did the weird shudder thing with my shoulders/neck for a half-minute, and got back into gear. Survival mode at this point. Darkest-hell-been-and-back-survival mode.

Either my creeped out spider dance brought me luck, or my engineering was sound. Or both…but it worked out, against most odds.

Position 1

Position 2

It works, and there is a box of delicious OML in the frame. So I guess I’ll count that as a win???

Tending bar was easy money. Hang on for a sec…I’ll get to it, via a roundabout, Android laden path.

dolla dolla bill yall

As a new Droid 2 owner, I’m all about my apps. You know what? There are a lot of awful apps floating around the market place and or webs. There are some incredibly useful apps, both free and for purchase. I have purchased but one Android app so far…and I’m not embarrassed in the least to say that it is the paid version of Robo Defence. It both kicks ass at home, and at the job. In fact, I can barely make it through a meeting, that is, if I drop the ball and leave GPS rolling and nuke my battery, rendering my phone useless for a half-hour-turned-into-seventy-horrible-minutes-of-repeating-the-same-crap-from-the-last-twelve-emails. I mean meetings. I mean, I wish I could use my phone at work. But, I digress. I like apps.

Wouldn’t it be great, if there was some sort of app out there, that would pay you. Sit down, y’all…there is. Mobile plus marketing equals mobile marketing. Getting paid to play, in a nutshell.
This has been an incredibly long-winded intro to an easily summed-up moral of the story. I really think that WeReward has hit the nail on the head, and created the easiest means of making money I have ever encountered. Granted, I have tended a lot of bar, which is both easy and simultaneously a giant pain in the ass. How about getting paid to check into an advertiser’s place of business? Sounds okay…right? Hear an ad, respond to add, do nothing more, get some loot. Not too shabby.

I caught a video on a Fox affiliate about these guys and an iPhone app. Basically, they were pulling fifty bucks a month for taking pictures from some places that popped up on their phones. They have the same stuff for we Android users, and will have you RIM suckers covered in no time.

Hit that link above for some more info…it is pretty slick.

Wheat Thins are boring, by design. What is a guy to do, when at work with a bunch of boring-ass W Thins?

Easy. Arrange the hell out of the stupid little things and hot snauce them up. Hot snauce the crap out of them.

CHOMPCHOMPCHOMP

Here, I went for a crude lobster formation.

If you get a little crazy with said hot snauce, don’t worry. I spent the rest of my afternoon with a small red snauce stain on my yellow notepad. Either my co-workers failed to notice, or thought I was crazy and avoided a rambling culinary pep talk.

+1 Spicy

One week into my tenure as a happy Droid user, I have some insight into what an Android user must toss on his or her unit. This is a running list, of course, but solid enough for a post. Post and a pic…

also pictured: thug dood

I’ll keep it simple at this point. Top five apps I have encountered, as far as usefulness and coolness are concerned.

1) Advanced Task Killer. No questions asked…get this app first and foremost. The battery life on these suckers is awful at best. Multitasking is great, but murder on batteries. Nuke your background crap, and nuke it often.

Nuke it from orbit, if in orbit.

2) Google Sky Map. So awesome it hurts. Bonus: your non-Android-having buddies will bow to your phone’s awesomeness.

3) Google Translate. Como se dice ‘awesome’ en Espanol? Un momento…Impresionante. Get this app, amigos.

4) Robo Defence. Awesome game; good graphics. Perfect for meetings; free version for those non-committal types.

5) Google Goggles. Take pictures of junk, see search results. This is another deal-breaker when it comes to the new tech that you can pull out on these phones. Maybe I’ll post a few result sets of this guy in action…sort of like looking into the future with this guy.

As the forewarning stated, this is far from a static list…merely a snapshot of the stuff I am currently digging with a spoon. I’ll try to keep some updates on the site, when my knowledge and tastes mature.

FWIW, get one of these bad boys. You will most surely not regret it in the least. To the max.

Since I’m really dragging my feet in regards to posting anything of substance, take a quick look at my new Aoyue soldering station.

also pictured: clutter

It works like a champ…pretty pumped that I heeded Lady Ada’s advice on this one.

I still need to post my Motor Shield assembly pics. I also really need to post some stuff about the Droid 2…which is constantly blowing my mind. Stick around…it’ll happen.

What is better than bacon? No, not nothing. Bonus bacon.

bonus

Circle gets a square.

Sorry for the lack of updates.

On second thought, no I’m not. I’ve been doing all sorts of awesome crap.

My Droid 2 is extremely awesome crap. I really can’t say enough about the Android OS. Even though I had my heart set on the HTC Incredible, I’m impressed with Motorola’s work on the Droid 2. Job well done. More to come on this, for sure. Droid, Droid, Droid. Droid.

I also have taken on my awesome soldering crap project regarding the Arduino Motor Shield ‘some assembly required’ fiasco. As so long as you look at it from afar, it will appear as though I am a skilled solder-ing machine:

motor shield, complete

…which I clearly am not. I snapped some pics of the assembly process on my Droid 2. I’ll get them up soon. Stay tuned, as always.

^ happy camper

You will, without a doubt, be hearing about this. A lot.

Sweep is for breakfast around here…implement a knob or be gone.

Same principle as the Arduino sweep example from yesterday, but with a potentiometer doing the actual lifting. Lifting? Shifting…heavy shifting. I added a little potentiometer (little blue guy behind the RainBird sprinkler adjustment tool) to control the servo this go-around:

enhance...enhance

more shame...more plugs

Another success. Dang. Looks like I’m going to have to whip out the soldering iron after all. Not looking forward to this effort; I have a bad feeling that I’m going to fail miserably with the project.

Maybe I’ll knock it out of the park. Life is a garden, dig it.

srsly u guys

lolcat by joe. enjoy.

My source for the Arduino Motor Shield would not approve of my soldering iron. Not by any means…

fail

I still have the ‘made in china’ tag on this piece of shit. Poorly played.

In case any of my reader-base has taken an interest in microcontrollers, robotics, or awesome crap in general, Lady Ada has you covered. I recieved my motor shield in no time what-so-ever, and Limor’s prices smoke those of Amazon to boot. Don’t get me started about her tutorials…pretty bad ass.

I need to toss the pictured iron in the trash and get a real iron before I get after my motor shield project…I can say that the servos she shipped me are tits.