Zoom Movie Review

My oh my the things we do for our children.
Yesterday I took the girls to see the movie Zoom, about a group of young superheroes. I should have done a little research before heading out to the theater and avoided the movie.
The movie is basically a set of product placements strung together with a few music videos stretched out to 83 minutes. The product placement is so blatant, that characters actually visit a Wendy’s restaurant and discuss how much they like Wendy’s food how eager they are to get some. Heck, there’s even a robot character named Mr. Pibb.
Worse probably is the fact that we only get to see the young heroes use their power once or twice. Truly disappointing, even for children. Actors Tim Allen, Courteney Cox, Chevy Chase, and Rip Torn are pretty much wasted talent with this script.
The waste of acting effort and my tickes can be entirely blamed on a lackluster script tha must have been computer generated by a studio exec. Let’s see Star Talent + Cute Kids + Super Powers = Profit. Too bad they forgot to add in a Good Story.

Tie Tuesday

I read in today’s LA Times about the backlash toward casual attire at the workplace.
When I started at work a little over ten years ago, ties were common and I wore one on mosy days. Now, it seems that even socks are optional and anyone wearing a tie must be asked “Gotta big job interview?”
I like the idea of a Tie Tuesday where people are encouraged to wear a tie to work, one day a week. I’ve got a bunch of expensive silk in my closet that needs to get out more.

The $300 PC

A few months ago, I found myself in the position to buy a new computer for the girls. Over the years, I’ve built our PCs from scratch, slowly upgrading them as needed. I thought for sure, the cheapest way to get a new computer was to buy the components and put it together myself.
I was quite surprised when I found this wasn’t true.
I went to Newegg, one of the best online shopping sites for computer gear and started pricing everything out. I easily started getting the total over $450. I even looked at a Mac Mini to run Windows on, but at $599, even it was expensive in compairision. I looked at the Walmart computers, and they were cheap but fairly low power.
I checked the Dell site, and was surprised to see the Dell Dimension B110 for $299. It’s got to be bad, I thought. Not true. For a web surfing computer, the specs are impressive. 2.5 GHz Celeron processor, 80 GB hard drive, DVD-ROM player, and 256 MB RAM. That price includes Windows XP and even a monitor. It’s a full system for $299. With an online coupon, you can even get free shipping.


Sure it’s not much to look at, but for the price, you can buy a lot of stickers.

Inside is pretty sparse, but the slots and ports are there to expand if you want. If the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 video doesn’t cut it, you can slap in a video card into the PCI slot. I added a 512MB memory stick (bought via Newegg) to bump the total of 768MB of RAM. XP runs pretty damn smooth with that much RAM.
I did have to spend about an hour deinstalling all the crapware that Dell installed and loading Grisoft AVG and Firefox. For an extra $10 I got an actual WinXP install disc and for another $14 a copy of Webroot Spysweeper. Not getting a monitor pretty much covered those costs.
The girls are happy and I’ve had absolutely no problems with the computer so far. It’s quiet and stable.

One more surprise I found on the Dell site was the $78 laser printer. When buying it with a computer, the 1110 laser printer is only $78. Hard to believe these things used to go for thousands. Again I was surprised at the good quality of the output and the printer itself. There are a couple drawback though, as it doesn’t come with a USB cable (Dell wants $25 for one!!) and the toner cartridge goes for $68 . But with the minimal amount we print, this cost is actually in line with comparable printers that go for twice as much.
I still intend to build our performance computers from scratch, but if I need to buy a beginner system, I’m going to look at buying rather than build.

The cap trick for Mentos/Soda experiments

Always curious Mister P. asked how I made the Mentos drop in to the soda bottles. I promised that I woudl draw him a picture. A day late, but here’s how I did it.
The trick is to keep the mentos above the soda until you want it to explode. First you drill a hole in the cap of the soda cap. The larger the whole the bigger the stream that comes out, the small the whole, the longer the stream lasts.


Then drill a hole through the center of each mentos wide enough to fit a paper clip through. Feed the paper clip through the cap, then the mentos. Next, bend the end of the paper clip slightly to prevent the mentos from slipping off, but not too much that you can’t pull it out.

Carefully screw on the cap/mentos to the full soda bottle and you are ready for action.
Once you pull the paper clip out, move out of the way.
I didn’t invent this method. I read about it somewhere, but I don’t remember where.

Protecting an iPod

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about polishing the screen on an iPod.
Today I put the screen protector and skin on the iPod. I had bought some protection from Gelaskins. The Gelaskin people have put together a ton of cool art for use as the cover for your iPod.


First I placed the transparent screen cover on the iPod. Not hard to do, but the Gelascreen doesn’t exactly match the screen area of the iPod and I had to fiddle with it a bit. Once it was on, it looked great.

Next, I put on the Gelaskin cover for the rest of the iPod. The Gelaskin covers the front and back. You have the option to cover the clickwheel as well to get more of the artwork. I found it a little difficult to line up, but in the end it looked good.

Jelly Belly Sweet Rocks

At the supermarket, I spied a box of Jelly Belly Sweet Rocks, and I had to buy it for a Cruft Labs review. A few years ago, we reviewed Bott’s Beans, the candy based on the Harry Potter books.


The Sweet Rocks are a tie-in to the Ant Bully movie. Evidently the ants eat jelly beans and call them ‘sweet rocks’. Whatever.

The whole point of the Sweet Rocks is really down to the four special flavors. Alka Root, Ant Hill, Caterpillar, and Grass Clippings.

We sorted out the jelly beans from two boxes and here is the total amount of the desired ones to test. I wish they put a bit more in the box. The regular Jelly Bellys are good, but we are really after the special flavors.

On to the testing:
Alka Root – Tasted like root beer to me. Didn’t get any subtle nuance of something else. Everyone else agreed.
Ant Hill – This is dirt flavor. Not kidding, tastes like dirt. I was able to eat and swallow it, but Mom & Dad both spit it out.
Caterpillar – Several of us tried to figure this one out. Just tasted sweet. We expected something bad like vomit flavor, but it didn’t taste bad. I’m sure the flavor scientists at Jelly Belly put effort into this, but we didn’t find the flavor distinctive in any way.
Lawn Clippings – Again, this really tastes like grass. Mom said, “Subtle and delicious. Do we have more?” Michele said, “Disgusting!”
In summary, Ant Hill and Lawn Clippings tasted exactly like Dirt and Grass jelly beans from Bott’s Beans. Nothing new there. Alka Root was root beer and Caterpillar was nothing special.
A bit of a disapointment compared to the strong flavors like Black Pepper and Vomit from Bott’s Beans.

Cruft Labs will continue to bring you any advancements in jelly bean flavor technology as we find them.

Good Day

Today is a good day.
In addition to today being my birthday, today I received my new business cards.


Not bad for a guy that had a 2.3 GPA in college.
Thanks to my Dad for buying that Atari 800 back in 1981 and launching my ascent into geekhood.