[ Brett Dunst - Online Exhibition - Weblog ]

2008-08-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we had our five year anniversary, so to celebrate we went to Burning Man!

Haha, just kidding. Me at Burning Man! Could you imagine such a thing? Hahaha! Give me a second to catch my breath. I'm such a character. Hoooo! Okay.

We actually went down to spend a night in San Diego! (We left Kate with Tammy's parents.)

Downtown San Diego is so great. I love visiting whenever we find ourselves with a free weekend...and redeemable Starwood points, of course! It kills me to spend money on vacations, so trading in Tammy's points for free hotel rooms is the ideal solution!

Downtown San Diego is only a two hour drive from home so I feel like we're able to get away without really getting too far away. It's easy to get around, it's clean, and the best part of all - no homeless people! San Diego must be the only beach city in southern California without homeless people. I don't know how they do it.

We stayed at the W and had dinner at Salvatore's.

Before we left we went to check out the Festival of Sail, a tall ship extravaganza that took place along the Embarcadero.

I'm so happy to be married to this lady. She's such a good wife and a really tremendous mother. It was fun having her all to myself for a day or two. It reminded me of the days BK (before Kate). These days are pretty good too, but they involve a lot more work. :)

We went on boats!

My parents had their 40th wedding anniversary the very next day, so my brother and I surprised them with an engraved champagne bucket, a bottle of Dom, a fancy dinner at Noe, and a limo at their front door to take us all to and from dinner.

Here's me and the missus, toasting like royalty in the limo on the way back.

2008-08-26T08:58:00.000-07:00

You spent three months in isolation.

You spent sixteen hours a day rehearsing.

You also spent five to ten minutes a day peeing and pooping in your adult diapers.

If any of these cherished memories belong to you, you were probably a performer in the Olympics' opening ceremonies.

They sure did make it look good though.

2008-08-22T10:23:00.001-07:00

After five seasons and 100 episodes, Stargate Atlantis has been cancelled. It follows in the footsteps of SG-1 as it lives on in an indefinite number of straight-to-DVD movies.

The good news is that Stargate Universe, a new spin-off series, is now in pre-production.

One door closes, another one opens! Atlantis was getting a little stale anyway.

2008-08-12T13:19:00.000-07:00

I have a Roomba. A 550. I got it about 6 weeks ago at Costco.

It's great when it works. It's not so great when it breaks. It broke on its six week birthday. The two roller brushes just stopped spinning.

I'm no mechanical engineer, but I know trouble when I see it, and I'm pretty sure that every 500 series Roomba will eventually break down. Here's why.

Roomba's got two brushes. On the left is what the end of one of these brushes looks like before you start cleaning. On the right is that same part after a normal cleaning cycle.

(I promise I'm not dirty. I just have two (short-hair!) cats.)

See, there's a gap at the end of the roller. That means that instead of being rolled into the collection bin, a fair amount of hair and debris gets caught up in that gap. Eventually (six weeks in my case) that junk makes its way into the gearbox where it jams everything up permanently. This has happened to lots of other people too. Power is applied, motors meet resistance and heat up, the plastic gears melt, and the brushes will never spin again.

I did everything that I was supposed to. I emptied the bin and cleaned those rollers religiously after every cleaning. Every day. (Roomba's novelty wears off pretty quickly when you realize just how much work you have to do to keep it running.) Six weeks of daily vacuuming trips around my two-cat, all-carpet house was ultimately more than Roomba could handle.

Rather than deal with shipping the whole thing back and dealing with iRobot's infamously unhelpful customer service, I just packed it up and brought it back to Costco, whose lifetime return policy is legendary.

I walked out with a new Roomba, but I'm almost positive I'll be back in another six weeks to do the ol' switcheroo. Again.

Way to get it right on the fifth try, iRobot. So glad I waited this long to sample your wares!

2008-08-04T09:34:00.000-07:00

Kate is 6 months old!

Her 0.5 year birthday was Friday so of course that means picture time!

I took the day off and we had some family photos taken too.

I love my family.

2008-07-31T12:02:00.001-07:00

Have you been watching Breaking Bad? I love that show.

Brian Cranston plays a high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. His HMO won't cover his chemo, so in an act of desperation he reluctantly hooks up with a former student who is now a small-time drug dealer. The two of them start cooking up crystal meth out in the New Mexico desert to pay for his cancer treatments, and hilarity ensues. That's just the first episode.

It's kind of a dark comedy.

Season 1 was only seven episodes long, so if you're looking to get into a new show without having to invest a whole lot of time, now's your chance. It's on iTunes, Unbox, and of course The Pirate Bay. Or, you can go old school like me and just watch it when it airs on AMC. Season 2 starts this fall.

And hey, thanks to the power of Facebook and IMDB I just discovered that one of my old high school pals was the post-production supervisor on four of those first seven episodes! Go Andy!

2008-07-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

Portal without GLaDOS is like Christmas without presents. Please do not buy the XBLA version of Portal.

Just suck it up and get The Orange Box. You probably won't ever touch the other four games that come with it, but it's worth it just to play Portal - one of the most unique and engaging puzzle games you'll ever play!

2008-07-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

Doot doot doot doot doo...

Oh hey, what's this in my mailbox?

A present? For me? Oh city of Anaheim, you shouldn't have. It's not even my birthday! I wonder what it could be!

Two free CFLS! Neato!

Thanks, Anaheim Public Utilities!

2008-07-22T12:38:00.001-07:00

If fonts were people.

2008-07-22T08:54:00.000-07:00

The teaser for Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica spinoff series, is now online. There is a boob in it.

Caprica takes places a half-century before the events of BSG. It'll explain how and why the Cylons were created, among other things.

The second half of the final season of BSG isn't set to air until 2009! Cripes.

2008-07-21T09:21:00.001-07:00

I had a good time in high school. In fact, the only bad memories I have are of the constant struggle for good grades. This was difficult because I was an average student in a school full of geniuses.

So there's this girl, Andrea Wachner. She went to my high school. I was class of 96, she was class of 95. I didn't know her then and I don't know her now.

She hated high school. She hated it so much that when her 10-year reunion rolled around she hired a stripper named Cricket to attend it and pretend to be her. Cricket wore an earpiece and a hidden microphone while a camera crew followed her around. The real Andrea Wachner was upstairs in a hotel room feeding her information all night long.

She's documented everything and turned it into an indie film - "I Remember Andrea". There's a long trailer on YouTube. She's submitting it to Sundance.

She's probably a nice person and all, but this was kind of mean.

People go to reunions to reconnect with old friends and have a good time, not to be the butt of jokes...that's the kind of stunt high school kids would pull! Oh snap!

2008-07-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

I found a house I'd like to buy.

Unfortunately it's a little out of my price range! $23 million.

I bought a lottery ticket yesterday so we'll see how that goes. If I don't win it, it wasn't meant to be.

2008-07-14T09:35:00.000-07:00

Kate's turning out to be a real trooper. She had two back-to-back days of overstimulation this weekend and she took it all in stride - barely putting up a fuss at all!

Saturday night we went to the Orange County Fair. I ate and ate and ate some more.

The poster advertising this hot dog did not do it justice. It was roughly twice the size of what I was expecting. I did not realize this until they handed it to me.

I ate it all! I could have done without the toppings though.

Kate stayed up until 11:30 that night, despite our attempts to get her to sleep in her stroller. It worked out for the best, because she didn't wake up until 10 the next morning!

Sunday we did DCA and Disneyland.

The reports you may have read are true - Toy Story Midway Mania makes Buzz Lightyear look like a rusty old relic. It's tons of fun and the shooting accuracy is spot-on.

I've lost count of how many times Kate's been to Disneyland, but she always manages to fall asleep before the fireworks start. This time she managed to stay up to see some of Fantasmic, but she lost interest after the first five minutes. You'd think she saw pyrotechnics every day or something. Kate fell asleep before Fantasmic was over and slept through the fireworks. She's so brave!

Anyhoo, I'm exhausted this morning.

2008-07-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

The Japanese Office from SNL. Old, but still funny!

2008-07-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

So there's this thing called the iPhone 3G and people are all excited about it.

I'm 12 months into a 24 month contract with AT&T.

You know what that means? That means the $199 iPhone becomes a $399 iPhone.

What happens if I pay the pro-rated early termination fee? My ETF becomes $115, and my total cost to renew to a two year contract with an iPhone becomes $314. That's $85 cheaper!

That's still a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a mobile phone. So it can play Bomberman...big deal!

The ideal solution would just be to buy the phone flat-out and not be chained to a contract. Unfortunately that option costs SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS.

2008-07-07T10:32:00.000-07:00

Django Reinhardt meets Super Mario Bros 2. Great video.

2008-07-03T14:05:00.001-07:00

My pal Stacy brought this Bluetooth headset to my attention-

It's the Iqua 603 Sun, and as the name implies it's solar powered! How great is that - it doesn't have a charging cable or cradle or ANYTHING - just a teeny tiny solar panel. It does have a mini-USB port for charging if you live in a cave, but if you live in a cave you probably don't get cell reception anyway, so moot point!

It retails for $100 but a quick Froogle search shows it for $65ish at a few places.

They also make a solar-powered visor speakerphone, the Iqua Vizor Sun!

The only photo on their website of the Vizor Sun is a computer rendering and I couldn't find it for sale anywhere...must be new!

So again, some rinky-dink company that you've never heard of is making Bluetooth products that are innovative and useful. First Parrot with their car-cradle headset, and now Iqua harnessing the power of the sun! Who are these guys?

2008-07-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

5 months

2008-06-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

California's new hands-free driving law kicks into action next Tuesday, July 1st. If you want to use your mobile phone while driving after that date, you'll need to use a hands-free kit.

You can check out the details here!

I've always resisted using hands-free kits. I hate wires. My phone came with a wired headset and I never use it! It gets tangled and snagged on things and is generally a pain.

You'd think that Bluetooth would be my salvation, but not really! Getting a Bluetooth device meant that I'd have to worry about keeping another device charged all the time, and having another charger means - you guessed it - another wire! SO frustrating.

I was ready to give up on talking while driving altogether (crazy, I know) but then I found the Parrot Driver Headset, the solution to my woes!

It's a Bluetooth headset with its own charging cradle. You just plug it into your car's power port and you've got an always-charged Bluetooth headset right at your fingertips. It's really the only truly wireless wireless headset.

Can you believe that no other manufacturer has thought to make a Bluetooth headset with a charging cradle? Believe me, I checked. Not Plantronics, not Motorola, not even Jabra. It took a small-timer like Parrot (have you even heard of them before now?) to come up with this genius idea.

It retails for $80 but you can snag it on Amazon for under $20. It won't win any style awards, and I'm told that my sound quality is "iffy" when using the headset, but I rarely use my phone while driving so I'd say it's just fine.

Tammy's car has an integrated Bluetooth speakerphone and that's really the ideal solution. My 2002 car was born before the Bluetooth boom, so here I am trying to make the best of things.

I've decided that every car sold in America after 2010 should have Bluetooth and GPS as standard features. They're as indispensable as seat belts! Who do I contact to make this happen?

2008-06-24T10:06:00.000-07:00

Friends, the end is near.

Disneyland's venerable Motorola Type II Smartnet radio system is quickly being phased out in favor of iDEN-based Nextel handhelds. (The Smartnet replaced conventional simplex handheld two-ways running ~464Mhz nearly a decade ago.)

I'm not really sure why they're phasing out the old system. I do know that consumer-level iDEN scanners don't exist, so the days of listening to what goes on behind the scenes are just about over. :(

Second only to the OC public safety system in size and reach, Disneyland ran the largest trunked radio system in Orange County - and also one of the most entertaining to listen to. By my count it hosted no less than 67 individual talkgroups across ten frequencies in its heyday.

Those talkgroups were the resort's communications backbone and supported activities throughout both theme parks, Downtown Disney, the three resort hotels, and all surrounding property (parking, TDA, etc). As you can imagine, there was no shortage of interesting things to listen to!

Today only a handful of talkgroups remain active on the Smartnet system, among them security, the railroad, monorail, facilities management, maintenance, and TPO. I don't expect those to remain active much longer.

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

2008-06-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

Champagne & Hors d'Oeuvres

Seared Diver Scallop
Japanese Cucumber & Enoki Salad
with Orange Soy Reductions

Grilled Loin of Lamb with
Acorn Squash & Sage Risotto
Sweet Corn Sauce

Heirloom Tomato Salad with
Feta Cheese & Aged Balsamic Summer Melon

~Intermission~

~Sorbet~

Roast Duck Breast with
Sundried Cherries & Port Sauce

Double Chocolate Mousse in
Pogen Cookie Cup & Fresh Berries

That was my 30th birthday dinner menu. It was phenomenal. We ate at The Hobbit in Orange, which I'm glad to report is nerdy in name only.

Dinner at The Hobbit is more like a four-hour play in three acts, between which you get up to mingle, select your dinner wines from their cellar, and snoop around the kitchen. I'd never been there before and I have to say it lived up to the legend.

Dinner was part of a larger orchestrated birthday weekend organized by Tammy. My birthday was on Friday, the 6th. We spent Thursday and Friday at Disneyland and DCA. Thursday night we stayed on the concierge level of The Grand Californian where we were treated like VIPs. Friday night we went to The Hobbit. Saturday we rested, and Sunday we had a small gathering of 20ish family and friends at our house to partake in a menu comprised solely of my favorite foods - pizza, hot dogs, alcohol, and ice cream cake.

Being 30 doesn't feel all that different than 29. It's easier for me to think of it as "two thirds of my life left to go". I look back on the first third and I'm proud of my accomplishments! I grew up without developing any mental defects (that I'm aware of) or socially crippling emotional baggage, finished school and got my degree, got a good job with a great company, bought a house, married my better half, and made a freaking baby. These are all good milestones for any 30 year old to have under their belt, I think.

I'm at a good place in my life!

2008-06-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

Guess who just turned four months old?

It's Kate!

Her four-month photos are up!

2008-05-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that I listen to weird, lousy music. My better half would argue that my taste in music is "terrible" and that my Ipod is full of things that are "painful to listen to."

It should then come as no surprise that Italo Disco is one of my guilty pleasures.

It's not usually Italian and it's almost never disco, so I'm not sure where that title came from. Italo Disco is basically 80s new-wave music from all over Europe, but the lyrics are in english (with thick european accents!) Wikipedia does a better job explaining it than I do, though.

I've listened to all of Blanco Y Negro's gargantuan 49-disc "I Love Disco Diamonds" Italo compilation series a couple times now and I have to say that some of this garbage really puts a spring in my step and makes the day go by pretty quickly!

A lot of it is super catchy and if any of it had ever made its way to America 20 years ago I bet it would have really taken off.

Oh, and I made you a mixtape. Happy Friday!

2008-05-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

I installed the new Wii Homebrew Channel over the weekend. The whole process took about two minutes and I couldn't have screwed things up if I tried.

The first thing I did was load up an SD card full of emulators and minutes later I was playing Pilotwings with my Wiimote. Pilotwings! Somehow I always come back to Pilotwings.

This doesn't break any laws (I own the cartridge!) and seeing as how there's no hardware modification involved I'm guessing it doesn't even void your warranty...but just to be safe I blocked my Wii from hitting "*nintendo.com" on my router, so its 'phone-home' capabilities have been neutralized!

Anyway, the entire process of getting this up and running was embarrassingly quick and easy, especially for what is now the number one console in the Americas.

Whose idea was it to put an SD slot in this thing anyway? I bet he/she's sweating bullets right about now.

2008-05-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

I got my Xbox 360 back from the repair center yesterday. That's a 10 day turnaround from the day I dropped it off at UPS. Not too shabby, but nothing beats the three days I got from Nintendo.

Not all is well with my returned 360, however! Now I can only use the downloaded content that I've paid for if my gamertag is signed in to Live. This means I can't play XBLA titles if I'm offline, and Tammy can't play them unless she signs me in on a second controller.

I anticipated this problem, but I wasn't too concerned because there's a system in place for restoring access on repaired consoles.

Unfortunately that system isn't working. Evidently the geniuses over at Microsoft's repair center forgot to transfer over my DRM licenses for my purchased content to my new console, because following those steps does absolutely nothing.

Rather than call India to plead my case to someone who likely won't have any idea what I'm talking about, I'm just going to deal with it for another month. That's when - according to this interview, a tool will be released that'll let you re-license content to a single console on your own.

That tool is about two years overdue.