A few weeks ago I was reading some blog and I came across this thing called exer-station that really caught my interest. The exer-station is a device that you can plug into your xbox, playstation 2, or gamecube, and use it to play games. It has two handles, an LCD screen, and some buttons. The handles are connected to a bar which is connected to a platform you sit on. To steer in a game, you push on the handles in the direction you want to go. The handles don't actually move, because the device measures the force you exert on the handles. This is called isometric exercise. You can adjust the amount of force required to move. According to everything I've read, you can get quite a workout with the exer-station, and it's more expensive counterpart, the kilo-watt.

This concept fascinates me. I plan on getting an exer-station to work on increasing my upper-body strength. I'll write about it in my blog when I do. Click on this if you want to work out while playing your games.

http://www.powergridfitness.com

On Tuesday I went to the San Diego Zoo for a couple hours. I had recently purchased a membership, and that was my first visit while being a member. I took my Canon S1 IS digital camera so I could photograph as much as I can. My goal is to take pictures of all the exhibits there and make a new site to show them all. For every exhibit I photographed, I took pictures of the information signs so I can later include this data on the new site.

I got about 200 pictures on that visit. My favorite area is the Absolutely Apes area. One of the Apes was doing summersaults on the grass, while another was entertaining the crowd by throwing pieces of bark over the enclousure's glass wall. I got a good movie clip of one of them pressing it's face against the glass and looking around.

There is a new area called monkey trails. I walked through the lower portion of it. There is also a bridge that has a better view, but I didn't happen across the entrance to it. The lower area has some wild pigs and birds.

I walked through Tiger Walk, and past some hippos. They were sleeping. I wanted to see the pandas but I didn't want to wait in line. I took the escalator up to the horn and hoof mesa. My favorite animals up there are the zebras and the giraffes. Around this point I got the idea to photograph some plants too. I'll make a plant section on my new site.

I visited the Koalas on my way to the exit, they were all sleeping. I got to the Reptile House as the loudspeaker annouced the zoo would close in half an hour. I took pictures of a couple snakes, after which I bid farewall to the zoo for the day. It'll be cool being able to go any day I want to. I envision making a very nice website with all the pictures.

A while ago I stumbled upon a game called Grow, where you drag some strange objects onto a globe and watch them change. Grow is one of several games on a website called eyezmaze. Eyemaze is a site featuring the flash games of a Japanese guy who obviously has a vivid imagination.

http://www.eyezmaze.com

I showed this site to Dani, and she found a game on there called Tontie. Tontie is a whack-a-mole type game that becomes quite challenging. There are 9 squares in which different characters or objects pop up. You use the number pad on your keyboard to make the hammer whack the corresponding square. The basic enemy is a one-eyed character with a spike on it's head, which I'm assuming is called a Tontie. When you hit these guys, the platform it's standing on lowers. Sometimes you get coins or hearts when you hit them. If you miss a Tontie, you lose some life. To pass a level you must stay alive until the timer runs out and all the Tonties are gone.

Each level introduces a new thing to contend with, and the platforms come up faster. Sometimes a store pops up where you can buy stuff with your coins. You start with a red pikopiko hammer, which you can upgrade to a bronze, silver, or gold hammer.

On level 10 there is a boss character you must destroy to pass the level. At first Dani and I could not beat this guy, but now it seems easy. But Dani is the true Tontie master. She plays Tontie every day when she wakes up, and gets to level 20 every day. Level 20 is incredibly difficult. One day, when I was asleep, Dani beat level 20, which is the end. She woke me up and told me about it. The trick is to get to level 20 without using any continues, then the last boss starts with greatly reduced life.

I thought maybe Dani would stop playing Tontie if she beat it, but she is still playing. It's funny hearing the silly theme song and sound effects every day.

If you'd like to play a silly but challenging game, check out Tontie at the eyezmaze website.

http://www.eyezmaze.com

Kameo: Elements of Power is an Xbox 360 RPG/adventure game. I've been able to play it because my brother let me borrow his Xbox 360 for a while, along with Kameo and Project Gotham Racing 3. Kameo stars a young Elf girl who is on a quest to save her family from her evil sister. Her family is the royal family that lives in the Enchanted Kingdom, which is under attack by a horde of trolls and it's king Thorn. Thorn is being used by Kameo's sister to usurp the power they hold.

The game begins in Thorn's castle. Kameo initially has the ability to transform herself into 3 elemental warriors. Each warrior has it's own unique abilities. Major Ruin is an armadillo type creature that can roll into a ball. Chilla is an ice monster that can throw ice and climb walls. Pummel weed is a plant that can sneak between cracks. In each level you must use the special abilities to pass obstacles and defeat your enemies.

Thorn's castle is a huge monstrosity filled with fire and trolls. It has many ramps which require Major Ruin's rolling ability. My initial impression of the graphics I saw at this point was that it was impressive, but not a huge step above the Xbox. Later I found other levels really contained scenes of beauty, and lots of attention to detail.

After completing Thorn's castle, Kameo ends up at the Mystic's training building in the Enchanted Kingdom. The mystic guides Kameo through the story. After completing her training, which consists of very simple tasks using the controller, Kameo aquires a book called the Wotnot. This book keeps track of Kameo's progress, and contains the game's configurations.

I particularly like the Mountain Falls town. The water has a really appealing quality to it, the way it shimmers and shines. When you go underwater the fish and plants look very lifelike. Every town has colorful characters, which you can see and hear them interacting with each other. The towns feel full of life. Every area changes between day and night, watching the transition is fascinating.

In between doing things in these different locales, Kameo must save the day in a large scale battle in the badlands, which connects the various areas. The battles appear to have hundreds of elves and trolls fighting, and have a magnificent sense of scale. It's fun being amongst all the action, but Kameo must perform some objective to save her kingdom.

As of this writing, I have progressed to the Snow Top Village. I eagerly await my next explorations. If you have an Xbox 360, I highly recommend Kameo:Elements of Power.

In the last episode of Mindfreak, Criss Angel once again flirts with death by laying in a crate packed with C4 explosives. Amazingly he walks away from the ordeal unscathed. What was most amazing to me, however, was one of the other tricks in the episode.

Criss had a woman sign her initials on a quarter. Criss puts the quarter in his mouth, and swallows it. He opens his mouth and moves his tongue around to show that it is not there. He then moves his left hand in a vibrating motion near his right arm. A quarter shaped lump appears to come out of his sleve, and proceeds down his right arm as he moves his left hand. Once the lump gets about halfway down his forearm, Criss takes out a razor and cuts his arm next to the lump. He pulls out a bloody quarter, with the woman's initials on it.

Criss Angel's show never fails to leave me feeling dumbfounded, wondering "how the hell did he do that?". I can never come close to figuring out how he does any of his stunts. Therefore I must say Criss Angel is very high on my list of people I'd like to meet.

Mindfreak airs on A&E at 10PM Wednesday nights, followed by a second episode at 10:30.

Dani bought some Coke with Splenda last night. I decided to do a little research about Splenda to see what I might find out. In Google, the first result is the offical Splenda website.
http://www.splenda.com

On their product information page, there are a few bulleted items of things the Splenda people would like to point out. The first is that Spenda is "made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar".

In a Google search for Splenda, the 2nd to 4th results are sites that warn about the dangers of Splenda. I decided to read some of those sites as well.

I learned that Splenda's chemical name is sucralose. This name was chosen for marketing purposes because it sounds like sucrose, the chemical name for sugar. Sucralose is created from sugar by using chemical manipulation to replace 3 hydroxyl groups with chlorine atoms. This turns sucrose into a chlorocarbon. The Splenda site says that chlorine is naturally present in many of the foods we eat. What they fail to mention is that the chlorine in food is not present in a chlorocarbon form.

The Splenda website says that over 100 studies of Splenda have been performed. They don't mention that only 6 of them have been performed on humans. Toxicity testing on animals may not be sufficient because some substances prodoce a much greater toxicity in humans than in rodents. Of the 6 human trials of Spenda, only 2 of them were completed before the FDA approved sucralose for human consumption. Those 2 trials had a total of 36 people, and lasted 4 days or less.

The longest human trial of Splenda lasted 3 months. In other words, nobody knows if Splenda adversely affects health after long term use. I will probably try to stay away from Splenda. If you consume it, I would advise you to research it for your own sake.

I recently recommended the Garden Claw to my mother who wants to remove large patches of weeds from her yard. The Garden Claw is a adjustable length long handed garden tool with 4 angeled prongs, and 2 exta shorter prongs. It has handles similar to a bicycle. To use it, grab the handles and stick the tool in the ground. Then twist clockwise. The twisting loosens the soil, and grabs roots.
http://www.gardenclaw.com

I sent my mother to Home Depot to buy a Garden Claw, which costs about $35. She came back with a Garden Hound, a similar tool made by Hound Dog. The main difference is that the Garden Hound does not have adjustable height. The Garden Hound costs about $20.

I used the Garden Hound to remove weeds in my mother's yard. It is very good at breaking up the soil. I found that twisting it back and forth several times would loosen a circular area of soil about 6" in diameter. It works well even with clay soil. Some effort is required to initially rotate the tool in this soil.

Removing weeds with this tool is simply a matter of rotating it at a greater angle. I found that turning it 360 degrees would usually grab a weed. It's roots wrap around the prongs, then it can be pulled out with ease.

I highly recommend the Garden Hound tiller to anyone that does common garden tasks. For more information, please click the following link.

http://www.hound-dog.com/garden_tiller.htm

On Thursday, my mom called and Dani answered the phone. My mom says something to her, and Dani asks me "do you remember Adam Brody?". I say "yeah". Adam used to live a few houses up the street from me when we were kids. I used to always go his house and play Nintendo with him. He had a lot of cool games. All I can remember us ever doing was playing his Nintendo. At some point, we stopped hanging out, and I didn't know what had become of him.

Dani says "he's on TV right now, on channel 6". I turn to channel 6 (FOX), and the O.C. is on. "Oh cool", I think, "Adam's on this show". I've never watched the O.C. before, but I know it's a popular show. I couldn't even figure out with character Adam was, so I Googled him, and found a picture of him. It said he plays Seth, a regular cast member. He's also been in quite a few movies. I watched the whole episide, there was some drama involving some guy getting shot after a fight.

It's weird seeing one of my childhood friends as a famous actor. I even found a bunch of Adam Brody fan sites. He's in that Mr. and Mrs. Smith movie... I'll have to watch that. Adam's become very successful, while I toil with developing little known websites.

A few days ago we got a carpet shampooer, a Eureka Atlantis model 2591A. The manual calls it a carpet steamer, but there is no steam involved, only hot water.

This unit comes fully assembled, and includes a tool caddy where the 8ft hose, upholstery attachment, and hard floor attachments are stored. It also comes with a 16oz bottle of Eureka Multi Surface cleaning concentrate.

The most unique feature of this carpet cleaner is the handle, which folds down onto the main unit, making it take less space for storage. The tool caddy can sit atop of the folded unit, or hang on a wall.

There are 3 tanks involved in cleaning. One tank holds clean hot water, one holds dirty water, while a third smaller tank holds the carpet shampoo. Some other carpet cleaners don't have a separate shampoo tank, so you can't quickly change to a rinse setting. This one has a level to adjust the level of shampoo, or in the rinse setting, only water is used. This helps get the shampoo residue out of the carpet.

Using the cleaner is rather straightforward. First, you should use a regular vaccum cleaner to get the bigger particles and loosen dirt. Then you fill the clean water tank with not water (not boiling), and the shampoo bottle. Then turn on the power switch to suction or brushes. The brushes mode uses suction as well as sideways agitating brushes. Slowly push the machine forward as you hold the spray button. Pull it back, and you start to see dirty water travelling up the clear suction chamber. For some strange reason I find it quite interesting to look at. It also lets you know what areas to work on more.

After I did a small section of carpet (maybe 40 sq ft), I removed the dirty water tank. The dirty water was only about an inch high, when I had used maybe 4 inches of clean water from the other tank, and about 8 oz of shampoo. So, it can't really get much of the water out, but the area was dry the next day.

This machine also has sponge and squeegee attachments for hard floors. I haven't tried those yet. Overall, I like this machine, but I've never tried any other carpet cleaners before. It seems to get mostly positive reviews on the net, which is why I chose it.

For more information, please visit
http://www.eureka.com

Tonight Dani and I watched a new show called Mindfreak on A&E. It airs Wednesdays at 10PM. Mindfreak stars the magician Criss Angel, and it's very bizzare.

In the premiere episode, Criss performed a number of street magic tricks, leading up to setting himself on fire for his mom's 70th birthday. In one segment, he had a voodoo doll, which he would burn with a lighter behind someone's back. That person would feel a burning in the corresponding part of their body. Then he let the person get revenge on him by stabbing the doll with a pin. The first time, some stabbed it in the hand, and Criss's hand started bleeding. The second time, someone stabbed it in the head, Criss's nose bled. The third time, they stabbed it in the chest, and blood dripped from Criss's chest. He pulled up his shirt and you could see the blood coming out.

Before he lit himself on fire for the final act, he wore a suit with fire gel, underneath a sweatshirt. As he was on fire, he walked around towards the crowd, and changed direction a few times. At the end, he fell to the ground as his team extinguished the fire. When the smoke cleared, he was standing, holding a fire extingusiher, and dressed like his team members.

In the next episode he did a lot of levitation tricks. It's like David Blaine's trick, but he goes higher and stays up longer. All this is very puzzling to me. I belive in the laws of physics but I can't figure out how he could do that. He also did a trick where he seemed to move cards telekinetically.

Anyway, Mindfreak is a very interesting show. I would love to run into Criss Angel some day in real life.

This is my first post since implementing Technorati tags in my RSS feed. I hope it works.