Geek + Fireworks = Awesome as hell.

Last year, Justin and I bought an electronic firework launcher for our annual Fourth of July festivities. The thing absolutely sucked. It was slow and error-prone to set up, and even when it was connected properly rarely lit the fuse. We ended up manually lighting pretty much everything, it was so bad. That night, while we were setting one off, we decided to build our own damned ignition box.

Just under a year later, we realized that we still hadn’t started on the box, and quickly started brainstorming ideas. Continue reading “Geek + Fireworks = Awesome as hell.”

It’s good to be a geek.

Because my cellphone is both old and used as my alarm clock, I drain the battery pretty damned quick. I keep a cellphone charger in my coat pocket with me all the time, so I can revive it in a pinch.

It snowed like an asshole yesterday. Since both Danielle and I got stuck several times in the driveway, I started shovelling and snowblowing. I got about halfway done before the downstairs tenant got home and took over what is actually his job, seeming more annoyed than thankful that I helped.

My phone was pretty much dead this morning, so I went to grab the trusty charger, plugged it in and…nothing.

WTF, mate?

After a bit of inspection, I noticed a tiny bit of water by the connector. You fucking snow, if I ever catch you with my sister again!

I did a bit of tinkering and then figured I’d go for broke, and cracked the charger open. There wasn’t much water inside, and the bulk of it was on the case. I didn’t see or smell any of the mysterious blue smoke that makes electronics work, so it had to be something else. I eventually located the main issue to be a bit of water underneath the tape on the step-down transformer.

I shoved a little corner of paper in and shook it around to absorb the water, pieced the charger back together.

Voilà! Charger!

Infinitely Prolonged enough.

The time has finally come to take Wowbagger, the Infinitely Prolonged offline.

As far as I can tell, I have been using Wowbagger as my primary web and mail server, as well as a general dumping ground for miscellaneous files since January 7th, 2003. Well, technically the mail server went up on March 21st, 2003. This obscurely named machine was accessed by tens of people using the equally obscurely named Dynamic DNS address, Notlob.

Since I now have a legit (and incredible) domain name and managed web hosting, it’s finally time to put the old beast to rest. The fact that my parents are remodeling my old bedroom where the server lives, is of course, merely a courtesy detail.

I have imported an archive of my old photo gallery for all to enjoy in all its nostalic glory.

If you’ve read this far without needing to ask what the hell Wowbagger or Notlob are referencing, you are probably interested in the specs of this machine. Here you are:

  • 233MHz Celeron
  • 187 MB RAM (doesn’t sound right to me, but that’s what /proc/meminfo says)
  • 12GB HDD
  • Mandrake Linux v2.4.19-16 (I suck at updating, bite me)

Genghis Khan, you are a wanker; you are a tosspot; you are a very tiny piece of turd. Thank you.

::sniffle:: So long, Wowbagger, and thanks for all the insults.