My wife is updating like crazy over at her blog, Inquisitive Sensitive. Check it out, please! It will give you a bit of insight into our (sometimes crazy) lives.

That's my can of Barbasol shaving cream exploding on the countertop. My wife and I heard a pop sound one night, and since it was late didn't bother finding the source until morning. That's what we found. I just laughed about it, since the can was a bit old and had gotten a lot of use, but thought we should write Barbasol anyways. It also helped that I had read about a similiar incident on Consumerist.com, titled "If Your Barbasol Shaving Cream Explodes In Your Shower, You Will Receive Coupons"

My wife drafted up a letter, explaining the situation and included picture and video links in case they wanted to check them out, and e-mailed it off. I wasn't expecting any response, but a week or so later, we received this in the mail:

Good form, Barbasol! Now, my brand of Barbasol is actually $2.50 at most local retailers, but come on, a two-dollar bill? How cool is that. Who else gives you 80% of your money back like that these days?

Bonus, video clip of the foaming action:

I purchased a 2007 Nissan Altima in January of last year, and it's been great. Even though I've driven over a 5-inch high piece of wood and bombed it off of a foot high drop on a dirt road. I felt it was worth paying the "extra" for the technology package. Bluetooth? Check. Navigation? Check. Traffic information? Check.

The Bluetooth works like it's supposed to, although it is hard to hear sometimes. I can't fault the car, because the inside of a car isn't dead quiet like the commercials would lead you to believe. The navigation works well, with some flaws. I've found some aftermarket devices that allow you to override the buttons while driving, but haven't implemented them in my own car yet. Kinda scared to do that, lest I turn my car's wiring into a rat's nest.

But that isn't what this entry is about. I'm talking specifically about the XM NavTraffic feature linked with my navigation system that is supposed to allow for real-time traffic information to be overlaid on your map. It works as advertised, and indeed does show green/orange/red lines next to the road if there is traffic, and little icons if there is an accident or construction.

The problem is, most of the time the data was completely worthless. I don't know if it's on a delayed update or what, but driving up to Riverside, the roads would be all green. I can tell you from personal experience that the I-15 to I-215 to I-60 route is not "all green", especially during morning or afternoon traffic. It got so bad that I eventually started manually setting avoidance areas in my navigation system.

The accident information was also delayed. If I was sitting in traffic caused by an accident, rarely would I see it on my screen. For the times it actually did show on my screen, it leads me to make my second point-- Nissan's navigation system doesn't re-route around bad traffic or accidents!

Sure, there is an option to enable the feature, but it does nothing as far as I can tell. At least on my old Magellan GPS unit, it would announce "re-calculating route due to traffic conditions." Heck, the Magellan unit would sense that I was on a freeway and doing stop-n-go traffic, then automatically route me 5, 10, 15 or 20 miles around the block of freeway. Unacceptable that this feature is not found in a much larger (and more expensive) unit.

So eventually, it just didn't make sense anymore to have XM NavTraffic in my car. Maybe your car interprets XM's data differently (and actually avoids problems), but definitely not in a Nissan Altima.

While I'm complaining, I think I'll point out that it seems the XM audio decoder in my vehicle is not the most current decoder chip utilized by XM (even though it's a 2007 vehicle) -- this leads to lower sound quality. It reminds me of the old Delphi SkyFi XM radio I had my previous cars. I wasn't very happy with the quality at all, until someone over at XM411.com revealed to me that the newer SkyFi2 had an upgraded decoder chip. Sure enough, I bought a SkyFi2 and had a much better sound quality experience. Again, it's a shame that a "new" car doesn't have this upgraded chip.

Anyways, I just thought I'd give everyone a post-mortem on my car. Enjoy.

I will comment a bit more on this later, but until then, I leave you with this gem:

Man was I scruffy in Vegas. Four years ago! And I’ve lost weight.

I keep getting this weird error after my Windows session has been logged in for a long time. It happens if I try to run any Office program (Excel, Outlook, Word, etc.) or if I try to run Windows Media Player.

Logging off and logging back in fixes the problem, but that’s hardly ideal.

I found a forum post regarding the issue, and it seems that Microsoft is indeed aware of the issue:

In the meantime: You don't need to reboot, just log off and log back on. It's a per-user issue. That will clear it up if it's the same issue.  I realize it can be a pain and I'm not trying to minimze the issue at all, but the workaround is simpler/quicker than a full reboot.

It hits different people in different time frames. It depends on how many apps you are running and how often you have loaded/unloaded them.

I appologize that it takes this long, but we'd rather not give you an update that had other problems/regressions, so we want to make sure it's fully tested, and that can take a few weeks in an environment as complex as this, as I'm sure you know. 

Reading further, it seems the fix is actually finally released, but won’t be forced upon users (via Windows Update) until July. If you’re having this problem, you can download KB952709 and fix it right now!

My wife Heather was begging me to find some Wall-E ringtones; after a short while I couldn’t really find anything for free, so I decided to make some. I’m sharing them with the world in case someone else wants to check ‘em out too. I’m making them available in MP3 and M4R (iPhone Ringtone) format:

MP3:

Wall-E Music (from the trailer)

Wall-E Saying His Name

M4R (iPhone):

Wall-E Music (from the trailer)

Wall-E Saying His Name

Instructions for iPhone: Simply right-click and save the files to your hard drive. Drag them onto iTunes, and they should be recognized as ringtone files. The next time you sync your iPhone, they will show up.

Update: Do you have a request for another Wall-E ringtone, or just a ringtone in general from your favorite movie/TV show? Let me know and I'll see what I can come up with.

Update 2008-07-18: Here are some more "ringtones" I made from Wall-E!

MP3:

Eve Saying "Wall-E!"

Mo Saying "Woah Woah Woah Woah Woah!"

Wall-E Saying "Eeeve-A"

Wall-E Saying His Name (longer)

M4R (iPhone):

Eve Saying "Wall-E!"

Mo Saying "Woah Woah Woah Woah Woah!"

Wall-E Saying "Eeeve-A"

Wall-E Saying His Name (longer)

Update 2008-08-05: Want a glimpse into the life of me and my wife? Check out her blog, Inquisitive Sensitive!

Heather and I went to see Wall-E on the opening night. I honestly didn’t know what to expect from this movie— I couldn’t think of a single Pixar movie I didn’t like. As a side note, I held off watching Ratatouille for forever because I just didn’t want to be disappointed in Pixar; everyone was telling me Ratatouille sucked. It didn’t.

Anyway, getting back to Wall-E, the film is right in so many ways. The pacing is spot on, and we really get invested emotionally in all of the characters, not just the leads (Wall-E and EVE.) And on top of that, it’s just a great sci-fi story, with a dash of action and a extra spoonful of romance.

The visuals are obviously gorgeous, and Pixar did a great job of defining “the world”. There is live-action (real humans) mixed in with the animation and it doesn’t actually seem that out of place. I’m not spoiling anything, but as an example, there’s a great chain of pictures in the captain’s quarters that starts as a picture of an actual person, and ends with the current captain:

As to why us humans are fat, that gets explained :)

Anyway, it’s a great movie, and I’d say it’s easily one of the best I’ve seen this year. There’s an animated Pixar short in front of it, called “Presto!”, about a magician experiencing some issues with the ol’ rabbit out of a hat trick. The audience was in tears for that, and it just set the stage perfectly for what was to come with Wall-E.

So go see it. Take your girlfriend or wife too, especially. They’ll swoon (multiple times) over Wall-E’s cuteness.

Here’s some more Wall-E related images and (ooh!) retro-looking Disneyland-ish posters:

I posted about this before.. Disney’s been using Annie Leibovitz to take some pretty cool “Disney-themed” photos with famous people. They’ve done some more since then.. check ‘em out, I still think they’re pretty spiffy. I still need to buy a decent camera…

Tennis star Roger Federer is King Arthur from "The Sword in the Stone"

Actress Rachel Weisz is Snow White

Actress Julie Andrews is the Blue Fairy from "Pinocchio" with actress Abigail Breslin as Fira from "Disney Fairies"

Gisele Bundchen as Peter Pan’s Wendy Darling, beckoned by Mikhail Baryshnikov as Peter Pan and Tina Fey as Tinker Bell

Jessica Biel as Pocahontas

Jennifer Lopez as Princess Jasmine and Marc Anthony as Aladdin

Whoopi Goldberg as the Genie

Actress Julianne Moore and World Champion swimmer Michael Phelps, with Julianne playing Ariel from “The Little Mermaid”

Since getting my console back after having it repaired, due to the red ring of death problem, I haven't played it much. I decided today to sit down and play Assassin's Creed, and about five minutes into it, my screen starts to look posterized. Basically, it looks like the colors are reduced. Think cheesy 80's music video special effects. Here's some shots:

Of course, if I go to XBox.com and look up my repair information, it says I'm out of warranty. Fantastic. A console I hardly play is broken yet again. I'm going to try to call and deal with their customer service people (in India.. ugh.) But I doubt I will be able to get them to fix this for free.

I haven't found any other information online about this problem. I can't be the only one, though.

Stuff I've tried:

- Changing from 1080p to 1080i, 720p, etc. -- no change.

- Jiggling the entire cable, in case there's a short.

- Unplugging/re-plugging in the video cable.

- Performing the "Reset Video Settings" trick per Microsoft's KB article.

How *$()@% frustrating is this? Microsoft really doesn't get it sometimes.

Update: According to users who replied to my XBox.com forum post, the problem appears to be that the GPU is either overheating, or beginning to break away from the motherboard. This is similar to what causes the "Red Ring of Death" errors, but not the same. I think I'm going to just have to bite the bullet and pay for repairs, even though this is clearly a design flaw, and not a problem I caused.

My best friend Jason and I have made lots of videos over the years. These four videos, made for this year's Vacation Bible School at Mountain View Community Church, are a good example of the silliness that ensues when Jason and I make videos. I usually edit, he directs/films. Jason's the guy with the funny lit-up glasses. Enjoy.

My boss recently posted about A-G Sod Farms on his blog, "Kevin Lewis Blog" and it inspired me to do the same. One of the first projects I was introduced to after being hired by LewisTech was a custom accounting system for A-G Sod Farms. They sell sod in brick & mortar stores, and we recently renovated their ability to order sod online.

I have to admit, at first I was a bit nervous with the scope of the project. I had never worked on anything that large before (and something being used at multiple distant locations, by multiple users.) It was a genuine learning experience, and Kevin helped me every step of the way. In the end, as Kevin's entry attests to, we delivered a great product that has helped the company cut paper usage and be "more green". How about that? A sod company, going green...

So next time you're looking for Sod in Riverside, Sod in Los Angeles, Sod in Sacramento, or Sod in any of their other locations, be sure to check them out. I know that when I purchase a home with Heather (hopefully in the next 5 years?) I will be using them for all my sod needs.

The night before my birthday we all went out to Benihana, as you can see. The chef was great, and even shaped the rice in a "Mickey Mouse" head. My wife says he must've known I was coming. Hah.

Then the next day (my birthday), Heather surprised me by taking me out to IHOP for breakfast, then giving me the option of going to see Iron Man or going to the beach. Which one do you think I chose? :) We both really enjoyed Iron Man. After that, she told me she had purchased a yearly pass for her and I for the Wild Animal Park. So on our way home we stopped there and walked around for a bit, just relaxing and checking out things at a casual pace. Since we live so close (about 20 mins or less) to the Wild Animal Park, the passes will come in handy.

All in all it was a great birthday, and I loved being surprised. My wife is amazing. Just thought I'd share!

My friend (and former co-worker) Mike Glanz runs a website called HireAHelper.com which connects people with moving, cleaning, yard and labor helpers. Think of it as a "Expedia", but for stuff you need to get done. You pick the helper and name your hours/price. It couldn't be simpler.

My grandparents are moving this next week, and I'm going to tell them about HireAHelper.com. That's how much I like it!

If you're looking for moving help, researching moving companies, or need some moving labor, please be sure to check out his site:

http://www.hireahelper.com/

Thanks!

The latest (and final) trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, coming out May 22nd, 2008.

I especially love the "rocket sled" part of this trailer, looks like a typical Indiana Jones fight atmosphere. Didn't you just love it when Indy punched that guy into an airplane's propellers on Raiders of the Lost Ark? Can't wait for this movie.

Streaming Version

1080p Quicktime Version

720p Quicktime Version

480p Quicktime Version

"It's all... part of the plan."

Check out the newest (and final) trailer for The Dark Knight, coming out July 18th, 2008. We get a few new glimpses in this trailer, and an interesting shot (near the end) of Harvey Dent's face in some sort of flammable liquid. Two-Face, is that you?

http://www.whysoserious.com/happytrails/

My server, previously with a tiny VIA C3 low-powered CPU, has been replaced with a Dell Quad Core machine. Quite a difference in speed. The old server did well for a while, but started recently having problems.

I know a few people use my server and read this blog, so if you notice any weirdness, please let me know. I've tried my best to not cause much downtime, though.

And the picture is not related. Unless you consider it me going "Oh, yeaahh!" after finishing the server. Hrm.

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/indianajones.html?showVideo=1

Enjoy!

I have the greatest wife in the world.

She’s been putting up with my business trips like a champ.

And I get to see her tonight!

So there.

P.S. – And she smells like cupcakes, rainbows and dreams. So double there. Neener!

According to numerous news sources, Heath Ledger was found dead of a possible sleeping pill overdose at 3:35pm New York time. NBC says his body was found surrounded by pills.

What the heck? Was this an accident, or intentional? He seemed to have a lot going for him, and his career was just in it’s “early” stages. “The Dark Knight” will apparently be his last full length film, as he was in the middle of filming “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” when he passed, and it’s doubtful he completed all his scenes, being the lead and all.

Wow, anyways. What a bummer. Another young actor lost.

Ugh. Don’t remind me.

Vinny’s dead-on with his latest post on the issue, entitled ‘35 Years of “Choice”’:

If you’re reading this now, your parents didn’t abort you. For all the people running around today pounding their chests in the name of feminist reproductive choice, none of them are abortion survivors. Unlike most medical procedures, abortion has a 100% success rate, and you’re 100% dead if one is performed on you in utero.

and

Just remember that as everyone proudly proclaims how they’re “pro choice” and how this is a great day for women everywhere. Pro choice is a euphemism for pro abortion. You either want abortion to exist or you don’t. It’s fine to be pro abortion if that’s your thing, but please stop laying the bullshit line about choice on me, okay?

I loved this movie. If you want a non-stop thrill ride, step right up.

And bring extra underwear.

If you want to know what was whispered at the end of the movie (after the credits), then read below.

SPOILER! DO NOT READ PAST THIS POINT IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SPOIL WHAT’S AFTER THE CREDITS.

According to the despoiler Cloverfield wiki, it’s saying “It’s still alive.”, but it’s being played back backwards, so it kinda sounds like “Help us” played forward. Creepy!

Xobni (inbox backwards) is an add-on for Outlook that seems to fill in all the missing spaces that Microsoft forgot about:

Looks pretty spiffy. I really want to get into the beta, and you probably do too if you use Outlook. Click this link to check it out:

I’ve been having really infrequent “random” blue screens/freezes ever since I got my new computer back in July. I finally tracked the cause to either be high disk I/O or high network I/O. I replaced my network card with a PCI-E Intel gigabit card, but that didn’t solve the problem. I was in Visual Studio the other day, and went to get latest on a project, and boom, blue screen.

It sometimes isn’t just a big blue screen of death, though. Other times it just freezes my entire operating system for 15–20 seconds, then it “catches up” with itself.

Looking at my Windows event log, I see a lot of entries like this:

Source: nvstor32
Event ID: 129
Level: Warning
Message: Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued.

These messages seem to indicate a problem with my nVidia-based SATA chipset. Searching around “the Google”, I find other users in similiar situations. They all suggest turning off Native Command Queing (NCQ) in the nVidia drive controller’s properties:

I’ve done that now and rebooted, and it seems to have fixed the problem. Funny enough, under XP (on this same machine) I have never had the random lockups or event log entries, so it appears to be a Vista-specific problem.

So, who’s to blame? Is it nVidia? I’m running the latest nForce drivers for my chipset (nVidia 650i SLI MCP), which at the time of this blog entry is 15.08. Is it Microsoft’s fault? Are they doing something funky in the newer drive code that could be causing this?

Who knows. All I know is that I have to disable a potentially performance-helping feature in order to not crash my machine. Maybe Scott Hanselman’s run into this on his very similiar quad core rig? Oh well. That’s technology for you. As long as it’s not corrupting my data, I guess.

This is something that I’ve known for a while, but always seem to forget when it comes to actually implementing it in my code.

When catching an exception, most people catch it as a variable, such as “ex” and then just do a “throw ex” and throw that exception back up the chain. This is probably not what you want. When the stack trace/error information comes back from that exception, it will show as having occurred where your “throw ex” was. This isn’t really helpful if your “try” block contains a lot of code.

Instead, you should just simply write “throw”, without passing a specific exception. This allows the stack trace to show the original location of the error (instead of where you caught the exception and threw it again.) This information is much more helpful when debugging..

And now you know too!