Insomnia Cookies

Time to turn away from the technology and Halo for a bit with all my recent posts. I get deals and e-mails from Groupon every day and one day I got this one. Insomnia Cookies... hmm.. that sounds really familiar for some reason. I definitely remember hearing about a cookie delivery service for colleges in NYC on some tv show. After a quick search I figured it out, Unwrapped did a segment on them and they sounded amazing. I had to try them after I remember their segment. I was not disappointed. I had to personalize my note, so I went with "Hello, Cookie!". The box arrived with a signature green ribbon and a menu.

Inside was a delicious assortment of Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, M&M, Double Chocolate Chunk, Sugar, and Oatmeal cookies. They are all simply awesome!!!  They have several bakeries around college campuses so they can deliver them late at night and fresh. If you ever get a chance, try these cookies! You can see their location list and order them to be mailed through their website. http://www.insomniacookies.com/

Halo: Reach Wireless Headset

Continuing with the Halo theme for whatever reason that is, here's another Halo promo item. Having my 2nd wired headset break at the wire connection to the controller I had to look for another headset. I stayed away from wireless due to tales of their unreliability, but I'm fed up with wired controllers breaking. I found only two options the regular white Xbox 360 wireless headset and a Halo: Reach edition of it. They were the same price and I figured the Halo one being newer it should be better. Also it looked nicer.
Well I have no way to compare it to the normal one but this headset is pretty good. It blew my low expectations for a wireless mic out of the water. The sound quality is great and it still has the volume controls and mute ability as a wired headset would. I was surprised with the wireless range, I walked around the house while still talking to my LIVE Party with no problems at all. It came with two different sized earloops which is actually pretty comfortable. The Halo: Reach headset is donning a textured silver surface like it's matching controller (don't worry I don't have one, you won't hear about it). On the back side is a barcode printed with "Property of UNSC" above it. Along the mic is "7//65|59_234|97///" it's some sort of serial number that is also printed on the UNSC Crate and ONI Black box from the Legendary Edition. Not too sure what it means. It is also sporting the ONI logo with REACH labeled under it.
That's it for Halo, I promise you won't hear about it anymore... for a while at least. Now I have to go umm... do stuff that doesn't involve a certain game.

Halo: Reach - Legendary Edition

"Big Box of Crack"

Hmm... I wonder why this post is a week late. Oh yeah, I picked up what I like to call a "Big Box of Crack". The Halo: Reach Legendary Edition is massive. Just check out the scale next to a controller. There is so much inside that I will actually say it is worth it. Along with all the physical goodies inside you get, a bunch of downloadable codes. This included the famous Flaming Head armor effect, that Bungie kept for themselves in Halo 3. A little Falcon (helicopter) and Reach Edition 360 Controller for your LIVE avatar. An exclusive Officer armor for your Elite and a Recon Helmet for your Spartan in multiplayer. And a 2-hour long behind-the-scenes documentary that is accessed through Halo Waypoint. That's already a lot and that was just on two cardboard cards.

Halo Legends DVD

I've been wanting to review this one for quite a while now and since we're less than a week away from the release of Halo Reach this seems appropriate. I just wrote the review on this while I was re-watching it, but it got corrupted when I was transferring to my other computer. So I'm most likely going to forget a lot of the things I wanted to talk about and I'm kind of pissed about that. I'm going to try to avoid spoiling anything but some stuff I just need to mention.  To begin you have to keep in mind that I don't view these stories of actually ever happening within the Halo universe (except Origins I and II). There is just too many contradictions and overall weirdness that makes me believe they never were intended to take place.

For some reason Target got an exclusive Senitype with Warner Brothers on the DVD release. A Senitype is a single CGI frame from the film footage on a 35mm reproduction placed inside a postcard with concept art on it. The Senitype of on the right here is of the concept art of the Booster Frame from "The Package" along with a frame featuring it. I guess that's kind of cool to get along with the 2 disc special edition.

More review after the jump.

Away for too long...

Wow, I haven't posted in a while. Life has been pretty busy lately. I'm going to try to be better about it now that I'm more on a weekly routine. See how long I can keep it alive this time. Look out for new posts because hopefully I will be writing them.

Red Bull Illume 2010 Promo

It's time to talk about the Red Bull Illume photography contest once again. The promo from a couple of years ago was pretty awesome, this year's was actually better. It's kind of interesting in a way to see the pasts analog promo up against the new digital promo. I think it just goes to show how all professional photography has really turned to digital. This year they partnered up with SanDisk to give away USB Card Readers and 4GB Compact Flash cards. Pretty awesome promo items to go with the press release. Of course, the press release and other data including 10 images from the previous years contest (which I have added to my wallpaper collection) were on the CF card. It's actually a very nice card reader too, which is good since my internal one goes on the fritz every now and then. It has 4 slots that take microSD-HC, SD-HC/MMC, MS/MS-Pro/MS-Duo/MS-ProDuo/xD, and of course CF. For some reason it is really hard to find a card reader that supports HC cards, so I was surprised this accepted them. Then again this was made for professional photographers who only use HC cards and the press release was on one. It's connected by a standard mini-USB wire and sits on a magnetic base that says SanDisk on it. As you can see it sports the Red Bull Illume logo down the side as well. The card reader is very small and light weight so I guess you can take it on the go if you needed to. The packaging was nothing really special but it's cool still.

(Yes, that is a papercraft of Gir and a Piranha Plant from CubeeCraft.)

The Beginning of my Arcade Cabinet

So for the longest time I've always wanted an arcade cabinet of my own. I've always played the games from normal home consoles on my computer. A couple of years ago I found out about an emulator called MAME which is used for Arcade games. Figuring it makes more sense to have a computer than an arcade, I ignored my urge of having one giant game in my house. About a year ago, I came across a couple of sites where people have put together their own arcade cabinets using old computers to run everything off of it. I've finally decided to make my own a couple of months ago when I was thinking of what to do with one of my old computers that were just lying around. I was originally planning on designing and making my own housing from scratch until one of my friends knew someone getting rid of a couple of cabinets. Of course, I jumped on the opportunity and gutted it for my own equipment. I have a ton of old TV's lying around as well, so thankfully it fit perfectly into the monitor bracket already inside the cabinet. Instead of creating my own control board like most people do, I just bought two USB arcade sticks. This is still a work in progress. I still need to build the controller housing, keyboard and mouse draw, wire a power button, get two USB PS2 style controllers, and get two lightguns.

As you can see I just left the PC in it's casing and threw it inside. The computer is hooked up to a RF Modulator using an S-Video cable which is then connected to the TV. I wired up the original arcade speakers up to the PC using old computer speakers. You can see the volume knob taped to the wall in the middle picture so you can still change it. I may splice the wires longer so I can move the volume knob to a more suitable position. Everything is powered by an Energy-Saver power strip that cuts the power to all devices unless the PC is on. So once you turn the PC on, everything else turns on. The computer is loaded with loads of Emulators and Roms, but I'll elaborate more on the programming stuff at a later stage in this progress.

Windows 7 Burger

Wow, I'm fat!To celebrate finally upgrading to a Full version of Windows 7 from the RC, I'll be talking about the infamous Windows 7 burger. I really don't understand how this abomination came to see the light of day and why Burger King wanted to do something like this with Microsoft. Unfortunately, Burger King only released this beast in Japan. There are tons of sites out there that tell you how to make one in the US, as if you really need instructions of how to clog your arteries. Most of those websites are actually really funny and worth peaking at. As you can see this burger really is BIG. And on top of the burger I had a Medium fry with a bonus onion ring and Diet Dr. Pepper (like that actually helped).

As you can see I went a little out of the way instead of just getting a bunch of Double Cheeseburgers and throwing them together with one less patty. I spent $10.19 on this life-shortening meal. The top was a Double Stacker with Bacon starting at 570 calories. The next 2 layers were 2 Double Cheeseburgers without the buns. These came to 320 calories a piece. The last patty of course came from a single Cheeseburger since I didn't want to waste anymore food than I had to. The whole sandwich came to a whopping 1,380 calories. This was another 170 calories. The entire meal came to a belt-busting 2,020 calories of Burger King fatness. That's almost an entire day's worth of calories in one meal.
To my surprise, I didn't feel that bloated or sick afterward even though I thought I was going to be. I wouldn't recommend doing this, but I would say it actually is pretty tasty, in a grease-dripping, how-the-hell-do-I-eat-this thing kind of way. There's no way to get your mouth around this thing so I basically had to just take bites of the top half, then the bottom half.

Green Arrow's Chili

I finally got a chance to make Green Arrow's Chili. My friend Matt told me about this recipe a while ago and I've always wanted to make it. The real name is "Ollie's Stupendous Chili" but some call it Green Arrow's Chili. This was originally printed in Green Lantern Vol 2 #85 (August, 1971). The recipe and image can be found at DC Comics Database. As you can tell from everyone's' reactions this chili is supposed to be really spicy.

I couldn't find the three types of chili powders it called for so I just substituted them with three others. The recipe didn't call for them but I decided to add a tablespoon of Chili Pinquins. They're tiny hot peppers with 140,000 heat units (a jalapeno pepper is about 7,000). This chili is very flavorful and delicious. As to be expected it is also very hot. Too hot for some people and some people like me, loved it. I say give it a try if you love spicy food. But be warned, it's hot and delicious.

Legends of the Hidden Temple cupcakes

 

"Legends of the Hidden Temple" cupcakes Marissa and I made. Featuring the Silver Snakes, Orange Iguanas, Purple Parrots, Red Jaguars, Green Monkeys, Blue Barracudas, and 5 Pendants of Life. They are funfetti cupcakes with colored frosting and yellow fondant.

Red Bull Illume 2006 Promo

Red Bull has an adventure sport photography contest every year called Red Bull Illume Image Quest. The submissions are quite amazing and are from some of the most talented action photographers I have ever seen. There usually is a nice promo device given away inside of each press release when they announce the contest for that year. I have received two so far. This one from 2006 and the new one for 2010. 2006 which is pictured above consisted of a hard plastic case (measuring 11.5"x14.5"x2"), 11x14 posters of the winner of each category from the previous year, a CD containing jpgs of those images and the press release, a kit to build a pinhole camera, and a roll of really nice 35mm color film. I originally thought the pinhole camera would be cheap and flimsy, but then I built it. It's really nice. It consists of thick, heavy-duty cardboard and plastic knobs/brackets. All the other pinhole cameras I have used in the past used photo paper inside where you could only load one picture to take. This one takes actual 35mm film which is really cool and useful. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures taken with it yet so I can't show you the results but there was a lot of pictures submitted to Illume taken with this camera and they are incredible. I never thought you could get such amazing shots with a pinhole camera but it makes sense since everything is in focus due to the lack of a lens.

ET Mask

As mentioned before, here's the ET mask. This thing is beyond creepy and it is part of a set believe it or not. Not only did Universal Studios decide to produce this atrocity it came with a costume and accessory. My mask is pretty beaten up and I don't know what ever happened to the rest of the set but I have found pictures of them for you. Well to start this thing is just plain creepy. What's with all the make-up and yellow highlights? It looks like they made ET into a drag queen and dumped it in a vat of nuclear waste.

[Image via Geek Orthodox]

They made this in 1982 and for some reason there was a big fad in wearing a mask and having a costume that consisted of an entire picture of the character you're trying to dress up as. Which is really the most retarded thing ever. Yeah I definitely look like Batman when I have a full body picture of Christian Bale on my shirt. They were extremely uncomfortable since the "shirt" which had long green sleeves was made of a cheap plastic that didn't really form right. It was like wearing a shopping bag that didn't let your skin breathe at all. Oh wait it gets better. Look at the nice accessory it comes with.

All right lets just get it out there now. The damn thing looks like a dildo that's modeled from an old man's penis. It's a rubber attachment that extends your finger by 3 inches longer. The one that came with the costume didn't light up which I always thought was stupid. Nice to know they actually made one though.

... still looks like a dildo.