Slow Carb Diet

I'm trying a diet with a few coworkers.  It's called a "slow carb diet," and slow refers to how fast the body turns the carbs into glucose.  Slow carbs have a low glycemic index.

The diet is outlined in the book, Four Hour Body, and in this blog post by the author, Timothy Ferris.  One of the other things he recommends is to keep track of what you eat by using photos (instead of calorie counting or a journal.)  To that end, I've started a diet blog.  It's called My Slow Carb Diet.

Sharing the photos is easy.  In blogger, you can enable blog updates by email or text message.  After I've taken a picture with my phone, it offers to send it someplace.  I choose to send it to my blog via email.  It's simple and quick.  If you're an iPhone user, https://posterous.com/ has an app that makes it even easier.

If you are doing or will do the same thing, share your blog in the comments, and I'll follow it.

Never Let Me Go (2010)

Based on a book of the same name (I haven't read,) it takes place in an alternate universe Britain in the 90s.  The acting was very good, and the story was somewhat slow; but interesting throughout.  It's a meditative thought experiment set in a slightly science fiction setting.

I enjoyed it; though, I found the premise implausible.  It's one of those that I can't expound on without ruining the experience.

I would recommend it if you are into more "artsy" sci-fi.  It's in the same vein as Gattaca; but not as spectacular.

Engagement photos for my niece

Rachel and Steve at the Dallas Arboretum

We spent last Sunday taking pictures. The weather was really pleasant, and it was a great time. Special thanks to my other niece, Rianna, for assisting.

Weekend Project: Hanger on laundry sorter

We've had a laundry sorter with a hanger on our wish list for a while now. I recently did some shopping for one, and the closest to what we wanted was over a hundred dollars. The thing is, we already have a laundry sorter that we like. We just wish there was a hanger on it.

What to do? Why, put on on there myself.

I spent a few hours this weekend and produced this:

I used a couple of 10' PVC pipes. They were 1 inch, high pressure pipes for sturdiness. To mount the hanger on the cart, I cut the 'T' fittings into half circles and fastened them to the cart handles with band clamps. The handles are not round which gives unexpected stability once the band clamps where tightened. I thought I might have to put cross members on it to keep it from lurching; but it is very solid.

Total cost: about 4 hours of time (including shopping and cleanup) + $27 in material.

Tour through Monument Valley 3

Tour through Monument Valley 2

Halloween 2009 photo gallery

Halloween 2009

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Sam Raimi director this horror film about a lady loan officer that gets cursed by a gypsy for denying her a mortgage payment extension.

The special effects were really good as was Raimi directorial style. The plot wasn't terribly original. The execution was done very well.

It's out on DVD and Bluray now. I recommend the rental.

Pandorum (2009)

Dead Space, the video game, meets Space Madness, an episode of Ren and Stimpy.

A crew member of a space exploration vessel awakes from extended cryo sleep to an apparently empty ship. Another crew member wakes up, and they find that the ship is in trouble - the reactor is about to blow. Soon after, they find out that the ship isn't as empty as he first thought...

As the protagonist makes his way to the reactor, we find out more about the ship, its mission, destination, and the origin of the monsters. At times, I thought the plot was going into the horror/fantasy realm; but it surprisingly remained hard-scifi (for the most part, anyway.)

It's not a perfect movie or one that I would give an enthusiastic recommendation for; but I did enjoy it a lot. If you love sci-fi movies, I think you'll be quite pleased with it.

Surrogate (2009)

A detective comes across a case where someone destroyed robot surrogates and killed their operators in the process. He ends up uncovering a larger mystery.

It's a scifi action film about a detective solving a murder mystery. It reminded me of I Robot a little. I liked it.

It's not a great movie, but it is pretty good.

How I fixed my DLP TV

A year after the warranty expired, lots of little dots started appearing in my Samsung DLP TV. I did some research and found it would be around $500 to have it repaired. I also found I could repair myself for around $150. That seemed worth risk. Here is how I did it. Click the pictures to enbiggen.I started with the following supplies left to right in the photo above:

1. Latex gloves  -  So as not to get finger oil on any of the sensitive parts – lens or dlp chip.  Also, they provide some insulation against electric shock.
2. High quality heat sink paste – the (probable) reason the dots appeared in the first place was that the heat sink wasn’t properly melded to the chip, and it got too hot.
3. Needle Nose pliers
4. Replacement DLP Chip from samsungstore.com.  My TV is the HLT5675S, and this is the part that fit my model.
5. Screw Driver
6. Disassembly instructions from the “Disassembly Reassembly.pdf” document found here.

I started by removing the back panel.  The whole thing comes off including the lamp cover area.  This metal tray holds the “light engine”.  To the left is the power supply.  I had to remove a screw from it to move it up and out of the way to let the tray slide out.  Now is a good time to put the gloves on.The tray is out and I’ve removed the shroud that encloses the lens.  The bulb is on the right behind that fan.  Just to the left of the bulb assembly is the color wheel housing.  The DLP chip is behind that heat sink.  Be careful not to touch the lens.Use the needle nose pliers to lift one end of the metal band holding the sink.  The band should come off easily.  The heat sink will probably take a bit of a twist and pull to come off.   Look what samsung put on the heat sink – tape!  That’s the worst. 

When I put the heat sink back on, I scraped all the tape off first.  I cleansed it with rubbing alcohol to get all the gunk off.  Then I applied some thermal compound to it. The heat sink is off, and there are just a few screws to remove the metal shroud.  There are four screws around where the heat sink is – those have to come out to get the circuit board out.  Do not ever turn the yellow/green screws in the picture below (in the above picture they have white half circles around them.)  Those are alignment screws, and it is very hard to re-align the TV once it’s screwed up.This is the circuit board taken off and leaning forward.  You can see where the light is projected through that hole onto the chip.Click the picture to enlarge so that you can see the dead pixels clearly.  When the chip is at rest, the normal pixels are in the black position.  The dead ones are permanently stuck in the white position.It just takes a little prying to get the chip out.  I didn’t worry too much about bending the pens because the chip is kaput anyway.

There’s only one way for the new chip to go into the socket.  Re-assembly pretty much goes the same way but in reverse.

I didn’t go into great detail because the pdf I linked to above does that pretty well.  The components in my TV were only a little different than the pictures in the manual – so I made this post for other people with TVs like mine.

Special thanks to the people that contributed to avsforum in this thread.

Tour through Monument Valley 1

FJ at Monument Valley

Katka giggling at 4 months

My youngest daughter is a much happier baby than my oldest. She rarely cries, and when she does, she "ramps up" so you have time to fix it before it turns to a holler.

Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009)

I wasn't going to watch this based on the title. Out of curiosity, I checked out the imdb profile, and saw that it was likened to Sean of the Dead. I liked Sean a lot; so I checked out LVK.

Although it wasn't as good as Sean, it was a fun goofy movie. I was surprised by the quality of the FX and acting. It wasn't the B movie I was expecting.

I'm not sure I would say it was the same kind of movie as Sean of the Dead. I guess they are both British horror-comedies. But LVK was a lot less horror and a lot more comedy.

There's more than a few funny jokes. It's definitely worth a rent.

Moon Over Marble Canyon

Marble Canyon, AZ

I took this on the way back home from vegas. I traveled along a road that stretched across northern Arizona, southern Utah, and northern New Mexico. There were incredible views the whole way.

Fry Thief

But you have plenty of delicious vegetables

Taken today at the Au Park shopping mall in Bratislava.

Lake Mead

Lake Mead from an overlook on the way to Hoover Dam

Wolverine (2009)

This movie received a lot of negative reviews.  They are not unjustified.  Unless you really like comic book character or super hero movies, I'd say give this one a pass.

Here is what is wrong with it.  The special FX are not super.  There are points where the graphics look painted on.  In one scene, wolverine is examining his claws by moving them around in front of his face, and the CG claws don't track with his hand.  Things like this can take you completely out of the movie as you think about how bad it looks.  

The plot is not super either.  It's full of holes and a bit dull.

The acting was good, though.   And the movie was full of action.  If you're going to see it, see it on a big screen for the thrill ride.

Star Trek (2009)

This is arguably the 2nd best Star Trek movie (2nd to Wrath of Khan.)  I think it's one of the best scifi movies ever.  Whether you're a Star Trek fan or not, I think you'll enjoy it.

If you are a Star Trek fan, there is plenty to like.  In particular, Dr McCoy was great.  There are other great injokes and plot points that are put there just for you.

Due to a time travel paradox, this is a different Star Trek than the original series.   The characters are very similar; but not the same.  And the universe has been irrevocably changed in ways that will give future movies new plot points to follow. 

I'm looking forward to future movies with this same crew.

Getting started early

Taken at Sandy Lake Amusement Park