Well, after almost a year of putting off, I finally installed linux on my ZipIt Z2. Jennifer's brother-in-law gave it to me last year right before Christmas. He received one free as part of a promotion and handed it off to me to tinker with. The big problem for me was finding a miniSD card. microSD cards can be found alot more easily (and cheaper) than the miniSD. I was able to snag a miniSD from some retailer on pricewatch. (i know, remember that place?!)

So my 2Gb miniSD finally came in the other day and I'm all set. Lo and behold HunterDavis posted a new tutorial using a Windows machine. I figured I'd give his tutorial a try and found the whole process to be fairly straight foreward. Hats off to HunterDavis and others that paved the way for this.

After following Hunters tutorial to the tee, I was ready to connect to my network, I followed dhenke's tutorial to get a feel for the small keyboard's "hidden" keystrokes (and to dust off and refresh my wpa_supplicant config skills).

I hope to get a NES emulator running on this, that's been my end goal all along and I doubt I do anything more than that with this. But seriously, Tecmo Super Bowl or Legend of Zelda in my pocket/backpack?! Yes, please.

Sheesh. People have always said house hunting is stressful. It's not the house hunting that's stressful, it's waiting to hear back on your offers. Last week we put in an offer on a house, got accepted and were thrilled. We got a house inspection and it turned up a couple of foundation issues, so we backed off. Upset but not defeated, we continued looking for another find.

Not 2 days later we found a small, modest house built in 2004. (it even still smells new!) We put in an offer that same day and waited to hear back from the seller. The property turns out to be a foreclosure, so the seller in this case is a bank. The bank has been taking their sweet time. Monday afternoon our real estate agent called to tell us the bank is taking "best offers", which means 'tell us the most you're willing to pay'. For us, we were willing to pay a couple thousand more than we offered, so we bumped up our offer by $2k. We thought we'd hear a "yay" or "nay" decision the next day. Then the next. Time drags by. Doubts creep in.

We drive back by the house to make sure we like it enough to be happy with our offer. It turns out, we like it more. Does someone else like it even more? Enough to put in a higher offer? Should we offer more? Still, there's no word back from the seller's agent. We finally get word that "All offers have been presented. Probably will not hear until Monday or Tuesday." What?! Tuesday?! I can't hold my breath that long!!!

This waiting game sucks. You can't get too attached to the house in case your offer isn't accepted, but you don't want to be to blasé about the whole deal either - this could, after all, be your house for a number of years. It's a hard balancing act all the while hoping and praying each day.

For those of you that care to see what the house looks like: here are some pics

update: Our offer was accepted! w00t! The closing date on the house is October 26th, so we still have a ways to go before "move-in", plenty of paperwork to sign and date between now and then. But at least we can rest easier now!

update #2: House inspection went well, I now have a list of things that need attention after we close on the house. Contract was sent to the selling bank (Fannie Mae) for finalization. Executed contract will go to our lender and it should be downhill from there. Lender will order appraisal, termite inspection, etc.

update #3: Ok, inspections and everything are done. Waiting for final funding approval and HUD-1 form. Then we close!

update #4: We closed, it's ours! w00t w00t!

Summer before last, grimlen attened US Army Basic Training, or IET, at Ft. Sill, OK. Our own mission was dubbed "Operation: Keep Jeff Informed". Later this week, he'll be heading out for a couple months of refresher training and last-minute combat training before deploying to Iraq for about a year.

Like Araolath, before him, he'll probably have internet access, but he won't have the time to go trouncing all over the internet to find the best and most-needed websites and articles. Instead let's make it easy for him and post links here for him, in the comments.

Jennifer and I are about to head to Baytown for Labor Day weekend for his send-off party on Sunday. brb

After almost a year of waiting, Battlefield Heroes is finally released. At first glance, it's alright - very cartoon-like. It has nice graphics. Great price for the entry level stuff (free) and it's very easy to install and play. Just install the browser plugin for firefox and it will download the game and load it up for you. The game even finds the best server for you to join based on your team selection and experience.

As I've always said with gaming, there's a spectrum that games fit in, with "Fun/Arcade" on one end and "Realistic" on the other. This game is very arcade, moving more in the direction of "zany" and away from any semblance of reality. It's meant to be slapstick and goofy. It's like some of those weird mods people came up with for Battlefield 1942. While it is produced by EA and probably some of the same developers, it's definitely a different animal than previous games in the Battlefield scenery.

Worth mentioning here is how EA plans to make money on something they're giving away for free. EA hopes to entice players to cough up money for addons, power ups and new abilities, and get advertisers to cough up money for in-game advertising. This will be interesting to watch unfold.

For now, check it out - the price it right!

The wait is over. I know you've laid awake at night looking out your bedroom window at that first star of the night hoping and waiting for me to sell bumper stickers. Well, kids, your wait is over.

Neodux now has a bumper sticker so you can prove how purely awesome you are. For $3.00 $2.00, you can show that punk behind you at the red light or drive thru who's boss. You are. Because you know Tommy Gober.

Supply is kinda limited, so buy one. Or two. That guy in the parking garage that parked kinda funny could use a bumper sticker too. (who says bumper stickers have to go on bumpers?)

Click here to order
(...or use the link "stickers" at the top of the page)