Taco Bell's Dog.

I am Taco Bell's Dog. The television was on in the other room, and aside from the fact that I could hear the somewhat recognizable voice and the saucy sounds of the wind instruments, at the very end of the commercial I heard the pæan of that bell and immediately thought, *Mmm I'd like some Taco Bell tomorrow.* Therefore, I am Taco Bell's dog.

New Sensations.

I recently took part in a flavor tripping party with some friends and it was very interesting. There's this fruit called the miracle fruit that a couple companies make into a concentrated tablet and sell on the internet. The point of this tablet is to change the way your tongue perceives tastes. It doesn't change the flavor of every palette, mainly sour flavors and some bitter flavors, but the affect on the bitter is slight from my experience. That may just be me as everyone has slightly different tastes.

I tried several different things during this experience: grape fruit, lemons, limes, vinegar, hot sauce, red bull, plain yogurt, Warhead Super Sour Spray, green olives, pickle juice, cream cheese, unsweetened tea, red and green tomatoes.

The first thing I grabbed was a slice of lemon, my eyes lit up! It tasted like candy, but at the end of the first nip I could feel a little bit of the acid sourness on the edges of my tongue. Red Bull was my favorite, generally Red Bull has quite the tang to it but with the miracle fruit it was almost as sweet as cream soda.

The dumbest thing I did during the party was to take a full tablespoon of vinegar. It did taste pretty good, but it kind of choked me up. Even though miracle fruit will change the flavor it doesn't change the harshness of any of the food. Because of that there is the danger that you could damage your tongue from having so many acidic foods, nothing that won't heal though.

Cream cheese, plain yogurt, hot sauce and green olives weren't the most pleasant however. Cream cheese mainly tasted bland, plain yogurt did get a little sweeter, but still just didn't taste too good. I like my yogurt with fruit. The miracle fruit just takes some of the edge off of the green olive, same goes for the hot sauce which also sort of choked me up.

If anyone has eaten macaroni and tomatoes with sugar that's essentially what I got from eating a tomato while tripping, the green tomato didn't taste as good as the red one but it still tasted pretty good as far as I was concerned.

A couple things I missed out on trying were cough syrup and sharp cheddar. Perhaps there will be a next time though.

The NY Times Article
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I know the question that is on everybody's mind is what would it be like to drink cold water while taking a warm shower?

I tried it recently. Although the results weren't as interesting as I expected it was still something new. Invigorating is not quite the word for drinking cold water while in the shower, but it is the word for letting the same cold water dribble down the chest while taking a shower. *shivers*

Of course if you decide you want to try to do the same, I would recommend a bottle. A glass of water would be hard to keep cold, especially if you let the shower water get in the drinking water. That scenario brings me to think of some pretty funny imagery though.

Inattention Theatre: Moon Landing

This is the beginning of an ongoing series of videos that we're planning to do. I hope you enjoy it.



Here's the website for the company I work for: Play Attention

Change update.

I have some competition. Whenever I am out it is usually with my girlfriend, and she has a voracious appetite for finding change. She has probably knocked me out of at least $.30. Incidentally she has promised a 5 spot and is on the list of predictions. She could manipulate the game in such a way to where she could win the pot herself by either tipping me off that there's a coin on the ground, or picking it up without letting me know if I were to find enough change for her to be in her prediction bracket. Luckily, there's little to worry about, because she is a genuinely honest person. That or a really really good liar.

Aside from the threat of sabotage, it has been sort of a dry period for finding change. Maybe she is trying to sabotage the game? Anyway, with the dry times, comes less things to mention on the topic. I had sort of decided to wait until I found at least three different mangled coins before I would post them, but sabotage is interesting enough to supplement with one photo of a mangled coin.



I found this one at a Hardee's drive-thru window. Mind you, I did say that drive-thru windows were off limits if I were to intentionally scour them, or open the door when I'm pulled up to one. But this situation is a little bit different in that we parked on the side that the drive-thru was on, and just past the window is the door to walk in to place an order. Because of this, it's pretty easy to see and grab any change that people had dropped.

The other side of the coin was relatively unharmed. Apparently asphault is a bit rougher on a coin than a rubber tire is. Go figure!

The Big Boss.

About Adult ADD

Despite some flaws I would have to say that I am pretty proud of this short. I'm also glad it is finished. Be on the look out for others to come your way soon.

Vegeterrorists

I helped raise a duck from a day old to a little over two months old. I have fed it, gave it water every day, and I watched it play in a big tub full of water with vigor. This week I'm going to eat it.

Many people won't have such a dose of reality presented before them. Even though a lot of people won't have to deal with this issue, I think it is very important to have to face it. I am against the message that the political vegetarians present. Don't like the taste of meat? That's fine. Cruelty to animals sucks too. But refusing to eat flesh because of a soft heart is ridiculous to me.

I can't say that I don't have a little soft spot in my heart for the duck, but to protest that it not serve as my nourishment would be hypocritical of me. Nature's truth is the reason I am so against the vegetarian's political reasons behind not eating meat. Animals eat meat to survive and so do we. Although there are herbivores, their stomachs are made to handle a solely vegetarian diet. There is a reason why our stomachs are made to handle flora and fauna. It is because we are supposed to eat both.

The wrong in all of this is not eating meat, the wrong is in wasting it. Gluttonous eating and wastefulness is shameful. If vegetarians want to protest they should protest the corpulent folks who stay in a buffet restaurant for two hours. By not eating meat I would go as far to say that vegetarians are insulting the needy who would love to have a little bit of chicken on their plate. Do we live in such a coddled society that people actually refuse food on principle? Those who are starving would be disgusted and call it ungrateful.

Perhaps my less than favorable view of the vegetarian way is rooted in my pet peeve of picky eaters. I don't speak of hatred toward the vegetarians, I just don't understand, nor do I accept their choice to not eat meat.

Camera Sensor Cleaning.

There are a few sites that explain how to clean your camera's CCD. Copper Hill Images is the one I bought my equipment from, they also have tutorials on how to clean your camera's sensor. They also sent me a generic slinky with my order which they called a "Magic Spring." Cleaning a digital camera's sensor isn't really all too difficult so long as you have a steady hand and a little patience.

The websites that give you tutorials just get all worked up about how if you really screw up while cleaning your camera, you're going to damage your CCD. Replacing a CCD is very expensive, but from my experience you would really have to try to screw up your sensor to actually do it, especially if you watch or read any tutorials on how to do it at all.



The Arctic Butterfly sensor cleaning brush is ridiculously expensive. I had a trusted source recommend it, but after looking at it, it's really just a glorified brush with a motor used to shake off the dust. But I went with Sensor Sweep which is the brush you see in the tube above.

Something most important to remember with these brushes is that you should Never touch the bristles. Doing so greases it up with your filthy finger crisco and could mean transferring said grease on your sensor. Using either the Giotto Rocket-Air blower (seen below) or a pressurized can of air is supposed to statically charge the bristles of the brush and therefore make it easier to extract the dust from your sensor while clearing it of any dust on the bristles. This is the dry method of cleaning.

When using a pressurized source of air DO NOT use those small CO2 cartridges used in pneumatic powered guns. That type of cartridge usually has a little oil in it that is supposed to lubricate the inside of the guns that use them. Using one of those types of compressed air adapters that fit onto those cartridges for your camera could mean a gunked up sensor. Bad mojo. Using canned air the wrong way could blow frozen CO2 on your sensor. That's why I like the squeeze bulb shown above.





The wet method of cleaning uses the Pec Pads, the plastic and rubber wand, rubber bands and highly flammable methanol. The reason for the methanol is to be sure that it evaporates from the sensor. The reason for wet cleaning is to get any "welded dust" off the sensor. Basically that means that somehow moisture and dust came together on the sensor and sort of glued the dust to the sensor. Blowing into the sensor area with your mouth is a good way to make this happen, even if you manage not to spit, you're still blowing moisture from your lungs into the camera.

That's the basics. Just be careful. And don't say I didn't warn you, making mistakes could cost you a camera. Now go wash your hands!