Hollywood and Pender's Fabulous Journal of Stuff We Done!!!!

Flat Tire

Pender — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:12:05 +0000

Got a flat tire driving home from work.. Stopped at a gas station and put the donut on it.

Not having a good month!

Brokt Water Boiler :(

Pender — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:29:32 +0000

My water boiler was leaking yesterday.. Not burst or anything, but enough to cover the laundry room concrete floor with water, but it just went down the floor drain.

So I own the thing. I wonder where to buy a new one, and I wonder if I have to install it myself, incorrectly, cause I have no idea what I’m doing. This is gonna be expensive.. :(

Inspired by Scott Adams

Pender — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:30:28 +0000

Any of you a stirling engine expert? I want to make a bicycle that uses the temperature differences at the points of contact with the bike that would help propell the bike. Like, the temperature differences between your ass and the seat, your hands and the handlebars and the friction caused at the points of rotation. The more effort you put into moving the bike, the more of a temperature difference you create and the more help you get to move it. If it offered a lot of help then it would propell you faster, then the ambient temperature would be lower due to the wind and you’d be getting warmer from effort, causing a greater temperature difference and even more help. If we could all ride a bicycle around using half the effort it takes now that goes twice as fast, we wouldn’t need cars, we could ride a bike 80km/h to work and the only energy it would require is an apple.

Some caveats is that it has to be small enough to fit unobtrusively on a bicycle frame, weigh almost nothing, be super cheap and easy to construct and require almost no maintenance.

Open Letter to Anyone Who Finds This Blog

Pender — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:38:40 +0000

Yes, I’m the fail at updating this site.

That is all.

Burning Salt Water

Pender — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:38:22 +0000

I did a search for “energy from salt water” and found this story about a guy who subjected salt water to radio waves and it made the water burn. I wonder how much energy it takes to make the radio waves. If it’s less than the output of the heat from the burning process, potentially it’d be free energy (more energy output than what you put in). I would think that the energy from a test tube getting to 3000 degrees would be more energy than it takes to output radio waves. Although they say it’s unlikely as a cheap source of energy, I still think it’s neato and I would invest all my life savings into this technology, if I had any (life, or savings).

Here’s the story from National Geographic.

Here’s a youtube video of the burninating water.

World of Warcraft Raid Leader Goes Apeshit

Pender — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:13:07 +0000

This is pretty funny, even if you don’t play the game it’d be ok.
http://www.nextlevelarcade.com/play/games/World-of-Warcraft-raid-leader-goes-totally-apeshit

Whole Lotto Fun!

Pender — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:27:18 +0000

At work, I checked a lotto ticket and it failed to win so I threw it in the garbage. The garbage cleaner guy (who looks like one of those creepy serial killer types) picked it up out of the garbage, looked at it for a while, saw that I hadn’t circled all the numbers on a single line, and threw it back into the garbage. Tomorrow if I don’t win I’m gonna circle them all on one line and see if he puts it into his pocket and just walks away.. or runs.

New J0rb!

Pender — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 17:27:20 +0000

Today is my last day at Keane, on monday I start at CGI. Yay! Although it’s still not in Newfoundland, boo.

Good thing too, I was sent this news release by a buddy today:
Lots of Bad stuff with Keane

Someone Hire Me! even though I’m a jerk.. Part Deux

Pender — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 15:13:08 +0000

I had a couple of interviews at a company in newfoundland but I guess they hate me, cause I ain’t hired yet. It seemed like a good job and I was actually quite interested in it after talking to the owners of the company. Bummer that nothing came of it.

I had another meet/greet/technical interview with a different company in newfoundland, but I won’t hear back from them for probably a week. The job sounds good, but challenging with like 8 different technologies all mish-mashed into one. I’m usually the one that gets stuck with these weird applications wherever I go, so I’d probably get really good at it really fast.

A couple of weeks ago I was called by a local company (not in newfoundland) and basically went through the meet ‘n greet interview with the recruiter. The job sounds really good, it’s all development work (which is what I’m looking for) and it’s at the same company as me buddy gimpenstein. The recruiter called back and has set up a technical interview with the tech lead on wednesday. Sounds like a java application, but my role would be the unix/oracle backend guy. Sounds like fun, I had a couple of roles like that during my stead at Oao. They talked about maybe hiring me for contract work, paying me lots more, for 6 month contracts. If I’m the only backend guy I’d totally love to be contract, obviously they couldn’t get rid of me if I was the only one working that role. Would be awesome.

The stressfulest part about it all is that two companies are considering me for jobs simultaneously. If I get hired on with the local one, I don’t want the one in newfoundland to also want to hire me 3 days later. So really my biggest concern is: what happens if I say I’ll go to this other local company, but I get another job offer 3 days later, can I just say “nah, changed my mind” without any fallout, other than maybe a bad experience for the recruiters at the local company? I mean, this other company in newfoundland, where I want to go, pays decently and has the best benefits I’ve ever heard of in the industry (and they’d pay 100% of what it costs to get me there). So I’d definitely go there.

Either way I ain’t staying with my current job. So what do I do? Hold out with my current job and hope for the newfoundland thing, or go to the other local company, and if I get the newfoundland job just quit there right away?

“zomg I’m gonna kill myself” radio

Pender — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 15:03:28 +0000

I just went on Shoutcast and noticed that in the Genre dropdown there is a new option: emo. I can’t actually connect to any of the stations at work, but I figure that’s ok, cause it would just make for a really emotional day at work. I just think it’s funny that whinerbitching is a genre. When I get home I’ll have to give it a good listen, for the purposes of comedy.