These mysteries have plagued me and perhaps it is memories of my bar-mitzvah that hold me back from buying one… has anyone tried a bacon press? Does it really do the job? I have no problem getting thick, crispy pieces of bacon out of the frying pan — but I guess it could be easier.

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The hidden switch can be used to control a door, lights, music — anything that works on electricity. An industrial-style pilot light shows when power is being fed to the remote power outlet. 16 Gauge wire, 1625 watts maximum, indoor use only. Components are UL approved.

I so vividly remember Bruce flipping up the head of the Bard to hit the swith; this switch!

Who isn’t swept away by the pure nostalgic-ness of it all?

Thanks Mitch!

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Having stumbled across his site, linked from a scubaboard forum, I was amazed. Regan has built his own 1/10 sale WORKING replica of the Nautilus from Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with Kirk Douglas, James Mason and Peter Lorre. Most people I know would be super satisfied with their own working replica of the coolest submarine EVER — but Regan, no. He’s made replica diving suits and spear guns from the movie and that still isn’t enough — he didn’t just restore a diving helment from the 1954 film he restore and dove a helmet from the film!

It appears Mr. Regan splits his time between California, Hawaii and of course ‘Vulcania’ — the Island where Nemo kept his base. Photos show diving in Hawaii and Nautilus testing in Benicia, CA. He not only shares a chronicle of events and activities dating back to 2003, but even shares plans for his mock-up of the Nemo rifle. How cool!

I love scuba diving. Watching this movie as a kid helped inspire both my love of reading (I remember reading Verne over and over after seeing the film,) diving and photography. This stuff is just awesome. Really, Pat Regan — YOU ROCK.

Vulcania Submarine

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When I got a hold of this magnificent Apple product a queasy feeling ran in my stomach: I had the most exquisite computer that one could ever hold. It’s an anorexic notebook, yet almost everything that you want to find in a notebook is here, provided you don’t use FireWire or lots of USB devices.

If there is a Lotus in the realm of sleek laptops, MacBook Air is the one.

Catalog Page [Amazon]

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Really the depths these guys will sink to knows no bounds. I recently purchased a Nikon D3 from Cameta Camera, via Amazon. I trust Amazon with these purchases and they’ve never really let me down. The one decent local camera store in Marin never has much in stock and I wanted this camera body to arrive in time for a special event (plus I just hate the city.)

I know NY area camera stores are notorious, but this one had the D3 in stock and said it’d arrive on time. How bad could it be?

Well for an extra $75 in shipping they basically tossed the D3’s box from Nikon loose in a larger box and sent it along. It got here on time but the box looked like a cow had sat on it. I was kind of shocked — but the D3 was fine. Nikon’s packaging was pretty good.

I called Cameta, they were just flat out rude to me. Grumpy and bitchy like an Amazon buyer didn’t count and if I had the camera and it worked, why was I called. I decided to leave an Amazon review. The text of which is in the email I am about to block-quote. I was shocked, within 1 day of leaving this review to get back the following response from Cameta. Know ye this — they sent it AGAIN 1 day later as if I may have missed it.

Bullshit. $75 back is nothing compared to the risk they took with a $5000 camera that is likely to become an extension of my arm. This thing is going to be my best friend — I’ll carry it everywhere. If the D3 had shown up broken, I’d have been so sad AND the hassle of sending it back and waiting for a new one would have made me extra sad.

From: Auctions On Behalf Of maryann
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 11:18 AM
To: ‘jweisberger@***.com’
Subject: Amazon Order 103-2015980-719****

Dear Jason,

We are writing you in regards to the recent order placed through Amazon, shipped from our company Cameta Camera. We have become aware that you had an unpleasant experience with our company according to the feedback that you left as seen below:

“Rude on the phone. Really, Really, poorly packaged. I think they could have used enough bubble wrap or packing materials when sending a $5k camera. It was shifting around in the box. Would not buy from again.”

After looking into the said situation, we are not sure who you spoke to. However, we are looking into the situation as customer service is our number one priority here at Cameta Camera. In addition, we are also going to be speaking to the shipping manager in regards to how the unit was packaged and shipped. We also have the following option to offer you as a remedy.

We are ready to issue you a credit for $75.00 back to your Amazon account (which is the original freight paid). Our’ only concern is that in the past we have made an accommodation for a customer but they have left us negative feedback anyway. If you would be willing to remove your negative feedback remark to our account (and then email me to let me know that it has been done) I will issue the credit right away. We pride ourselves on good customer service and we are willing to work with you.

If you do decide to remove the feedback left in exchange for the refund please follow the instructions below.

Removing Feedback You’ve Left

If you’ve left feedback on a Marketplace or Merchant seller and would like to remove it, you can do this through Your Account. Please note that feedback cannot be edited, only removed; once you have removed feedback for a seller, you will not be able to post new feedback for that seller.

Go to http://www.amazon.com/your-account.

Find the pull-down menu next to “View by Order.” Select “Orders placed in the past 6 months”, and hit the “go” button.

After you sign in, you’ll find a listing of your recent orders. Select the relevant order and click the “View order” button.

You will find a feedback section 2/3rds of the way down the page. To remove feedback, click on the “Remove” link in the feedback section of the order summary.

You may only remove feedback if it is 60 days or less since you left the feedback.

We thank you for your time and consideration and hope that you can resolve the issue as soon as possible.

Kindest Regards,

Maryann

Customer Service

Cameta Camera

Clicking the Photo opens a screenshot of the email.

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Later in life I saw one that was just beautiful. I should have bought it for myself but I made a mistake and gave it to someone as a gift. I’ve regretted it for years. These pens are just marvels. Its part engineering and part history that make them so “I gotta have it” for me. From its early use of Lucite, to the Tonight, in chatting with one of my bestest pals, I was led to search on them and came across this fantastic website, VintagePens.Com

This site has a lovely collection of pens from all over the world, including a special edition Parker DuoFold I’m now just head-over-heels for.

I bought one of their Parker 51s. **UPDATE** The pen I bought was already sold. Oh well. I’m still looking, but someday I’ll get one.

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There isn’t much to say — low light, bright sunlight: it doesn’t matter! There is really only one button to press: Record.

The real win, for me: the $40 UNDER WATER HOUSING. I wanted to take it diving, I have used many of these clear housings before; Olympus and Panasonic. They rule. They tend to work well-below their rated depth, but the buttons get funky. I’ve never had one leak, but I have seen MANY people flood them on dive trips. Be careful.

I was too stuffed up to dive, but I did get a lot of family video with it and took it on a waterslide. Enjoy!

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What it does? Basically:

Navigate around, collect some data, avoid obstacles, until it
Finds something “worth playing on” (a single isolated object or a wide flat surface that it can find an angle onto)
Snakes into place
Plays some beats on what it have found, and samples this, checking it has a “good sound”
Based on data collected in the area, and sample just made, then compose a little rhythm, and plays this along with the sample

Yellow Drum Machine [Lets Make Robots!]

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I looked at the Xacti, I considered the Canon HV-20. I decided to go the very most simple route and see if I even enjoy grabbing simple video with the kid. Something she can stick in her mouth and I won’t freak out if she slobbers on. Someone recommended the Flip Ultra and it sounded perfect. Nothing but a record button really and the magic words low light. Supposedly the Flip and the newer Ultra are both excellent low light cameras! That alone makes it interesting. For $140 on Amazon, how could I go wrong.

Also — a big factor in this order for me (Joel keeps telling me I’m an idiot for buying this) is the $40 Under Water Housing. I’ll be trying it on a dive very soon. 30ft not great, but I’ve seen these clear housings in deeper water, the buttons tend to get less than functional. I’ll be careful and try not to flood it.

Then I saw this review and knew the Flip Ultra had to be mine.

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Mexican soldiers battling a violent drug gang and corrupt local police confiscated a sport utility vehicle decked out with extras worthy of a James Bond movie.

What kind of cool tricks did the drug runners install? Nothing nearly as cool as we’d like — I need a rocket booster, lasers and the Mach 5’s tree trimmers — plus a Spy Hunter oil slick. I guess Mexican drug runners lack the same cash-reserves of say Columbian drug runners.

Following a shootout with the gang, soldiers said they arrested four municipal police and confiscated an armored Jeep Grand Cherokee equipped with a smoke machine and spike sprayer meant to deter pursuers

Oh well! I remember years ago when there was a South African car equipped with flame throwers…

Mexico army confiscates James Bond truck from gang[Reuters.com]

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How to do that while she is sleeping in the next room? Easy! The Turtle Beach Earforce X3 Wireless Headset ended my gaming draught.

Look the sound quality is nothing like my cheap Klipsch digital audio kit, esp if you can find the 5.1 version (disco’d I think) — BUT I AM BACK IN THE GAME.

Set up was reasonably easy — you basically shunt the sound via RCA adaptors into the RF unit and turn it on. This was a bit freaky for me as I used the optical out on my X360 to feed the Klipsch 5.1 system. The Xbox 360 HDMI cable had RCA outs for sound, so I tried them and they worked. Nice!

The headset fits well, the mic works nicely — there are independent volume controls for player speech and video game sounds: you can control the levels. They are light (but not cheap feeling) and unobtrusive. Sometimes I forget I’m trying to be quiet and my wife can hear a brief shout of “And thats how you use a chainsaw, Bitch!” over the intercom — but so far Baby has not woken up and Marcus Fenix can keep on keepin’ on.

If the line of sight from the IR looking RF unit gets broken sound can get crackly or disappear. As you’re generally stationary while gaming, while rocking back and forth like a rhesus monkey, I’ve found sound to be consistent and clear.

The only big issue thus far? Networked RockBand seems a non-starter with the guitar. The headset must be plugged into a handset due to plastic molding of the jack. Can’t plug it into the guitar and I haven’t really messed around to figure it out. Thats ok, I belong playing guitar on a stringed instrument.

All in all, this is a good solution that gets baby 100% of what she needs and me about 87% of the sound quality I’d like. Its a B+ on sound and an A+ on function.

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It seems, however, that Gibson isn’t at all satisfied with the arrangement it has with Activision. Gibson has sent a notice to Activision declaring that the games publisher is infringing upon the guitar maker’s patent for a concept similar to Guitar Hero.

U.S. Patent number 5990405 awarded to Gibson in 1999 read, “A musician can simulate participation in a concert by playing a musical instrument and wearing a head-mounted 3D display that includes stereo speakers. Audio and video portions of a musical concert are pre-recorded, along with a separate sound track corresponding to the musical instrument played by the musician.”

I wonder if this means GH4 will come with a sweet plastic PRS?

Gibson Guitar Sues Activision Over Guitar Hero Infringement[Daily Tech]

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I’d long wondered if I wanted a Lens Baby. I went back and forth on it for so long that I finally decided to just buy one and find out. About 30 seconds after I placed the order the realization hit: I could probably rent or borrow one from my local camera shop — oh well.

One of the things that really bugged me about the Lens Baby is that everyone takes some typical portrait-y shot of their wife or kids with it right out the gate. Here’s mine.

Yeah. Thats the Lens Baby. I got the 3G model with the screw-sketeton that acts more like a roll cage than any functional focusing tool. That popular Lens Baby soft focus looks SO white-washed for commercial marketing. Its weird, it can be reallypleasing if done right and trash if done wrong. It is, however, a ton of fun to play with. I’d put it up there with the Nikon 10.5mm equisolid Fish-Eye.

The way the lens baby works is that you shift it from flexible to rigid (in what ever shape its in at that moment) at the press of a button. As you bend and twist the flexible tube Lens Baby’s center of focus and depth of field change and warp. When you touch the button that immobilizes the tube, the center of focus essentially freezes; you can slightly manipulate it with the fine tuning knobs.

It takes some getting used to and initial results were not that dramatic. This shot of my dog shows the beginnings of a lens baby effect. The soft-focus in this shot would have been far, far nicer with my Nikon AF-S 70-200 f2.8 VR- honestly there is almost nothing like that lens for beautiful bokeh. This shot is OK, nothing to call home about.

I turned as I finished with Lucy to see this guy motoring by. I wanted to see if I could grab a quick shot of action. Suddenly the strengths of the Lens Baby started to materialize. The photo of the boat looks really, really photoshopped, but it isn’t! That is how the light hit the sensor! The bokeh is nice. It doesn’t evoke much emotion but its kind of Hallmark-ish in flavor. The focused area is a bit larger than I’d have liked and the transition is just ick. Regardless, I started to get a feel for how to work the lens and where to go with it. (You can reduce the in-focus area by swapping out apertures with their magnetic aperture tool.)

Luckily for me, we had a few errands to run and I decided to bring the lens baby. Our first stop was at the Babies R Us and the second was our local market. As I was walking down the beer aisle I thought I saw art. Isn’t it strange where we get inspired? Beer. The lighting seemed OK, the colors, shapes, patterns all appeared right — I decided to make me a new desktop background…

All in all, the LensBaby 3G is a pretty cool toy. Its fun to carry as the only lens for my camera; it forces me to try and find the right shot for it. Pushes me to compose and experiment more actively. I’m happy and will certainly be keeping it – well worth the $270. I also purchased the Lens Baby 3G Case as it really needs it to survive in my camera bag.

Note I have decided to cross-post this on my unheard of photoblog Happy Exposure

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Now each of these blogs had written about ye old Batter Blaster several months ago. One, treehugger, over a year ago. I’d seen the name Batter Blaster in 3 places I trusted and none of them had negative connotations. One of them was Dethroner’s own King-in-Chief, Joel.

Boing Boing Gadgets: Joel on the Batter Blaster
Boing Boing: David on the Batter Blaster
TreeHugger: Jasmine on the Batter Blaster

If you read these blog posts, not a single one of them has anything stronger to say than our own Joel “I’m sure it’ll be a big hit.” Each blogger simply shares that the stuff exists — Joel and David provide some anecdotal reason it ought to be good, TreeHugger asks for your opinion. However, I’ve now been “touched” by this brand in 3 blog locations and for some reason left thinking I should buy this product; and I did.

Each of these sources was sharing something they thought looked fun and not offering any concrete guidance — but 2 of the 3 made it sound as if it SHOULD be good. As I generally trust and can rely on them; when I saw the product it registered as a high percentage choice.

High percentage chance to to get bland waffles and pancakes is what it is! This stuff is garbage. If you have ever made your own pancake or waffle batter and know what it looks, smells and tastes like, be prepared for disappointment. I’m a big fan of just taking Bisquick, adding a shot of Grand Mariner and calling it a day. That simple, 3 minute process makes flawless pancakes and waffles that taste fantastic. Trust me, try the Grand Mariner — ignore the aerosol. As you spray your Batter Blaster all over the waffle iron, you’ll notice it isn’t smooth and doesn’t flow nicely from the center out. The batter from the aerosol is fluffy and oozes. It has too much nitrous or whatever they use to pressurize the can in it and rises as it exits the can. This gives you the impression of a fluffy nice waffle or pancake, but as the gas separates from the batter you end up with thin and rubbery.

Yes, folks — after a batter blast I was left with a flacid waffle.

Why is it so popular for bloggers to spotlight things they haven’t tried? Is there some justification that says “I can write a moderately positive piece on some product, sight unseen, so long as I don’t directly endorse it.”? I see this all the time with other products and while none of these 3 blogs told me to go buy the product, I am left feeling like the positive associations created a false recommendation. Its that multiple brand touches associated with something you trust builds affinity ‘thing.’

Am I nuts? Maybe I am just an easily duped American.

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Netflix Inc., the online movie rental company, said Monday it is switching exclusively to the Blu-ray format for high-definition DVDs, following four major movie studios in selecting the Sony technology over one pushed by Toshiba Corp.

Full Story [SFGate.com]

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If I may geek out for a moment, this is the hand-written note on Dial Tone’s dossier, which references my other favorite JOE from that era, “Sci-Fi.”

If you go with “Hot-Line” instead of Dialtone, change “Hot-Spot” to “Sci-Fi” on the Laser Trooper.

As you may recall, the laser trooper did end up named “Sci-fi,” although Dial Tone kept his name.

He’s also got several original pages from Archie and Jemm, Son of Saturn, a Vampirella sketch from David Farley, Marvel style guides for the Punisher, and more.

Gotham City Art listing [eBay]

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A Slave to my Passions since 1989, I, “Mad” Randy Flann, have enjoyed developing nearly two hundred “concepts of convenience” which I call RoFo Headgear. Many of these have been featured across the globe in the hippest magazines…

Stay class Mad Randy Flann. Oh and invest some money into a web designer. Your Web site looks like a Geocities homicide scene.

RoFo Headgear

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