Sometimes you’re up late, browsing around on the web, and something hits you. You get immediate inspiration– you’re not sure how you can achieve what you’ve just thought of, it might be impossible, and it might not be worth your time, but it’s too late: you’re going to spend the next 6 hours trying to figure it out.

This is what happened to me last night, after I read a very simple and straightforward tweet from my good friend Clint:

Shit. There goes my time.

Kopp’s Frozen Custard is, if you don’t know already, a frozen custard & burger place whose home resides in Wisconsin. Their food is pretty incredible albeit probably pretty terrible for you, but hey– it’s Wisconsin. I love it so much that I made an extremely dorky YouTube video about it.

Anyway, it was time to create a twitter account for the frozen custard restaurant.

Continue reading I Has A Flavor… Feed: Bringing Kopps’ Flavor of the Day onto Twitter »

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Of course you have all heard by now that Paris Hilton was arrested, charged, and put into jail after being caught twice driving while under the influence. After being in jail for a short period, they pulled her out and into house arrest, letting her hang out at home instead of jail.

Let me say, I was pissed. She, being the spoiled little Hilton heiress, got off easy with special treatment. Luckily, the judge was pissed too– he never said she could leave. So, the judge brought Paris back in, pulling from her house crying (see image above).

Now my friend Megan’s Facebook status says “Megan is feeling kind of bad for Paris.”

Megan, I love ya, but take a look at it this way: I feel bad for her, but in the way I may feel bad for my 5-year-old brother Ian if he were to get punished for destroying some precious family heirloom. But, in this situation, she’s some 20 years older, a ho, and instead of breaking a family item, she drove drunk. I mean, come on. She deserves it.

In other news, the Worldwide Developers Conference is on Monday for Apple. I’ve been Jonesin’ for an iPhone for a while now, and this will start to seal the deal a little more. However, more importantly, Leopard is probably going to be out for the occasion with a few new features.

All in all, I believe this post solidifies that I am a dorkilicious nerd.

Oh, and do me a favor. Keep a lookout here for me and see if you find anything worthwhile for about $1200 or so. Thanks.

Naftali’s world famous pamcakes.

Naftali. How can I describe him with words? Well, besides making awesome artwork, intriguing computer games, mindblowing 3d animation, and deciding to live near me in Rhode Island, Naftali makes excellent pamcakes.

No, seriously, they’re incredible. The other night, Naftali snuck over to my house at about 1:30 AM and we made the most excellent pamcakes one can eat. After snapping a few shots while preparing the batter, I noticed how the plate used to hold the pamcakes right off of the griddle stayed empty. There was no table preparation or silverware to be seen–it was straight from the pan into the stomach. Well, I guess there was a bit of chewing, enjoying, and swallowing in addition somewhere in there.

After 30 pamcakes and a half gallon of milk, I asked Naftali if I could share his recipe of pamcakes on the interweb.

“Can I share your recipe online, or is it some sort of secret family heirloom pamcake recipe? I mean, I respect it if you’d like to keep it for special occasions.”

“I got it from The Joy of Cooking.”

1 ½ c flour
1 tsp salt
3 tbs sugar
1 ¾ tsp powder
2 eggs
3 tbs butter
1 - 1 ¼ c milk

Whisk eggs and add in milk and melted butter. Stir dry ingredients then add egg, milk, and butter mix. Fry on griddle until golden brown. Chocolate chips encouraged but optional. Serve in-hand with gigantic glasses of milk.

Gonna put it on tha’ bread
I’m gonna eat that bread.
White bread, wheat bread
I’m gonna eat that bread.

Thanks, Taylor.

The Nike+ sensor, safely hidden away in my shoe

If you haven’t noticed already through the post I’ve made or the new section on the right sidebar with the numbers, I’ve been running. Tonight (well, last night), was my third official run, and it’s been a blast.

However, something that’s really helped (besides running with Rachel), was this little gadget I picked up while at the mall the other day. I had to pick up some running shoes if I wanted to get into the hang of it and I already had an iPod nano which I got for free with a Mac for their back-to-school program, so I decided to go for the Nike + iPod dealie. Installation was a snap– put the little sensor in the shoe, plug the transmitter into the bottom of the iPod, put said iPod in the armband, and run.

My first run was without any music whatsoever. That run passed as follows:

• Ran for 3 minutes.
• Walked for 3 minutes.
• Ran for 3 1/2 minutes.
• Walked for 5 minutes.
• Ran for 5 minutes.
• Walked for 5 minutes.
• Ran for 10 minutes.

While it was indeed impressive for me, I think the most impressive part in the end was my improvement after I had the iPod gear on me. Here was my next run:

• Ran for 15 minutes (1.75 miles).
• Walked for 3 minutes.
• Ran for 15 minutes (1.7 miles).

Neat.

Once you’re done with your run, you plug your iPod in like you always would, and it automatically uploads the run data to the Nike+ website. Then, it gives you cool graphs, showing you how fast you ran and when. You can also add and join challenges with other people to try and race (or work together) to some goal you set. I’ll make a challenge for which to invite people to if there are people reading this who are interested. Leave a comment with your Nike+ username, and I’ll add you into it. I’m not really expecting anybody to bite, though.

This stuff makes a nerd like me more excited to run. Hell, I even have my run data embedded in the sidebar now.

Originally I thought that Rachel and I should get separate receivers/sensors, but then I thought of the ingenious plan to tether us together while running by using a splitter. That way, we could each listen to the same music and get super pumped up by the same stuff. So, a splitter hangs down from my armband, and two cords come out from there, one heading to me, and one crossing the space between us and into her ears. It works surprisingly well.

But, we’ve decided to run at night. We’d be… quite the site in daylight.

Clint is a professional moped rider & fixer-upper

My buddy Clint got in contact with me the other day, asking me to ride mopeds with me on Friday. It didn’t take me long to respond, “of course! sounds like fun.”

Clint’s got this awesome apartment in downtown Milwaukee which he’s affectionately dubbed “The Fortress.” An old shoe company, The Fortress is a lofted building with lots of room, old wood plank floors, and an excellent old elevator, complete with aging lights and buttons. However, we didn’t touch the elevator yet– that was for things that couldn’t get up or down stairs– we walked up. Needless to say, my newly-toned calves were more than ready for the task.

Entering his apartment revealed a few colorful old hair dryer chairs, a fridge in the middle of the room, a bunch of cool technology projects, a lighting kit, and his prize possession: a total of four mopeds– one for each color of the rainbow. A red Sachs, an orange Honda Express, a green older bike for which I didn’t get the model name, and a blue Tomos; all vintage scooters from the 1970s. See, what Clint does is buy these beautiful mopeds at cheap prices as they’re beaten up and usually not working. He then takes the time and effort to repair them into working condition, spending anywhere between $5 and $600 in total (initial purchase & reworking) for each bike.

After an in-depth discussion on technology and hacking the Milwaukee Transit TV System, it was time to head out. Our destination? South-side Milwaukee. Clint and I took “the most legit” ‘peds: the red Sachs and the orange Honda Express, respectively. Using the ancient elevator, we headed out and I experienced what Clint explained earlier as “riding a barstool at 25 miles per hour.”

Continue reading XTreme Mopeding AKA Why You Should Wear A Helmet »

My running path.

It’s something I thought I’d never do. I talked about it frequently and the iPod + Nike thing was catching my eye, but I just never had the willpower to actually get out of my chair, put on a pair of sneakers and shorts, and go running.

But, thanks to the help (read: peer-pressured convincing) of a pretty little lady, I did it. I ran and walked and ran and walked for a grand total of 2.6 miles. Doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re… athletically challenged, it means quite a bit.

What would I say in the end? It was fun. The last time I had run more than a block was probably four years ago in Sophomore high school gym class. With that as my last memory, I wasn’t too excited in the beginning, but after I had gotten a hang of it, I had a good time– it helped to have a friend with me. Aches and pains suddenly appeared on my body within the first 20 minutes or so, but even that felt good. It was nice to know my muscles were still alive (but for how much longer, we don’t know).

Whatever the case, it feels all the more excellent lying in bed to go to sleep whilest typing away on the laptop. I think I may try this again sometime soon.