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The N game – The game that incarcerated my concentration

Monday, January 4th, 2010

The N Game

This game could have been created in the 80s.  The graphics are super simple. The game play is easy to learn. And yet it’s challenging enough to keep you enraptured for hours at a time.  The N-game (sometimes called N+) is simply amazing.

Remember “LINE RIDER”?  Yeah, this is sort of like that game in many respects. Simple yet adictive.

Now I’m not someone who plays a lot of computer games.  I find them a waste of time most of the time. Occasionally I will play a little Halo or Star Wars with my oldest son. Sometimes I spend some time with my 2nd son playing racing or flying. But in general I just can’t seem to find the time when I’m not trying to be ‘productive’.

Enter “The N-Game”. My son started playing this a couple of weeks ago and I though it was pretty funny to watch. When the little stick figure guy dies he sprays into little tiny pieces.  He can jump super high and runs very fast for his size.  And the playing arena is all done on one screen.

So I watched for a while and then one day said “Hey, let me try that.” That’s all it took. I was hooked. For the first time since college my wife will occasionally come into the room and catch me playing, to my slight embarrassment. But I just can’t help myself. It’s just so fun.

Plus the N-game is available for a bunch of different platforms.  X-box, PSP, and my favorite, the PC web browser. It is a flash-based game that plays with any internet connection.  (It may be available for more systems, but these are the ones I know about).

PLAY IT HERE: http://www.madgravityradio.com/ngame.html 

…THEN BOOKMARK IT!  You’ll need later. :)  

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.
Let me know what you think. Comment below.

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Posted in Games, General Living, Product Reviews | No Comments »

Combine several VOB files into one

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

Star Trek

First of all… What is a VOB file and why should you care? Right?

VOB is the default file type for standard movie DVDs. More detailed information here at Wikipedia. If you want to back-up a DVD onto your computer, you will immediately come in contact with VOB files.

So my son gets a PSP (Play Station Portable) for Christmas and right away wants to put movies on it to watch by himself. So I say “Fine, we have  a bunch of movies here that I can transfer to the PSP.”  I grab a DVD off the shelf and stick it in the computer. Then I grab one of my handy dandy conversion tools and get to work.

  • DVDDecrypter (Download Here)
    • I first tried DVDDecrypter because this program simply transfers the raw DVD files (VOBs) onto the computer without compressing them or changing them in any way.  But that didn’t work for this particular DVD. 
  • DVD Shrink (Download Here)
    • Then I try DVDShrink because it does a good job transferring DVDs also. It worked. The whole DVD, all the VOB files, were transferred successfully to the hard drive.  But OOPS, I forgot to check the little box that says “Make one big huge VOB file from the DVD”. So instead the movie was chopped into 5 pieces, each one with it’s own VOB file.
      • DVDShrink is usually used to compress a full movie from a double layer disc (up to 8gb) so it will fit  onto a regular DVD (4.7 gb). And it does this very well. But in my case I didn’t need compression, just file transfer.
  • AVS File Converters (Download here)
    • I almost always use AVS File Converter to convert the VOBs into other formats, like AVI, MP4, MPG, MOV, FLV, etc.  It does a great job and has a very easy to use interface.  Problem is, if I try to convert the DVD files as they are, I’ll have 5 little movies. That won’t do. I need to combine them into one big VOB.

Come to find out… WIndows has a built-in VOB combiner. And it’s easy to use.   Just follow these instructions.

  1. Go to: Start > Run, Then type Cmd (this opens a DOS window)
  2. Type: cd \Videofiles(“Videofiles” being the folder where decrypter saved your VOB files. you’ll need to navigate to the location YOUR files are located.)
  3. Then type: copy /b vts_01_1.vob + vts_01_2.vob + vts_01_3.vob + vts_01_4.vob new.vob
    1. Be sure to include each VOB file you’re wanting to combine and in the order you want them to play.
    2. The very last file in the sequence (in this case “new.vob”) is the name of the combined file you want to create.
  4. new.vob is now 1 VOB file of the movie.

I then used AVS to easily convert to a PSP compliant format and copied it to the memory stick that my son uses. 

This whole process ended up taking about 2 hours. But I think I could knock a bunch of time off that now that I know what I’m doing.  For example, in the process I found out that AVS will convert the entire movie directly from the DVD. So, assuming there wasn’t any DVD encryption to deal with, that right there could have saved a bunch of steps.  In my case the DVD WAS encrypted, so I would have needed DVDShrink anyway.

Hope this helps SOMEBODY out there.  If you have any other solutions for this problem, please comment below.

Inspiration for this post found here: http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/beyond-media-user-user-troubleshooting-support-forum/38077-multiple-vobs-combining-into-one-file.html

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Posted in General Living, How To, Movies and Video, Programming, Tips and Tricks | No Comments »

Kool-Aid with Stevia

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

koolaidpacketgrapeOur office just bought an ice machine for the break-room. This happened just in time for summer.  And to celebrate, I fixed myself a huge pitcher of Kool-Aid with stevia – One of the seven liquid wonders of the world.

 If you have never tried it, you should.  You get 100% of the great classic Kool-Aid taste with ZERO sugar.  It’s amazing.

 Stevia is a super-sweet herb that is all-natural and completely organic. ½ Teaspoon of this stuff sweetens just like a whole cup of sugar would, except you don’t get the sugar jitters, hyper activity, or the crash an hour later.

 Here’s how to make the Kool-Aid

  • One pack of Kool-Aid drink mix
  • 2 quarts of water
  • ½ Teaspoon Stevia (powdered extract)
  • Ice, of course

 You’ll love it. 

It also works well with lemons.  A few fresh squeezed lemons a little water and a pinch of stevia….  WOW! What a great guilt-free pleasure.  Bring on the Ice and the summer heat. I’m ready!

 NOTE: I use the stevia “extract” powder. There are other mixes that add fillers and bulking agents. These other products would require different proportions to achieve the same taste results.

 Here are some more links for other stevia resources:

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A down Acconomy – Don’t save your money!

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

OK, I’m no economist. Although I did take some economy classes in college, I’m not a professional who deals with stocks and bonds and I can’t tell you when to buy “puts” and when to purchase “calls”.  

 

However, it seems to me that in this declining economy people are really doing the opposite of what makes logical sense. They’re “saving” their money.  The trend seems to be to save up your cash and avoid spending anything you don’t have to. Be frugal. Save, and only spend when you absolutely have to. This will leave you more for when times are tougher down the road.

 

I am certainly open to correction on this, but that thinking makes no sense to me. Why? Well, we know that we are in a time of massive impending inflation. The government just passed a series of bills (with many more to come) that literally creates cash out of thin air and pumps it into the economy.  This action, just as it always does, is going to cause our dollar to plummet in value. And the enormity of the cash that is going to be released in this country soon is something we have never seen in our history. The inflation we are going to encounter is projected to be huge and fast.

 

So why would you want to save up something that is going to be worth much less in the near future than it is now? It seems to me the logical thing to do is to spend your money on things that will last that you won’t be able to afford in the future. Or to convert your cash money into something that won’t be affected as much by inflation. Like gold or property, etc.

 

For example, if I have $100 now. For the purposes of this argument, let’s assume that in 6 months that $100 will be worth 1/3 of its original value due to inflation. By simply “saving” my money I just lost 2/3  ($66) of what I’ve worked so hard NOT to spend.  Where did it go?  Out the window. It is just gone.

 

It seems to me that money would have been better spent putting it towards buying a car, or a Sony MP3 player, or making memories in Disneyland, something useful. At least a trip to the beach will leave you with memories for the rest of your life. The savings account left you with virtually nothing. And let’s face it, you’re out the money either way. If it isn’t spent by you, and soon, it will be literally robbed from you by inflation. The only way to beat inflation is to put your money into things that can’t be taken by inflation…. things that you can afford now, that will be out of reach in the future. For example, if you would not be able to afford a toaster in the future, but you need one, buy it now while it costs $25 rather than $250 down the road.  A savings account does not shield you from losing your money to inflation. The more money you have saved in cash form in the bank, the more you will lose.

 

Think about this.  Have you ever said, or heard somebody say… “We could have bought that house for $25,000 – X many years ago.  What were we thinking? Why didn’t we do it”.  Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. But now, because of inflation, that house is worth $600,000 and nobody can get a loan for it, and you wish you had that $575,000 in property equity.

 

The flip side:

I’m trying to come up with a flip side… reasons why what I’m saying is actually NOT true, and I just can’t. But like I said, I’m not an economist. So if you have any thoughts on the subject, and have reasons why you think I am in error, please comment on this post below. I would like to hear your opinion.

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Posted in General Living, Money issues | No Comments »