Oh, My Turn on Earth!

When I was a kid, my parents had a lot of LDS videos, books, and CDs lying around the house. We had our favorites, like some of the Living Scriptures series (those things were rad), Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites, or Saturday's Warrior. I was perusing through things at Seagull Book today, and found the absolute classic, My Turn on Earth!

We had a movie night at institute tonight, and this was one of the movies I brought to be voted on. I was really hoping that it'd either be this or Spice World. Instead, we wound up choosing a very heavy drama, The Interpreter, which is a movie I love, but like I said, it's a pretty significantly heavy drama. I think our night could have been significantly more filled with laughter at the campy and hokey goodness that this musical provides. I got home and couldn't sleep so I turned this on and it's playing in the background. I haven't watched this for literally 15 years, and I'm so surprised: I TOTALLY can sing along to all of the songs still! And they're better than I remember! So here are some lyrics to sing you to sleep, and hopefully make good use of YOUR time on earth. This movie really makes me want to get a ginormous pencil to write My Story. Bigger is better - My 'large in stature'ness is enough proof of that.

Eenie Meenie Miney Mo, you can choose the way to go, but if you choose right you will see just how happy yoooooou can beeeeee!!! *groovy 70's beat*

VW Key Hack

For anyone who doesn't know, I have a 2002 VW Passat. His name is Wilson, being named after the volleyball in the movie Castaway. Back in 2005, I had the bad habit of falling asleep with my carkey in my pocket. I know, I know, it's weird to sleep in jeans in the first place, but bear with me. It didn't take long before I had slept on top of my keys, and had depressed one of the buttons on my car key all night, thus draining the battery. The next day I called the dealer to see if they could fix my key.

"No ma'am," they said, "you'll have to buy a new one."

I confidently asked "How much will it cost?" I expected a figure around 20 or 30 bucks. It's a laser-cut key, so it's not like they're making a replica at home depot, so I was thinking high end.

"$150 dollars for a key without buttons, and $250 if you'd like it with buttons."

Needless to say, I've made do with the key that I destroyed.

In 2006, I got a job at RadioShack. One of the routine scenarios that often plays out is helping little old men replace the batteries in their valet keys. There would always be a little door at the back which I could easily pop open. I looked at my key, and couldn't find anything like that.

Jump to yesterday. I was playing with my key, and found something. There is a small groove which I popped a flathead screwdriver into that I had never noticed before. This opened the key right up. First I separated the half with the blade from the half with the buttons, and then I split the half with the buttons along the seam and lo and behold, what do I find inside but a CELL BATTERY! I went to RadioShack today, got the correct battery, and viola! Good as new! Now if only I would've been smart enough to figure that out 3 years ago! Sheesh!

Batteries not included

Being the former RadioShack employee that I am, nerdy hacks of any sort are always a big hit with me. These videos were definitely interesting to the nerdy part of my soul. Enjoy!

6V Battery Hack

6 Volt Battery Hack! You'll Be Amazed! - Watch the top videos of the week here

As fascinating as the above video is, a word of caution. Usually the cheaper 6V batteries have these awkward D-battery-ish monstrosities. The following illustrates what you can do with those suckers.

The TRUE 6 Volt Battery Hack. Save Yourself $$$ Not A Repeat! - Click here for the most popular videos

12V hack:

12 Volt Battery Hack! You'll Be Surprised... - Watch the best video clips here

12V hack parody:

It's A Parody! - More bloopers are a click away

9V hack:

9 Volt Battery Hack! You'll Be Surprised... - The best free videos are right here

9V parody (my personal favorite):

9 Volt Battery Hack Spoof - More amazing video clips are a click away

New Method of Extracting Wind Energy

I'm a LINK to a rad video, and YOU should CLICK ME!

After failed attempts at jimmying up code to embed the linked video to ze blogge, it's apparent that however nerdy I may be, my nerdy skills are not quite on that level as of yet. But the video really made me think. Love the concept, and I think it'd be freaking rad to implement, what with power problems that we're going to have once fossil fuel is gone. ("But Where's the Fossil Fuel Gone?")

And I have a question to ask the infinitely deep void of the internet. I'm wondering how natural power sources like this stand up against EMP's. I don't know enough about how either phenomenon actually WORK and what apparatus is actually altered in each respective process to answer my question. What does an EMP actually destroy in electronic devices? Is it just things that can be soldered back together, or is it more the gunk inside the chips that are soldered to the motherboards? Power sources like these seem simple enough, mostly magnets and friction. So anyone have a guess as to whether an EMP will make building these things impossible, if that EMP were big enough to affect the whole country? Anyway, I hope they do stand up to it. Then, if some nutter EMP's America's brains back to the 1800's, I'll at least have a method of getting a gnarly bolt of static electricity that I can use to fight off the impending zombie revolution. My other plan was to capture and train a Pikachu. I should upgrade to Raichu, you say? Pshh whatevs. They're sooo not as cute as Pikachu. Wouldn't want to be seen on the streets with a Raichu, would I?