I use MediaMonkey to play my music. I love it. It roxxorz. I give it 3 sneezes.
We (the wife and I) are currently listening through the Lord of the Rings trilogy in audiobook format. Due to the length of the chapters, the cds are broken up into 3-minute tracks. This means I have a LOT of LOTR mp3s in my music library. So [begin geekery] I wrote a custom playlist in MediaMonkey which grabs all of my LOTR tracks that have a play count of 0, and sorts them so that the beginning of the playlist will always be the first track we haven't listened to. It's like an automatic bookmark.
Then, I decided to update the tags and filenames of my LOTR tracks. At which point, MediaMonkey lost its database info for all of the LOTR tracks (presumably because it's associated by filename), setting the playcounts for all of the tracks back to 0. Which meant that unless I wanted to let MM play through all of the tracks we had already listened to (something like 6 hours of them) those tracks would always be sitting at the top of my playlist. Grrr!
So I did some lurnin' on the interwebs, and discovered that MM's database is stored in SQLite format. I downloaded SQLiteMan, and used it to hack my database, setting the playcount for the older tracks to 1, and solving my own problem. [/geekery]
Yay! Now I have geekhigh!
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts
2010-01-06
2009-10-16
Wire-wrapped RPG Minis
I'm kinda in to role playing. Not the kind where you sit down with someone from work and pretend that one of you is a customer, and the other one tries to 'help'. The 'cool' kind, if such a designation can be applied to something so geeky.
Currently I am playing through a fantasy-themed campaign, wherein I play an Orc 'Elf slayer' named Kwarr (or Kwarrrhr or Quarr; the spelling varies from session to session, as Kuarr is barely literate). It is something of a custom for me to create my own mini for my character in whatever campaign I'm playing, and this session I've had wire-wrapping on the brain, so I pilfered some old CAT6 cable scraps and created the following:
Astute observers will no doubt note that his Ancient Bronze Sword (Good (+2)) can be held in his back sheath. Also, Orcish fashion and/or genetics dictate that he wears his hair in a mohawk.
My coworker Timothy created a similar, but much more elaborate miniature for his Elf character. I don't have pictures of it, otherwise I'd probably upload them here.
In a fit of inspiration this evening, I pulled out the wire and my wife's beading pliers and made a wizard character for another one of the guys playing:
Dick (the wizard) likes to use fire a lot, hence the wand and staff on fire for this mini. Also, astute observers will note that one arm of his robe and his hat are not the same shade of blue as the rest of his robe. Yeah. Apparently, there is very little quality control when it comes to CAT6 wire coloration. I didn't figure this out until I had made the large portion of his robe (the hard part) and didn't have enough of the old shade to finish. I've decided to explain this away by saying simply that he's a wizard, and wizards like to wear clothes that are a little...odd.
Also note his awesome beard, and the fact that anywhere you can see through his robe you can see that he is wearing a full set of long underwear in a lighter shade of blue.
Oh, and the weird wing-looking things in the second picture are actually a stand I made to get the picture. That was before I figured out that he would stand on his own, given a solid surface.
Both of these minis have been or will be mounted on a base to help with stability. I discovered that washers make a good base for this. The washers are about the size of a half-dollar. Just cover the top with double-sided tape, and stick the little feet down. Then, if you feel like overachieving, take an old leaf and crumble it over the rest of the tape and tamp it down. Voila! Instant bracken-y ground cover.
Okay, observation test time: Can you guess what four colors are found in the twisted pairs of CAT6 cable? (Hint: there are really eight colors, but four of them are a lighter version of the other four colors.)
Currently I am playing through a fantasy-themed campaign, wherein I play an Orc 'Elf slayer' named Kwarr (or Kwarrrhr or Quarr; the spelling varies from session to session, as Kuarr is barely literate). It is something of a custom for me to create my own mini for my character in whatever campaign I'm playing, and this session I've had wire-wrapping on the brain, so I pilfered some old CAT6 cable scraps and created the following:
Astute observers will no doubt note that his Ancient Bronze Sword (Good (+2)) can be held in his back sheath. Also, Orcish fashion and/or genetics dictate that he wears his hair in a mohawk.
My coworker Timothy created a similar, but much more elaborate miniature for his Elf character. I don't have pictures of it, otherwise I'd probably upload them here.
In a fit of inspiration this evening, I pulled out the wire and my wife's beading pliers and made a wizard character for another one of the guys playing:
Dick (the wizard) likes to use fire a lot, hence the wand and staff on fire for this mini. Also, astute observers will note that one arm of his robe and his hat are not the same shade of blue as the rest of his robe. Yeah. Apparently, there is very little quality control when it comes to CAT6 wire coloration. I didn't figure this out until I had made the large portion of his robe (the hard part) and didn't have enough of the old shade to finish. I've decided to explain this away by saying simply that he's a wizard, and wizards like to wear clothes that are a little...odd.
Also note his awesome beard, and the fact that anywhere you can see through his robe you can see that he is wearing a full set of long underwear in a lighter shade of blue.
Oh, and the weird wing-looking things in the second picture are actually a stand I made to get the picture. That was before I figured out that he would stand on his own, given a solid surface.
Both of these minis have been or will be mounted on a base to help with stability. I discovered that washers make a good base for this. The washers are about the size of a half-dollar. Just cover the top with double-sided tape, and stick the little feet down. Then, if you feel like overachieving, take an old leaf and crumble it over the rest of the tape and tamp it down. Voila! Instant bracken-y ground cover.
Okay, observation test time: Can you guess what four colors are found in the twisted pairs of CAT6 cable? (Hint: there are really eight colors, but four of them are a lighter version of the other four colors.)
2007-10-31
Wizard Wednesday: Easy micro-clamps
For those of you who have ever done any kind of paper modeling, you probably know the frustration that comes from trying to figure out a good way to hold two pieces of paper/cardstock together long enough and flat enough for the glue to dry well. I myself ran into this problem a couple days ago when gluing some WhiteWings together. I started ransacking my garage looking for some small pieces of wood which I could squeeze between two clothes pins when I came across something better: Contrux! These handy little plastic girders are just the right size for clothes pins to grip (in either a parallel or perpendicular orientation) and provide a nice, flat, smooth, reinfored clamping surface. You could probably even use the 'curve' pieces to clamp around a curve!
In other news, I won an internet 'Caption-a-Comic' contest. Check it out here, and check out my winning entry from the link!
In other news, I won an internet 'Caption-a-Comic' contest. Check it out here, and check out my winning entry from the link!
2007-10-10
Wizard Wednesday: The Fountain of ... ink?
I like fountain pens. I have always liked fountain pens, from the time I was given one when the fam left Indonesia. It was a going-away/graduation/something gift from UPCS/MIS when we left. It came as a set, with a ball point and a pencil, or something. All three of them had my name engraved on them (they must have paid some engraver a good 50 cents for the work too; I miss cheap labor) and they were just all around awesome. Anyway, that was my introduction to fountain pens, and I've been a fan ever since.
That same fountain pen has sat in various of my drawers since about a year after I got it, because it stopped writing well. I think it was because the converter got squashed or something, so I couldn't fill it, and by the time I tried fixing the converter, it had dried up to the point that it was unusable.
A few years later, Mom found a three-pen set by Sheaffer, which I'm pretty sure was in their Award line, which is no longer being made. The two rollerball pens in the set were/are pretty nice, and I still have them (although I haven't purchased fillers for them since the originals emptied) but, of course, the highlight of the set was the fountain pen. It was a nice, hefty pen in stainless steel with brass or gold (not sure which, but probably brass) trim, and it had the nice, screw/piston converter, which was much easier to use than the squeezy converter on my first pen. I used that pen for years, until I left it in a denim shirt, and left that shirt in an airport.
A couple years ago, I found a little, hole-in-the-wall office supply shop which was a short lease thing where the guy basically had a bunch of office supplies he had accumulated somewhere that he wanted to sell off cheap, so I bought my third fountain pen, a Sheaffer White Dot cheap0, with a black plastic 'chassis', which looks like crap, but writes like butter. Something happened at some point which caused me to stop using the pen, which caused it to dry out, which confirmed my lack of use.
Yesterday, I got to hankering after my old Sheaffer Award fountain pen, and started looking online for fountain pens, only to be reminded that a CHEAP fountain pen runs about $35. I managed to swallow my disappointment and went home, where I found pens 1 and 3 (the one from Indonesia and the black plastic one). While watching some tvd, I grabbed them and spent some time rinsing the old, accumulated ink sediment out of them, and managed to get Blackie working again (minus the bent clip, which is what happens when you clip them on your pocket and then snag them on something), but Silver (as in, Hi-O) still didn't want to write well without having to write slowly or press really hard, either of which experience is analogous to writing with a nail dipped in glue. But I stuck it in my pocket and brought it with me today anyway.
During a bit of down time, I looked up fountain pen maintenance and found this site, and learned a bit more about how the pens are made and how you can take care of them. After fiddling with Silver for a couple of minutes (most of which were spent removing the bit of paper I got stuck in the nib because I wasn't being careful enough), I am thrilled to say that I have restored this 15+ year old pen to working condition and it too writes - to borrow a phrase from VeggieTales - like butter on a bald monkey.
Hooray for decent craftsmanship, and for that personality quirk that says, "Don't throw that away, you may find a use for it some day!"
That same fountain pen has sat in various of my drawers since about a year after I got it, because it stopped writing well. I think it was because the converter got squashed or something, so I couldn't fill it, and by the time I tried fixing the converter, it had dried up to the point that it was unusable.
A few years later, Mom found a three-pen set by Sheaffer, which I'm pretty sure was in their Award line, which is no longer being made. The two rollerball pens in the set were/are pretty nice, and I still have them (although I haven't purchased fillers for them since the originals emptied) but, of course, the highlight of the set was the fountain pen. It was a nice, hefty pen in stainless steel with brass or gold (not sure which, but probably brass) trim, and it had the nice, screw/piston converter, which was much easier to use than the squeezy converter on my first pen. I used that pen for years, until I left it in a denim shirt, and left that shirt in an airport.
A couple years ago, I found a little, hole-in-the-wall office supply shop which was a short lease thing where the guy basically had a bunch of office supplies he had accumulated somewhere that he wanted to sell off cheap, so I bought my third fountain pen, a Sheaffer White Dot cheap0, with a black plastic 'chassis', which looks like crap, but writes like butter. Something happened at some point which caused me to stop using the pen, which caused it to dry out, which confirmed my lack of use.
Yesterday, I got to hankering after my old Sheaffer Award fountain pen, and started looking online for fountain pens, only to be reminded that a CHEAP fountain pen runs about $35. I managed to swallow my disappointment and went home, where I found pens 1 and 3 (the one from Indonesia and the black plastic one). While watching some tvd, I grabbed them and spent some time rinsing the old, accumulated ink sediment out of them, and managed to get Blackie working again (minus the bent clip, which is what happens when you clip them on your pocket and then snag them on something), but Silver (as in, Hi-O) still didn't want to write well without having to write slowly or press really hard, either of which experience is analogous to writing with a nail dipped in glue. But I stuck it in my pocket and brought it with me today anyway.
During a bit of down time, I looked up fountain pen maintenance and found this site, and learned a bit more about how the pens are made and how you can take care of them. After fiddling with Silver for a couple of minutes (most of which were spent removing the bit of paper I got stuck in the nib because I wasn't being careful enough), I am thrilled to say that I have restored this 15+ year old pen to working condition and it too writes - to borrow a phrase from VeggieTales - like butter on a bald monkey.
Hooray for decent craftsmanship, and for that personality quirk that says, "Don't throw that away, you may find a use for it some day!"
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