More Wine
Wine – Savanha – Merlot (Vintage 2006)
This was another wine I found at the back that comes in at the under $10 category, is made in
Spire Wine
Western Cape South Africa by Spier Wines and had to give it a go. This wine has a good color and what I describe as an “earthy” taste, very similar to the Fetzer Merlot which has always been a favorite Merlot of mine. A sharp fruity taste with a very long finish which may be a little too sharp, and a bit too long for some, separates this wine from the racks of cheap under $10 reds. All in all, a good buy, and I would purchase again. 6.5/10 ($8.99 avg – 750ml).
Coldplay – The Scientist (Acoustic)
Posted by Zeno in Guitar Tablature, Videos on September 2, 2009
Awesome version of this song. Linking the first of the three tablature versions listed on youtube as it’s the most correct by far. Only three chords and yes the low E is tuned up to F.
Tablature Ver5 (Correct by all accounts): http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/c/coldplay/the_scientist_acoustic_ver5_crd.htm
For completeness I am including the other two versions of the tab listed on the original YouTube video location. The first one is actually the version four of the correct listed above and written by the same person, only a few frets of difference total, while the second one is incredibly different and written to play along with the original album version capo’d or not.
Tablature Ver4: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/c/coldplay/the_scientist_acoustic_ver4_crd.htm
Album Version with or without Capo:
Tablature Album Ver1: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/c/coldplay/the_scientist_acoustic_crd.htm
Another Wine Review
Posted by Zeno in Wine & Liquor on August 30, 2009
Wine – Redwood Creek – Merlot (Vintage 2005)
My store got in a shipment of this wine, and as usual it’s of the cheaper variety, but it is actually a very good brand, and for the extra couple of dollars, this wine is far better than Crane Lake which was my previous top “cheapest of the cheap” wine picks. It is a California Valley wine, which as far as I have found almost always puts out quality wines. The label tells of the “Frei Brothers Vineyards” which were established in 1890 outside Modesto which gives this maker over 100 years of experience, which might explain the high quality of this very low priced wine.
As in the heading, the only type available at my location was the Merlot, which has an excellent flavor, just an ever so slightly sharp on the tongue taste, which quickly dissipates to it’s finish. Unlike most cheap wines, the sharpness of this Merlot is very pleasant and adds to it’s flavor. The finish of this wine is fairly short lived and pleasant, but leaves no lasting bitterness which is typical of most cheap wines. All in all, this wine is very good for the cost, and is my new top pick for the lowest priced wines, and is still good enough to serve at any dinner party. 8/10 rating. ($5.99 avg – 750ml)
Cool trick for finding the combination for Master padlocks
I found this rather interesting video on youtube which I will embed here, and also typed it out (for my own reference) as well, which will make it easier for you guys to copy/paste this into word or something for your own saved reference. I found this one helpful as every other “trick” I found to discovering your combi padlocks numbers involved having the lock already open and basically just watching the wheel pack, which really isn’t a trick at all. Thanks to HeaviestJ on YouTube for sharing this trick!
Note for Step One: (Faster) This takes a bit of practice and feel, but I have found it is much faster to determine the last digit of the combination as follows.
Use the below steps for finding the stop points on the dial, using tension on the locking bar. Starting from 0, work around each stop point putting just enough pressure to find the middle digit as listed, but continue to apply tension until you feel “drag” on the dial, you should be able to eventually lock up the dial in fact.
Continue with this all the way around the dial. However, one of the 12 stop points will have NO drag no matter how much tension is applied (as the fence is hitting the contact points on either side of the wheel notch.)
This is the final digit of the combination.
Written steps for above video. (Pretty sure I got them right)
Step 1
Use tension to find the numbers that the dial will stop on during a full rotation of the dial from 0 and back to 0. Write these numbers down. You will end up with 12 numbers.
Write down these numbers, we will use this lock from the video’s numbers.
| 3 |
| 6.5 |
| 9.5 |
| 13 |
| 16.5 |
| 20 |
| 23 |
| 26.5 |
| 29.5 |
| 33 |
| 36.5 |
| 39.5 |
You should have 7 numbers ending in .5 and 5 integers.
Take the 5 integers which are.
| 3 |
| 13 |
| 20 |
| 23 |
| 33 |
| 3 |
| 13 |
| 20 |
| 23 |
| 33 |
| Now remove all numbers that end in the same digit, which in this case would leave us with the number 20.
This is the 3rd number in your combination. |
We now have the number 20 as our 3rd number.
Step 2
Using the number you received from step one above, (in this case 20) divide this number by 4.
So 20/4 = 5.
In this case we received no remainder.
If you DO receive a remainder, write it down. It will either be, 0, 1, 2, 3.
If for example we had an ending digit of 18, when dividing by 4, we would have a remainder of 2.
This is the number we will use to find the final two digits of the combination.
Since we had no remainder with our number of 20, we will start with 0 (using the 0,1,2,3 corresponding to the number of remainders in the 3rd digit division), and add 4 to it until you reach the last number possible in the master lock, which in this case would be 39.
This gives us: 0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36
If we had a remainder of 1, we would have started with 1 getting: 1, 5, 9, 13….
With a remainder of 2, we would start with 2 getting: 2, 6….
Step 3
Now working off of the numbers we acquired earlier we have ten numbers.
0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36
Any of which can be the first number of the combination.
Now
If the remainder we had earlier from the four division is either a 0 or 1 add 2 to that number. Giving:
0 = 2
1 = 3
If the remainder is either a 3 or 4, subtract 2, Giving:
3 = 1
4 = 2
Now since we had a remainder of 0, we will start with 2, and 4 to each number so:
2, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, 30, 34, 38
Which gives us ten numbers, any of which can be the 2nd number of the combination.
We have now worked 34,000 possible combination’s down to 100. So:
First Digit is one of these ten digits.
| 0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36 |
Our 2nd digit is one of the next ten digits which we worked out with the remainder addition/subtraction step:
| 2, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, 30, 34, 38 |
And our last digit is 20.
Start from the first digit and work your way through them, with the started combination being 0, 2, 20, the next being 4, 2, 20, 8, 2, 20 and so on, until you have your combination to your lock, this will take a few minutes but is certainly faster than trying 34,000 combinations!
Thanks to HeaviestJ from YouTube for this awesome trick!
Note for Web Developers
Posted by Zeno in Technology on August 4, 2009
I have NO idea why, but one of the first things I learned when coding websites (and I am very new to it, if anyone hasn’t noticed by my choppy coding), that your websites need to degrade gracefully.
Having said that, I have noticed a large number of websites using JavaScript to call their CSS, which being that I run no-script in firefox, as well as many that I know, this completely breaks their website on first visit, and doesn’t really let you decide if you want to allow this new site to run scripting on my machine.
So, my hint/rant for the day is, if you want to use scripting to call your CSS for different browser platforms, at least leave one standard CSS call in the HTML code so that those visiting your site with scripting disabled don’t meet a white page with nothing but un-formated text going off into infinity.
WoW Patch 3.2.0
Lots of new stuff added on this patch, my favorite by Far is that non-epic fliers now have 150% flight speed (this should help me stave off buying epics for my other 3 
80’s. Also, flying mounts can be purchased @ level 60 now, epic ground @ level 40, and standard ground @ level 20. I haven’t gotten a chance to play the new patch as the game is still down ( as usual for “database” management and “extended maintenance”), we’ve never heard that before eh?
Anyway, the full official patch notes can be found here for those interested in checking it out!
On a side note, the guild Deify which had been around for years finally crumbled and disbanded this week 
, leaving 90% of my toons, and all my mains guildless. If anyone on the Azjol-Nerub server is looking for dps/tank classes with playskill and enough gear to participate, please pst me in-game or mail Djall on A-N for more info on me.
Mid-Town Drive-In & Movie Reviews (Harry Potter 6 & Public Enemies)
Just for the sake of the drive-in in Mid-Town, and the mis-print of the Roane County news, I wanted to post here that they are not in fact closed now, after the 1st of Aug. They will be open as long as attendance permits (which I am sorry to say was very low for a Friday night and a new release movie), however they will at least stay open until Labor Day. Anyone in the area, I highly recommend checking out the theater if you haven’t already, two movies for $6 a person cannot possibly be beat in this day and age, and while the restaurant is closed, the concessions stand is still open with burgers etc. If you have a child you would like to take to the movies, but they are too inattentive or whatnot to sit for 4 hours, this is the perfect venue. Bring a blanket, a cooler full of your favorite beverage and have a night out at the drive-in. Vans or pick-up trucks are perfect for these theaters which are a dying breed. Unfortunately, after speaking to the ticket clerk / owners family, we found TVA spill that made national headlines has hurt tourism / out-of-town income to the local business’s more than I originally thought it had. Yes the spill was completely awful, but I hadn’t realized just how hard it had hurt local business’s like the drive-in until speaking with them personally. Unfortunately the local paper used this issue plus the drive-in’s closing to spin some ratings on their paper and were inaccurate, and didn’t make an effort to correct themselves. It is a small county, and my friend loves the drive-in, so I wanted to post this here for anyone that happened upon it through any search engines. Help save it by attending if you can, or at least enjoy it before it’s gone, or buy it if you have the money (it is available for purchase for $275,000) 
Anyway….about the movie reviews.
We just went tonight to see the new Harry Potter 6 (& the Half-Blood Prince) and Public Enemies.
Public Enemies was the first one up, and as far as movies go it was fairly decent, with me personally scoring it a 3/5, with as usual, great acting from Depp. Christian Bale, who plays the supporting role as the FBI agent Melvin Purvis, gives a so-so performance equal to his performances in the Batman franchise, which just could have used more emotion, unless both characters were fairly bland, emotionless people. Depp was his usual self, who played outstandingly as the charismatic Dillinger. While there were several other gangsters from this era portrayed, the emphasis was most certainly on Dillinger and the exploits he went through. Most of the movie deviates from historical accounts to make the plot flow more smoothly, and give the sequences more action, for which even I noticed (even though I am far from a buff of this time), but didn’t mind. The plot moves along quite nicely with nothing that detracts from the main storyline, or other scenes that would otherwise detract from the movie. While the supporting role of Purvis seemed rather bland and emotionless, nonetheless, his performance was convincing, and for anyone that enjoys depression era gang stories, or is facinated by such, I think would find this movie enjoyable. I would certainly recommend to anyone that enjoys action/drama movies to go see it, and in fact, it has enough romance in it with Depp’s girl in this movie to make it worth going to see with your girl if she just cannot decide on a flick, and you want to see something you can both enjoy. There are several gunfights, with, from my experience, have Very realistic gunfire sounds and wounds. Unfortunately, for those of you familiar with the Dirty Harry movies, or brains on the screen, you may be dissapointed, but fact is, real gunfire and wounds just don’t look like Hollywood. These gunfights however are very realistic (as far as Hollywood goes), with little (shooting without aiming), or (this magazine holds 2,500 rounds). All in all, this movie was worth paying to see, however it’s re-watchability (if that is a word), would be in the lower range. It’s just not a movie that I would enjoy seeing more than one time. For most of you that aren’t either in love with Depp (as my friend was), in love with gangster movies, or depression era films, you can probably wait till this hits video and save yourself the $50 bucks.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was decent, as are all the Potter franchise movies, however with the 6th installment, being that the books increse in lenght as they go along, they had to seriously cut up the film in order to keep it’s time down. As is, I believe I remember it to be 154mins long. Almost every scene was chopped down to the point that my friend attending with me had trouble even following the story and would constantly ask what was going on. She is one of the ones that hasn’t read any books but has seen every film, and she still had trouble following what was going on. Maybe because I had read the book so recently, but I seemed to notice every mistake they made, which I didn’t do as much on previous films that only seemed to cut plot filler out. Unfortunately they either cut or re-wrote major plot points of this film, including a fairly long scene towards the end that didn’t even take place in the book at all (first time for a Potter movie I think), and it didn’t even make any sense nor move the plot forward in any way. Unfortunately, I give this movie the lowest marks of any of the Potter films, being chopped up to pieces the way it is, and that deviates from the book in too many points for anyone that reads the books to enjoy as much as the other movies before it. which is sad being that the five films before it stayed with the books plot enough to be almost straight on. 2/5, but I still recommend any Potter fan to see it in the theatres (which I am sure you already have as this is probably the two-thousandth review on this film.)
More Liquor reviews!
Posted by Zeno in Wine & Liquor on July 23, 2009
Wine – Liberty Creek – Merlot (Unknown Year)
This was some Dirt cheap wine I found basically in the “bargain bin” corner of the shop the other day, and anyone that has been reading my reviews know I usually go for the cheaper side of the spirits This wine unfortunately isn’t as good as the Crane Lake which is actually cheaper on average for the same amount, but since this wine came in 1.5L sizes and I had a couple of people to drink on it, I figured to give it a shot. However, even for a cheap wine this one hits lower marks. Strong bite, almost like a fortified wine, and almost no lingering finish whatsoever, which isn’t great considering even though it isn’t listed on the bottle, this wines alcohol content is very low, which even after 750ml I could probably have finished the liter and a half and barely blown an illegal limit for driving! I couldn’t list the year of make either since that is also missing from the bottle, the only thing missing from this cheap wine is a box or a screw on lid! 2/10 ($7.99 avg – 1.5L)
Liqueur – Chambord
This was purchased for a friend of mine, who doesn’t drink much and “liked the look of the bottle”. I only purchased the mini-bar sized serving as this liquor is very expensive and she drinks Very little, (although she found she loved the “Exotic Fruit” White Zinfandel wine I purchased, but since I haven’t tried it, I haven’t reviewed it, maybe at another time.
This is a relatively expensive liqueur out of France, and the best way both of us could find to describe it was like Jägermeister mixed with a fruity red wine, almost cough syrupy, but sweeter. I personally don’t fancy this drink at all, couldn’t think of anything I would want to mix it with, and for it’s price it would be a waste to mix it with anything anyways. If you like Jägermeister and red wines, especially the almost cough syrup and thick run of Jägermeister, you will probably enjoy this, however neither me or my friend enjoyed it much, and far as I am aware, not even half of the mini-bar sized bottle was finished. 2-9/10 (matter of taste) – $4.69 avg – 50ml.
Gin – New Amsterdam
I don’t drink gin much, but had just enough vermouth to make a martini or two and just picked up a mini-bar sized bottle of gin, of which this was the last one of this brand, and was only .50 cents. Even for it’s price though, considering the gins I have tried, this was quite good, very sharp juniper taste, and a nice aroma, which any gin lover should enjoy immediately. Considering that I am far from a professional taster, and usually steer clear of gin anyways, this gin to me tasted almost as good as the Bombay Sapphire which is supposed to be one of the best gin brands on the market. If you are only making martini’s for yourself sitting around the house, I highly recommend giving this brand a try. 7.5/10 – $50 cents – 50ml.
Another wine, another review
Posted by Zeno in Wine & Liquor on July 22, 2009
After spending twenty minutes browsing the red wine room at my favorite spirits store, the owner recommended a new brand I hadn’t yet tried. I’ve been trying to pick up at least one new wine per week to give it a try, especially for those like me, who aren’t wine connoisseurs, and know little to nothing about it
Wine – Trapiche (Oak Cask) – Cabernet Sauvignon (Year 2006)
Like all the wines I try to review, and with my limited budget, this is another wine under the $20 price mark. This wine came with a tag on the neck showing it to be a “Best Buy” from The Wine Advocate. I would agree with Robert on that mark, for it’s price range this is an excellent Cabernet. This wine comes out of Argentina with the rear label mentioning the grapes being grown the Andes, and with at least twelve 
months of aging in oak barrels before being bottled for sale. As all Cabernet Sauvignon wines are, you can expect a dry, crisp flavor from this one, which goes excellent with red meats and other spicy dishes. The finish of this wine is quite long and pleasant, making it a great pick as well for sipping on while you enjoy leisure activity around the house. Highly recommended as a first pick for those trying out a Cabernet for the first time, or for those looking for a good house wine to keep around the house. 9/10 ($12.99 avg – 750ml)
Scotch – Johnny Walker “Red Label”
I can’t review this much myself as it is the first time I’ve every tried a scotch whiskey. The owner apparently doesn’t like scotch himself as he said that like beer you needed to develop a taste for it, as it wasn’t a very pleasant spirit in his opionion. I wanted to start with the Black Label scotch next to this one, but it’s about three times the price of the red label, and since I was only getting enough to have a taste I didn’t want to throw down the money.
I personally think scotch is a fine liquor, in my view it has a better flavor and drinkability to it than that of a regular bourbon, but that of course is all a matter of opionion. Since I have never had scotch before, I can’t say one way or the other how good this would be compared to others, but anyone I’ve spoken with said the Red Label was of very high quality, with only the Black Label (from the same maker), being better. As most scotch is, it’s realitivly expensive, but I do recommend those that enjoy bourbon to give scotch a try if you haven’t already. (No score as no experience to judge on) – $3.49avg – 50ml
New favorite Dvd encoding application!
I am always looking for new and easy to use Dvd encoding applications as my workload in that regard is usually quite high, with children on the loose destroying purchased Dvd’s in a few days time, I am not going to spend 24.99 + tax on a Dvd to buy another one in 48 hours because the kids scratched it to pieces.
The software that I ran across is called ConvertXtoDVD. This software is incredibly easy to use, and offers quite a lot of features. This is not freeware, but the company (VSO-Software) does recommend to try their trial version before purchasing, as I would also recommend as you never know how it will stack up against what you have. I have in the past had the unfortunate habit of “acquiring” software, especially if I plan on only testing it out, or using it for a one time project. However after picking this software out of some torrents (and picking off the usual trojan viruses that accompany such things), I decided to purchase the software legit after only a couple of days.
I have ran into a few offerings from VSO in the past, but never found much use for their products. When recently looking for something I could teach a new friend of mine how to use in encoding Dvd’s and such for use by the kids, I gave this one a try. As far as software goes, you cannot get easier than this one, literally “drag-n-drop” the file you would like to burn to Dvd onto the file area and your off.
This software will out of the box encode .avi’s converted from previous Dvd’s and will encode Blu-Ray rips some of you might “cough” be picking up off the net including the newer .mkv file format. By default it inserts chapter stops every 5 minutes, but this like every option you could think of is adjustable. There are several pre-set menu screens to choose from, or if you want to spend the time, you can construct your own. I have personally just kept to naming the title, and using the default included menu system, which is quite usable, including a scene selection area with animated scenes.
If you are creating more professional Dvd’s from personal movies or avi collections, you will not miss features here, being able to pick lead-in / lead-out animation points for all scenes and custom times on all scenes. The menu also is almost completely customizable with only features missing for those used to constructing Dvd’s in more professional level setup’s. Setting up a custom animated menu with a lead-in / lead-out animation is very fast and easy to manage, as well as custom audio to use during the menu and scene selection screens. Audio, subtitle and such are also easily selectable for defaults etc, root menu default or auto-playback, and other small features that other software that advertises feature-sets such as this one usually tend to forget or leave out altogether are also included by default. Besides being able to select lead-in / lead-out for menu and scene selection animations from the film you are encoding, you can select previously set up animations from premier pro or other such encoding software for a more professional feel.
This software will also burn straight from the program, offering true “drag-and-walk” functionality, (as I have always called it). I personally prefer to handle heavy encoding jobs during the night when I am asleep so that I am not cutting into my CPU time during day working hours, and this software will easily let you drag a file over, pick a few settings, throw in a blank disk, and walk away. However it is very able to do most encoding jobs quite quickly since this new version includes multi-core support. A heavy encoding job working from a 12 GB blu-ray rip to 4.2 GB Dvd-R on Excellent conversion quality takes around 20mins to 1 hour depending on the CPU time available and the cores available for the software to take advantage of.
Hands down, this is my new favorite Dvd authoring software, letting users quickly and easily convert .avi, .mkv,.mp4 and other files downloaded from common torrent searches as well as home movies and other DV files you may have laying around to a professional looking Dvd in a few minutes. So far I have not found a file format I use constantly that this software will not readily encode to Dvd with outstanding quality. If anyone runs across files this software cannot handle, post in the comments by all means.
10/10 – $49.99 from http://www.vso-software.fr/