disjoint thoughts

Let’s say you have an awesome parking spot. Maybe not as cool as the parking spots we have at OpenRain, but a good one nonetheless.

What do you do if someone else jacks your spot? Leave them a nice, passive aggressive, note for them:

Worked for me!

Are you wanting to develop rock hard abs? Is the lack of a six pack impeding on your ability to attract members of the opposite sex? Is most exercise you get on a daily bases coming from your Wii? If you’ve answered “YES!” to any of these questions, the Wii Sports Ab Workout might be your road to success.

Follow these easy steps to get started with the Wii Sports Ab Workout:

Step #1: Load up Wii Sports and start a round of boxing.
Step #2: Hold the Wiimote with the toes on your right foot (If you cannot hold the Wiimote between your toes, you may consider attaching them to your feet, or a pair of sandals, using medical tape).
Step #3: Hold the Nunchuck with the toes on your left foot.
Step #4: Lay on the floor.
Step #5: BOX!

Note: you cannot use your arms/elbows to prop yourself up! It will require the use of your abs if you want to watch the screen.

For an extra bonus, play with a friend! The shear hilarity of the experience will make surely make you laugh until tears roll down your cheeks and thus increase the burn to your abdomen even further!

Want a CHEAP ipod touch case? Too lazy to order a real case online? Are you just plain crazy? Well follow these easy steps to create a great ghetto ipod touch case…

1. Buy a pack of Dentyne ice gum.
2. Chew the gum, all of it.

3. Remove plastic.
4. Slide ipod into your brand new Dentyne ice iPod Touch case.

5. (OPTIONAL) Cut hole into case so you can control music without removing touch from its case.

6. …
7. Profit?

Pretty sweet case, huh? Huh? I rate it a solid 2 out of 10.

AutoblogGreen has a post about Volvo teaching driving techniques to increase MPG. They claim “The results is that simple skills allow an average reduction of 8-10 percent in gas usage, although 15 percent can be achieved easily.” which is right along the lines of what my gas mileage vs driving behavior experiment reveled where I saw a reduction of almost 12 percent in gas useage.

Awesome camelbak tip from sketchy over on the steepandcheap forums:

“if you’re bringing a camelbak with a cocktail in it to any place that you may be searched (e.g. concert, football game, etc.), make sure you fill the tube with regular water before you fill the bladder. that way if the security people ask you if they can taste it to make sure you’re not bringing alcohol in, they’ll taste the water that’s in the hose, and the joke will be on them.”

I hate eating fast food, but sometimes I can’t work up the motivation to make something from scratch. When I do decide to pick up something quick, I prefer to get something somewhat healthy… or at least not horrible for my body. Here’s an awesome compilation of nutrition information for popular chain restaurants.

So it’s been several weeks since I originally started my gas mileage experiment. I’ve been having troubling finding the time/motivation to blog lately, but better late than never eh?

Under VERY conservative driving, I was able to squeeze out 26.2 miles per gallon. After filling my tank again I spent the next tank driving a more aggressively. Not like an insane person, but I definitely let my foot hit the floor more than I normally do.

After a total of 218.9 high-g-force miles I refilled my tank and recalculated my gas mileage. I ended up doing 23.42 miles per gallon. Much better than I had expected! Only 2.78 fewer miles per gallon of gas used, or 11.78% worse mileage. I had expected to get my gas mileage down around 20 miles per gallon!

I suppose I should be happy that my driving style doesn’t have a HUGE effect on my gas consumption, but at the same time I was hoping for some shocking results. Maybe next time I want to see how low I can get my mileage, I’ll bring it down to the track and do some drag racing. That should do the trick.

After a couple years of owning my car I finally decided to see what kind of gas mileage I am getting. I always assumed it was somewhere in the mid to low 20 miles per gallon. Not only did I want to see what mileage I normally get, but I wanted to see how much driving style really effects fuel consumption. How much am I really wasting when my lead foot comes into play?

First off I drive a 2005 Subaru Impreza WRX. The only modifications I’ve made to it that could effect the gas mileage are a Cobb AccessPORT Stage 1 California ECU reflash, and a SPT Axle-back exhaust. The reflash may or may not make my gas mileage better, it should cause the car to use more fuel but at the same time make more horse power. The exhaust could add a slight benefit to the mileage, but nothing substantial as it is only axle-back.

So last week I filled up my tank and off I went, slowly, very slowly. All of last week I tried my best to keep my foot from stomping on the pedal. Matter of fact, most of the time I would only depress the gas pedal down 10-20% of the way. It took some serious concentration to keep this driving up.

After driving like this for the better part of a week, I gave in a filled my tank again. After 193.8 miles (probably 60-70% city driving) my gas mileage was 26.2 miles per gallon. Not too shabby. I was hoping for a little better, but at least that gives me a baseline from which I can do more experimenting.

This week I’m driving without worrying about letting my foot hit the floor. I’ll post the results of my aggressive driving in the next couple of days.

Here are some good tips for finding a Wii or PS3 this holiday season.

In addition to these tips, I would suggest trying department stores in the ghetto. No offense to people who live in the ghetto, people who are “ghetto fab”, or fans of 2pac’s Ghetto Gospel. Stores in lower income neighborhoods are going to be much more likely to have that elusive gaming console that you seek. This is where I found both my Wii and my DS Lite.

Awhile ago my favorite guitar tab site, olga, was taken down. I actually always used harmony-central to access tabs residing on olga’s server. But all hope is not lost! Thanks to the way back machine, you can still access olga in all its old glory.