BriAnna Shultz

PlayOn

2009-10-04T18:08:30Z

If you like Hulu and you have a modern console (PS3, 360, or WII) PlayOn is about the coolest thing I've found in a long time. You download it, run it on a pc that's on the same network as your console, and poof, a PlayOn channel appears on your console (under Video on a PS3, under Video Library on an XBox 360, by putting playon.tv in the internet channel address bar on a WII).

The playOn channel lets you access all of Hulu, YouTube, your NetFlix account, your Amazon VOD library, and more. PlayOn is free for 14 days; after that it's $39.99. This is a one time payment. There are no subscription fees. There are also piles of unofficial plugins that add access to other streaming video sources like Cartoon Network, Food Network, etc.

We have a PS3 remote since our PS3 is our primary DVD/BlueRay player. Last night, we watched a Dollhouse episode our DVR ate. We showed Ethan, who's recently become a huge Neil Patrick Harris fan and has never heard of Doogie Howser, the pilot of Doogie. We watched several episodes of Arrested Development we'd been wanting to rewatch since our Season 1 DVD vanished. We watched both episodes of Modern Family, and then Casey watched Buck Rogers for hours on end.

My friends Jen and Tim are always saying "what could you want to watch that isn't on Hulu?" whenever people complain about cable and sattelite, which they've stopped using. I've never enjoyed watching TV on the computer and connecting my laptop to the TV prevents me from working on said laptop WITH the TV. With this easy, instant way to access Hulu and Netflix from the TV, I can finally see what Jen and Tim are saying.

Terminator Salvation Review

2009-05-22T06:41:25Z

As you may have heard from the critics, Terminator Salvation isn't what you'd call a "Good Movie". The story telling and dialogue are pretty damn flimsy. It was, however, what you'd call a "Very Entertaining Movie".

The CG and cinematography are AWESOME. With its horror movie sensibilities, the movie tries to make you jump out of your seat every ten minutes [which worked remarkably well on Ethan]. There are lots of little references to the other movies for diehard fans. Plus, as you probably know, there are GIANT KILLER ROBOTS (as if anything else really mattered). Oh, and Bale and Worthington are both really hot.

It's important to remember that the difference between the first 3 movies and this new one is that the other movies took place in our world, in our present. They were action movies with a scifi edge. This movie is a geeky scifi movie with a lot of action. (And eye candy.)

It's not a character study, a philosophical journey, or a glimpse at the human psyche. It IS a lot of geeky fun.

Baby, it's cold out there

2008-12-18T15:40:30Z

Years ago, when I first installed Firefox, it made a copy of my IE bookmarks and threw them into a folder I proceeded to ignore, where they have lay dormant, quietly hiding out as I moved from one computer to another.

Now, I hate the cold. I whine about it, and the snow, incessantly. In my ideal world, I live in Vegas or Phoenix, since spending two minutes walking across a 115 degree parking lot in the summer is infinitely better than spending minutes walking across a 15 degree one in the winter. Casey, unfortunately, has the opposite view and would prefer we live in Montana or Wisconsin. So we live here, in Utah, in the middle.

Six years ago, though, we were living in Wisconsin.

This morning, I went to type in 'weather.com' to see if Ethan needed a ride to school, grumbling angrily. Firefox, in its quirky wisdom, pulled up the bookmark it had stowed away in those dark recesses, the one for Oshkosh.

It read "8:42 am, -7 F, Feels like -20 F". Instantly, I felt a million times better about our Utah winters.

I hate Autodesk

2008-09-17T01:44:40Z

6 months ago or so I got a new computer. It took me 4 hours or so to get all my files moved and all of my programs installed.

Well, sort of. One program, Maya, the most expensive piece of software I own, has such a long obstacle course of copyright protection measures that it takes a serious show of force and commitment on the part of even us licensed users to install it. When I first shelled out $2000 for it 3 and a half years ago it took 4 days to figure out all the steps required to get it to start. I moved it once before. It took a couple of days.

I don't do 3D on a regular basis anymore, so I've been making do without it for the last 6 months, trying to avoid the whole ordeal.

Yesterday, I decided I needed Maya after all. "Perhaps, this time, it won't be as bad as you remember," I told myself. Still, I set aside a whole day to install the one program.

This morning, I popped in my install disk and ran the installation software. A few minutes later I was ready to start the annoying part of the process where I always had: by running the program. This should have started the activation software which would, after I jumped through the appropriate number of hoops, find an encoded form of the mac address of my machine's ethernet card, send it to Alias, and then leave me to wait for an email reply containing the activation code specific to my current hardware.

Of course, Alias no longer exists. Autodesk bought them a couple of years ago. They didn't exist the last time I moved the software either, but the Alias site was still running, so no biggie.

It no longer exists. Someone had the good sense to forward the old script to the new Autodesk site. :) Which, of course, gets very angry because the serial number being forwarded to it isn't formatted the way Autodesk formats ALL of their serial numbers: 8 digits long. It's like, 3 times longer than that and filled with characters as well as digits.

Okay. No problem. I'll just fire off an email to customer support and explain that my software's older than that. I dare you to find a support address on that website. I spent an hour or two fighting with their website. They have a form you can use, provided you give them a valid serial number first. "No, not that serial number, silly, that one's too long!"

Gmail saved me in the end. I still had the email from the last time in my email box. It replied, by automation, that I had the wrong address and kindly sent me another. This one had a person attached to it. She assured me she could help me if I gave her my 8 digit serial number so she could enter it into her system.

I went outside and kicked some chairs and then came back and calmly explained that my serial number didn't look like that. A few hours later I heard back from someone in another department who provided the activation key. Yay!

An hour after that I got an email explaining that my information was being forwarded elsewhere, so maybe they could get an activation for this archaic 3 year old software. And then I got another activation key from another department, and then another activation key from yet another.

Aargh. At least their customer service sends itself around in circles, as well.

In the interest of helping the next poor soul who tries moving Maya Complete 6.5 to a new computer, and finds me via Google, the first actual key came from:

customercare.abc AT autodesk.com

I suggest you directly write to them. You'll need to send your archaic serial number (in the form: MCW000-X-0000-0000-0000-0000-0000) and the hardware ID (14 letters and numbers) from your new computer as well. You can get it by going into the product configuration tool, choosing "all tasks" at the bottom, and then clicking on "Show OPA hardware identifiers on this computer."

Death Cab for Cutie

2008-05-27T20:55:02Z

For girlplankton, that video I was talking about the other day.

Leonid Afremov

2008-05-13T18:57:16Z

Here's another ubercool artist. His name is Leonid Afremov. I love the vivid use of color and brush strokes.

This one's called Copenhagen.

You can view more of his work at his (not-so-well-thought-out) website. (I'm linking to the gallery/store because the homepage at afremov.com makes noise.)

Twilight trailer!

2008-05-11T07:10:23Z

Oh, hell yeah.

Frozen grapes: who knew?

2008-04-03T22:25:07Z

Last week my mom and I went to Mindful Women for pedicures. It's a day spa owned by a gynecologist that offers everything from Yoga classes to a birthing center, and the whole place is decorated like Inara's shuttle.

Anyway. While we were getting our feet pampered they brought us a cup of tea and a little bowl of frozen red grapes. Wow. I just bought some red grapes of my own and threw them in the freezer. They become rediculously good when you freeze them, and being frozen, they each take a while to eat, making them an amazing snack for when you're working at your computer or watching TV: especially if you're watching your calorie intake.

designjunky @ 2008-03-27T14:26:00

2008-03-27T20:26:39Z

As of today, it has been six months since I have had a cigarette. :)

designjunky @ 2008-03-12T22:26:00

2008-03-13T04:33:26Z

I suppose I should mention here that I've been selling stock illustrations at IStock and a couple other places for a few months.

This is my bestseller so far:

Here's the rest of the portfolio.

designjunky @ 2008-03-11T15:59:00

2008-03-11T22:01:13Z

Hey, kids! Make your own cube Dr. Venture!

Or something else.

Amy Bennett

2008-03-07T00:17:53Z

As someone who is both a fan of Edward Hopper and a person who spent a lot of time playing the Sims, I find Amy Bennett's paintings absolutely irresistible.

This one is called "We Can Never Go Home". Amy works from a 1:87 scale neighborhood she built herself, complete with lights.

You can see more of her art here: http://www.amybennett.com/

Watercolors

2008-03-05T04:47:56Z

I've been messing with watercolor for a couple of weeks. I'd show some of it, but frankly, I'm just not happy with any of it.

I hadn't used watercolor in 8 or 9 years. I just can't get into it. I think it's because since then I've spent so much time with oils and acrylics. Watercolor is ten times the work and planning without much payoff.

Today I bought some new canvas and some retarder for my acrylics. I've never used a retarder before, but supposedly by extending the drying time of the acrylic you're supposed to be able to blend more like with oils. I love oil paints but I just don't have the time or space to wait six months to a year for a painting to dry.

Day 2

2008-03-03T10:03:10Z

OK. So, technically, I already failed at my post every day thing and it's only the second day, but really, I haven't been to bed yet, so it's still March 2nd to me.

Ethan, Casey, and I watched Terminator and T2 today. I haven't seen either of them in quite a while and I was surprised by how new they both seemed to me. I was also struck by how true the TV show has been so far to those movies. If you haven't been watching Sarah Connor Chronicles I highly recommend you change your ways. :)

Day 1: 31 days, 31 posts

2008-03-01T20:45:11Z

I don't write here nearly as often as I'd like. I think I've figured out how to correct this problem. I'm going to post everyday for the next 31 days, each day in March. By the end of it I shall have developed a habit and shed this illogical fear that for each post I'm somehow wasting the time of the subsection of people on my friends list that's uninterested in that post's subject matter. :)

Feel free to join me if you, too, wish you blogged more.

designjunky @ 2008-01-19T09:40:00

2008-01-19T16:53:56Z

From saganist:

Instructions: Open up iTunes and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.

How many songs total: 3919
How many hours or days of music: 10:16:34 days

Most recently played: "All My Life" - Foo Fighters (2008-01-18)
Most played: "Paper Bag" - Fiona Apple (116!!)
Most recently added: "Cover Me" - Bjork (2007-01-10)

Sort by song title
First Song: "ADD" - System of a Down
Last Song: "99 In The Shade" - Bon Jovi

Sort by time
Shortest Song: "Interlude- Let's Dance!" - Janet Jackson (0:04)
Longest Song: "3D Thunderstorm Environment" - Darwin Chamber (30:02)

Sort by album
First album: "Acoustic" - India Arie
Last album: "8 Mile" - Eminem

First song that comes up on Shuffle: "Night on Bald Mountain" - Various Artists

Search the following and state how many songs come up:
Death - 27
Life - 112
Love - 212
Hate - 14
You - 429
Sex - 57

designjunky @ 2007-10-24T10:00:00

2007-10-24T16:02:04Z

The podcast is up on iTunes now. Check it out and write us a review while you're at it. :)

SciFi Surplus

Update

2007-08-30T22:23:49Z

I haven't written here in ages. Been pretty busy with work, both on Cupcake, and the new SciFiSurplus. The podcast is going to be amazing: poncelet, boyplankton,gl_casey, and I have been writing like crazy. Well, they've been writing. My episodes are still in my head. :)

If anyone has time to help, let us know. The main thing we need now are voices (no talent or experience required). If you have other attributes besides vocal cords I'm sure they will come in handy, too. :)

designjunky @ 2007-06-15T14:52:00

2007-06-15T20:53:19Z

Happy birthday threedeadfish !

designjunky @ 2007-06-12T11:19:00

2007-06-12T17:19:44Z

Happy birthday, poncelet!

Drunk girl poem

2007-02-10T10:10:05Z

An Attempt To Write A Poem

Your friends have gone,
Still awake, still drunk,
Convinced "attempt" starts with the letter U,
You proceed to try to write a poem.

Wondering, what would happen,
Were you wasted enough to not keep correcting the spelling
oneaj tatryzl gtoz gadkz snmswe aowrds...

But that isn't a poem.
Somehow. the radio is playing,
You feel 15 again.
You used to write continuously.
Now.
Silence.
A decade. And a half?
Silence.
30 years old.

Nothing to say.
It's irrelevant.

Emotions are

.

designjunky @ 2007-01-24T14:37:00

2007-01-24T22:26:52Z

I was tagged by boyplankton:
Each player of this game starts off with ten weird things or habits or little known facts about yourself. People who get tagged must write in a blog of their own ten weird things or habits or little known facts as well as state this rule clearly. At the end you must choose six people to be tagged and list their names. No tagbacks!

1. Casey and I were Mensans for a year. The Oshkosh Mensa chapter consisted of 2 elderly women and an engineer. When the engineer moved away they stopped having meetings. We never paid our dues to renew.
2. Of the 3209 songs in my Itunes collection, the only ones I never get sick of are the ones by the Counting Crows. I have a complete collection. It's not like I'm passionate about them or anything. There are other artists I LIKE more, but CC is my "favorite band" only because I know they will never annoy me.
3. I HATE driving. Well, mostly I hate parking and traffic. Put me on a mostly empty freeway and I get why people like it.
4. I can play the following instruments (in the order I learned to play them): flute, french horn, trumpet, viola, guitar. I don't play any of them well. I own a trumpet, a clarinet my grandmother played in the late 40s at Box Elder High that I can't play, and 3 guitars. (A Fender acoustic, an orange Fender Toronado, and a purple heart-shaped thing I got as a gift that's unplayable.)
5. I'm a slob. For example, there are currently about 30 empty soda cans in my office. It's not a sculpture or anything, just leftover soda cans.
6. I used to write a lot of poetry, from the age of 6 until about 20 -- I haven't written a poem in 10 years.
7. I've played competetive Scrabble on and off for about 5 years.
8. My frequent and ever-changing obsessions are based on the fact that I like learning to do stuff. I read fast and learn fast, so once I reach a level of mediocrity I get bored and have to move on. See number 4 and number 7. I've kept playing Scrabble for so long because I don't know a tenth of the words you have to learn to become an expert rated player. :)
9. I can't sit like a lady or even a civilized adult for more than a few minutes. I prefer to sit with at least 1 leg bent underneath me.
10. I read fast. For example, I read Good Omens last week in about 7 hours. I read the textbook Object Oriented Programming in C++ last year in about 17. I've probably read over 2000 books in my lifetime. I stopped reading fiction when Ethan was born, and have read maybe 5 novels since then so I made a New Year's Resolution to read one each month this year. Hence, the Good Omens read last week. (AWESOME and hilarious book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.)

I tag
wingsthatflap
threedeadfish
fingermousey
alienorion
im_clairevoyant
virtualdelirium

designjunky @ 2007-01-21T03:32:00

2007-01-21T10:42:22Z

The Salt Lake City chapter of the National Scrabble Association held a tournament yesterday. I played in division B, the lesser of the two rated divisions, and won! I won't get much of a ratings change, since I was the top seed in the division to begin with, and as a local club tournament instead of an open tournament, it's only 1/3 rated. mthelen, the author of the uberfabulous Zzyzzyva, won the top division.

I found myself with a complete lack of nervousness in this tournament. Which is odd for me: in the other tournament I played in Chicago, I didn't calm down and start winning until the end of the first day. Heck, even when I play at the club on Wednesdays, I shake through the first game. This time I had an odd sense of serenity.

This was my first time seeing The City Library -- and I was stunned. It is the most gorgeous building I have ever been in. Those of you who don't live in Salt Lake, who haven't been yet, you MUST visit the next time you're downtown. You'll be floored.

Trying to report on the details, I find it appalling how poorly my record keeping techniques work. Most of the players in my division had never played in a tournament before, although they play at the club often, and have inherited a good number of skills from the high proportion of experts and almost-experts there. I think they'd be surprised how well they would do at an open tournament, as they all played better than the vast majority of the people in my division in Chicago, and that one went as high as players rated 1000.

Game 1: Mel Abuyo W 369-312
Mel has a striking amount of confidence in the words he plays. Whereas most players at our level tend to be afraid of playing words they are unsure of, Mel just plays them, and I think this has a lot to do with how well he did throughout the day. Luckily for me, I noticed this right away and was watching for it. I was able to successfully challenge *UVA and some 77 point bingo of which I have no record. I seem to remember it as something that's only vaguely a verb to begin with that he'd added ERS to the end of. I played IN(S)TALL for 73 and JIVED for 48.

Game 2: Lee Hone T 337-337
Ties aren't very common, and I'd love to take credit for this one, but Lee lost 10 points for time, so I really had little to do with it. He played PAU(S)ING for 82 and I played STRIVE(D) for 90. I exchanged FOUR times this game, as I was having a serious rack problems, first drawing only consonants, and later finding all those missing vowels.

Game 3: Kirsten Gwilliam L 302-311
This was my only loss of the day, and the only game without a bingo. In fact, I don't remember the last time I played any game without a bingo. I had *EMAILERS early on but I wasn't able to find MEASLIER, and I was pretty sure that while EMAIL and EMAILS are good, *EMAILERS wasn't. Kirsten played well with what struck me as remarkable strategy for someone at our level. (Yeah, I can DETECT it, I just can't do it. The little voice in my head says "Oh, go ahead and put that E in the TWS lane - it'll be alright." And I do it.) I wasn't bingoing, and that started my freaking out mechanism which is always my downfall. I anagram well, but I have poor defensive strategy, and really not too much word knowledge, so I get most of the points and wins from my ability to find those 7 and 8 letter words, so when I'm not getting them, I start to panic. I also have allowed the computer to count up my score for so long that I'm not any good at actually evaluating the plays I see. Now that I'm no longer fighting with the clock, I need to take the time to actually add up the potential scores of the words I'm considering.

Game 4: Dave Kroupa W 391-364
Dave started playing at the club after I got too lazy to drive to Murray on Wednesdays, so I'd never played him. He has an amazing word knowledge for someone who's been playing for so short a time and is sure to zoom up to the expert level if he starts going to fully rated tournaments. He played AEROLES for 73 which I unsuccessfully challenged. I played SLINGER for 64, taking a cue from Mel and playing it though I had doubts, I later found it was actually good. Had I backed off because of doubt as I usually do, Dave would've beaten me easily. I also played SENDING for 76. Dave had RAFTING for 69.

Game 5: Marie Irving W 354-339
This was another close one, with Marie and I tied at turns 14 and 15. In the end I was able to go out with IRE for 3, getting 12 points for her unplayed tiles. Though I couldn't for the life of me tell you what they were. I played SIN(N)ERS for 77 and Marie had GRANTE(D) for 67.

Game 6: Mel Abuyo W 377-327
In the King of the Hill round, I was up against Mel again, down half a game, as his only loss had been to me in round 1, and I had the tie with Lee in there. I was prepared to challenge, but Mel was on to me. Several times he placed phonies and pulled them back off the board before I had the chance. :) He also challenged, unsuccessfully, my STRIATE for 73. He had MARINES for 63. I had ZANIEST/ZEATINS on the rack toward the end, but it wouldn't play. Toward the end I found myself in Mel's shoes, questioning MUT. I knew all my threes before my long hiatus but there are holes in there now. I knew MUTT was good, but MUT looked all kinds of wrong (Livejournal has it underlined as we speak. Livejournal also underlines Livejournal. Very odd.) I placed it on the TWS and pulled it back off. Two turns later I was left with MUT on my rack and decided to go for it anyway and go out with it for 11. Mel had seen me pull it earlier and challenged. It's gooood. :)

:)

2007-01-11T10:44:21Z

A craft project for poncelet

http://iphonecountdown.com/iphone_readymech.pdf

Mmm.

2007-01-10T06:19:35Z

Just made something really good so I thought I'd put it here so I don't forget what I did. Should feed 2.

Olive Oil (depends on the size of your skillet)
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup prosciutto, torn into large strips
1 chicken breast cut into large chunks
2 cups frozen cheese tortellini
1/2 cup dry white wine (I used crappy cooking wine, if you have something better go for it.)
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cornstarch
2 c. heavy cream
1 tbs capers
A couple of artichoke hearts, rinsed, drained and chopped
salt and pepper
parmesan cheese

Heat a cast iron skillet on med-high with some olive oil in it. Add two lightly crushed garlic cloves. Meanwhile start some boiling water in another pot. Add tortellini when it starts boiling, set timer according to package directions.

When the garlic starts to get all good and smelly, add the proscuitto and chicken. Cook until chicken is fully cooked through and lightly browned. Move garlic, prosciutto, and chicken to a bowl, cover to keep warm.

In the skillet, add wine and 1/2 tbs of lemon juice. Scrape pan with whisk to dissolve browned bits.
Your pasta timer should be going off. Drain it and set aside.

In a seperate cup, thoroughly mix cornstarch with remaining lemon juice. Let the wine simmer until about half of liquid is dissolved. Add cream and the cornstarch/lemon mixture. Bring back to a boil, then season with salt and pepper. Toss everything together and top with grated parmesan cheese.