All last week my woman was bitching and whining for me to buy her a karaoke machine. This was all because I had hooked up her friend's karaoke machine the week-end before, and then she didn't want to leave because they were both singing on the karaoke machine.   :)     (Yes, it's a smiley, because I need it)

We saw a flyer from Dumoulin that was announcing the Electrohome EH8168 DVD player with karaoke functions for only 128$. So last Friday I bought her the karaoke machine.  :)    (Yes, it's a smiley, because I need it)

For 128$, it's actually a nicely feature-packed machine. Check this out. It's a DVD player, so you can play your DVD movies, DVD karaoke disks, VCDs, VCD karaoke disks, CD+G, MP3, and probably a few other formats too. It has two 1/4inch microphone plugs, with a master input volume and input echo adjustment. Connectors include pretty much what you find on common DVD players, it has component video out, S-VHS video out, optical audio out, RCA audio out and also a 15-pin VGA port to plug in a computer screen, which I still have to test simply for the intrigue factor.

Now, for the price of 128$, this is pretty nicely featured, and Dumoulin seems to be selling this model quite well, they are going fast probably because not many karaoke DVD machines are actually on the market here.

The remote is a bit wide for my taste, my Samsung DVD-P401 player has a nice slim remote control. The Electrohome remote is very wide and difficult to handle and press buttons at the same time with one hand.

If you are not picky about fine quality, this machine should be fine for you. I prefer the quality on my Samsung machine. The power button is an actual power circuit switch, in the sense that it controls the physical flow of power to the machine. It's a push-in stay, and push-in release kind of button. You feel that it's not just a button that closes a contact for a circuit board to switch the power. When the power is off, no other button works. It's a real power switch, which is weird when you compare to other machines of this kind on the market today.

This machine is a devil spawned machine from hell because if your woman has any relatives or friends that live close, they will come to invade your house, and sing on the karaoke for a few hours, even if they are bad singers.  :)       (Yes, this is a smiley, and it's forced... because I need it... need to smile..... must.... smile.....hhhhggggnnn.....must smile, must smile...)

I finally found some EL wire! I went shopping at Wal-Mart and I saw some EL wire in the car accessories section. Whenever I went to Canadian Tire or other stores where there were car parts, I was always looking to see if they had EL wire. I'm not sure what the "EL" stands for, but the package says it's an electro luminance string light, so that must be it.

I could have gone to my computer shop and got some EL wire, but it kind of takes away the originality of modding your computer case. I also have a neon light in there that I got from a hardware store. It wasn't made for the computer, but I made it fit. That's case modding spirit, to take something that's not for the computer and putting it inside the computer. If everybody has all the same parts from the computer store, it gets boring.

This thing costs 38$, it's 5 feet long and it runs on 12 volts, which is perfect because the cooler fan power leads on the motherboard are 12 volts. The kit is composed of a little black block that that the EL wire is connected to, and there are power wires from this black box to which you connect the power. Out of the black transformer box there is a length of white cable that does not light up, and then you have the colored EL wire after this length of white cable.

The cable does not heat up at all, which is weird because it really looks like an oven element that is red hot.  :) It's not very bright, it really is like a glowing wire, so it doesn't really illuminate the surroundings very much like a neon.

It is absolutely astounding that even after the year 2000, people are still using these pieces of shit that we call the G3 Mac.

These computers were shit when they came out and they are still shit. Pro-Mac Gleemonex freaks said that they didn't crash like PCs when they did in fact crash just as much.

What I think about the Macs: Simple for the simple minded.

"Photoshop runs much faster on the MAC!" -Fuck you asshole, Photoshop is the only program that runs on the MAC. People were raving about the speed of these machines based on the performance of one application, when there was nothing else worthwhile doing on the MAC.

"I switched over to the MAC because it's easier". Fine... if we can get rid or your retarded ass from the PC scene all the better. If you are too much of an ignorant fuck to use Windows 2000 or Windows XP, I bet that you don't even know how to use the ATM machine to get cash. Speaking of cash, if you too much of a dipshit to actually buy a MAC and pay twice the price of a PC, you deserve to be ripped off.

It seems that only artists wind up with Macs. Artists cannot comprehend technology, even in it's simplest form it seems.

Apple almost died because they had bad products and bad business models. When your apple has a bite mark in it, it's not bound to last long.

This is pure techno freaking dudes! This is a Compaq Ipaq Pocket PC that has built-in wireless functionality.

As you can see in the picture, we are browsing to the ChickenorFish.com web site from a Pocket PC, wirelessly. I has Bluetooth functionality to interface with a cell phone that also has Bluetooth, and the cell phone dials into the dial-up ISP and provides a wireless network connection for the Ipaq. In our test this Ipaq interfaced via Bluetooth with a Nokia 6310. This means that the Ipaq talks to the Nokia phone wirelessly, so the cell phone dials up to the ISP wirelessly. There are two wireless bridges in this setup, a Bluetooth wireless bridge between the Ipaq and the cell phone, and a wireless GSM link between the cell phone and the cell base.

The network speed is not that great because it's still dialup, but it can be extremely practical when you want to find some information while on the road, or if you're simply bored and want to re-read Chicken or Fish jokes and rants.

One item of note that is simply super extra groovy is the thumb print scanner at the center bottom on the front of the device to limit other people from playing with your very expensive Ipaq. Slide your thumb down on the round direction button and the scanning bar under it, and you are authenticated to use your Ipaq, no password required. This is some pretty futuristic groovy shit!

This device is outstanding, but it's still not as thin as my Sony Clié T-415. Then again, you can surf wirelessly without using a cable between the Ipaq and the cell phone. You bastards make me drool with your gadgets. Must.....have.... gadgets.....

This is one of those days when someone kills their personal assistant. (That's DIGITAL assistant) They all say it's accident, but do we really believe them? What were their motives?

This Clié S360 died before it's time. After 7 months of faithful service it died a horrible death, but at least it didn't suffer.

With 16 megs of RAM, memory stick slot, internal battery, this assistant did almost everything short of blow jobs ...it had plenty of potential for a couple of years still. Now it's dead. What a waste.

Apparently this assistant was stored in a coat that was hanging on a chair that was knocked over by a dog, and the chair fell over on the coat containing the Clié. This is the claim of the owner, but our investigation into this foul play is not over.

Something we did in the office to have some good fun. We substituted other people's Sony Cliés for this broken one and freaked them out when they thought that their Clié was busted.   :) We pulled off the joke on 3 people who either have a S320 or an S360, which have the same casing. That was fun. Even the dead can pull off funny pranks.

I wonder why Microsoft has to tell me that it's SAFE to turn off my computer.

Did they implement anti-terrorist routines in their code that will make it unsafe if they don't run before I shutdown? When my computer crashed and did not shutdown properly, on the next boot-up I never got any message of the kind "You shutdown improperly last time, terror will own you, it's coming to your house right now!". I never got a message like this, so that's probably not it.

What is it supposed to safe FOR? Safe for my fragile computer electronics? Don't think so, never had any problems on a RESET... except on another computer where a Kalok drive died... but that's a long time ago, and it was a Kalok drive.. iiiich...

I was looking at a flyer and and saw some RCA TVs that were "Xbox ready". Obviously that seemed quite odd since nothing is required of a TV to be Xbox, PS2 or Dreamcast ready since you just plug in the cables from the console to Component, SVIDEO or RCA ports.

Going on the RCA site didn't provide any insight. I searched on the weeb and found this link that explains a bit more.
http://www.gamingillustrated.com/rcainterview.php

From what I understand, the RCA TV has a port that is exactly the same type of connector as you have behind your Xbox. If I understand correctly, it means you just need one cable for the video and sound to go directly into the TV, and the TV uses the video as a Component signal. You have a cable with both ends being the same type of connector. Still pretty groovy, it means you don't need to buy a special Component or SVIDEO converter that then is connected to the TV, as long as you have an RCA Xbox Ready TV. :)

One thing I'm not sure of is how that VPORT doubles as a second Component input for the TV. RCA probably supplies a cable that connects to the VPORT and opens up to Component RCA connectors at the other end.

Anyways, still intriguing, but I already have a 27inch Panasonic TV for my Xbox. If you're looking for a new TV that might be something useful, but no interest if you already have a TV with Component or SVIDEO inputs.

I use the Component plugs on my TV for the DVD Player and all the rest of my devices such as the digital cable, Xbox, Dreamcast, Computer TVout are plugged into an SVIDEO switch that is connected to my SVIDEO in on the TV. Already the Xbox looks pretty fucking good with the SVIDEO connection. Sometimes I can distinguish the pixel edges, so the SVIDEO is really good to begin with.

It's a nice innovation from RCA, but hardly a must. Create something that will really rock me such as a universal one-cable standard solution for all devices, being game consoles, DVD Player and all the rest. Only then would the real innovation start. Perhaps this is RCA's plan and this is the first step. RCA has created standards before, so let's hope that it's their plan.