Chia Pet Status

This morning I went to look at the Scooby Doo Chia Pet and noticed that it’s still just seeds.  My laptop with the time-lapse software with my webcam has been taking a picture every minute over the last 24 hours and nothing has happened.  The seeds aren’t sprouting yet.  I figured that if they aren’t even going to start sprouting yet then maybe now is a good time to reset everything.

Yesterday I messed up the camera angle and I think I fixed it so it was at the right angle again but I wasn’t 100% sure.  So turning it off and deleting all the pictures was ok.  I turned it back on but instead of 1 picture every minute I figured 1 picture every hour would be fine.  Maybe I might change that to every 10 minutes though which means I might have to shut it down and start over again lol.  That’s ok, it’s all still just seeds anyway.

Ok I went and stopped it and changed it to 5 minutes (300 seconds) instead of every  60 minutes.  I figured maybe 10 minutes was still too long that 5 minutes would be good because a lot can happen in 10 minutes.  I mean as far as movement, the growth might move toward the sun in 10 minutes and it might look funny.

So it’s back on starting now lol.  The video is going to be too long anyway if it’s every minute and I don’t want it to be a 20 minute video in time-lapse.  I did a video of me sleeping with time-lapse and it ended up being 17 minutes and that was just from 6 hours of sleep too but then again it was taking a picture every second so there you go.  But this video is going to be going on for 1 week.  I’m pretty sure every 1 minute is going to make it a very long and boring video.

Well whatever it is I will make it about 5 minutes so it will go really fast lol.  I’m going to work on the other video today that I made yesterday while I was spreading the seeds.  I will get that on YouTube (and here) A.S.A.P.

So anyway, see you in a week with the progress.

Scooby Doo Chia Pet

Well I set up the Scooby Doo Chia Pet this morning after soaking it and the seeds for a full 24 hours.  I video taped the process but I think I’m going to wait until the time-lapse is finished and then just add that.  But maybe not.  I think that my video today was about 8 minutes.  We will see how long it is after I finish with the editing heh.

It’s kind of strange seeing my laptop sitting on the dining room table.  I have a light blue sheet sitting on the table so that I could do a blue screen.  I was thinking of adding a cartoon with blue screen but I’m not sure if it will even work because the light blue is washed out on the screen so it looks white.

The picture is a bit fuzzy, it’s not crystal clear so it’s not going to look wonderful, just ok.  I wish my camcorder had time-lapse photography with the SD card so I don’t have to use my laptop.  Oh well.

Eh what the hell, I might as well edit the video I did today and put it on YouTube tomorrow then I’ll post it here.

Blame McDonald’s

I was browsing YouTube and came across this video of Morgan Sperlock from Super Size Me that someone had put the bonus feature from there on their YouTube page.  You know the one where he puts several burgers and fries into jars and watches how they all mold except for the McDonald’s fries.

Then I saw another video of this woman over at diet health channel who used to be fat but hello, she’s not skinny yet… talking about how bad McDonald’s is and she carries around a 4 year old happy meal.

I am not siding with the fast food industry.  And I’m especially not siding with health experts because I’m constantly seeing all these obese people telling me how to lose weight when they are fat themselves.  I had a friend who passed away who was a vegetarian and she was constantly putting me down for eating fast food yet I was 150lbs and she was more in the neighborhood of 400lbs.

All I’m saying is, fast food has been around for decades.  Actually the first McDonald’s opened up in 1940 so there has been fast food for 69 years.  So if eating McDonald’s causes such obesity then why is it that it’s taken until the 1970’s or 1980’s until people started having issues with their weight?

Yes there has been fatness throughout history.  In the last thousand years the only way you could tell the rich was by how fat they were.  All the skinny people were skinny because they were so poor and all the kings and queens were fat.  Obesity was a sign of wealth.  That’s not the case anymore.

But I digress.  You cannot blame the fast food industry for your own obesity because it wasn’t the fast food industry that made people fat, people made themselves fat me included.  I became obese when I quit smoking and started eating more junk than normal because I wasn’t exercising anymore and I was eating more food because I was exchanging one habit for another.  I don’t blame anybody but myself.

When I quit smoking I could’ve done it differently but I didn’t.  I was rewarding myself with ice cream, something that I loved but hardly ever ate because I could never afford it because I was spending all of my money on cigarettes.  Then I started spending what was my cigarette money on fast food.  I could’ve just either saved it and bought groceries maybe or some other treat, maybe video games?  But instead, I ate fast food.  I had a choice.  It was a bad choice but it was mine to make.  They weren’t begging me to eat their food.

And yes their “supersize me” offers were just too good to pass up but I didn’t have to.  In fact, they have such good price now that I don’t even need a large french fry, I can get a small fry for $1 on their dollar menu.  It’s even cheaper now to eat there but you know what?  I don’t eat there and I’m still fat.  I eat fast food sometimes but it’s not daily.  I could probably afford McDonald’s or Taco Bell’s value menu more than I can afford groceries but I choose to buy groceries instead.

I have also chosen to exercise and ride my bike so I am dealing with my obesity by doing something about it and not bitching about how McDonald’s made me fat.  Don’t blame others for your own mistakes.  After all, they are just trying to make a quick buck but you can hold onto that buck and make a better choice instead.  They do have salads after all.  Actually when I worked at McDonald’s as a teenager they had salads and they sold a lot of them too.

From One Thing To The Next

Well good news is I can start to sense that my shoulder is getting better.  I’ve been using the BenGay patches and the Icy Hot stick and it feels good.  Most of the time I have pain but not constantly like before.

New problem lol.  I have a toothache now.  I just ate a bowl of Malt-O-Meal and the roof of my mouth on the right side hurt like hell.  I think it’s abscessed lol.  Great, just great.

If it’s not one thing it’s another.  So tomorrow I have to make an appointment with Western Dental and get it looked at.

Oh and I got my handlebars today and put it on and over tightened the screw and it snapped in half rofl.  What the hell?  So we had to go to Home Depot and thank goodness they had it.  It was a big longer than the original but that’s fine, it sticks out the bottom and nobody cares lol.  And it’s a black screw same as the stem so it blends in.  The handlebar is silver though and I was going to spray paint it but I figured that it would probably not end too good so I left it.  I may remove everything at some point and spray it, maybe.

I also got a new gel seat to put over the ergo seat but I figured that I’m having such a crappy day that I would wait to cut it up and sew it into the shape I need it until when I’m not having a bad day.  I don’t want to screw it up too much.  Sure it was only $10 but money is money.

Time-Lapse Software

I was looking at a video on YouTube where they take a banana, put a watch on it then let the camera take a picture every second for a whole week.  The banana had a light over it so naturally it got a really bad tan and you could see the second, minute and hour hands just going and going.

Perios by Martin Slovacek.  It’s totally free and you don’t even have to install anything, just download it and run the exe file (after you unzip it of course).  It finds your webcam and starts taking pictures as soon as you find a directory, choose the amount of time in seconds, minutes or hours then click the Start button.  Once you are finished click the Export button and it combines all of those images into an .avi file.

I did find a program that cost $10 but it only works on the computer you register it on.  Every computer after that costs $5.  I guess it’s a small price to pay but if you reformat your hard drive you might have to buy the upgrade for $5.  I haven’t tested that theory out yet and I don’t plan on it either lol.

It’s called Webcam Flix and I bought it for my laptop.  I think it works a lot better because when you go to make the video it just looks way smoother than the free one I listed above.

I’m going to put it on my laptop and have it do time-lapse on the Scooby Doo Chia Pet.  I have a poor mans version of a time-lapse video on YouTube of my Scooby Doo chia pet so I will redo it lol.  It really is lame lol.  I just gotta find it and I will work on that.

Update: I’ve changed some things in this post so if you notice something is different, it is.  I took out the free part in the subject and I added that I did buy the $10 webcam software, only because it’s superior to the free one.  Here is the new Scooby Doo Chia Pet time lapse video I made with it.

Long Grass

I mowed the lawn the other day but only got halfway through before the lawn mower quit on me.  I didn’t even get to do Chips rental house next door and he was mad that I didn’t mow that lawn first.  Oh well, you can’t win.  I’m mowing for free and get yelled at anyway.

So I was supposed to try again today because maybe the lawn mower just needed a little time out to think about what it did then let me mow but nooooo.  It still has an attitude.  So the rental house has long grass.  I bet I’ll get yelled at for not even trying.

It’s not my fault the lawn mower doesn’t work.  It has a full tank of gas and the oil is at the full line and I also did an oil change like 5 or 6 mows ago which was when I started mowing for the season.

Well, it looks like he’s gonna have to bring it back to Floyd’s to have it serviced tomorrow.  Good thing because I need to get that gel seat cover for my bike there anyway lol.  2 birds you know?

Pain Patches

I got my check today and I went to the grocery store immediately as soon as I found out that I got it (direct deposit).  I got a package of Ben gay pain relieving patches.  It has 5 patches that work on the neck to arm (why don’t they just say shoulder?).  I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to put it on myself being in the back and all but I managed.

Oh boy, I feel the heat already.  My shoulder is on FIRE!!!  It’s just like Icy Hot but the icy doesn’t dull the pain at all lol.

I was going to buy the ones that last 12 hours, forgot the name already, but they were expensive so I just bought the Ben gay ones.  These only last 8 hours but that’s ok.  I also bought a Icy Hot stick, it’s like a stick of deodorant but you put it on your pain and not your pits.  Oh I better hide it so I don’t accidentally put it on my pits.  I’m not that really bright.

I was gonna go to the bike store for new handlebars but I don’t want to be in the heat so I’m just gonna force er um I mean ask Darrin to take me tomorrow.  It’s his day off so he can drive me.  I hope they are open tomorrow lol.  Then I wanna buy a new gel seat for my seat from Target or Wally World.  Actually they have them at Floyd’s the town hardware store.

The heat isn’t so bad on this patch so I’m happy.  Although the pain is going down into my elbow so I’m getting worried now.  I see the doctor again on Thursday so if I’m still having pain then I hope she has a solution for me.  Maybe she can give me a magic elixir that will turn the dial back so I can get younger and stop feeling like I’m elderly.