Category: Daily Blog

This is my Daily Blog category.

Black Widow

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

blackwidowLast night I let the dog out and I glanced over at this fountain that is leaning against the wall, we’re lazy what can I say, and noticed this huge freakin’ black widow.  I’ve noticed the web before that “it” made, I’ve tried hosing it away but it’s so freakin’ strong and I’ve broken it up with my shoe many times and it just keeps coming back.

So last night when I let the dog out and I saw the spider I went back in the house to grab a shoe cause I was bare foot and when I came back it was still on it’s strong mofo web.  I smashed it with my flip flop but it wasn’t easy getting through that strong ass web.  It was so strong I could hear it making a crinkle sound and I could feel how strong it was too.  It was like this spider was eating her spinach or something like Popeye that it’s web was strong to the finish lol.

So after I smashed it there was all this brown crap all over my shoe, yes, brown.  I think that Black Widow spiders are from another planet.  Well, I guess if the guts were green then maybe so who knows. LOL

It’s scary how many black widow spiders are lurking around our house.  I’m always killing them either in the green can that we put our grass and leaves in or in the back yard or in the garage or our indoor patio.  Luckily I haven’t seen any inside the house, at least they respect me enough that they stay outside lol as if they respect anyone.

Oh so after I killed the spider, the web was still on my shoe and this web is so strong, I wouldn’t say it was difficult but I could feel how stuck it was.  But the web wasn’t made like a regular spiders web, it was just strings here and there with no real pattern.  Kinda strange.

Here is the Wiki on the Black Widow also known as Latrodectus hesperus.  This even mentions how strong the webs are.

Last Night for Chia Time-Lapse

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Tonight is the final night for the Chia Pet time-lapse project.  I still can’t believe my laptop hasn’t had a blue screen or rebooted on its own after being turned on 24 hours a day for the last 7 days.  When I first started it I had it on every second and immediately got a blue screen so of course I had to change it to 1 minute but then after the first 24 hours I saw that it hadn’t even started sprouting yet and I had accidentally moved it a few times so I thought well, it’s time to just start all over.

So on Tuesday morning I started it up again at every 5 minutes instead of every 1 minute.  I checked and there are 1200 pictures so that’s pretty good.  I’ve still been moving it accidentally every day practically lol.  Oops!  I try to move it back to the way it was but I’m sure I didn’t get it exactly right.  I’ll find out when the software I bought puts the video together.

I found a good song online (for free) that I’m going to use against the time-lapse.  I also have footage of me spreading the seeds and stuff.  I’m also going to do a short 1 minute video after I hit the stop button on the laptop that will be on after the time-lapse.

I can’t wait.

My Pez Collection

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily Blog1 Comment

It was time to dust off all of my pez dispensers.  They collect a lot of dust sitting on the shelf that I made for them and I don’t clean them very often because it’s such a job but they desperately needed to be cleaned lol.  While I was cleaning the dust off I decided to take pictures of them in all of their collections.

There are a couple collections that I wasn’t quite sure about like the first one with all the bugs.  I’m not sure what those are from.  I think 2 of them are from Bee movie but then some are from Bugs, I don’t know.  They are all bugs so I just added them together lol.  Then there are the Madagascar ones, I accidentally added a panda to it not knowing where it belongs but apparently that collection only has 3, not 4.  But I don’t care lol.

The very last picture is all of them on the shelf (except for the boxes and the petz, those are on another shelf).  I made that shelf by the way out of very very thin wood that I found at Home Depot when we were still living in Hollywood.  It started out as a smaller shelf but then I kept adding to it so I had to buy more wood and made another shelf.  I’m getting to the point where I think I’m gonna need to plan a bigger shelf lol.

I wanted to compile all of these pictures into a video and put on YouTube but I looked at other peoples videos and they all put mine to shame so I thought that they just deserved a blog post at least lol.











bat

Edit 8/28/09: I went to Walgreens today and they already have the Halloween stuff in their seasonal aisle so I went to look at the Pez dispensers and they have the new glow in the dark Bat Pez.  I added the picture above next to the pez dispenser collection rack.  Click on it to see full size.

Cracka Please

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

Why is it ok now for African-American people to call white people cracker all the time?  I want to know why this is accepted!  That is not a compliment.  They are calling white people cracker just like white people called them another word that begins with a N.

I’ve never called a “black” person a name in my entire life.  Nor have I ever called a Mexican person or a Jewish person or an Indian (not native American but they count too) or an Irish person any race a derogatory name.  In my ENTIRE life.

The reason I’m blogging on this subject is because I went to the grocery store this evening to buy some dinner.  I was standing at the express lane check stand and these 2 women got in line behind me.  One mentioned that she forgot the cracka’s and the other said oh I hate cracka’s.  They said the word cracka (not cracker) about 15 or 20 times and they didn’t just say the word cracker, they said the word cracka with attitude, they accentuated the word as if they weren’t really talking about food.  It just sounded very racial to me.

I’m not a paranoid person either but it just sounded funny that they said it that many times you know?

I understand that a lot of black people are angry.  I get that.  I really do understand because what their ancestors went through is enough to make anybody angry but come on, it was hundreds of years ago.  Lincoln freed the slaves get over it.  Yes black people were treated very poorly even in the 1950’s and 60’s.  They weren’t even allowed to marry white people in the 70’s and I’m sorry for their loss of freedoms.  But what they don’t understand is that, I wasn’t around during the time of their oppression.

My family wasn’t even in this country during slavery times so I have nothing to do with what their ancestors went through.  My mother’s side was in Ireland and Scotland and my father’s side was in Germany.  I have nothing to apologize for because my blood didn’t spill their blood.  My blood line wasn’t racist against them either so back off.

If anything, I’m the one being oppressed now, not just by the African-Americans but by all of America especially California because the government in California is telling me that I cannot get married so take that.  Black people weren’t allowed to marry white people until the 70’s well guess what, I can’t get married either in 2009.

It’s the year 2009, we are halfway to 2010.  Don’t you think it’s time for racism and sexual discrimination to end?  How about all discrimination?  Hows about we make a deal kay?  I won’t call you any names (as I haven’t my entire life) and you don’t call me a cracka anymore kay?  Thanks.

Chia Pet Status

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

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

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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.

Time-Lapse Software

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

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

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

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

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

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.