Child’s Play 2008

Child’s Play is a charity started up by Penny Arcade and powered by gamers. It has been raising money and collecting toys for hospitals around the world since 2003. The charity accepts donations year round, but rolls out a toy drive only during the months of November and December.

Since November is here and the Child’s Play site is being updated with information and a new toy drive, I’d like to help by trying to get the word out. Read more

Sanyo Eneloop C and D Size Batteries

I don’t know if you guys have heard about eneloops, the best rechargeable batteries in the world. They come precharged in the box, they have a really slow discharge rate, and you can recharge them 1,000 times. I love these things; my favorite uses are for Wii remotes and Xbox controllers. I think Bo uses them for his camera flashes.

So far I’ve only bought the AA sized batteries. However, I recently purchased a few baby items that require C and D sized batteries. I didn’t hesitate to go online to buy more eneloops, but after a little searching I found that Sanyo doesn’t make C and D sized eneloops available in the United States. Only very recently (at the time of this writing) did they become available overseas. So, I decided to send a brief email to Sanyo to see what I could learn. Read more

Nintendo Doesn’t Care if You Hack and Cheat

You might have noticed that I was frustrated to find how much hacking and cheating is going on in Nintendo Wii games, particularly, Mario Kart Wii. Well, I decided to send an email to Nintendo to see what kind of response I would get.

I’ll admit that I wrote a somewhat angry email to Nintendo. But, Nintendo responded to my complaint in a timely manner. I suspect that their response was somewhat canned, but that only makes it worse. If this is a canned answer, this is how Nintendo really feels about people hacking their games and ruining other people’s online experience. Read more

Cuisinart Supreme Grind Automatic Burr Mill

It’s true. I’m an absolute coffee snob. I can admit it. I merrily mock my co-workers for drinking the bland-brand coffee that the company buys while I sip my carefully crafted homebrew from my Thermos Leak-Proof Travel Mug.

I don’t mess around: I buy indigenous coffee beans and grind them myself. I have an engraved coffee scoop. I have my own secret system for measuring out the perfect amount of coffee grounds for the desired number of cups to be made. When I go on vacation? My coffee supplies are the first things I pack. Read more

Geek Dad Tips – Surviving Week 1 With a New Baby

I am proud to say that I became a first-time father last Friday, October 3rd. Though my wife and I were sleep deprived, we made it through the first week with my beautiful son. He can’t say a word, feed himself, or change his own diapers, but he’s taught me a lot already.

Being the geek dad I am, I wanted to make sure I had all the cool gadgets we’d need by the time the little guy got here. There are a few things that made the first week a lot easier on us, so I wanted to detail the top 5 baby products worth buying (in no particular order). If there are any other fathers out there that have other suggestions of things to make parenthood an easier process, please let us know in the comments.

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Food Storage Tips – Hack Your Coat Closet – Part 2

After coming up with lots of good reasons keep a small amount of emergency supplies (PART 1) lets talk about where to keep them.  There are lots of good places to store food, water, and other supplies in places you might not have thought of.   Under the bed, in your clothes closet, in the garage, or just in a spare room all make sense.

I live in a small house with my wife and 4 children and we really didn’t have much room for more storage.  We’ve been keeping food in the garage for awhile but it’s never been a great place because of the wide fluctuations in temperature.  Even canned and packaged food shouldn’t be subjected to high heat for long term storage.  So, we decided our coat closet would be the perfect place.  We all have plenty of room in our own closets for the coats so it’s just a slight inconvenience not having them by the door. Read more

Mario Kart Wii – Cheating, Hacks, and Disappointment

I’ve been a huge Nintendo fan for nearly 20 years. I’ve owned every Nintendo console and countless games. So, you shouldn’t be surprised that I (finally) picked up Mario Kart Wii. I even picked up an extra wheel for my wife and the occasional friend to play along.

I played for most of the night of my purchase. The next day, a friend came over and we ended up playing for a solid two hours. It wasn’t until we gave the online play a go that we started to see something funny going on with the game. Read more

Be Prepared – Food Storage for Geeks – Part 1

In the last little while it’s become more important for me and my family to have some emergency supplies set aside.  After talking to everyone I know at the office and most other people I run in to I’ve realized that I’m not the only one.

Why a GeekInspired post about it? Because techno geeks like us are the type of people who like projects.  We like to learn at our own pace and enjoy putting stuff together and seeing the results.  We build models as kids.  We watch “MythBusters” and “How It’s Made”.  Putting together a 72 hour kit and then building a food storage area gives us the same opportunity to geek-out as does building a custom case for our D&D supplies. Read more

Book Publishing – Common Terms and Definitions

As I mentioned my writing resources article, there’s more to writing a book than just writing. There are two parts to getting your book idea into the hands of eager readers. First, you must create your masterful work of fiction (or whatever else) and second, you must reproduce your work and distribute it for sales.

While creating a great book is a really tough thing to do, it is just as hard to get a book published. Publishers are very picky about what they print and sell, and to make things even more difficult, the world of publishing is filled with their own set of terms and acronyms. This can be a very intimidating front to a new writer. So, I’ve assembled some of the more common terms and acronyms on this page. Let’s start first with the acronyms and work our way into the terms and definitions. Read more

Learning to Write – Top Resources

Since my interest in writing began about a year ago, I’ve spent many hours searching the web for useful information on the subject. The amount of information I found was surprising. For some reason, I thought that writing as a career was unpopular. Boy, was I wrong. I discovered countless books, forums, and blogs all about writing.

It wasn’t long before I learned that writing is just half the battle. In my ignorance, I assumed that once you had written a book, fat checks were around the corner. “After all,” I told myself, “most people don’t write well or at all. Publishers are probably glad to see a book come their way.” I quickly learned that while many people don’t write well, publishers have enough books to keep them busy. Wait, let me rephrase that last part. Publishers have so many book submissions that you probably won’t see a book deal for a long, long time. That doesn’t mean that your shouldn’t try, it’s just going to be harder than you may have expected. Read more

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