Uncategorized – Kenwardtown

Fixed my iTunes skipping problem

Since I upgraded my PC to Vista, iTunes had been skipping. Under XP on the same machine, iTunes had been playing OK. Playback would stutter/skip several times a minute. It was really annoying. I couldn’t find a fix anywhere, although all the fixes seemed to point to Quicktime or upgrading codecs. However my fix turned out to be something else. In Quicktime, I changed “Play audio using” from “Direct Sound” to “Windows Audio Session”. No more skipping! Apparently the “Windows Audio Session” option became available with iTunes 9.

DrinkGen – a tool for generating mixed drink recipies

Click here to generate mixed drink recipies with DrinkGen.

Some examples of drinks invented with DrinkGen:

Hopeful Cocktail
3 oz. Whisky
Juice of 1 a Lemon
Fill cocktail glass with Cola. Add cracked ice.

Mathematical
1½ oz. Whisky
1 oz. Tonic water
Shake with cracked ice, and strain into in a collins glass.

Horrendous Albany
1 oz. Vodka
3 oz. Whisky
Stir, in a rocks glass. Add cracked ice.

Schools Name Generator

Need to name your school? Try this.

For Example:

The Lavishly Prep School
The Liberal Military School of Superior People
The Scarce School

Thanks Gary!

My geek hero, Gary Gygax died today. He’s the guy who invented Dungeons & Dragons. I almost titled this post “HP:0” or something about saving throw, but no. Better to say, “thanks Gary”. Thanks for Dungeons & Dragons, a game I played as a teen, and play now with my preteen kids.

Queen War, our chess variant

The male offspring and I invented a chess variant after a rousing game of “regular” chess.

Behold the splendor of Queen War:

Board Setup

All pawns go in their regular places.
Each queen too.
The rooks (we chess amateurs call them castles) go on the left and right of the queen

Movement and Capture

Pawns move 1 square in any direction, including diagonal. Pawns can only capture diagonally.
Queen moves and captures as in regular rules, except the queen may jump over her own rooks.
Rooks do not move. They can not capture anything. Rooks can only be captured by Pawns.
- At first attempt to capture, the Rook is considered “knocked over” and is laid on it’s side in it’s current square. The Pawn that attempted the capture stays in it’s original square (it doesn’t move into the Rook’s square). The move is over.
- Second attempt by a Pawn is handled as a normal capture– the Rook is removed from play and the Pawn takes it’s place.

Game over, man, game over!
There are two ways to win.

When all the opposing player’s Pawns are captured, you win. Or:
When the opposing player’s Queen is captured, you win.

If you have the chance to play this game, please let us know how it went and if you enjoyed it!

Household Hacker

I’ve just discovered Household Hacker, it “specializes in creating quality items with little to no money and just a bit of imagination.” Videos describe how to for example How to Charge an iPod using electrolytes and an onion: