Thomas Kobelsky's Blog

July 17, 2010

What a busy week. I don't even know where to start, because I honestly can't even remember how the week started out.

A lot has happened this past week, and I'm not exactly riding high on a wave of good emotions right now.

Thursday marked my last day working at Urban Fare. I should be happy about this, but I was hoping to leave in higher spirits: with a new job on the horizon and a small amount of money to let me sit comfortably for a week or so.

However, neither of those happened, and now I'm open to doing freelance work until I can pick up my feet again. I am doing contract Web Design at Tensioncore Design Studios on the side, and it does help a bit.

Another thing that happened just last night was that Lorisa and I ended our relationship. I really don't want to expand too much on it, so I'll just leave it at that.

-tk

June 26, 2010

During the last month or so, I have inadvertently discovered that LinkedIn's Customer Support area is really just a structured gong-show.

For anyone who doesn't know about LinkedIn, it's one of the best Professional Social Networking websites. Essentially Facebook, but for professional adults.

The problems that I requested help for had to do with my Profile not showing my Summary or Work Experience in the detailed area.
The following are the emails sent and recieved between myself and the Customer Support agents at LinkedIn (also note the dates and times):

	Member (Thomas Kobelsky) - 06/11/2010 02:52 AM I was moving some profile sections around to try and rearrange to my liking when all of a sudden I noticed my Experience and Summary sections had disappeared. Where did they go and how do I go about getting them back? I've tried adding another position in hopes that the Experience block would come back because of an update to it, but alas it did not return.
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	Response (LinkedIn - Zach) - 06/21/2010 10:16 AM Hi Thomas, I'm sorry to hear that you are experiencing problems on the LinkedIn site and I truly apologize for the delay in my response. Here are a few options to try initially. After completing an item below, please check to see if the issue has been resolved before attempting the next solution. Solution 1: Click on "Sign Out" at the top of your LinkedIn home page then sign back into your account to see if this corrects the issue. Solution 2: Clear cookies from your current browser using the link included below then sign back into your account to see if the issue has been resolved. Instructions for Clearing Cache and Cookies: http://linkedin.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/linkedin.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1285 Solution 3: LinkedIn works best with the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox (excluding beta versions). If you do not have the latest Internet browser version, try downloading the most current and then sign in to your account to see if the issue has been resolved. Solution 4: Use a different Internet browser to access LinkedIn. Some issues are browser specific. Trying a different browser could be a quick resolution to your problem and help isolate the issue down to that browser. If the issue persists, please reply to this message and attach a document with a screenshot that shows the page and the problem you are experiencing. This will help me further investigate the issue for you. The link below will provide instructions for creating a screen shot if you need them. Creating a Screen Shot: http://linkedin.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/linkedin.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=223 Thank you for your patience as you and I work through this problem together. Regards, Zach LinkedIn Customer Support
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	Member (Thomas Kobelsky) - 06/21/2010 12:03 PM The first things I tried before I even considered sending off an email to your support team were all the options you suggested to me, so I'm just a little insulted that your immediate response was such a generic "solution" to my problem. I've attached an image showing four different pages in my profile. The first is my full Edit My Profile page. As you can see, my Current and Past experiences are in the top part (the blue box), but they are missing in my details area. I also noticed that my Summary and Specialties sections are missing from there as well. The top right of the image shows that all the boxes are checked off for my Public Profile to show Full View, but the part below it shows my Public Profile and my Experience+Summary+Specialties sections are missing from there as well. The bottom right part of the image shows the blue box on my Full Profile with the Past Experiences expanded to show duplicated positions that I am unable to edit or remove. My current positions are editable, but not my past positions? I would really appreciate it if you could help me figure out how to get the remainder of my profile back. Thomas Kobelsky. ==================== image File Attachment ==================== LinkedIn.png, 468718 bytes, added to ticket
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	Response (LinkedIn - Zach) - 06/21/2010 12:27 PM Hi Thomas, I apologize if my response insulted you. That was not my intention. We require certain pieces of information before we can resolve the issue. I want to resolve your issue as quickly as possible and in order to do this, I'll need some additional information. Please supply the two items listed below. This will help our engineers better understand the conditions in which the issue occurs for testing the problem and identify our next steps. 1. The current operating system of your computer. If possible, please include any installed service packs (e.g. Windows XP SP2, Vista SP1, Leopard, etc.). 2. The browser you use to access the Internet (e.g., Internet Explorer 7.0, Firefox 3.0.1, etc.). I look forward to your response with the information requested above. Thanks in advance for your patience while we work together to address this issue. I look forward to hearing your response in order to further assist you. Zach LinkedIn Customer Support
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	I was then sent a LinkedIn Customer Support Survey, to which I filled out mostly negative.
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	Member (Thomas Kobelsky) - 06/22/2010 8:54 PM The operating system I am using is Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Service Pack 2. The browser I am using is Firefox 3.6.4. I have also tried Internet Explorers 7 and 8, along with Opera 10.54 and Google Chrome all on XP Pro x32 SP2 with the same results.
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	Response (LinkedIn - Francois) - 06/25/2010 01:42 PM Hi Thomas, I truly apologize for the delay in my response. I want to apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. I believe the links below from our Customer Service Center might best answer your question regarding the profile completeness. Actually you need 3 recommendations to get the 100%, each recommendation is worth 5%. Answer Title: Requesting a Recommendation Answer Link: http://linkedin.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/linkedin.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=96 For the editing error you might want to try the following: Answer Title: Log In Issues and Other Site Errors Answer Link: http://linkedin.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/linkedin.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1516 Answer Title: Adding or Removing a Position from Work Experience Section Answer Link: http://linkedin.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/linkedin.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1646 LinkedIn provides two areas on the site that are available 24/7 which allow you to access the information you need when you need it. You may want to explore our LinkedIn Learning Center at http://learn.linkedin.com (found under 'More...' at the top of your LinkedIn home page). It offers self-paced video training resources created to maximize your LinkedIn experience. Our Customer Service Center ( http://linkedin.custhelp.com ) found at the bottom of your home page also has hundreds of other Frequently Asked Questions and searchable topics. It is truly my intention to provide you with the best information possible. If this does not address your specific issue or you need additional information on this topic, please do not hesitate to reply to this message and I will be happy to assist you further. Thank you for being a valued member of our LinkedIn community! Regards, Francois LinkedIn Customer Support
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	Member (Thomas Kobelsky) - 06/25/2010 2:12 PM Have you even read anything I've sent you, or are you simply running my messages through a script that highlights key words so you don't even have to do your job? I am not asking how to get a 100% profile. I am not having log-in/redirect issues. I am not asking how to remove a previous position from my Work Experience Section. What I am asking is why my Work Experience (both Current and Previous) and Summary (including Specialties) Sections are not even showing up on my profile. I sent you an image showing all my settings, and it appears to me that you have ignored it. You seem to think this is an issue that my web-browser is having, so you told me to do the generic "clear all cookies and try logging in again" solution. Then you asked for my operating system, which I am entirely confused about; my operating system shouldn't have anything to do with what's being displayed on a mostly text-based website. I have said that I tried viewing my profile on several other computers using different operating systems and they all produce the exact same result. This is not a cache/cookies issue. This is not an issue that is limited to only my computer. This is not something that can be solved by editing the preferences of my web-browser. This problem that I am having is server-side: Information is not being sent from your database to my profile, which is then viewed by possible employers. If you actually go to my profile (http://ca.linkedin.com/in/thomaskobelsky) you will see that the first Section below my Overview Section (Yes, it's called the Overview section because I found the div id="overview" tag) jumps straight to my Education Section, even though I have every box checked in my Public Profile Settings. It's missing the following: - Summary -- Specialties - Current Positions -- Show Details - Past Positions -- Show Details Those areas/sections are not being fetched from the database. If it was a problem with my web-browser or operating system, the source code of the page should still be showing it. My other connections have (div class="section" id="profile-summary") in their source code, but my page does not. I would like somebody to investigate that (possibly Dev Support?) as this is approaching a week of discussion and nothing has been fixed. I have noticed that I was previously talking to Zach, and now I am talking to Francois. I understand if you think that my abrasive response is wrongly directed towards you, and I apologize. However, you are in the Customer Support area and it seems like everything I say is being ignored and simply passed off as "he doesn't know how to use his computer very well, so we'll point him towards our FAQs section and give him generic help that every elementary student should know by now." I'm a bit disappointed, as I was expecting a bit more professional replies from the leading Professional Social Networking service. Thomas.

I'm still waiting on a reply from either Francois or Zach about anything I've said. As you can imagine, I'm one step away from bashing my head against the wall.

-tk

May 18, 2010

What an epic night that started off like any other boring night: Getting off work Sunday at 8pm, I had 3 things to accomplish tonight. Who would have known it would take me travelling all over the lower mainland, have me invent a super unhealthy snack, and finally cause me to look back and think "That totally wasn't worth it."

To start this epic tale off, there's a small bit of backstory attached: I've always wanted to try making poutine at home.
We are now able to start the story.
During work, I was asked to cut some fresh lamb loin chops. In doing so, I had to trim off some fat from the edges to make them look more appealing. Now, since we usually just toss the fat out, I decided that tonight was the night to finally make the poutine. I grabbed a bag, wrapped up the fat and threw it in the cooler for when I got off work.

Skip ahead a couple hours to when I get off work: I grab the fat and go change out of my uniform. I'm expecting a call right around 8-ish from the Miss, so I hang around not wanting to get too far away from the common meeting area, incase she decides to meet in person.
Anyways, we meet up and I say "Let's go to HMV to take advantage of that awesome 'Buy 2, Get 1 Free' book sale going on there" and off we went. As soon as I walked in, I had my first book chosen: Bram Stoker's Dracula. After wandering around a bit, I found Psychic Confusion: The Sonic Youth Story. "Hey, that'd go nicely sitting beside Never Enough: The Story of The Cure that I have at home" and grabbed it.
Roughly 20 minutes later, the Miss finally decides on something (Marilyn Monroe notecards) and we book it out of there (pardon the poorly placed pun) and towards the Skytrain station.

Now, to understand my logic here, I have to explain a couple things: For the last 3 days, Save-On has had a sale going on, Prime Rib for $4.99/lb. Ya, crazy, right? Well, me and Kevin (my boss) were planning on picking some up, so he was calling around to all the stores trying to find some. The only place that had any was out in New West. And this was at 2pm.

/Resume

I jump on the Skytrain with the Miss in tow, and I head out to New West to get me some Prime Rib. We get to New West and the Miss has to depart to get back downtown at a certain time, so we bid eachother adieu and go our separate ways. I quickly text the Bus Stop to see when the next 106 is, and it's not for another 20 minutes.
"Bah, I can walk there in 15." I think to myself and head out up the hill to the Save-On.
25 minutes later, I'm 3/4s of the way there, and the bus flies past me up the hill like it's the Anti-Gravity Cat or something.
"Meh, I'm getting some nice excercise doing this." I tell myself in order to gain a false sense of self-respect. In hindsight, I was an idiot, since there was a Bus Stop literally 20 feet behind me at that point.
I finally get to the top of the hill and see the Save-On sign beckoning me in though it's doors.
Straight to the Meat section I go, not even bothering to look at the two year old kid throwing up all over the bananas as his mother is looking at apples. Ok, I totally stopped and stared... and laughed.

Wait a tick. There's no Prime Rib here.

... Uhh...

I look around for an employee so that I can call a manager over to talk to them. I just happen to get the insecure girl from the Bakery who starts crying because she thinks I'm calling a manager over on account of her performance.
"Screw this, I'm outta here." I think to myself. "I'll just go to the Metrotown one, see if they have any, then talk to the Manager there to get a rain-cheque for it."
Luckily I catch a bus back to the New West Skytrain station, but it's still a 15-ish minute ride to Metrotown. I remember that I've been carrying around two new books, as well as the lamb fat in the bag with the books, so I pull out the Sonic Youth Story and skim the first page.

Before I know it, I'm 3 pages in and I hear "The next station is Metrotown" over the speaker.
Awesome.
I scuttle my way over to the Save-On and make a B-Line straight for the Meats section.
Nothing.
No problem, I have a plan.
Mr. Deli Person, I appologize for demanding you to call the Operations Manager over.
I also appologize for mumbling nonsensical rambles riddled with profanity during my wait.

"Hello Pavull."
"It's Pah-velle"
"Sure it is. Hey, uhm, awkward moment here, but I've been running all over this city looking for some of those Prime Ribs you have in your flier --"
"Ya, I'll just write you a raincheque for them --"
"I mean, I'm coming here from Downtown, and I was just out in the New West Save-On, and they were all out, and now here too --"
"Ya, I'll just write you a raincheque for them --"
"And I was just really hoping for -- wait... Really? Ok, cool. Because like, it's such a great deal and all --"
"Ya, I know, right? I bought four of them earlier --"
"What the hell?! No wonder you're all sold out here! Jeez... --"
"Don't worry, I'm writing you a raincheque for them. They're so good... like, I built my own BBQ, and they're just so good in there --"
"Woah, wait, what? You BUILT your own BBQ? Nice!"
"Ya, it does ok... the first time I lit it up though, the damn lid exploded off because I forgot to put an on/off valve in there."
"... You're lucky the tank didn't explode too."
"Why would the tank explode? The propane flows OUT of the tank, there's no way the fire can get IN there..."
"Uhh.... ya, I suppose you're right. What was I thinking? Fire can't follow a path of fuel to the source if the fuel is flowing out of the holding area. That's just stupid talk."
"Eh, don't worry about it. I've studied the schematics of enough BBQs to know what's safe." (Yes, he actually did say "schematics")
"Alright, as long as you know what you're doing, I guess all the power to ya, eh?"
"Exactly. Here's the raincheque, just call ahead to make sure we have them in stock."
"Ah, dankschen"
-quizzical look while I walk away-

Basically how it went. Well, I didn't get any Prime Rib tonight, but I did get a raincheque for later use.

Next item on the list was found at the Superstore. So many different kinds, which should I choose?
Crurly Fries, Crinkle Cuts, Straights, Shoestring, Thicks, Waffle Cuts, Wedges, Crispy...
There's always a question that every man has to ask himself when presented with this many options:
WWGD - What Would Google Do?
To solve this, I searched for relevant results to "Poutine + Fries."
Since I've never seen Curly Fries, Waffles, Wedges or Crinkles in a Poutine before, that left me with Straights, Shoestrings, Thicks and Crispy fries. Since the best Poutine is constructed with a certain ratio of Gravy:Cheese:Fries, I thought that I'd pick the lowest common denominator and go with the Crispy Fries, since nobody really likes soggy fries.
On my way out, I passed by the breads and saw there were muffins on sale. Double Chocolate Chip. The kind that my mamma used to pack in my lunch when I was in grade school.
Nostalgia won me over, and I noticed that they were $3.99/pack on sale from $6.99. Win.
Rushing to the check-out, the cute young girl runs my muffins through and I see the monitor shows them as $6.99.
"Uhh... the sign said the muffins were $3.99...?"
"If you buy six or more."
"But there's six in a pack, isn't there?"
"Uhhh...." -head es'plöd- "Wait, no... if buy six packs."
"You can't buy a six pack, silly... that's something you gotta work hard to get, and stay in top physical shape to maintain it!"
"Uhhh...." -head es'plöd again- "Wait, what? Haha"
"You were about to give me a sweet discount because I'm amazingly good looking and my charm won you over. Anything is possible because I smell like Old Spice and not a lady. I'm on a horse!" (Yes, I actually said that)
"..." -chuckle- "sure, whatever, haha"

As I walk out of there, muffins in one hand, fries and my HMV bag in the other, I notice that there's some writing on the back of the reciept I just got. I stop to look at it and there's a number.
A phone number, to be precise.
Proof that the Old Spice commercial actually does work.

I finally get home and I begin creating my feast of epicness. The first step is to get the "drippings" from fat, so I throw the lamb fat into a small pot and turn the heat up to melt the fat chunks.
It all goes well until the fat starts accumulating at the bottom and begins to actually deepfry the fat solids. Interesting.
After a bit, I pull the solids out of the fat and place them on a plate. Hmm... solid fat that's been deepfried in it's own fat... sounds tasty!

"No... he wouldn't..."

Yes, I did. And it was good. I suggest you try it.

Anyways, moving on... While the fat was nearing the end of its melting journey, I had to get the cheese prepared. And nothing says "Ghetto Gourmet" like taking No-Name processed Swiss slices and cutting them into thin strips instead of getting real cheese and grating it.
As soon as I finished that, I began to make the gravy. Turns out, I have no idea how to make gravy. The flour ended up getting deepfried in small ball shapes that just sank to the bottom of the pot. I tried adding some pepper for seasoning, and that just sank to the bottom as well. Even when I took a fork and tried whisking it up, the solids eventually just settled on the bottom.

Needless to say, the "gravy" was terrible. The cheese chunks didn't even melt because they were so processed, and the french fries were soggy from all the grease they were pre-cooked in.

Ya, failure was I in the kitchen that night.

-tk

May 12, 2010

The history of Blender is quite intriguing to me. Then again, I've always been a sucker for open-sourced software and the history of under-appreciated software development. I'm not entirely sure why, but it might have something to do with just a small group of people trying to accomplish something on their own.

My last entry said something about being able to create pieces really quickly using Blender, and now I'm going to explain some of the history that I promised.

Way back in 1988 (the year I was born in, actually) a man named Ton Roosendaal co-founded a Netherlands-based 3d Animation Studio called NeoGeo (not related to the Neo Geo hardware by SNK). This company became insanely huge, and Ton decided that the in-house 3d tool they were using was becoming obsolete seven years later. In 1995, he began re-writing the tool set from scratch into a bigger/better/shinier 3d application.

This application was what later became known as Blender.

It was still very much an in-house tool for the artists, who worked alongside the programmers while refining the tool. The programmers pretty much catered the entire engine towards the in-house artists so they can work faster and more efficiently (remember, this is one of the largest 3d animation studios in Europe at the time). As the improvements went on, they didn't even notice the learning curve getting steeper.

Three years later, in 1998, Ton founded a new company called NaN (Not a Number Technologies. Explanation of name here) as a sub-company spinoff from NeoGeo to basically market Blender to outside sources. NaN's business model was providing a compact cross-platform 3d application for free, while also having a commercial version with other products and services catered to it.

Everything was going great, and NaN even attended in its fist Siggraph conference to showcase Blender in 1999. Huge interest was accumulated and NaN took off on a rollercoaster of success.

In early 2000, after another Siggraph conference, NaN had over 4.5mil EUR in the bank and began to expand very rapidly. Several months later, Blender was being supported by over 50 NaN employees from around the world, and in summer of 2000 Blender v2.0 was released. This version had the Game Engine integrated, and by the end of 2000, there were over 250,000 registered users on the NaN website.

Shortly after, NaN went bankrupt from lack of resources at the time. In April 2001, NaN was restarted with a new investor and a smaller company, which released Blender Publisher, which flopped horribly in the market during an economic crisis, and NaN was shut down.

Shutting down NaN also meant discontinuing development of Blender.

However, even with all of its shortcomings, Blender had a ton of support from the user community and the people who purchased software from NaN. Ton couldn't just let Blender disintegrate into the archives of the internets to be eaten by Cthulu, and didn't have the funding to restart another company to develop Blender, so in March of 2002 he created a non-profit organization called Blender Foundation.

Blender Foundation's first and foremost goal was figuring out how to keep Blender alive as a community-driven Open Source project. Four months after the startup, Ton set up a "Free Blender" campaign which set out to raise 100,000 EUR so the Foundation could acquire the Blender source code and intellectual property rights from the previous NaN investors. The campaign only lasted seven weeks before reaching the 100,000 EUR goal.

On Sunday October 13, 2002, Ton released Blender to the open source community (among them were several ex-NaN employees who wanted to keep Blender alive) under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

To this day, Ton Roosendaal still leads the development of Blender, which is currently in v2.5 Alpha 2 phase.

-tk

March 16, 2010

Sometime last week (I forget the exact day) I came home from work to find a yellow UPS delivery notice on the front door to my apartment building. Most of the time I pay no attention to them, since I never expect anything from UPS to be delivered to me.

However, for some odd reason, I felt inclined to look at which apartment it was addressed to. Perhaps it was because I was getting home at 11pm and thought that if it was addressed to anyone else, they would have picked it up by then. Sure enough, it addressed to #7 (me). It said it was the first delivery attempt and they came between 2 and 5 pm, the Comments area only had "Plz cAll" with no number printed.

"Ah, I'll deal with it in the morning" I thought to myself, which is exactly what I did. The following morning I awoke and went to my computer to visit UPS' website. I checked the tracking number first to see where it was coming from and found out it was shipped from Toronto to Richmond. Seeing as how I live in Burnaby, I kind of scratched my head at that for a bit before moving on to find their phone number. I called them up and got a machine saying "If you're calling this number, you probably got a yellow delivery notice. You can pick up your package at the UPS store" and that's about it. I waited for a second after the "lady" was done talking to see if they'd give me a list of numbers to press so I could talk to a customer service representative or something... but it just repeated the same message.

"Ok then, that was dumb" said the voice in my head. I looked at the notice in my hand again and saw that their next attempt would be between 10am and 2pm that that, or between 2pm and 5pm that day (basically saying they'll show up between 10 and 5 sometime, but they're not sure when it'll be) and had to leave for work at 10.

When I got home, I saw another yellow tag, but this time it was on my apartment door rather than the building's door, which means somebody let him into the building and he tried knocking on my door. This notice said the same thing, but the next delivery time would be between 2 and 5pm the following day (my day off). Perfect, I thought, since I'd be home all day and catch them on the third attempt.

At 5:00-ish the next day, I hear my buzzer ring. I turn on the intercom system to talk to the person downstairs... but they're already talking to somebody. I tried shouting into the intercom, but the person just kept talking, and actually buzzed me again. 10 seconds later, I hear the door open through the intercom and he walks outside of the building. Puzzled, I run to my window (which overlooks the street below) and see the UPS guy sauntering to his truck which is parked in the middle of the road. I notice the guy's got a Bluetooth headset and he's still talking, so I'm assuming he was talking on the phone while trying to buzz me.

I opened my window and yelled at the guy, trying to get his attention, but he just kept walking and got into his truck. I then ran downstairs and found a third tag stuck where the first one was, saying it was their final delivery attempt and that I should call them. Again, no number was listed.

I couldn't help but think how much of a stupid joke this was. I called UPS again and this time the message said the 3rd delivery attempt failed and that they'd hold my package for 5 days for me to pick up. Or I could press 1 to make alternate arrangements. I decided to press 1 and was prompted to wait until the next available representative was available. 25 minutes I waited before finally saying "screw it" and hung up.

Today, I got a post card in the mail from UPS saying that they have my parcel in Richmond and are waiting for me to pick it up, or else it will be shipped back to the sender on the 16th (which was today), or I could call the number listed to make alternative arrangements to pick up. Since Richmond is just a hop, skip and a jump away from Metrotown when you have no vehicle, I tried calling the number to see if I could get them to send it via Canada Post, or send it to the UPS Store in Station Square (which is basically across the street from where I live) as opposed to having to travel out to Richmond of all places. The message on the phone basically just said that the post card has the address of the UPS Store in Richmond that I have to go to.

Awesome. So I get a post card saying that I have until 6pm today to run to Richmond and get a package, and I had to work until 10:30pm. You don't think they could have sent that post card on Friday for me to have all weekend to go there, eh? Or maybe even give me the notice on Monday that I had to pick it up on Tuesday? Or maybe even just send it to a UPS store in the same city that I live in. trying to get it as close as they can to me (seeing as how they had it within 4 blocks of the UPS Store at Station Square on 3 separate occasions).

I've never had a problem with Canada Post/USPS, FedEx or Purolator... but UPS (the supposed King of Delivery Systems) is run by a bunch of bloody rednecks in armored trucks with no doors (because that's not a contradictive vehicle at all).

-tk

March 14, 2009

I've recently begun a quest in real life: a search to find the ultimate BBQ sauce.

Now, since I don't have a Barbecue, this is proving difficult. However, I have set some easy standards to follow:

1. Everything must be cooked in my Toaster Oven at 350*C. Length of time is variable. The reason for this is simple; a constant temperature yields more stable results. Cooking a sweeter sauce at a higher temperature will cause it to caramalize which will produce a different flavor than if it wasn't (burnt sugar VS melted sugar). It's also a good way of seeing how the sauce withstands temperatures, and having a constant temp can show which sauces hold together better and which ones will melt/drip/slide off the meat easier.

2. There will be no marinating for xAmount of hours as the bottle says. The meat goes into the cookware, the sauce gets slathered ontop of the meat, the meat is then cooked immediately after. Marinating something will cause more flavor to seep into the meat which will cause the sauce to appear better than a different sauce that doesn't marinade as well.

3. The sauces will be tested on a red meat, a white meat, and a fish base before getting the final vote. The red meat will either be Beef or Lamb (most likely beef, because I prefer to have a steak over a lamb roast). The white meat will either be Chicken or Pork (I may just end up doing both, becuase the two cook vastly different from each other). The fish will either Salmon or Snapper (most likely salmon, because I prefer my snapper with just a bit of salt and pepper on it as opposed to smothered in a sauce. Also, I may have to do some testing on Fresh vs Prev.Frzn salmon, since the meat behaves so much differently once it's been frozen).

4. No sauce will be added during or after the meat has been cooked. This includes dipping sauces. However, meatballs and sausages may be entered into this experiment/quest at some random times, in which case the meatballs my have extra sauce added during the cooking and the sausages may have the sauce as a dipping sauce.

5. No matter how bad the sauce is, everything must be eaten before casting a final judge on it.

The judging shall be as follows:

1. Price. Nobody's going to go after a $50 bottle that's only like 12 Fl.Oz in size. If it's relatively cheap and good, it's probably a keeper.
2. Presentation. You're not going to want to show off a white-label plastic bottle of President's Choice BBQ Sauce. If the bottle looks cool and has a cool label, it's getting points. Also, any kind of cool story that's included on the bottle automatically gives it +1 for awesomeness.
3. Smell. The first thing somebody's probably going to do to judge whether they're going to like a dish that's been prepared for them is smell it. If the sauce smells like ass, the rest of the dish will as well.
4. Color. Sure, 90% of BBQ sauces are brown. But sometimes you'll come across that bright red one that sticks out and catches your attention.
5. Consistency before cooked. Very watery BBQ sauces suck balls for steaks. You splash the sauce onto the steak and flip it over to get the other side, then it all drips off the first side. You want something thick that'll stick.
6. Consistency after cooked. If it starts out thick and ends thin, then you'll probably regret searing the meat so fast. Something that'll stay thick through and through is a good choice.
7. Flavor. The most important part. I'm going to be a little biased towards my judging though, as I am a stickler for Hickory Smoked sauces. There's just something about them that makes a steak taste that much better than an Original flavored sauce.
8. Total. This will be all the values added up.

Everything will be on a 0-10 point scale, with no decimals. 0 being Non-Existant or Un-Noticeable, 10 being so good that it moved me to tears.

The reviews will not be added on this page, but rather on the article's page itself.

-tk

October 22, 2009

It's been a while since I posted anything here.
Halfway through my third term in VFS, I started using Linux on and off (mostly on my laptop as opposed to my PC).

The reason I started with it is because my laptop crashed pretty hardcore at the end of my first term and I lost all my files stored on it. It was so bad that I couldn't even restore it to factory settings, because the partition with those factory settings saved on it was somehow destroyed (even though the only way for me to access that partition is with the recovery disc shipped with my laptop). However, I was talking on some forums prior to this and learned about the LiveCDs that are popular with most Linux distros, and how Ubuntu 7.04 (which was brand new at the time) was able to access NTFS partitions with ease. Using that knowledge, I downloaded and created a LiveCD with that distro and popped it into my laptop. Within a couple minutes, I was able to find my files on my crashed laptop and salvage them onto my 320gb external hard-drive.

This post is too long to put the entire thing here, so please CLICK HERE to go to a separate page just for it.

-tk

March 06, 2009

Progress is slow lately.
Again, it's been nearly a month since my last entry, and what do I have to show for it?

Well, I've got some good and bad news. But I've learned through the years that the good news should always be saved for last, so we don't end on as much of an awkward moment.
The bad news is that all the good stuff I promised in my last entry isn't going to happen for a while. I can't find a working template for the 3D gallery I hoping to implement. I may have to take it upon myself to learn JavaScript or something and make my own somehow. The same goes for the image gallery... Although, that's more because I'm just too lazy to put it in at the moment.
On the other hand, I entered this image (caution, it's a huge image) into a Vector of the Month contest on AnimeVector.com, and came out in first place. Granted, it was just between me and one other guy (who's basically been my rival ever since I joined... similar to Ash Ketchum and Gary Oak in Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow), but it still shows that people like my work.

-tk

January 4, 2009

Happy New Year to all. It has been a while since my last update on here, for many a various reason which ultimately boils down to either A) Not enough time in the day, or B) I was just too lazy to do it. I apologize for that, and to make up for it, I've finally decided to post something on here before I head off to work. I suppose I'll write about the lastest and greatest game I've been playing, The Last Remnant.

This game can either be REALLY challenging or extremely simple, totally depending on what the AI wants to do each round. This kind of annoys me a little bit because you could be spending four hours trying to beat a battle and get Game Over like 5 times. Then, miraculously, the 6th time you go into the fight, all of your Unions survive with like minimal damage taken. It's totally hit and miss like that, so rather than having an RPG based purely on stats and modifiers, it's got a large chunk of luck involved as well.
I like this, for some reason. The last few RPGs I've played have been too much of a cake-walk for me (Eternal Sonata, Mass Effect, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time), it's nice to have a very different RPG that challenges not only your tactic skills and knowledge of the game, but also tests the player's patience.
You're probably thinking about all the review sites and their 6/10s and such, but I believe that's mainly because of the technical issues it has. The game does bog down a LOT during the battles... sometimes going from 60fps when you're choosing your commands, down to like 15fps when the units are actually attacking. It's not quite so bad if you install it to your 360's hard-drive, but it's still noticeable. That, and the cinematics are a little odd. Everything about them has been done amazingly, but the backgrounds look horrible. Like a movie that has been ripped and was very poorly encoded with DivX or something. If I knew how to take a screenshot from my 360 and transfer it to my computer, I would. Those are my only beefs with the game, so far.
I'm pretty much just starting the second disc, and am sitting at the 2nd Base battle right now. Storming the base wasn't hard at all, but the boss battle inside was just ruined me. Then again, my Rush only has Double Strike for a pole-arm art, so I will probably spend a few hours learning more arts for him before progressing.
And with that, I'm going to finish updating this and make some lunch. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to check out my portfolio.

-tk

December 6, 2008

Just starting to get this Blog up. It's proving more difficult that I had originally thought it was going to be... what with having to find the proper layout, find out what I want to put in here, and even what the links on the sides will link to.

Now that I have figured out a basic scheme for this blog, I think I'll start adding in content pretty soon on a daily basis.

-tk