Pimp your bike

I just saw this article on the Dvice website.

Pimp your bike with MonkeyLectric LED wheels

This is so cool.  I used to have a little fan that did the same thing, I don't know where that fan is but they sell them at the store for like $3.  But, who cares about such a small fan when you can have this on your bicycle on both the front and the back wheels.

It has 16 led lights on each side and it straps right to the spokes on the inside of the wheel so it's not sticking out.  You can put 1 on your wheel or you can put 4 on your wheel or 1-4 on each wheel.  It's really cool for teenagers at night so they can woo their friends and also be very visible to cars so they don't get hit... from the side?  Cars can't really see this from the back.

I wonder if this is street legal though.  I can see it being bicycle trail and skate park legal but what about the street?

This product from MonkeyLectric is only $60 per board and it takes 3AA batteries which are good for 30 hours.

Too Cold To Ride

Well, it seems that Summer isn't quite yet here.  I have been waking up nearly every morning at 4am to go out bike riding thinking that it would be in the 90's or 100's during the day so I'm basically trying to beat the heat.  Well, we had heat for maybe a week but then it was gone.

The last 3 days (including today) it has been too cold to ride.  Yeah I could've just gone out when the temperature was in the 70's but I've gotten so used to riding when there are no cars when the sun isn't up yet that I don't want to go out during the day.

Friday I checked the weather channel application on my computer and it said that there were going to be thunderstorms so I didn't go out.  Yesterday when I went outside to go bike riding it was raining, well more like sprinkling but you know how it goes.  It starts out with a sprinkle then next thing you know it's raining hard.  So I just stayed in.  This morning it was so cold outside and I just decided to wait until when it was warmer and now it's too warm even though it's only 68 lol.  Well, the weather channel says 68 but it's warmer than that outside.

Hopefully tomorrow it will be ok.  It's supposed to be 85 during the day and it says that I should wear pants and a jacket at 7am for exercising because it will be 65 but that is a good temperature in the early morning to exercise for me.

I never thought I would say this but I wish the heat would come back lol.

The Next PSP

Sony ready to unveil it's PSP Go at E3 tomorrow | Dvice

PSP Go Video Game, E3 09: Conference Footage 2

Ok so here we go, they have a new PSP out which is their 4th gen called PSP Go.  This PSP is smaller, same wide screen but it flips up so you can use the control buttons below the screen instead of on the sides of it.  It then closes so you can watch movies or TV shows or even use it as an mp3 player and not have any buttons pressed while it's in your bag.

The PSP Go has a 16GB flash memory as well as a Memory Stick Micro slot which is a different name from the one that is currently in the PSP which is Memory Stick Duo so no you can't use the one that you already use in your current PSP.  They took away the UMD slot so all those games that you bought you can't use anymore.  You have to buy all your games via the PlayStation store online.

It also has Bluetooth Support.  I don't know what that means for the PSP though.  When I think of Bluetooth I think of a cell phone earpiece.  What does Bluetooth mean for a PSP Go?

On the video (which is the 2nd link above) at the E3 the guy talks about how people like to buy the actual physical product.  There will be a new media manager for PC so I'm guessing that maybe you plug your PSP 2 or 3 into your computer via the USB and it probably converts the UMD into files that you then upload to your PSP Go.  But that is just what I think that means, I don't know for sure.  Who knows, but he did mention something about being able to buy the UMD even though you can't use it in this thing.

I don't know about this one.  I like my PSP 2000.  I didn't upgrade it to the PSP 3000 when that came out because the only upgrade it had was a mic on the front so you don't need a headset to call people with Skype and it had a more matte finish on the screen so you don't get glare from lights or the sun.  With a $250 price tag I'm still not convinced that I need to upgrade to the PSP Go.

I kinda prefer having a UMD and being able to put it in the UMD slot when I want to play a game which of course means searching for the game I want but that's perfectly fine by me.  I don't know if I want to fill my 16GB flash memory with games then have to use a memory stick to add more.  Call me old fashioned lol.

Big Brother Good or Bad

No I'm not referring to the reality show Big Brother but the real reality of Big Brother.

I went to the grocery store yesterday and paid $59, then I went home and paid my cable bill, my phone bill and then I paid for 1 month of EverQuest to keep my account alive.  SOE had 2 transactions of $1 each basically to verify my account but then those 2 charges disappeared.  But as soon as I paid for that I got an email of suspicious activity on my checking account.

I call the number in the email and go through the process of pushing buttons to verify that yes I did make those charges and it was all fine and dandy, or was it?  I tried to buy something from Nashbar for my bike and it kept declining my debit card.  I just figured that they have a debit card limit and I've probably passed that limit so I waited until today.

So today comes and I come home from my bike ride and go to Nashbar's website again to buy my bag for the rear bike rack and a new skull cap so in the middle of my ride I can switch to a dry cap to make me more comfortable.  It declines me again so I just ended up using PayPal to generate a temporary credit card number then I called the bank.

After finally getting to an associate I told him what was happening and explained I was just paying bills, he puts me through to one of the fraud analysts who just wants to verify every transaction.

The woman who I spoke to was very nice, she had a nice voice and she was very helpful.  I told her what happened and that yes I did make all of those transactions.  She asked me about each item.  SOE.  She asked what that was.  I told her it's Sony Online Entertainment.  She said she has seen SOE before but she never knew what it was.  Then we talked about the 2 $1 transactions and she said that they do that to verify that it is my debit card then they erase them.

Then we get to Brighthouse.  She had no clue what that was and of course if you have never heard of it then yeah you aren't going to know but it's my cable company.  Then I said to her you will see ATT DES, that is the phone company.  So then she mentioned Bike Nashbar which I had just paid with PayPal and I was like oh wow that is already showing up on the bank site?  I just paid for that.  I told her I had to use PayPal to pay for it because my debit card was declined.

Oh well, she unlocked my debit card so I can use it again.  You know, I have mixed feelings about all of that.  She said that they locked my card out because it was unusual spending for me.  Well, the day I get my check every month I pay my bills and buy something from a website so how is that unusual spending for me when I do it every month on the same day, the 3rd of each month.  On one hand I'm happy that the bank is looking out for my best interest but on the other hand I'd like to not be embarrassed if I had to go back to the store with a grocery cart filled with food then have my card be declined you know?

Oh well, I'm sure this post was totally unncessary but who cares lol.

Testosterone Overdose

I don't know what's going on but all of a sudden it's almost like I got an overdose of testosterone from all the bike riding I've been doing.  It's like all this energy is inside me now.

That rear bike rack that I got for my birthday wasn't the right size but I figured out how to make it the right size by rigging it to the seat and using old brakes to screw it into the frame at the bottom.  Today I went to the store and could hear it creaking where I attached it to the seat post so I drilled a hole into the seat post and put a screw in there to make it more stable.



I also finally thought of a way to get the bar on my home gym back on.  When I got it (it's a Weider Total Body Works 5000) that little plastic thing at the bottom (you see it in the picture from that link) which holds the bungee cords, the screws snapped off of it, when?  I have no idea.  It was loose in the box.  I didn't send it back because I bought it from Wal*mart's website and it was shipped to me.  So I didn't want to pay for shipping just to get that replaced so I just left it.

So I was sitting here and I got a brain storm.  What if I use the Dremel tool to cut into the screws where they snapped off at the bar so that I can use a flat head screwdriver to unscrew them and take them out and finally get that plastic bungee cord holder back into place.  So I did and it worked.  OMG!!!  Finally!  I've had that thing for a couple of years now and it always put a bad taste in my mouth that I couldn't use those bungee cords to add more resistance because I didn't want to have to keep raising and lowering the darn thing, it's too heavy to have to do that.  It would be easier to use the bungees which is why they put them in there in the first place.

So now I can.  Boy, I feel so butch these days lol.

Fine For Watering Lawn

I don't know if it is just Kern County or if it is all of California or what but I saw on the news today that the city is banning watering of the lawn except for Mondays and Thursdays before 5am and after 4pm.  You cannot water your lawn except on those 2 days or you will get a $300 fine.

Well if that's the way it's going to be then our lawns are going to die because I'm never going to remember that.  I'm probably going to remember to water the lawn on a Wednesday at noon then start watering.  Then I will probably hear the doorbell ringing and have it be Bakersfield Police with a ticket for watering my lawn.  Bogus!

What about back yards?  They can't monitor peoples back yards.  I just think the whole idea stinks.  I can understand the drought problem and I respect that they are trying to save water but $300 fine for forgetting that I can only water 2 days a week only before 5am and after 4pm?  That's stupid to do that.  They don't realize that in Bakersfield it gets so hot and so dry that the lawn dies if it's not watered everyday.  Twice a week isn't going to keep my lawn alive.

Well, maybe that's a good thing then because then I won't have to mow it as much.