The Cranium Cabinet

Have you ever had a rodent problem in your home or office? I’m sure you went out and got some of those spring-loaded mousetraps and took care of the problem… or did it?

Were you dying to know the minute that the mouse was dead? Perhaps via email or text message? Well, then you need the mouse RADAR!!!!

Honestly folks, it sends you a text message when it kills a mouse….

Just think about that.

Not familiar? I wish I weren’t either.

Tonight I finally got my WDS working (I’ll get a write-up together tomorrow). After hooking up my Dish DVR and my 360 to my wireless bridge, I was cruisin’ on the internet in style. I turn my 360 on and look through my friend requests, approve them, and then am informed that I am in need of an update. Cool, no biggie. I download/install the update and it reboots my console.

This is the part where things begin to go downhill…

The first problem is that it hung on the initial 360 splash screen. Basically, I just had a green screen. I turn the system off and back on and I get the 3 red lights. This is no good. I do some basic troubleshooting and disconnect all peripherals that are not needed (e.g. antique HD-DVD player). I turn the 360 back on and… SUCCESS! Or so I thought… not 1 minute later the 360 freezes again.

At this point I’m digging through my boxes trying to find my receipt. I couldn’t find it, so I log on to xbox.com and register my console. This is the best part… are you ready? I register and I see this:

To truly appreciate that, take note of today’s date. 9/23/2008. HA HA!

I call up Microsoft after remembering that they had extended their warranties out 3 years. We finally get everything squared away and I have to send them my 360. I guess it will be another 3 weeks before I get to play…

This video may be NWS due to language…

This man is very concerned about his plant, apparently it was stolen. He feels the best way to get it back is violence, of course.

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So I went to Indy this weekend. Guess where the most expensive gasoline was?! KNOXVILLE.

Everywhere else was sub-$4.00, some even as low as 3.49. Thanks guys, keep buying it at super-inflated prices, I’m sure that will make them lower it.

This past weekend I went to Indianapolis with my dad to watch MotoGP. Remnants Ike really rained down on us, hard. I think I was wet for at least 8 hours on Sunday, which, in-turn, made me sick. Thanks Ike! Also, wind gusts of 60mph didn’t help. In fact, they had to Red Flag the race. Rossi won by default, so that’s good.

I should have video up soon.

There are no words:

I saw this ad the other day and I thought to myself, “REALLY!?”

Yes, just like that. This would be a perfect video to go on www.failblog.org.

Looks like corn farmers are angry or something, but why? They are already making tons of gravy thanks to the big Ethanol boom. Oh well, people, stay away from the stuff, it’s no good for you.

Don’t be a little sheep. Be smart enough to think for yourselves.

This guide assumes some things:

• That you already have the initial machine that you want to clone built and fully functional.
• The initial machine is named Host1
  

The easiest way that I have found to do this is as follows:

Cloning the .vmdk file:

1. Shut down the host machine (the machine to be cloned).
2. Log on to the VMWare ESX Server Console (either physically or SSH) as root or a user who is able to su (for this example, I am using root).
3. Navigate to the directory in which all of your VMs are located, usually something like /vmfs/volumes/storage/
   

   cd /vmfs/volumes/storage

4. Make new directories for the new virtual machines; e.g. Host2, Host3, etc.
   

   mkdir Host2 Host3

5. Navigate into the inital host’s directory and make note of the .vmdk filename (Note: do NOT use the *-flat.vmdk file).
   

   cd Host1
   ls -l *.vmdk

6. We will use the command “vmkfstools” in the following way to clone Host1 to Host2.
   

   vmkfstools -i Host1.vmdk ../Host2/Host2.vmdk

7. After the clone is complete, make sure that you log off of your console session. This is an important step. If you do not log off, you cannot select the disk in the next set of steps to complete the creation of the new virtual machine.

Creating the Cloned Virtual Machine:

1. Log in to your VMWare Infrastructure Client and begin the “Create a new Virtual Machine” wizard by right clicking on your VMWare domain and selecting “New Virtual Machine…” or on the Getting Started tab, select “Create a new virtual machine”.
2. For the Wizard Type select “Custom”.
3. Name your virtual machine appropriately. For this example, we will name ours Host2.
4. Select the appropriate Datastore. Our example’s datastore is “storage”.
5. Select the appropriate Guest Operating System.
6. Configure the appropriate CPU, Memory, Network, and I/O Adapters information.
7. On the Select a Disk section, choose “Use an Existing Virtual Disk”. This will allow you to browse to the Host2.vmdk that was created. Navigate to and select the Host2.vmdk file.
8. Enjoy!

So that’s it, simple right?

Being that gasoline prices are based on future predictions, it seems that some genius decided that we would be out of gasoline soon. Gas prices have risen from 3.54 to 3.99/gal for Regular Unleaded in the past 4 hours. Some local speculators are even saying that it will go up to $5/gal by the end of the day.

So what do we do about this? Nothing. If you need gas, fine, buy it. If not, well, don’t buy it, it’s really simple. It’s a panic market right now and can be compared to the stock market and how people react under panic.

Usually, when markets fall, the panic sets in and makes people pull their money out. This is stupid. Ever heard of “buy high, sell low”? No, because that’s stupid, but apparently a lot of humans do that. So, at the best time for folks to buy stocks, at rock bottom prices, they pull their money out. Then they wait until they are on the rise again or even at an all-time high to buy again, because it makes them feel good.

Once again, don’t buy gas if you don’t have to. Also, if you want to report a gas station for price gouging (I feel this is reasonable because Knoxville is the only area that I know of so far that is experiencing this threat of a $2 price spike before the end of the day) please do so here: http://gaswatch.energy.gov/

Enjoy the weekend!

I have come to realize that working out after work simply won’t cut it for me. I get home and I feel like vegetating, or I have some studying to do, etc. Therefore, I made the painful decision to wake up early and go.

This morning was the first morning workout and man, it was tough. I didn’t even get to the weights. Honestly, the cardio felt like an eternity. I kept looking down at the timer like “why is this thing moving so slow?, surely it is broken!”

Finally, I was done… I think that if I make a habit out of this, it will get better, but man, that first day was terrible.