Unskippable previews before disc-based movies should be a crime

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Previews before movies at the cinema are a good thing. They give you a little buffer room if you are late for show time.

Previews before a Blu-ray or DVD movie are a bad thing. At the very least, they require you to spend some of your time mashing the “Next Chapter” button.

But previews before a Blu-ray are at their worst when they are unskippable. Continue reading

I made a handy graphic explaining the basic refrigeration cycle

I’m currently enrolled in a course to learn more about refrigeration systems. I program the MACS Cooler, which is a sophisticated, automatic produce cooler. During our last class, one of the instructors drew a block diagram of the basic refrigeration system (like what runs a refrigerator) on the white board.

I furiously copied the diagram in my notes on my tablet with OneNote. I added color where I thought it helped. Later, I used Inkscape to recreate the diagram as a digital graphic. And here it is. Continue reading

How to Support the Musician in Your Life

Likely everyone knows someone who is a musician or artist. They could be a family member or friend. Maybe they are on the worship team at church. Regardless of relationship, you probably know someone who is a musician, either solo or in a band. If you are a musician, you most definitely know a musician or two.

What I hope to accomplish by this writing is to share one musician’s emotions and thoughts, and show how you can support and encourage the musicians in your life. I may lay bare my own life a bit, but hopefully it’ll be for the benefit of many. These concepts apply to artists (writers, actors, painters) in all areas, but I will be writing about musicians specifically.

Continue reading

Xbox Scorpio is now called Xbox One X

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I already miss the name Scorpio. All the talk of how “Scorpio is a beast” and “Scorpio is a monster” made the name Scorpio seem warranted. When Microsoft announced the final name at this year’s E3, I was almost shocked by boredom. The official name is Xbox One X. My first thought was literally, “huh, that’s a name”. My second thought was “Three Days Grace”.  Continue reading

I Dropped My Phone – new song

A couple of months ago, I dropped my phone. It was a Microsoft Lumia 950XL with a white case. When it hit the ground, it landed flat on the screen and busted it up real good. I didn’t tell many people about it. Maybe that was partly due to shame, but I didn’t figure most people would care.

What I did figure though, was that many people share my experience. Most people have at least dropped their phones if not broken them at one point or another.

As part of my “recovery process”, I decided to write a song about my experience. I mixed in a couple of other people’s stories to tell the tale of an individual with terrible misfortune, and probably a hint of carelessness. That song is called I Dropped My Phone.

On top of writing the song. I also directed and starred in a music video for it. And on top of that, I made a new website to promote the song and video. Hopefully it gets some generic traffic from people just typing in the phrase “I dropped my phone”. I am hoping that it is a common phrase, and I’m going to try to corner the market on that one. I’ll have a song and a website URL and a music video all with that phrase. So bring on the visits from the phone droppers (like me).

The website also cautions people to pick up a screen protector and a case for your phone. Preventative measures should be taken so that others don’t face the anguish that I did after losing my phone to a fall.

Where to buy the single I Dropped My Phone

It’s available all of the usual places:

I Dropped My Phone on Google Play

I Dropped My Phone on Spotify

I Dropped My Phone on iTunes