Being an adult is stupid.

Sorry I have been absent for the past few days, folks. My real job has gotten in the way of my aspirations of blogger stardom. Things should slow down back to normal after today and I can get back to being an internet junkie again.

Until then...

It is so incredibly hot in my office...

So let me tell you a bit about my job. I am, for the lack of a better term, a graphic designer. I refuse to call myself a graphic "artist" like many in my line of work do simply because what I do is not art. I work for a sign company. I'm not so much talking street signs as I am big monstrosities of metal and electronics. You know those big school and church signs with the LED message boards and all that in them? Yeah, I design those. Not exactly where I pictured myself at this point in my life but the bills have to be paid.

So in addition to designing these ginormous (Holy crap! Ginormous is a word? I fully expected spell check to tell me I was stupid. But it didn't. That's pretty awesome.) signs we also do a full line of graphics and printing. You know, car wraps and murals and stuff like that. Our machine prints directly onto vinyl that has an adhesive backing. This material must be kept in a climate-controlled area with a consistent temperature and humidity level or else all sorts of havoc will be played on it.

So, I told you all this to tell you this:

It's fucking hot in my office...

I always leave the A/C set to 78 degrees when I leave the office. When I get here in the morning I turn it down to 72. As hot as it gets here the A/C runs pretty much all day and keeps my office around 76 degrees. This is comfortable to me and is a good temperature range for the vinyl. But apparently someone decided to turn the A/C in my office completely off after I left yesterday.

I hate everyone and everything right now.

We have a new domain!

I just wanted to take a moment and let everyone know that you can now visit us by going to http://www.thegeeksparadise.com. You can still access the site through the current address as well.

I also want to thank you all for reading. This blog is growing everyday and has gone well beyond where I ever thought it would be. That just makes me want to put even more effort into making it even better.

I really appreciate you all!

A Quad-Core Computer for $130

The other day I was checking out one of my favorite tech blogs, ! ComeAtMeBro-Daily tech news, and came across a post that I just had to share. I don't want to jack the content so I'm just going to post a pic and the link. You should definitely go check it out though. I can easily think of over 9,000 DIY projects I could do with one of these things.

Quad-Core Computer for $130!

To check out the article either click on the photos or this link to go straight to the blog.

Optical Advancement: From corrective to cool.

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Zenni Optical for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Glasses have come a long way in recent years. I began wearing corrective lenses in my late teens but had worn sunglasses for years before that point. I remember my first pair of glasses very well. I absolutely hated them. They looked fine, I suppose, but the thought of having to wear them every single day was not something I was looking forward to. However, with contacts not being an option (long story) I was stuck with them. Over the years I grew to not mind them so much. Once I learned that there were other options available other than just the ones my eye doctor provided I expanded my horizons a bit.

A couple of years ago I came across a website that offered a ton of different styles of glasses at incredibly low prices. By this point I was to the stage of not only using my glasses as a corrective instrument but also as a fashion accessory. I'm not talking about matching glasses to different outfits; I'll leave that to Kanye. But I do have several different pair of glasses that I wear depending on the situation. Since I started shopping at Zenni Optical I can afford to buy several different pair of very stylish glasses for the same price that one pair used to cost me. Not only does this allow me to have a backup pair in case I break my glasses, it also allows me to have prescription sunglasses, separate reading glasses, etc.

While the styling of glasses has certainly improved over the years, so has the technology. I'm sure you've all read about Google Glasses. And since this is first and foremost a geek blog, I would be remiss to not mention them. The media has oversaturated the tech world with information on Google Glasses so I won't go into how they work; I'm sure we're all familiar. But I mention them to demonstrate just how far technology can bring us. From a simple glass lens used to magnify small objects to a pair of glasses that can keep you connected to the world in real-time. And all of this in a relatively short period of time. Technology really is amazing. Check out this Emerging Technology Info Graphic that shows a timeline of the technology that has gone into glasses since they were first invented.

 

The Geeky Boozehound - Volume 1 - Caipirinha

So I have decided to start a couple of regular posts about two of my favorite things: Booze and Wine. I'm a bit of an alcohol snob. I enjoy good wine and good liquor. I thought it would be cool to share a few of my favorite drink recipes, share what wines I've been drinking lately, and basically do my best to be a bad influence on you all.

For the first installment of The Geeky Boozehound I want to introduce you all to one of my absolute favorite drinks; the Caipirinha. Being a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu I have become obsessed with all things Brazilian over the years. A good friend of mine from Brazil introduced me to the Brazilian national cocktail several years ago and I was instantly hooked. The Caipirinha is made with a liquor called cachaça, which is a rum distilled from sugar cane. The name "caipirinha" loosely translates to the Brazilian equivalent to the English word "hillbilly". Ironically, it is considered more of a "classy" cocktail in the States since it has begun to become more and more popular here.

Making a Caipirinha is incredibly easy. If you enjoy Mojitos, you probably already have the required bar-ware needed to make the Caipirinha. Here is how it is done:

For each drink you'll need a lime, 2 teaspoons of fine granulated sugar, and 2 ounces of  cachaça. Simply muddle the lime and sugar in an Old-Fashioned glass, add ice, pour in the cachaça, and stir. That is it. You're now ready to enjoy the national cocktail of Brazil.

Caipirinha

Bottoms up, bitches.

Samsung Galaxy SII i777 (AT&T)

Sorry I've been away for a bit folks. Between preparations for the holiday and playing with a new toy I recently picked up, I've been all out of spare time. Speaking of the holiday, I hope everyone had a great one! Now, onward to the geek stuff.

So I had been using an iPhone 3GS since my iPhone 4 crapped out on me a while back. Ok, so I dropped it in the river but let us not talk about that... *twitch*

I had been shopping around for a while trying to decide what to get when I was eligible for an upgrade. I had been bouncing back and forth between the One X and waiting for the Galaxy SIII. I played with a live demo of the One X in a couple of stores and it was pretty bad ass. Then one of the reps recommended I check out the Galaxy SII that they currently had on sale. After messing around with it for a bit I realized that it was, for the most part, all the phone I really needed. It had recently had Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) released for it which was a bonus. It runs a dual-core processor, has plenty of onboard memory and storage, an outstanding camera, etc. So I decided I would give it a shot. I always have 30 days to return it if it sucks, right? So here it is, the Samsung Galaxy SII (i777):



Samsung Galaxy SII

It is just a bit smaller than the One X and the HTC Vivid which was another phone that was in the running to be my next purchase. After a few days of playing with it I really have zero complaints. It is incredibly thin, very light, and the battery life is excellent. Plus if I ever get tired of Ice Cream Sandwich I can always throw CyanogenMod or another custom ROM on there.

If any of you are looking for a new phone, I would highly recommend the Samsung Galaxy SII. It is available on most carriers and since the Galaxy SIII is coming out soon you should be able to find it for a really good price.

Now, can anyone recommend some good Android apps for me? I've been using an iPhone for the past year or so. Haven't had much chance to check out the Android stuff lately.