My Online Presence

I will update this as necessary.

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YouTube (andrewcp)
YouTube (culinarily)
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blogger (YOU ARE HERE)
wordpress (culinarily)
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Myspace (YouDriveBad)
Myspace (AndrewPooleMusic)
Tagged
Woot

Cheap Targus Circular Polarizer

With The Filter


Without The Filter


I didn't have a tripod with me that day.

VIDEO! New YouTube Player?

Pure Pomegranate Juice

If you mix Pomegranate Juice with other juices, it can be pretty good.

100% Pomegranate Juice is gross.

Do Not Try It. There are plenty of healthy things you can enjoy without torturing yourself with a terrible beverage.

That is all.

Birthday Spam

Hello drewcp,
 
We at GameBattles would like to wish you a happy birthday today!

This is kind of funny because I don't remember signing up on GameBattles.


Hey!

Surprised we remembered your birthday? Don’t be. You told us when you
became a Pepsi X-tras member on August 21, 2007.

So blast those speakers. Pop open a Pepsi. Then click below and enjoy
this super silly b-day ditty! And watch for more fun X-tras exclusive
emails from the Pepsi Cola Company all year long.

Amusing because I kinda hate Pepsi.


Hello drewcp,
 
We at Zuneboards would like to wish you a happy birthday today!

That's nice. Although, I haven't even owned a Zune for more than a year now, and I currently LOVEloveLove my iPod touch.


Hello drewcp,
  
We at United Extreme Gaming would like to wish you a happy birthday today!

This  one is fine, and lovely. I'm active in my clan so I'm totally cool with this one.


Hello drewcp,
 
We at SlickDeals.net Forums would like to wish you a happy birthday today!

This is also good, because slickdeals is great and good and quite swell.

Jellyfish was a website. I was, uh...Wrong.

There used to be this awesome website called Jellyfish.com. Microsoft purchased the site in October 2007.

This was like no other shopping site. There were basically three sections to Jellyfish:

Reverse Auctions.

This was exactly what it sounds like. They would offer either a single item or multiple quantities of that item and the price would decrease until it sold out.

Cashback.

If you followed the proper link to one of the partnership sites, you could get a percentage of the purchase price returned to you. This part of the site still lives on. It's now called Bing Cashback. On websites like Slickdeals it is often abbreviated as BCB. It wasn't Microsoft's creation. It's merely something they purchased.

Social Networking.

Every user had a homepage with a live chat box, friends list, and shopping/wish lists. You could go through the Cashback section and add items you wanted or had bought to a list so that they could be visited later or viewed by your friends.

Shortly after Microsoft bought the site, things began to change and some users feared the worst. The frequency of the reverse auctions decreased significantly and the number of items available went from several to just one, among other things.

I recorded a video expressing my confidence in Jellyfish on September 1st, 2008. I believed it would recover. I just now discovered this video on my HDD.



So...Yeah...I was wrong. The site was shut down at Midnight, on February 16th, 2009.

Jellyfish was awesome. It was the most fun of any comparison shopping engine or retail site. A lot of the frequent users found refuge in a facebook group, and I've even added quite a few of them to my personal friends list. It was a close-knit community, with unique and vibrant characters, loving caretakers and very methodical, interesting and entertaining trolls.

Microsoft did what big business does, and took only what was profitable. I can't say I'm mad at them or upset. However, at this point, the fact remains, it's gone. I don't think there will ever be another site to give the same or even a remotely similar social shopping experience to that of Jellyfish.

Crappy Scans of Expired Film (Part Two)

Continuation of:
http://drewcp.blogspot.com/2010/04/crappy-scans-of-expired-film-part-one.html

I think the last two are my favourites from this batch. Which ones do you like best?

Crappy Scans of Expired Film (Part One?)

The expiration date for this roll of film was 12/2007. These photos are from this past week.

I wasn't trying to take good photos. I just wanted to know if my expired film could still be useful so many years after it's expiration.

This film was never refrigerated or frozen. It was just stored at room temperature.

VIDEO! Deluxe 58mm Wide Angle Lens (unboxing)

VIDEO! Satirical Search Story

I've seen quite a few really terrible "Search Stories" videos, so I decided to make one too.

VIDEO! The Greatest Toy of All TIme

VIDEO! The YouTube Subscriptions Box is Broken (April 19th, 2010)

I think maybe the YouTube people were celebrating 4/20 a day early.

Purgatory Playlist Purging (One)

This is a small sample of the ratings that I have assigned to songs today. The collection of songs with no rating in my iTunes library is known as Purgatory. This playlist is where songs wait to see if they have what it takes to make it into regular rotation in my listening habits.


RATING. Artist - Song Title


FOUR. Land of Talk - May You Never

FIVE. Mike Harvat - All That Is Real (I found my self singing along before the song was over. It's very uptempo and friendly.)

TWO. the dead sea - The Devil Bends (The good parts of this song are quite good, but it's very cluttered. There are unnecessary elements that make the track feel crowded. There are a few moments that almost make me claustrophobic. I grew tired of listening to it at about 3 minutes. The track is 4:40 total)

TWO. The Killers - Sam's Town (The vocals don't start until 0:45. This song is over 4 minutes so it gets rated one spot lower than I actually think it deserves. I don't like The Killers very much.)

ONE. Hanson - Speechless (I still enjoy the Middle of Nowhere album from time to time, but this may be the worst song on the entire album. It would be a TWO but it's over 4 minutes long.)

ONE. tobyMac - Hype Man (I'm not typically a fan of kids in songs. I feel like it's a gimmick and frankly, over used. Especially when it's the artists child. Take your kid to work and let him push some buttons and play with the reverberation. I don't need to hear him/her. This will probably the only track on Portable Sounds that gets less than 3 stars. However, I'm not done rating this album yet.)

THREE. nullsleep - bump ur head (This song isn't even 2 minutes long. It cuts off just before it becomes repetitive.)

FOUR. Shut Up Donny - Does She? (If I wasn't so I tired, I could probably remember the words better to start singing along. Right now the lyrics are going by too fast for me. This is very typical of music that I like. It's a somewhat fast punk tune and not all of the parts are performed perfectly but the imperfections in playing give a more raw and real feel to it.)

http://www.last.fm/user/drewcp

Xbox 360 Changes (Pre/Post-Repair Differences)

The HDMI equipped Xbox 360s have been out for quite awhile now. However, if you send a non HDMI model in for repair you'll probably just get another non HDMI model in return. I recently sent in an old Xbox 360 Premium for repair.

The one that I sent in was originally manufactured in 2006. The one they sent back was repaired sometime in 2010.



The one I shipped out was so old that it had the shiny silver paint that was only found on launch era models.



The Security Stickers have changed quite a bit.



The power requirements have not.



If you look closely at that last image, you can see some dirty sticker residue on the new/repaired console from where they removed the original and put on a new sticker. I'm glad to have a working unit instead of a broken one but I wish they would just do away with the ones that don't have HDMI.

Two Times Tripod

I almost put these pictures in my YouTube intro.

Shirt.Woot vs. Threadless (Exactly the Same, Only Different)

Here's the deal. If you buy one of the many awesome shirts from threadless you are going to spend $18+Shipping. This will usually equate to $24 per shirt, unless you buy a bunch, or are buying during one of their sales.

Some of the best threadless shirts have been continuously reprinted for years now. There's a good chance that there is significant amount of other people out there with the same shirt. I can't really blame them. If it's what the customer wants, it's definitely in their best interest to print more.

If you take a look at shirt.woot you will see one Shirt, and only one shirt. However, that shirt changes daily. It will be $10 shipped, or $15 if you want it overnight.

Near the top right there is link which will take you to The Reckoning. These are the more popular shirts that they have decided to keep in production, as long as people keep buying.

"So every Monday, we figure out which of our past shirts are selling the least (measured by post-launch sales per day over the last four weeks) and euthanize them, for their own good and ours."

Shirts from The Reckoning are $15. Overnight shipping is an option for only $5 more.

Threadless has only recently started offering their own brand of shirts for some of their prints. Most of what you'll find will be printed on an American Apparel. Woot Shirts are also printed on high quality American Apparel blanks. I'm not sure if they are exactly the same, but they seem to fit and look the same as far as I can tell.

So, Which Should You Buy?
Buy the shirt(s) that you like the best. Don't let me tell you what to do.

One week you may want one of the Type Tees from Threadless.



However, maybe the next time you're shopping, you might want an epic collision of two fictions from Woot.

City Taxes

I live in a Town where I have to pay City Taxes now. I filed my Federal Income Tax back in January. I filed my Ohio State a couple weeks ago. However, I didn't even do my City Tax form until today. I'll get it in the mail tomorrow, but I definitely shouldn't have waited.

Something must have changed sometime back at the end of June, because the City Tax form wanted me to breakdown the July 1st and after earnings separate from the June 30th and before earnings. I don't think I will ever get used to filing City Taxes.

I can't draw

I've been drawing pictures on DailyBooth a lot lately because I don't particularly like to take photos of myself. I'm just not that vain. However, I'm not particularly talented so they all pretty much look like crap. Also, I only have a few different colors of sharpies so my options are kind of limited.

Hannah Montana...FOREVER!? (A Conspiracy Theory)

I've come across quite a few commercials recently for what I assume to be a new show. The title will be "Hannah Montana Forever" This "final" season will begin airing in July.

If you ever seen the movie The Princess Bride you'll understand this theory...I hope.

I think they're going to pull a Dread Pirate Roberts with this one. No one really knows who Hannah is, so what is stopping someone else from taking over the part? After all, there doesn't appear to be any special requirements to fill the role, she's just a teen girl in a wig.

Only time can prove me wrong.

BEDA Sucks

Blog Every Day April is terrible.

It's not that I lack things to write about, it's just that I don't feel like doing it every day. I'd much rather take a few days to write something so I can come back and proof read it a few times before I publish.

I make it to day 22 doing VEDA last year, and then I gave up. Why did I even try this year?

Maybe I'd feel better about it, if I decided to start writing before 11pm.

VIDEO! Wide Angle to Fisheye (Taking Standard to the EXTREME)

I demonstrate how to get a wider field of view from a cheap Wide Angle Lens without using tools or voiding warranty.


Wide Angle + Macro Lens
Seller
Lens

Step Up & Reversing Rings
Seller
Step Up Ring
Reversing Ring

All prices in the video are current as of April 10th, 2010. I paid slightly more.

Background Music: Broken Room by Alli and I
http://www.myspace.com/alliandi

fffflckr

fffflckr, originally uploaded by drewcp.

I saw this on fffflckr.com/ and thought it was interesting. I don't really understand the site but it seems pretty cool.

Original Images:
Top: www.flickr.com/photos/helenkorpak/4228948250/
Bottom: www.flickr.com/photos/fuckthisshit/3996930715/

Changes in Xbox 360 Labels

When you buy a new Xbox 360 the serial number sticker also shows the manufacture date. It is labeled as MFR Date. A repaired/refurbished console would have the same sticker except next to MFR Date, the date shown would actually be the date that it was repaired.

This is the console I just received from the Tennessee repair center.



If you look closely at the power requirement sticker, you will notice this unit requires 16.5A on the 12V Rail which would indicate that this is an older unit.



They have now started using stickers that say Service Date to clearly indicate if the console has been in for repair.



I think this a good thing because it reduces the chances of someone trying to scam people and sell refurbs as new.

VIDEO! Using a microSD Memory Card as a storage device for the Xbox 360

Microsoft unleashed an update on April 6th that sets Xbox 360 owners FREE of the 512MB restriction on Memory Units. You can now use up to 16GB of a USB storage device for game saves, demos and more. This video shows that with a USB Card Reader you can use a microSD memory card to store your Xbox 360 content.

The Xbox replacement.

Today the Replacement Console arrived. It actually has less of a warranty in terms of length than the initial replacement that they had sent me. I'll be keeping the one with the longer warranty. The other one is going on craigslist because I don't have an extra power supply to make use of it.

VIDEO! New YouTube Layout (2010)

YouTube changed it's layout on March 31st 2010. YouTube automatically enrolled me in the testing without me knowing what was going on. If you look you'll see I actually uploaded this video on the 13th of March. I didn't know what was going on at the time.

Microsoft Telephone Etiquette

Approximately 2:12pm, Microsoft called to let me know that my Xbox 360 replacement was on the way. I appreciate them calling between 2pm and 4pm as I requested but on a Sunday? on Easter Sunday?

I understand that it wasn't a telemarketer but it wasn't such an urgent matter that I needed to know right then. They could have told me on Saturday. They could have told me on Friday when they sent it out.

It was a short phone call but I still think it was a bit rude.

Dailybooth Following

There are 116 people currently following me on dailybooth.
I rarely take pictures. I feel like I'm letting them down.
I want to get a haircut first. I haven't had a haircut in a long time.

Trying Muenster

I bought 5 slices of Muenster from the Deli at a local store today. I ate one, and the rest was used for Bacon Cheeseburgers. They were delicious. It was delicious. Muenster Cheese is Delicious.

Xbox Customer Service is a Funny Thing

I sent my Xbox 360 Elite in for repair recently and the replacement they sent me arrived with a damaged faceplate. The functionality of the console was in no way affected. I've played several games since I've got it and none have had issues.

I thought I'd let them know about it and see what (if anything) they would do. I called 1 800 4 MY XBOX and let a customer service rep know what happened. I then had to wait about 5 minutes to talk to a supervisor.

The supervisor didn't have much to say. He only asked for my Name, Contact Info, and The Best Time To Reach Me. Today is the fifth day after that initial call and someone finally got in touch with me. I was told that they contacted UPS and that UPS was going to pay for a replacement console. I think this is a bit excessive but I'm super stoked.

I received and email just moments ago stating that they have received the Xbox, and will begin processing my repair. This Xbox is less than 2 ft from me, here in Ohio. At this point, it seems like they are going to let me keep the console that arrived damaged.

This is a Major Win for me, but a pretty Massive Fail for Microsoft. They could have just sent me a new faceplate.