HSDEMONZ.com

I’ve been meaning to show off one of my hobbies for a long, long time here on HSDEMONZ.com and that is amateur accident photographer. Yup.. I’m worse than a rubber Necker folks..  as I will stop the car.. get  out.. grab my camera and get in your face at the worst possible time and snap off a few photos. Make some money form it sometimes.

Other times.. I just snap some pics of shit boxes that people somehow keep road worthy.  I could be driving.. or walking around or whatever. If I only got my camera.. then I’ll use that. If I got the good stuff.. I’m not beyond whipping out the video camera to film someone’s shameful ride.

Cars/Aug162006/

To look at that car.. it would appear he’s taken some cheap car.. and added body panels on top of body panels. The car looks totally wrong. Someone out there who actually knows something about cars, do me a fav and tell me what car he butchered to make that monstrosity.

Next up… 911..

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These two clowns hit each other.. and frankly both were at fault. They managed to hold up traffic for an hour until the police finally came and order their cars to be towed off.

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First.. you gotta  read this shit: infiniumlabs.com/home.html

When will the continuous line of bullshit, hype, and misdirection ever end?

The clown outfit we’ve come to know as Infinium Labs, the boys who have brought us absolutely nothing in 4 years of trying, have now officially dropped the ball and have announced they will no longer pretend to make a Game Console.

Instead, they will just write some half ass application that will run on a regular pc running regular windows.

Yay.

It gets better folks. You see.. Infinium Labs over the last 3 to 4 years have managed to take investors for 10’s of millions of dollars. So much so, that I honestly no longer remember.

Over the years, they’ve also managed to draw the ire of the stock exchange due to iffy and unethical practices used to solicit funds. These guys have tried so many under handed methods to collect funds that they are becoming the poster child for Smoke and Mirrors scams.

Maybe someone can update Wikipedia with an entry for scam artists.

Back to the Better part…

These guy are going to “finally” release their surfboard. Er… Keyboard.

After years of swindling people with deep pockets and millions of dollars, Infinium Labs have decided to take their stellar reputation for quality products and services (note.. to date.. they have had NONE) and attempt to finally market the keyboard.

So.. get this.. for 129$ US Dollar, (before taxes and shipping costs) you can “pre-order” this board.. er keyboard. Now.. given the history that Infinium Labs have had over the years for NOT DELIVERING on every single promise of product and services, they expect you, the consumer.. to not fall prey to their new scam.

Why on Earth would anyone give them their credit card info, 3 or more months before this alleged keyboard ever see the light of day? At that price, I can get far better keyboards, and have them in Bluetooth instead of their RF.

So.. for what is probably the 4th or 5th time, they have re-branded and imagined their web page, in the hopes that people forget the bullshit, lies and deceptions. Not bloody likely.

Anyone out there who feels like getting ripped off.. or at least disappointed by another missed deadline and another product that never ships.. wait for Phantom Surfboard to appear in the fall.

Personally.. I’d rather book multiple root canals after getting sucker kicked by a bull-mule.

Anyone who dislikes my opinions.. you are free to suck my dick. The Bottom line about Infinium Labs.. is that they have continued year after year to suck investors in, and produce nothing. Now, they intend to suck in the consumer as well.

Caveat Emptor Folks.

(anyone still waiting to beta test their hardware? Drop me a pm if you were on that beta tester list with me.. and are still waiting for Infinium to honor their promises)

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Last week was the beginning of a lot of craziness in my personal life. We’ve been dealing with my wife’s mother for a couple of years now. Somewhere around 3 years ago she basically when downhill mental wise. She called the police on her 10 year boyfriend, and had him charged with assault.

Well.. within a week, we learned that he had never touched her.. and that in fact she had in fact bruised herself. My wife discovered her a week later, sitting in a rocker/recliner and just pinching herself.  From that point on her mother was pretty much nuts’ as far as we were concerned.

We help her ex-boyfriend get off on those bogus charges, and he moved on with his life. That left the Psycho bitch mother alone and on the prowl.  However, without him, she had no real source of income, except for some government cheque she collects. Disability most likely.

With the help of my wife, she got another cheque to aid with her rent. So, now single, for the first time in a decade, and with 2 cheques coming to her you’d think she’d do fine right?

Well.. over a year and a half ago she managed to get herself somehow evicted from the building she lived in for 5 or so years. The wife took some time, and found her a spot in a nice condo. 3 months later she managed to fuck that deal up and was homeless again. Attempt number 2..  same result.

Finally.. around the time I was off last summer with the busted foot.. she managed to have herself kicked out of another apartment. This time.. we put her up for a week (5 days) while I struggled to not kill her with a frying pan.

So.. wifey did her thing.. and found a place that was willing to accept her.  Course.. at this point.. finding an apartment willing to deal with her mother wasn’t easy. By far.. it was likely the worst hole in the wall yet. Shared communal kitchen and washroom facilities. But at least we were rid of her mother.

During the last few years, we’ve made many attempts to get her professional help. Somehow, this woman seems to talk her way out of every 72 hour assessment she encounters with a shrink ward.

Anyways.. time to shift to the most recent few months. Maybe around April, we get the bad feelings in the pit of our stomachs again. Sure enough, her mother is complaining about the conditions of her hole in the wall. (her complaint.. is that she can’t smoke there, a condition of her staying there, which she agreed to originally)

Despite out best efforts to assure her that she needed to stay there under those conditions, she manages to “give” up that apartment. She claimed to have a new one lined up. Of course.. she didn’t.

A few years back, when most of this began, her stuff like luggage, furniture, tv, etc were all put into public storage. All this time.. she’s been spending20% of her monthly income to live AWAY from her belongings. (go figure)

So.. she’s lost the place she has stayed in for 8+ months. She had no new place despite her lies. Her stuff sits in storage. All she really had was a bag of clothes. Maybe a toothbrush.. etc.

The then proceeds to spend the next month or so trying to snow us.. telling us about her new “place” and how nice it is and how great she’s doing. Surely.. she was embarrassed to be homeless. When I mean homeless.. I mean living in a government operated Hostile here in Toronto.

What’s sadly ironic about that is.. the Hostiles have so many more rules than any regular apartment landlord. This is how far her life has slid downhill.

She went on lying and bullshittting to us, even though we had done a trace and learned full well where and how she was living. We confronted her. She agreed to stop the bullshit and lies.

Of course.. that was wishful thinking.

Things came to a head about 2 weeks ago. It was clear she wasn’t maintaining the bills/upkeep on the storage facility. We couldn’t give 2 shits about the furniture, etc. However, this woman’s personal family photos, my wife’s early childhood photos, etc.. were all in there.

So.. my wife being the saint and the brains of this pony show made an arrangement with the storage facility. $200.. paid by us, with a signed authorization from her mother.. would give me, and my wife 2 hours access to the locker. We’d be allowed only personal items, clothes, and photos.

We agreed.  The potential haul of family history tied up in that locker was worth it. It was a gamble, as with so many moves over the years all we head from her mother was that the good stuff was gone or stolen. (this is a constant story/theme with her.)

So, 2 weeks ago, we got the authorization, and explained to her mother anything we get out of that locker is legally ours. She agreed. We promised to get her some clothes for the winter. We did.

So, we bring home roughly 8 bags of luggage or similar sized packaged. Most of which had clothes. We did however score a treasure, every photo and album we had ever seen, and even some we hadn’t. So, 200$ was well spent. We had all the photographed history we could ever want.

Feeling as though we had done enough over the years to try and help her, this past week we told her she had less than a week to make arrangements to get all of this shit we grabbed for her. (minus the photos of course)

She flipped. Gave us the usually bullshit. Her “new place” wouldn’t be ready.. etc.

So we told her, come by.. “grab what you can carry tonight.. cause the rest is going in the garbage tomorrow”.

She dropped by. Grabbed 3 bags, and basically everyone involved told everyone else to fuck off. That was fine. We told her that she had better be at her hostile the next day (last Friday) as we were going to drop off the other 6 bags of crap there whether she was there or not. Of course.. she threatened us some more. Told us she’d call the police.

Every bag there.. technically belonged to us. She long since signed away her rights to any of it. However, we did get it out for her so she’d not lose every single thing she had in her life.  Before she left though, she made it a point to say she’d kidnap my daughter in order to see her.

That broke the camels back. We contacted the police as she hoofed it with 3 bags back to her castle, the Hostile.

The Police showed up in short order, and provided us with a lot of good info and advice on how to further pursue action against her.

The next day.. after a long anxious day at work, we gathered the clan, loaded a van and headed down to the hostile. So.. Van loaded, wife, me, my mother, and her husband the caravan headed to the hostile. Before getting out, I give my mom the Cell Phone set to movie capture mode.. and told her to aim it at us, and then at my wife’s mother should she appear. I wanted everything well documented. I was in shock I must say. For those of you who have not been in a Toronto hostile, it’s a real eye opener.

Me and the wife enter the hostile, and 6 bags. Mrs. HSD grabs the attention of the jerk off behind the bullet proof glass.. but her mother isn’t “home”. We stew in our juices for 30 seconds, and then her mother enter the hostile. Turns out.. she had watched our approach.

We said “here’s your stuff” and then we heard the clerk say “2 bags maximum..” I took that as our cue to drop everything.. and get the fuck out of there. She said what I figure is the last goodbye ever to her mother.

We hopped in the van and sped away as if we’d have robbed a bank that night. I can say one thing for sure, that for the first time in years, we felt some relief.

With my wife, mother, and her husband all feeling a mix of emotions, we decided to embrace the moment and get some Chinese Buffet.

It was a good night. It’s a shame that after all of these years, this Psycho Bitch mother in Law of mine had to push us, and her own daughter away, forcing us to finally take such drastic and final action.  I have no doubt my wife is still smarting from that situation, but what we did that Friday night, was done to preserve OUR family.

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I went out 2 weekends ago and decided to reward myself with a second LCD monitor for my main machine. The video card I have has a dual head and I’ve been itching to add a second 19 inch lcd to this setup.  So, me and my bud go out Saturday, and part take in our usual Saturday fare.. Sushi and sashimi.  We washed that down with some drinks.. then head over to Best Buy to scope out what they have available.

Lots of 19, 20, and 21 inch options available. I could buy 3-4 19 inch monitor for what I paid for my original 19 inch LCD I bought 2-3 years ago.  So, I spot the one I want.. but I wouldn’t commit until I found a fully articulated mounting armature for it. (preferably a matching one for the one I already use.)

So.. looking around the LCD section.. we find a matching arm to the one I’ve got. It’s in a beat up box though. So, I try and get some service in BB.. 15 minutes it took to get someone to acknowledge me, much less give me the answers I needed. Another 10 minutes to find out the Arm I wanted.. would only be discounted 5$, and that the LCD I wanted turned out to be the final demo and would only be discounted 10$ (the clown tried to claim that was COST.. yah right.)

So.. after we jointly gave then the single finger salute, we head off to Future Shop. (same thing as BB, in fact.. BB now owns them) not only do we find an LCD that matches my original monitor (just newer model) it’s boxed proper.. new.. and cheaper than the demo at BB. Found the matching arm too.. and they cut me a better deal than BB did as well.

So.. New 19 inch in hand.. we return home to find that my PC that normally runs 24/7 has blue screened.
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No problem. I’m experienced. I’ll get it running.

Reboot.

“S.M.A.R.T error blah blah blah”

The Hard Drive that housed C / Windows and ll my core shit was corrupt and slowly dying. Could bot all the way into windows. Recovery console was useless.

No biggie.. I’ll put Xp with SP2 on what was the second drive, a 200gb. 30 minutes later.. I was up and running. I was able to access the original c.. (a 100gb) and started the process of moving My Doc, and anything else needed.

Once done.. I told windows to ignore that buggered drive and no display it. I did the same in the Bios of the PC.

My mistake, was not removing it.. or at least fully disconnecting it from the motherboard/ide/power connectors.

Within hours.. I ended up with a corrupt windows install.

Twice in the same day.. except of course that the 200 had NO S.M.a.R.T warnings or any of physical issues.

After some research and some trial and error I narrowed it all down to the fact that despite my efforts to have the pc not see that buggered original drive, while it was connected, it was wrecking havoc.

So, I removed it outright, and opted to install windows again, this time on the original e (another 100gb)

30 minutes later.. windows was up and running. Took me days though to get most of my programs installed again. Finding keys/license printouts, etc. was a pain.

Dual Wallpaper/aug82006-2.jpg

Lesson Learned: When Hardware shows signs of failure, remove it completely. Don’t just disable it and hope that’s the end of the problem.

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I’ll be the first to admit that I’m the up to date on many of the latest techno trends. My OS is typically 2-4 years behind, and sometimes my hardware follows the same pattern. I have however been in an upgrading vein lately. Not sure if it’s the new job and opportunities or money.. or if some other unforeseen forces are at work here. (or play)

So.. since I started working for my country’s largest Cable and Cell provider I’ve had my interest peaked. Cell Phones.. as far as the eye can see each and every day. So, almost as if via osmosis I have been absorbing information about cell phones, gimmicks, services and plans.

Personally, I have been looking for a replacement for my PSP. I don’t game on the PSP (as nothing on it is honestly worth my time) but I used to think the screen on it made it a worthy Video player/mp3 player. A service it carried out quite well since it’s launch. I have no qualms about it.. short of it’s size and weight.

I was wearing it on my belt all day long, and to be honest, the PSP is pretty heavy. So, requirement number one I needed something small and light.

Second up.. while I have an impressive collection of camera’s, but still and video wise I never really had one small enough to keep on my person throughout the day. I didn’t need 8-11mp SLR quality stuff.. but I did want at minimum 2mp.

So.. I new I needed a new MP3 player.. a smaller Video player, and a small and lightweight still camera that was at least 2mp.

W810i

I decided this was the perfect compromise of form, function, and cool tech toy goodness.  Sleek Black Walkman Package, quad band phone capable, Bluetooth, full organizer and pim compatible with Outlook including calendar, notes, tasks, etc. It also sports a wicked mp3 player, video player, 2 mp camera capable of taking videos of any length (limited only to space constraints.)

I am seriously addicted to this phone. A while ago I decided to forego the “pleasure” of driving to and from work all the time and decided to ride the rocket. I work only 30+ minutes from home so the time and cost of public transit was very appealing. During that commute I listen to Howard Stern or Bubba the Love Sponge. When that gets dry, I got 10-25 albums on the 2GB memory Stick Pro Duo I put in it (migrated from the retired PSP)

At other times I’ll watch PPV of Wrestling, MMA, etc on the screen in either portrait of landscape mode. I found that the IMTOO 3gp tool is awesome for converting virtually and video format to the native video format of the cell phone. Visual and audio quality is impressive. Conversion time is minimum as well. Minutes for files that are hours long.

Let’s not forget that Sony 2mp Camera.  While 2mp is nothing these days, when used right it can produce a very nice photograph.  I doubt many people can say they have had photos developed from pics taken by their cell phone.. however, I can say that. It’s a great camera.. and at the 2mp cell/camera level I dare say one of the best. It’s ability to work in poor light and give exceptional results astounds me.

So.. I’m pretty happy with it. When I don’t feel like listening to the mp3 collection.. I switch to FM radio mode. It’s not a high end FM tuner.. but.. it’ll work in a pinch, and it’s clearly better than NO FM tuner at all like most current gen phone.

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