The Cabbage Patch

A useful skill to have, kinda

Hello World.

This is a segment from a Japanese TV show depicting a guy doing some very cool pool trick-shots.  I’ve seen this guy on some other trick-shot shows, and he’s bloody good.  I just can’t see a point to it, is all.  I will say this though, even though I can’t understand a word that is spoken in the video, it’s really very suspenseful.

Argue and discuss to your heart’s content

Hello World.

I have updated The Cabbage Patch Forums to the new bbPress software (previously I was using Vanilla).  What this means is tighter integration with the main blog portion of the site.

Now you can use one registration for comments on the blog and for discussions in the forum.  Simply register here and you can use the same login and password site-wide.  The benefits of registering also include not having to type in your details every time you want to comment on a blog entry.  If you have already registered on the blog you do not need to re-register - your details will automatically carry across.

Unfortunately, the old discussions could not be transferred across to the new system.  Seeing as they hadn’t been used in over a month, however, I don’t think any one will mind terribly.

I’m hoping that by adding these easier to use forums, we might be able to move some of the discussions which happen in the comments over to their own section.  Don’t get me wrong - I love reading you guys go at each other as much as the next guy, but I would prefer to keep post comments post-specific.  It’s rather annoying having to skim through a bunch of comments to find the time I said “blah” to so-and-so about such-and-such a topic.  Again, I don’t want to change any of the discussion that may happen on the site, just move it to it’s own place.  Plus, I won’t be censoring anything in the forums - they are an anything goes zone - but I like to keep the front pages of the site clean in case of casual traffic.

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Oh, and Tom, I won’t be changing “forums” to “fora”.  I know it’s technically correct, but to change all the links, sub-domains, folders, redirects etc… well, it’s just not worth it.  Plus, “WordWeb“, which I use for all things spelling and grammar, recognises “forums” as a legitimate plural form.  Deal with it you pedant.

Tags: Forums

Gaming the way it used to be done

Hello World.

Some of you may remember the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) gaming console, although for many of my readers it was before our time (it was, after all, released in Australia in the year I was born).  Regardless of whether you played it the first time around, you now have the chance to (re)live the golden era of 8-bit gaming with vNES.

Many of the 420 games available will be familiar to anyone who has ever owned a NES or an old-school GameBoy.  These are not cheap knock-offs, they are the real games in full.

You will need a modern browser (try Firefox) and Java 5 or later to play these games.

Smells Like Orchestral Spirit

Hello World.

This is a cool video of a high-school orchestra playing Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit.  It’s actually quite a nice song once you remove Kurt Cobain from the equation.

Tags: Cool

Project 365 - Pseudo-art wankery brought to you by The Cabbage Patch

Hello World.

It should be no surprise to readers of Da Patch that I am a fan of photographing events and people.  I try to take my dinky little camera to every “thing” I attend, and attempt to document it in some way through photos.  You can see these photos here.

But now I have decided to take the “photos as document” idea a little further.  An article I read on Lifehacker (which pointed to another article on Photojojo) has inspired me to start my own “Project 365″.

Basically, Project 365 entails taking one photo per day, every day, for a whole year.  No exceptions.

In this way, a sort of record is created, documenting a year of one’s life.

From Photojojo:

Taking a photo a day is a big undertaking with big payoffs. Here are just a few reasons why you should consider doing it:

• Imagine being able to look back at any day of your year and recall what you did, who you met, what you learned… (Often we find it hard to remember what we did just yesterday or even last night, let alone a whole year ago!)
• Your year-long photo album will be an amazing way to document your travels and accomplishments, your haircuts and relationships. Time moves surprisingly fast.
• Taking a photo a day will make you a better photographer. Using your camera every day will help you learn its limits. You will get better at composing your shots, you’ll start to care about lighting, and you’ll become more creative with your photography when you’re forced to come up with something new every single day.

I don’t expect any of the photos to be any good, or at all interesting, however I like to think that it may actually be fun.

Anyway, if you’d like to follow along and see my life develop through a series of photos, you can check it out here.  I also have a set of the photos from each day which don’t make the cut here.

Slideshow after the jump.

› Continue reading

Beware - semi-legal TV streams may cause time deficiency

Hello World.

I’m starting this post with a disclaimer: I do not, in any way, support or promote any illegal activity of any kind.  I have no association with the following websites, and do not host or distribute any illegal or copyrighted content.

There, arse sufficiently covered.

TV links is a website of questionable legality which provides links to stream-able episodes of TV shows.  The episodes themselves are located all over the place (YouTube, Dailymotion, etc) but “TV links” aggregates them all into one place.

There are currently dozens of shows available, including Band of Brothers, Scrubs, Kenan and Kel (hell yeah!), Lost, Futurama and heaps more.  More episodes and series are added almost daily.

Now, piracy is piracy is piracy.  Most people agree that it is illegal, immoral and generally bad all over.  However, these are all television programs which were originally broadcast for free, and earned the advertising or subscription revenue they did upon their original airing.  I know this doesn’t make it right, but I personally feel that there is at least some argument for free distribution of television programs in such a manner as this.  You can make up your own mind.

Tags: TV

New Feature: Page Thumbnails

Hello World.

This is just a quick post to tell you I have added a small feature to Da Patch - Page Thumbnails.

If you hover your mouse over external links from now on, a small thumbnail will pop up showing you the page you will get to.  I know there must be a use for this functionality in there somewhere, but for now it’s enough that it looks so damn cool.

Thumbnails provided by WebSnapr.  Wordpress integration provided by the WP-Websnapr plugin.

Are u ready for chaos? Well, punk? Are ya?

Hello World.

Virus 2 is a kind of puzzle-type game where the aim is to turn the entire board of coloured blocks all the same colour.  Switching to a colour will “collect” all the pieces of that colour that are touching your pieces.  I don’t really know what else to say about it other than that, so go ahead and play it below.

This one should work directly in the page, but knowing my luck it probably won’t work for everyone.  Make sure you have all the latest versions of Flash and Shockwave, and are using the latest version of whatever browser you use.  If all else fails, try playing it here.

What kind of Wanksta? A Bohemian Wanksta!

Hello World.

Anyone who knows me (or who listened to the live broadcasts of our SURG shows) will know that I have a… how should I put it?… bizarre taste in music.  Throw any song at me and I will probably like it (and most likely already have it), however make it funny, strange or unusual and I will be praising your name.

This week I have discovered an album that is funny, strange and unusual all at once - and it also happens to be an incredibly impressive musical feat.

What am I talking about?  Why, Q-Unit of course!

This is an entire mash-up album bringing together the most unlikely duet in modern music - rapper 50 Cent and glam-rockers Queen.  It’s been put together by DJs The Silence Xperiment and is available for free download.

Now, I know by posting this I am probably going to receive some nasty comments, but please consider this before you yell at me:  I am about as big of a Queen fan as there is, and I hate 50 Cent.  This “album”, however, is so hilariously funny that these things seem irrelevant.  After a few minutes, these songs feel like they were meant to be this way.  Even if you dislike one or both of these artists (as I have said - I do), have a listen anyway simply for the sheer brilliance in how it has been put together.  These guys are genii (yes, the plural of genius is genii).

The site is also worth a visit for this picture alone.

A word of warning though - as 50 Cent’s lyrics feature prominently on this album, there is a definite bad language warning.  If you are offended by the implication that you may be fornicating with someone’s maternal parent, perhaps you should skip this one.

Tags: Downloads

Download: The Filter

Hello World.

I don’t often feature program downloads on Da Patch, but I have found this one so interesting I just had to mention it.

The Filter is a program / plugin for iTunes (Windows only for now, Mac coming soon) which, according to the website, “creates perfect playlists from your iTunes library”.  I don’t know if I’d say perfect, but I will say pretty damn good.

Simply select a track (or a few tracks), and press the big black “F” button, and The Filter will create a playlist from songs in your library based around your selections.  The result is a diverse selection of songs that actually seem to go well together much better than iTunes’ built-in shuffle mode.  It also learns about your taste as you use it, remembering which tracks you skipped over compared to which you played through, and builds future playlists accordingly.

It’s very useful for making “mood playlists” - for example a playlist for doing work to, or (as I have) one for waking up to.

And no, if you feed Maroon 5 or Panic! At the Disco into it, it will not suddenly make them good.

Read more about The Filter here, or download it here.

Tags: Downloads