Click for video

Kids dancing to Kelis' "My Milkshake" performed live by an Amish cover band. There are so many things wrong here, I can't keep track.

P.S. The sound quality in that video doesn't do the band justice. They're actually quite good.

Kitchenaid Artisan Stand Mixer

So how much would you be willing to spend for this fabulous product? $250, like the price tag says? No, way! That's the sucker price!

If you act now, using the super-saver 20% coupon you received in the mail the day that your wife went to visit her family, we can get it down to $200! Unbelievable, but true!

Still too much? Hmmm, well, if you have a $50 gift certificate from a contest at work, you can get it down to $150! "Wow, $150," you say, "what a deal!"

But wait, there's more! Let's say you had a $50 credit from a returned Christmas present. Then this incredible mixer can be yours for only $100! "$100! Are you insane???" you ask. As you can probably tell, yes! I'm insane! Insane with savings!

And I'm not done yet! If you volunteer to help with someone's website, but they give you money anyway, then you can get this mixer, and all three included attachments for free!!! Incredible!

As we all know, it doesn't get cheaper than free.

Or does it???

Only because I like you, (and because Kitchenaid is currently running a promotion), you can send away for the attachment of your choice, for free. That's a $70 dollar value!

So, to recap, you get:
- The mixer
- The 3 attachments
- A recipe booklet
- Yelled at by your wife
- A free-by-mail attachment of your choice

A $320 value, all yours -- for free!!!

How could I pass that up? Personally, I think she should have been mad if I didn't take advantage of such a great offer.

P.S. Amy, I already licked it, so now we can't return it.

The weekend was a lot of fun, despite getting off to a rocky start. First, a little background: The French word for "Uncle" is "Tonton", which is pronounced "tahn-tahn". "Tahn-tahn" is also how you pronounce the name of one of the creatures from Star Wars.

A Tauntaun

As both a Star Wars fan and a French Uncle, I've always gotten a kick out of this. However, upon arriving at Amy's folks house, we find the girls playing with two of these toys they got at Burger King:

A Wampa Beast

Now, as any Star Wars fan worth his space-salt can tell you, the Wampa Beast is the sworn enemy of the Tauntaun. In fact, according to this site:

With a crushing blow from its clawed hand, a wampa is strong enough to snap the neck of even a hardy tauntaun.

Gulp.

Luckily, the omen had no ill-effect for the rest of the weekend, and we had a lot of fun playing such games as "Make Tonton Kevin Eat Grass", "Pass the Spoon", and the unfortunately-translated "Captain Crochet" (doesn't have quite the same ferocity as its English version: "Captain Hook")

On Sunday I came back, and now I'm all by my lonesome.

I had planned to set up Amy's parents' computer while I was there, so we could video chat when I got back to NY. This way we could see each other, probably save on some phone bills, and my nieces won't forget who I am.

I had first tried videoconferencing about eight years ago, but the whole experience was so flaky and frustrating I haven't tried it again until now. But I figured it had been long enough, and surely the technology powers-that-be had worked out all the glitches.

Well, apparently, the technology powers-that-be have been doing Jello shots for the past eight years, because it's still flaky and frustrating, but now with prettier graphics. By the time we got everything up and running, we were both too tired to really use it. So we quit and went to bed. Maybe future sessions will be easier.

My current hobby is disturbing me a little, though. To see why, let's take a look at a few of my past hobbies, and the "toy" I wanted the most to go with them, and compare to my new one.

Car repair

I took three courses in car repair, and all it really led to was doing my own oil changes for a year and changing a starter motor on a car we got rid of stortly thereafter. They toy I wanted most:

This PDA add-on that could analyze the output from the car's computer. It would have been awesome.

Woodworking

I took one course in Cabinetmaking (a.k.a. "How not to cut your fingers off with a table saw"), and used all that knowledge to install a fake hardwood floor. The toy I wanted most:

A nice miter saw for making great angle cuts. And catapults.

So far so good, right? Cars, tools, oil, sawdust... That's just good, manly stuff. John Wayne would be proud.

My new Hobby? Weightlifting? Mountain-climbing? No:

Baking

I watch one stupid TV show, and what little car and woodworking knowledge I had was quickly replaced by the number of tablespoons in a cup (16) or why an egg can be used to keep oil and water-based ingredients from separating (it contains lecethin, an emulsifier). My protective googles have been replaced by a protective apron, and my cordless drill gave way to a hand-mixer.

My new must-have toy:

A freakin' stand mixer (with optional pasta maker attachment, awesome!).

I've gone from possibly sawing my hand off to possibly burning the blueberry scones. At this rate, Amy and I will be fighting for the sewing machine by this time next year.

I'm not really trying to learn French, and I doubt I'll ever try to speak it -- I do enough damage to English -- but I'd like to be able to pick up a little of what my nieces are saying, especially before they're old enough to start using it to make fun of me. I figure if I learn a few words early enough, they'll be wary.

What's funny about these CDs is that they're called "Learn French in your Car", but they come with a booklet to be used along with the CDs, so you can see what the instructor is saying. I'm sure this booklet has been found at the scene of many car accidents. I don't use the booklet.

Once I popped in the CDs, I quickly became entranced by the beauty of what came out of my speakers.

Time

I had a hard time pronouncing this one at first. Now I just think about biting into a big ball of tin foil, and the sound comes out by itself.

Apparently, I have some nice luggage, as this lady thinks it's marvelous.

I also picked up this neat phrase:
"Avez-vous une salle moins cher?"

Took me a while to figure it out, but from what I can tell:
Avez-vous = Do you have
salle = room
moins = less
So I guess it means
"Do you have a room with less Cher?"

That's something you might want to know how to say in several languages.

A quick word of thanks to loyal kevincooney.com reader Bill B., who spotted this article in Computer World magazine, and was kind enough to scan it and send it in. An additional word of thanks to Bill for not hacking my website despite repeated threats to do so.*

*I'd like to see him try, though. Personally, I don't think it can be done.

To commemorate this event, here's a special "Where are they now?" follow up on some of the more memorable blog entries. If my site were a sitcom, this would be the clip-show:

Gameznflix - What was once my retirement fund has been reduced to a slice-of-pizza-and-a-coke fund. Somehow they managed to sneak in another zero between the decimal point and their first significant digit, bringing their price-per-share from $0.065 to $0.0055.

Godzilla - After a few other backgrounds, I'm back to Godzilla. Sill no one has noticed.

Joe Toyota - I'm pretty sure Joe Toyota has moved on from selling Priuses to selling lunar real estate and other items with fictitious delivery dates.

Toyota North - Mere weeks after I made fun of their website (if you consider 14 "mere"), they redesigned it.

Dan Rather - Shortly after my posting, Dan Rather announced his retirement. Coincidence? Yes. But I'll take credit/blame anyway.

The Turkey - Still in the freezer.

Thanks for all the support from friends, and family, except for that one person. You know who you are.

Here's to another year of making stuff up!

* I later incorporated two earlier site updates as blog entries, which is why you see two entries before the May 9th one. But they weren't intended as blog entries, so I don't count them. Not to mention that one of them was about my sister-in-law.

He watch approvingly while I did my thing. Until trouble hit.

As some of you may remember (or even had the distinct honor of experiencing first-hand), a few of my co-workers and I had a catapult-building contest a few years back. (man, three years later and that still sounds nerdy). It was originally slated to be an annual event, so I decided to keep mine when tossing was over. Since the local catapult storage facility was full, I stashed my disassembled seige machine behind my parents' shed. Fast-forward three years later, and I've been assigned to clear out that very area.

With no scheduled catapult contests in sight, and the Turks kept safely at bay, I really had no reason to hang on to it. So with a heavy heart, I brought it to the curb.

I was very sad. So was Mr. Brickman.

Tonight I got a preview of my extended me-time, as Amy is visiting her Grandmother in Ohio. Turns out I revert to "Advanced Caveman" quite quickly.

My dinner of choice: Frozen pizza (microwavable, no less) and a beer (domestic). Eaten in front of the TV. I debated about the plate, but decided to go for it -- hey, I'm not an animal.

Luckily, Amy comes back tomorrow

On a related note, Amy's older sister will be moving to Virginia for the summer so she and our nieces can spend some time with the American family. Now that Amy has some time on her hands, she might be moving to Virginia as well while they're in the States. I'll be staying in New York, and putting a heck of a lot of miles on the Prius on the weekends.

So this summer I'll have my own bachelor pad. I've already placed the order for the foosball table.

Honestly, though, if this happens (and it looks more and more likely every day), what should I do with myself in the evenings? Take a class? Build a robot butler? (I could probably use one if I'll be by myself). I just don't know.

Mark quickly put all of our previous tabletop masterpieces to shame.

After our plates had been cleared, we turned our attention to the sugar packets on the table, since Amy has a habit of eating the sugar straight from the packets.* Sometimes she just eats the packets whole. She was happy to see that Splenda was starting to turn up everywhere, so that her habit will be a little healthier. This led to a lengthy discussion of which sugar substitute was best. To settle the issue, we decided to organize a taste test.

Here were the contestants: Sugar, Sweet 'n' Low, Equal, and Splenda. (You can also see my sad attempt at drawing a monkey, also in orange.) I emptied out each packet into its own little pile on a plate. At this point, we started getting looks from the other diners, who probably thought were were about to do (or were already on) some drugs.

Since the sugars were too distinct-looking, we had Mark close his eyes so he couldn't see them. I helped guide his finger to each of the piles. This is when we really started to get strange looks.

The results: Mark has no sense of taste (in either sugar or friends). He picked Splenda as the real sugar. In Mark's defense, he tried the Sweet 'n' Low first, which I thought left such an aftertaste that it made the others all taste the same. Maybe we should have been more thorough with our palette-cleansing between tastes. Or been doing something else entirely.

So this movie-and-maccaroni-grill combo is quickly turning into tradition. Maybe next time I'll bring my own crayons.

*Okay, she doesn't really eat sugar packets, but I don't remember how the whole sugar thing came up.

As you may have noticed, my site has been down for about two weeks. During that time, I've received literally more than one email asking what happened, so I thought I'd take some time to fill you all in.

While I'm still not entirely sure what happened, I have it on good authority that this picture was taken at my hosting company's St. Patrick's Day party mere moments before the outage:

Serves them right for having margaritas on St. Patrick's day

For the somewhat real story from my hosting company, click here. Doesn't clear up a whole lot, so I like my explanation better.

But regardless of the cause, the effect was that I lost a lot of stuff. Luckily, I had just backed up my blog entries mere moments before the site went down. However, as you can tell by flipping through a couple older entries, almost all of my hilarious images are gone (my non-hilarious ones are mostly intact), in addition to all the non-blog pages on my site. So a lot of stuff is gone for good, but hopefully I'll be able to get some things back up over the next few weeks.

You also might have noticed that I've entered my Blue Period. The green was even getting on my nerves.

P.S. Some friends and I are thinking of ditching our hosting company and heading out on our own. So if you'd like your own website, or if you have one and don't like your host, let me know. We're trying to get enough people to make it cost effective.

Normally for St. Patrick's day, I take the day off of work, go down to NYC to meet up with some friends, and see the parade. This year, however, I'll be out of town for the big day. Luckily for me, my town has their St. Patrick's Day early, so this past Sunday I had a nice stand-in for my yearly tradition.

It was enjoyable, but mostly uneventful, with the exception of this guy:

I was really impressed that Guinness went to the extent of hiring someone to dress like a giant Guinness and come to my small town's parade. Or maybe this guy just has an obsession with Guinness and a nimble sewing hand. Regardless, this guy was great. This picture here wasn't even supposed to happen, since I just wanted a picture of Amy and her sister with him. But after I took that shot, Guinness-guy insisted I be in a shot with him. As Amy was getting the camera ready, he said "Drink me!" and then leaned over, leading to the pose you see in the picture.

I have to say that as good as he was, I'm a bit mystified that this idea didn't really raise any eyebrows with the parade organizers, or with the Guinness marketing team. At the end of the day, many families will go home with a camera full of pictures of their kids posing with A GIANT GLASS OF ALCOHOL.

I had no problem with Giant Guinness (the best name I could come up with. My original instinct was to call out "Hey, Guinney", since that seemed like a good nickname, but that's probably not a good thing to shout, even at an Irish event), and I hope we meet again.

1) Get yourself a good fever going. Say, 100 degrees.
2) Find a copy of "Original Hofbrauhauskapelle", a collection of German folksongs, and press play.

In your fevered state, your co-workers will seem to bob and sway to every oompha. The day will practically fly by.

More to come soon, I promise. Including of an explination of why I have a CD of german folksongs.

While we were there, we saw several booths selling photos of the exhibit. The shots I liked best were the ones where everything was black-and-white, with the exception of The Gates, which were left orang-- excuse me, "saffron." Being the Photoshop wizard (and the cheapskate) that I am, I thought "I could do that." So I did.

The source photos are my own, so they're not quite as good as the ones that were on sale. And while I'm not really as good at Photoshop as I'm sure those photographers are, I thought they turned out well.

Click for the larger versions (which I think are much nicer), and email me for the full-sized versions.

I also borrowed the idea of making the people blurry, which I thought was a great way of "removing" them from the photo without too much difficulty.

I have a few more, but haven't applied my magic to them yet. I'll post them when I do.

This selection was tough, since I still dream that one rainy Saturday afternoon I'll get it working again. But seeing as how Amy makes me dust her Cabbage Patch Doll collection on rainy Saturdays, I don't think I'll ever get around to it.

What it is: A device for broadcasting TV and Music between rooms.
What it was supposed to do: Allow me to broadcast music from my computer in the living room to our Bose Wave Radio in the bedroom.
What it actually does: Scare the bejeesus out of Amy every time she looks next to the bedside table.

I think every geek worth his salt has at least one set of these gadgets around somewhere, since the premise is so inviting: Listen to the same music throughout the house! Watch the same DVD on multiple TVs! Of course, all it really does is cause piercing static to come out of whatever device you hook it up to.

Our apartment is pretty small, and these things are only about twenty feet apart, and only one wall in between. Yet all it picks up is every twelfth world of whatever song is playing, and occasional snippets of my neighbors' cordless phone calls (Annette is pregnant, can you believe it?!?!).

The sad thing is that I had a pretty good feeling that this wouldn't work, but I bought it anyway. Perhaps it was because I thought technology had improved since I last worked with a set of these. Or maybe it's just because they look so much like the UFOs in "Batteries Not Included" that I thought they'd work (aliens really know their way around electronics).

I guess I should know better than to spend more than $20 at an electronics store with "Shack" in the name. That's only one step above "Hut." Lesson learned.

So back into the Discarded Hall of Fame it goes...

On a lark, I checked the Nutritional Information, just to see what my $3.50 bought me. Let's see... 2 cookies per serving, 8 servings a box. 16 cookies. Okay, not much, but that's okay.

Sorry, I clipped the "Carbs" info from the photo. Trust me though, these things aren't Atkins-approved.

So I opened up the box. Those first five cookies greeted me like old friends. Friends that I'd eaten.

Wait a second.... Five? Since when is 16 a multiple of five? I used all of my math skills to possibly figure out what was going on, but it just didn't compute. So I pulled out the whole tray, and sure enough, only 15 cookies. What the? Did the Girl Scout packing my box not get her Math Badge yet?

I checked the side of the box again. "Servings per container: About 8" About?? There's no about about it. It's 7.5. "About" is what you say for a bag of Doritos, when that last serving consists of crumbs at the bottom of the bag and the orange goop on your fingers. Or when you're not exactly sure how much product will make it into the container. This box has individual holders for each cookie, which, in addition to lovingly preserving the structural integrity of each cookie, also make it clear how many cookies are going into this box.

Now, I know, back in grammar school, we were taught that when rounding to whole numbers, ".5" gets round up. But it's not like they rounded up to save space on the box. "7.5" isn't exactly pi. It just takes two digits and a period. In fact, it takes up less room than "About 8." Those Girl Scouts ripped me off!

I see a strongly worded letter in my future. And 7.5 glasses of milk.

So I present to you now, entry #1 into of Kevin's Discarded Electronics Hall of Fame.

What it was: My first PDA
What it was supposed to do: Organize my life
What it actually did: Weigh down my cargo pants

Before I discuss this any further, it's important to get the name right. It's not called the Visor Edge, it's the Visor Edge. The "Edge" should be pronounced in your best rock star voice, in such a way that (a) you risk actually cutting anyone standing nearby, and (b) your hand automatically makes this gesture

without you even realizing it.

Once we get past the name, this thing pretty much stinks. Okay, that's not true, it's a perfectly good PDA -- I just never used it. I thought I'd have my calendar on there, all my peeps' contact info, various games, etc. Instead all I had was a subway map and a digital sundial (which is even less useful than it sounds).

I used the Vindigo application for a while, to help find ATMs and restaurants. Of course, finding an ATM in Manhattan nowadays is like finding green on my website. As for the restaurants, once Amy and I found our one restaurant per neighborhood (Upper west side? Brother Jimmy's. Upper East Side? The Other Brother Jimmy's), that functionality went out the window, too.

So unless someone out there has a suggestion for an alternate use, the Visor Edge will go back into my junk drawer the Discarded Electronics Hall of Fame.

Future inductees will be announced in the weeks to come.

So if you enjoy me, or think you'd enjoy clicking on my face, feel free to download.

As soon as it was gone, Amy parked the Prius in its spot.... I'm so confused...

I've never won the office pool, but I plan on playing again this year anyway. To really nerd it up this year, I made a web page that will show who's currently winning a pool at any point during the game. You can use it for your pool, too. Not only will you be able to tell who's winning throughout the game, but you won't have to worry about leaving the sheet at work, or getting phone calls from co-workers to see what numbers they had (you can just send them the link ahead of time).

Here's a sample, using last year's superbowl.

If you have a picture of your box sheet in JPG or GIF form (scan it, or just take a picture of it with your camera, and then get it on the web somehow), you can use this, too. Just go here to set it up:

http://www.kevincooney.com/projects/superbowl/config_pool.html

It's a little tricky to set up, but I put up some directions, which will hopefully help. Enjoy.

P.S. If I know you, or if you ask nicely, you can email me your box sheet image, and I'll upload it to my site. This way, you don't have to worry about hosting the image. Otherwise, you can host it with a free image hosting service.

It was a nice way to start out the day.

Furthering my good day, I just got a call from the American Lung Association saying they'd stop by to pick up the Saturn sometime this week. Soon the Prius (which could really use a name) will have its own spot.

"We're Prius drivers. We're a special breed."
Larry David's explanation of why another Prius driver should have waved back at him.

When we registered for our wedding presents, my wife and I debated whether or not to even put a coffeemaker on the list. Yet last weekend -- just two years later -- I found myself in the kitchen, grinding my own beans to make a pumpkin cappuccino, wondering how this dramatic change had happened.

Charts have been so useful in the past, so I'll again use my pirated copy of Excel again to help illustrate the change:

Yuckiness vs. Time

You can see that only girls have experienced a similar drop in dislike over the course of my lifetime (another year and I think I'll be completely over the whole "cooties" thing). Fascinating, really. Maybe that explains in part why I picked a wife with a resume which includes two jobs making coffee.

P.S. Thanks to our friend Katie for the coffee/espresso/cappuccino machine, and to my office, for giving out free coffee. Without either of you, I wouldn't be waking up on Saturdays with caffeine withdrawal headaches. Thanks also to my brother for the coffee bean grinder, which I have yet to stick my finger in.

It seems that no one minds that Apple is pulling the wool over their eyes, as stores are already selling out. I smell money. So to capitalize on this new trend, I've created my own line of Shuffle products.

Presenting "Internet Explorer Shuffle."
With "http://" and "www." all over the place, current web browsers are just too high-tech. Now browse the internet with just one button! Let's just hope that the Jennifer Garner fan site doesn't come up during your big presentation.

... and one of the flagship sites on the new IE shuffle will be "Mapquest Shuffle."
Imagine you're running late for your cousin Leon's wedding in South Jersey, and you need directions. Who has time to type in the full address? Just hit the button (actually, you may have to hit if several hundred times if you're using Internet Explorer Shuffle), and away you go! Sure, the directions might take you to a Bob's Big Boy in Southern Georgia, but that's more fun then being a best man, anyway!

Have you seen remote controls these days? They're getting out of hand. "Channel Up," "Channel Down," who needs all these buttons? So here's "Remote Control Shuffle." Just one button gives you access to all you'll ever need. Since I get over 150 TV channels, imagine the variety of programming I'll be enjoying instead of the show I was trying to find in the first place.

Also, I've created a direct competitor to the iPod Shuffle. In addition to removing the screen, I've removed the headphone jack, buttons, and the USB port. I call it "kPod Imagine"

I'll be rich.

By the way, here is a picture of my first mp3 player.

In 1998, this thing cost me $70, and it had a screen.

That's right, it's a crepe maker. Those who love me will recognize it from my Amazon Wish List. Now I can make those sweet, sweet, discs of goodness right in the comfort of my own kitchen. Okay, I guess I could do that before, but now I can easily make those sweet, sweet, yada yada, my own kitchen.

This gift causes some problems in my life, however:
- As a disciple of Alton Brown, I try to follow the cardinal appliance rule: In a kitchen, the only unitasker allowed is the fire extinguisher. Everything else should be versitile. I can't think of any other use for this thing.
- Now that I can have crepes on this side of the Atlantic, I no longer have to pretend to like my French in-laws. This is bound to cause problems.

The first problem, I'm not so worried about, really. Alton would clearly make an exception if he knew how much I loved the sweet, sweet, crepes. (Although I have mentioned it several times in my daily letters, so he might have an idea). Besides, I bought his book, so what more does he want from me?

The second problem is componded by the fact that my French family (hereafter know as the "Framily") will probably dispute the very nature of this device, like how people insist that Guinness in the states is "not the same" as it is in Ireland, or that The Greatful Dead is actually good when you see them in concert. And to some extent, the Framily would have a point: the sweet, sweet, crepes that this machine makes are really thin and rather small, which are a bit different than the ones in France. No less delicious, though, and that's the important part.

The biggest problem of all, however, is that I won't be able to explain any of this to Alton or the Framily, since I plan on keeping my mouth constantly stuffed with sweet, sweet, crepes for the forseeable future.

I made the mistake of telling Scott (a.k.a. "Cdog" on the comment board) the basics of how it works, and in less than a day, he used his evil genius to figure out the details (+3 nerd points to Scott!). He posted this on my site just when I was leaving to get the car:

Our first destination was a stop at an Applebee's not too far from the dealer for a celebratory dinner. I should point out that Applebee's is becoming -- not through our choice -- "our" restaurant for important dates. On our first wedding anniversary, we planned a dinner at a romantic-sounding restaurant, only to arrive to find a glorified diner with a menu that didn't look too impressive. So we drove around to find another place, but our hunger overwhelmed us and we settled for an Applebee's. Now that the Prius dinner was at an Applebee's, I'm starting to worry about a trend.

Here we are outside the restaurant. Luckily, I wore my good jeans on this fateful day.

Back to the car. After dinner, we headed to my parents house to drop off the Grand Am. I decided this would be a perfect opportunity to test out the car's navigation system. What is neat about the navigation system is that when you punch in a destination, it gives you three routes: quickest, shortest, and alternate. Apparently, I hit a button that wasn't even presented -- "scenic" -- because 45 minutes later, we were still twisting through the back roads of Westchester county. The kind woman whose voice says "Turn left" and "Exit approaching" stayed silent as we passed highway after highway, choosing instead to wind us through the backcountry, taking one 160-degree left turn and at least one full U-turn.

Not that it wasn't a lovely day for a drive. Fog like I've never seen rolled across the roads in waves. Occasional breaks in the fog prevent me from describing it as the proverbial "pea soup" -- perhaps a dense broth, instead, or a nice bisque -- but it was enough to bring traffic to about 15mph or so.

This photo really doesn't do the conditions justice. But it does show the speed we were going, and you can see that the people in front of us had their hazard flashers on.

On the plus side, the navigation system was really quite handy in the fog. I knew every turn before it came, and I was in the exit lane for each off-ramp before the first blurry sign appeared. Which was handy, because there were a lot of turns and a lot of exits on this journey. At the same time, it's rather dangerous, because I find myself blindly listing to whatever the navigation lady (I really have to find a good name for her) says. At times I didn't even know what road I was on. It's like being a passenger in your own car. If the navigation ever breaks mid-trip somewhere, I'm going to be in a lot of trouble. So if you ever get a phone call from me at 3:30 in the morning, odds are I'll be needing directions. Keep a map in the bedside table.

Over an hour later we arrived at my parents, and showed off our new wheels. I took my brother for a test drive -- for which Amy still hasn't forgiven me, since that meant he got to drive it before she did -- and then we set off home.

Amy took over the wheel this time, while I played with all the neat toys. The fog rolled in again, so I had plenty of time to play while we inched home. When we got to our house (the navigation was much better this time), I searched for the "Find us a Parking Space" button, but no luck. I guess that's on the 2006 model. We finally had to settle a spot about a block-and-a-half away.

Our first Prius experience was over.

This morning the black cloud continues (literally). In lieu of fog there is rain, which has prevented me from taking any more pictures, or giving the tour to my co-workers.

Okay, so the curse only consists of some bad weather and one trip that took too long. I didn't say this was a bad curse. It's more along the lines of "I curse you to a lifetime of hangnails and sporadic bad hair days" than a real curse, but I sense it just the same.

I have a feeling the cloud will lift soon. I'm not too worried if it doesn't, though: the car is still awesome, and I might get a few good stories out of it. :)

And yes, even though I wasn't sure what color we'd get exactly, we got Silver.

But that's not a bad thing.

Last month we got a new contact at our loan institution, and I'm really having trouble understanding her. So honestly, I have no idea if the check is in the mail, or if they're just sending me some valuable money-saving coupons for laundry detergent. So until that gets worked out, I'm in no hurry to get this car. Or more detergent.

Also, the Saturn is officially dead in the water (actually, "dead in the driveway" is more like it), so until I get that donated and towed, we have no place to park the Prius. A minor point, but who wants to park a brand new car in the street? In the winter. Besides, the extension cords to plug it in won't reach that far. :)

My guess is Monday. I'll keep you posted.

So the lesson learned here: If you lose your phone, call Bill, cause he's good at finding them. No wait, that's not it. How about: Have your pet spayed or neutered. No, that's no good, either... Hmm.. it'll come to me eventually.

It seems that New Year's Eve, beer, and my phone did not make a great combination, because when I woke up the next morning, all of them were gone. I'm clinging onto the hope that the phone will turn up somewhere, but it's not looking good.

For now, I'll have to use the backup phone we got for free when we signed up. It's features include:

- Can make phone calls

Pretty sweet. Almost as good as that first one. Hopefully I'll learn my lesson next time.

But speaking of dates, the Prius is due January 6th. Possibly sooner, but not likely. I was hoping for a nice Christmas (or at least New Year's) gift so I could show it off at all the holiday get-togethers, but I'll take it.

I sent a complaint letter to my dealership today, listing out my major points of contention: unexplained delays, no notification, misinformation. Apparently, that did the trick. Within a few hours I got a response that practically brought tears of joy to my eyes.

Bottom line is that the Prius is probably en route as we speak, and I'll finally know something concrete on Monday.

Now, this doesn't mean I take back what I said. Everything I said in that letter was true. But I have to hand it to them for addressing everything so quickly. Now let's just see if the car shows up.

Read on to see the full corresponence.

Good afternoon,

I'm writing to express my dissatisfaction with the way my Prius order has been handled thus far by your dealership. I have been on the wait list there since January 31st of this year, and judging from my last conversation with a salesman, I'm still several months away from receiving the car. Now, I understand that this car is in very high demand, and delays are inevitable. However, I have talked to other Toyota dealerships in the area, who have told me that the wait should not have been this long. I'd like to know what is causing this discrepancy between my order and the orders of others in the area.

In addition to the extended wait, I'm disappointed with the lack of communication that I've had. I was originally quoted an August delivery, but August came and went with no contact. When I called in September, I was told I could hope for delivery by the end of the year. Why wasn't I contacted when this delay first arose? Earlier this week, I called again for a status, and was told that the salesman I was working with had left your organization. Why was I not contacted about this, either? Also in this call, I was told I was still a "long way off" from having my order filled. So you knew you'd miss the end-of-year estimate I was given at the end of the summer, but again did not contact me. This make me feel unvalued as a customer, and I feel this is unacceptable.

As a final insult, it was suggested during this last call that I consider paying a "premium" of $5000 to you to find my model through another channel. I understand that this process is unfortunately all-too-common, but it is insulting that you would suggest that after already waiting over ten months, I should possibly have to pay more.

I also suspect that several things I've been told in conversations with various people at your organization have been untrue. For instance, the reason I chose Toyota North in the first place was because the salesman told me that you receive more Priuses than most dealerships, since you receive "bonus" cars as reward for high sales. However, in my last phone conversation, I was told that you only receive "one or two" Priuses per month. In talking with other dealerships, I've been told this is not only not above average, but is actually below average. In addition, in conversations I had with my salesman in early summer, he stated that dealerships don't keep waiting lists, but that Toyota handles this. From what I'm told, this is at best a half-truth, and that while Toyota does keep a list of order, they have asked the dealers to handle the task of deciding of who gets what car.

So you've missed two delivery estimates (each by several months), have not kept me in the loop about my status, and I suspect I've been lied to. I would like to hear what, if anything, can be done to rectify this situation. Hopefully, we can work toward improving what has so far been a very dissatisfactory buying experience. I don't relish the idea of starting the Prius wait all over again at another dealer.

I feel I should let you know that actions I am undertaking in response to this experience. I am currently:

- In contact with Toyota corporate on the correct process for filing a complaint against the dealership,
- Planning on sending my list of complaints with the Better Business Bureau.
- Posting my experiences thus far with the online Prius community at priuschat.com, and on my personal website. I wouldn't mention this, except that my site is (to even my surprise) starting to show up in Google search results for keywords that other customers in the area might use when deciding on a dealer, so I thought it would only be fair to notify you:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Prius+Westchester (Link #3)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Toyota+North+Mt+Kisco (Link #13, on page 2)

In conclusion, please know that despite the negative tone of this letter, I really do hope we can work to a resolution that is mutually beneficial. I was offered a refund on my deposit in my last discussion with a salesman, but turned it down, because (in addition to not wanting to start over with another dealer), I don't think this situation is beyond repair.

Thank you for your time,
Kevin Cooney

P.S. I would prefer email or postal mail in lieu of phone calls for any further communications. I realize auto sales is a typically a phone-reliant industry, but I would like a record of anything said from this point forward.

And god bless 'em, here's the response I got back shortly afterward:

We're sorry that you have had a series of unpleasant events with us regarding your Prius order. I cannot determine exactly why you were not kept up to date on the status of your order, I can only tell you that there is a mechanism in place to help ensure that people are kept in the loop. From what I can determine, the unexpected departure of your original salesperson caused the problem within our contact management system. That does not solve your problem or excuse it, I am simply searching for an answer to prevent it from happening again. Now that I am aware of your situation, I can't erase the past, I can only get involved and work to ensure that you have a positive experience moving forward.

To clarify what you have been told about how many Prius we get, how we get them and why... We are the #2 volume Prius dealer in the NY region (the NY region comprises about 120 dealers in NY, NJ and CT). As such, we do get a much larger allocation of Prius than most other dealers. The "one or two" Prius a month that was referred to relates to those vehicles that are allocated to us which don't already have a customer assigned to them. We get far more than one or two per month but in almost every case, the vehicle is already spoken for. So, we do just get one or two that are available for sale, not just one or two in total.

Regarding "paying a premium" for a vehicle... We actively work to purchase Prius from other dealers across the country to meet our local demand. As such, we pay a premium to purchase the vehicle and can also incur expenses to transport the vehicle from their location to our location. We offer these purchased vehicles to those customers who do not wish to endure the normally long wait times.

At this point I don't feel that we'll be far off from our end of year delivery time frame. Prius production is at or near an all time high so Prius allocations have never been better. We are currently in the process of assigning recently allocated Prius to our unfilled orders. This process should conclude on 12/20/04. I will make sure that you are contacted either way by the end of the day on Monday the 20th... a silver '05 Prius with the navigation package with your name on it is not far away.

Thank you for the opportunity to keep you as a satisfied customer. Please let me know if you have any questions or unaddressed concerns at this time.

<Name Removed>
Toyota North
SCION North
Endurance BMW
Mount Kisco, NY 10549

And here's my response to that. You can pretty much hear me smiling:

Wow, that was like reading a dream come true. Thank you for addressing all of my concerns, and addressing them so quickly to boot. I'm sorry I misunderstood the allocation statistics, as I only had what the salesman said to go on, which apparently was not the "big picture." Hopefully you can understand why I was getting distressed. This is my first experience at buying a new car, and I was already nervous about the whole thing, so once it wasn't going to plan, I got even more concerned.

My opinion of your dealership has just turned 180 degrees. I look forward to working with you on this purchase.

Thanks so much,
Kevin

I just got off the phone with my Prius salesman. Or should I say, my new Prius salesman. Apparently, Joe Toyota just couldn't handle the high-stakes world of Prius selling, and he moved back to South Carolina and is going back to school or something. Of course, no one called me to let me know. That would be "customer service." Something they're apparently not too good at.

But it gets better. My new salesman fesses up that my order has basically been sitting there for 10 months, and that they only get about one Prius a month. This, from the dealership that got me to choose them because they said they are "high-volume," and get more Prius(es?) than other dealers, as bonuses for large amounts of sales. And even though I thought the place was suspect, I figured since this is a "no-haggle" car, it didn't matter where I bought it, so we picked them. Whoops. I should have taken their talking website as a bad sign.

He said the only way we can get a Prius anytime soon (and no timeframe of how soon "soon" is) is to agree to pay a "premium", about $5000, to them so they can get the car from an "alternate source." (I guess there's some kind of organic Prius farm outside of Fargo that I'm not aware of or something.) So he says I can (1) pay the premium (2) Keep waiting, or (3) Get my deposit back.

So now I'm doing what I should have done at the beginning: Contacting other dealerships, and trying to get on their lists. I'm also trying to contact Toyota directly, to make sure my place in line isn't lost, and to register a complaint about Toyota North in Mount Kisco. I'm also cursing at lot, but I don't think that's helping much.

This is ridiculous.

In this case, lower numbers are better. Also, I used the max value of "50" to represent "Not found", since there wasn't a good number to represent "I'm getting tired of clicking the Next button in these search results"

So thanks to all those who helped (Brian and Scott in particular), since the main surge didn't come until I got a bit more proactive about the whole thing.

Here's a video of their report

Kevin Cooney the Spider-man geek
Kevin Cooney the history geek
Kevin Cooney the Programming geek
Kevin Cooney the Simpsons geek
Kevin Cooney the Electronics geek
Kevin Cooney the Dungeons & Dragons geek

I think there must be a recessive Geek gene in the Cooney DNA that only comes out when the child is named Kevin. I can only wonder how long this trait has been in the family.

What's scariest about this whole experience is that at some point in my life, I've been somewhat interested in all the things these other Kevin Cooneys are, to some degree or other. I guess Triumph would say I'm an "uber-geek, made up from the parts of lesser geeks."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go study for an online Klingon quiz.

P.S. My cousin is also named Kevin Cooney, but I don't think he's a geek. He must take after his mother.

An eight-pound frozen bird, presumably for us to cook and eat (since I don't know what else to do with it). I've never heard of a company that gives poultry as a bonus (butcher shops aside), but I guess there's a first for everything.

So now we're hoping my company gives me some stuffing and mashed potatoes.

It's still in "Beta" mode, so if it breaks, don't come bitching to me. Oh, and it also includes a web-browser toolbar (not spyware, I swear), since they have to make money somehow.

Triscuit	Wicker

And just when I thought they couldn't get any better, they introduce Triscuit "Rosemary and Olive Oil." Now one of my favorite snacks includes two of my favorite women. (Although I only like Rosemary Clooney because her name is so similar to mine)

And just when I thought that couldn't get any better, it turns out these new Triscuits taste exactly like dry Stove Top stuffing (you know you've tried it). And since I was getting tired of putting the stuffing on the triscuit myself, these things are perfect.

Honestly, I know I sound rather sarcastic here, but these things are pretty danged tasty. Go get some. Oh, and play this tenuously-related monster truck game.

(one thousand one, one thousand two, one thous--)

Oh dear lord, how do I stop this??? Where's the 'off' button on this thing? I don't want people knowing all the details of my life!

Actually, what am I worried about? I make all this stuff up, anyhow. Nothing to worry about. So back to the good news: More traffic.

To illustrate the change, I created some bar charts that precisely represent the traffic data on my site over the past three months. But I'll use these pie charts instead.

Here's my average traffic, before Patrick linked to me:

Now here's the average traffic after Patrick linked to me:

Note how my visits from "Others" went from 1 percent to 16 percent. It's amazing what one link to do to your statistics. Of course, since I have about 100 visiters a day, that means I only went from 1 stranger to 16. I'll take that, though.

Note: I'm pretty sure the new Rick(y) Schroeder visits are unrelated. Not to mention unwelcome.

A week or so ago, she was back on OldNavy.com (I think she has a problem), and she bought me a few more shirts along with her order -- this time not just to qualify for the free shopping. They arrived a few days ago, and again, I really like them.

But as I was going to bed later that night, it occurred to me: Oh sweet lord, my wife is buying my clothes. This can't be happening. Having your wife buy all your clothes is something that I thought only happened to old married couples. We're still in our twenties, for Pete's sake.

I shared this revelation with my wife, and she was equally mortified. So now we're going to make sure I approve any clothing purchases ahead of time.

Next thing you know she'll be knitting me things -- ahh! She does that already, too! My God, we might as well just move to the retirement home now!

I have to go now, and put a stop to this before we're putting out little bowls of hard candy throughout the house.

P.S. You all have my permission to use the phrase "a few bucks short of free shipping" in lieu of "a few sandwiches short of a picnic," a "a few cards short of a deck," etc.

"Get those voters back in here! Turn those machines back on! Turn those machines back on!"

I stayed up past my bedtime last night to watch the results to come in, and the only good news I got is that Dan Rather is still insane. Last election I was amazed at what came out of his mouth, so this year (at Amy's suggestion), I wrote a few down:

• "This election is hotter than the devil's anvil"
• "In some ways, George Bush's lead is as thin as November ice."
  
• "Bush is sweeping through the South like a beetle through a cotton field."
• "'It won't mean a thing if they don't get those swing' states"
• "Play a verse of Johhny B. Goode in Illinois for John Kerry"
• The election is "swinging like Count Basie"
• "Only votes talk... everything else walks"
• "George Bush is sweeping through the Midwest like a big combine"
• "We're on these returns like white on rice" (Yes, he actually said that)
• "This race is hotter than a Times Square Rolex"
• "We used to say if a frog had side pockets, he'd carry a handgun."
• "As the saying goes, 'Never gamble against strangers, never expect a Democrat in Kansas'"

The parade was also educational. I learned that my lifelong distrust of Winnie the Pooh was well founded. Here he is hanging out with the Headless Horseman, who is hiding behind a tree.

I can only imagine the horrible fate that awaits Eyore.

After the parade, we went to Sleepy Hollow's "Legend Weekend" to see the Headless Horseman riding around, sans-Winnie-the-Pooh. It was pretty cool, but they didn't allow flash photography, so, sorry, no pictures.

We wrapped up the evening with a showing of Tim Burton's version of "Sleepy Hollow" at Tarrytown's Music Hall. Quick Review (since everyone loves reviews of five-year-old movies): The scenes with the Horseman were awesome -- the rest, not so much. And Christopher Walken was somehow able to be even creepier than he is normally.

On Sunday, we carved pumpkins and gave out candy, since carving candy and giving out pumpkins proved impractical (on a side note, little kids are weak). The pumpkins turned out well -- even if the pictures didn't -- but unfortunately, the rest of my decorating plans didn't work out as I intended.

I decided to get serious this year, and I bought a fog machine. Not just any fog machine, mind you, but the Fog F/X 700. Anyone who's anyone in the world of amateur fogging knows that this is the machine to have.

I had this awesome vision of the fog rolling down the stairs from our second story apartment as trick-or-treaters came to the door. Unfortunately, I forgot some basic rules of physics: The only way fog rolls down is if it's cold, like dry ice fog. If fog is warm -- for instance, like the fog that comes from the heater-based Fog F/X 700 -- it will go up. So instead of cool fog rolling down stairs, I got an effect that looked more like cigar-smoke-at-poker-night. It hung at the top of the stairs, which was pretty useless, since the trick-or-treaters would be at the bottom. On top of the disappointing performance, there was a small note on the box that I missed: "Use in open areas." And by "open area", I think they mean "Ohio," not a four-foot-wide staircase. One blast of fog was enough to (a) make the place reek of whatever the hell that stuff is made from, and (b) fog up the room to the point of having to navigate by outstretched hands. This was also the point in time when our neighbors came home, and looked none-too-pleased. So the fog machine went back in the closet until we have a place big enough to use it.

I also set up a speaker at the top of the stairs, and found some spooky music/sound effects to play. But I realized that the only way to play it loud enough so they could hear it on the porch was to also make it loud enough for the downstairs neighbors to hear -- constantly. Since I had probably just filled their apartment with a smelly impeneterable mist, I didn't think music would be appreciated. So that plan got shelved along with the fog machine.

Overall, it was a great Halloween. My plans didn't really come together, but I'll get there eventually.

Maybe I'll just think of it as "not last." Yeah, that's much better. ;)

For anyone outside the company: I'm a monkey
For anyone inside the company: I'm Randolph the Random Football Pick'em Monkey

Here's the costume materials breakdown:

Ears:

• 1 hanger - $0.00 (dry cleaner)
• Brown and pink fabric - $1.68
• 4 dozen staples - $0.00 ("borrowed" office supplies)

• Brown Gloves - $1.00 (dollar store)
• Leftover Material from ears - $0.00

• More material - $0.00
• Paper Towel Rolls - $0.00
• Paper Towels - $0.00
• Hanger - $0.00

• Football - $3.60
• Banana - $0.40
• Spinny-Thing - $0.00

At first I thought they were a nice, simple way to show your patriotism and all that. But then two things happened. First, they got really popular. Like, Vanilla Ice popular (well, during the early nineties, anyway). In a mall parking lot last weekend I counted one out of every 15 cars had one. I don't think 1 out of 15 cars has a working parking brake, yet they have these silly ribbons. Second, people began doubling up on them, which just mystifies me. "Support our Troops", "God Bless America", "Prevent Hangnails" -- it's getting out of control.

At about $4 a pop, that's some serious cash. Now that I know that someone is probably getting filthy rich off these things since they're so popular, I don't like them so much anymore. Also kinda like Vanilla Ice.

But they've at least given me an amusing game. On the way to and from work now, I play "How Patriotic are We?" Points are scored by spotting these ribbons. Here's the deal:

Ribbon - One Point
Small Ribbon - Half point
Two Ribbons - 3 points (2 for a big/little combo)
The elusive triple ribbon - 5 points (4 if any are little)

4 or more - No points, I'm obviously hallucinating
2x Bonus for a Kerry bumper sticker (since my guess is that more Republicans have these ribbons)

There's a half-hour time limit, because I can't count very high, and because that's about when my stomach starts to turn.

This morning's score: 24.

Originally, I thought this would make a great drinking game, but I don't think that the fine men and women of the New York State Police would agree. Not to mention that I'd be drunk before leaving my driveway.

P.S. I don't mean to question the good intentions of anyone that has one of these ribbons -- on the contrary, I think it's great. It's the phenomenon that I find so mystifying.

A few guidelines for the suggestions:

1. The more impractical, the better. No socks, sweaters or heating bill payments (although the sweater would come in handy if I don't use the money for the heating bill).
2. When I run the suggestion past my wife, she can't say "Oh, that's a good idea." I'm looking for more of a "Why would we need that?" type of response. This also rules out any suggestions from my wife (sorry, Amy), unless she can suspend her own practicality and intelligence.
3. No putting it toward something, and paying for the rest myself. So total value <= $50.
4. The closer to $50, the better. I don't want to have an awkward amount left on the card, unless I can buy another complete item with it (see rule #3).
5. Extra points for things I have to plug in
6. I swear, if anyone mentions Cornhole Bags, I will track you down and beat the tar out of you.

First, our friend Dan got this lady

very angry somehow. But something tells me she wouldn't remember what it was that angered her. I got a brief video of her on the attack.

Luckily, that got settled eventually with a quick apology.

The real action came later, when this guy, a disgruntled Mets fan a few rows ahead of us

and his friend got into a shouting match with a crowd a few rows back over the Yankees-Red Sox series going on (you know you're at a boring game when people are arguing about another sport entirely). Well, it got a bit out of control, and luckily security intervened just as he was heading back to their section to further the "discussion."

Other than that, things went pretty smoothly. Cornhole was fun, although my sewing skills aren't quite what I had hoped they were.

Also, the rain cut things a bit short. However, considering we were out of beer by that point, I have a feeling things would have cleared out soon anyway. As a plus, cleanup probably took about half the time it would have normally (although, in the rush, I have a vague recollection of throwing out a box of perfectly good Dunkin' Donuts. I'm not sure what I was thinking. Beer and fatigue must have been messing with my mind).

As a secondary plus, Amy and I have been able to live off nothing but the remaining baked goods for the past few days. I don't think my dietician would be happy with my use of chocolate and peanut butter in place of other food items -- meat, for example -- but I don't mind so much.

Oh, and to answer my own questions from last week:

Q: Will we get enough food and beer?
A: Food, yes, beer, no

Q: Can we cook for 50 people on the two small grills we managed to find?
A: Yes, amazingly enough.

Q: How will we all meet up?
A: Well, since my family didn't show up until an hour before the game, this mainly involved a lot of walking on their part.

Q: Miller Lite or Bug Light?
A: No idea.

Q: Will we be able to sell the unused tickets we still have?
A: Nope. So I made sure to stretch out and fully enjoy the six other seats I bought. Oh, and it turns out that the employee entrance probably isn't the best place to try and sell tickets. Surprisingly, they're not interested.

Q: Will people like my "Kevin's super-secret chocolate sugar puff surprises?"
A: I decided to keep my surprises under wraps until a more worthy occasion.

Will we get enough food and beer? Will we get too much? Can we cook for 50 people on the two small grills we managed to find? How will we all meet up? Miller Lite or Bug Light? Will we be able to sell the unused tickets we still have? Will people like my "Kevin's super-secret chocolate sugar puff surprises?"

Fun can be so stressful.

Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion!

See the results

- Visiting your alma mater and realizing you don't fit in anymore
- A good ol' inexplicable injury

This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to experience both at the same time. Amy and I met up with our college friends at Notre Dame for our annual tailgater. While walking up a flight of stairs at the campus bookstore (I was making my yearly contribution), I suddenly got a shooting pain up my spine. While I'm not sure exactly what happened, I imagine it was something like this:

(Dramatization)*

Out of nowhere. I can't think of anything that might have caused it.

So anyway, I spent the rest of the trip on my back, where I learned that (a) most ceilings could really use an extra coat of paint, and (b) people are suckers for injuries. They get you food, beer, etc., and you get to ride shotgun for the duration of the injury. Next year I'm thinking I might "hurt" my neck.

* This "smiley" was not homemade. I simply searched for "upstairs ninja back attack" on SmileyCentral, and that was the first one (of 27) that came up

Read more about making the Bags

"Waaaaiiit a second here," I thought, "I have a weird last name? Cooney? What's wrong with Cooney?" I was a bit confused. It took a little while, but eventually, I came to terms with the idea that the name Cooney might be a bit odd. For a while, I wasn't happy about that. But then I realized that it's not too bad, since it doesn't really lend itself to jokes (except perhaps "Looney Cooney", which thankfully no one in my grade school ever figured out), and it's really kind of a rare name. I was the only Cooney in any of my schools until I got to college, and even then there were only a few.

So when I got my domain name, I was really surprised that searching for "Kevin Cooney" doesn't bring up my site until like the 47th page.. And that's because of the guys pictured here. On top is Kevin Cooney the actor. He hasn't been in much, (although he had a pretty major role in "Bring It On Again", which, in my opinion, wasn't given the respect it deserved by the critics), but it's enough to screw up my Internet Presence. Below is Kevin Cooney the College Baseball Coach, who coaches a team in Florida. Yet another reason to not like Florida.

I've asked my friends with websites to link to my site, but so far it hasn't impacted anything (and I'm sure this post will only make things worse by talking about the other Kevin Cooneys). I'm still stuck the 47th page ... sigh ...

Overall, it turned out pretty well. I should warn you, that unless you're interested in building your own set, the rest of this will be pretty boring. You might want to just play the flash game instead.

The frame assembly went pretty quick, but things slowed down once we hit the legs, and the scoring hole.

We ended up cutting the scoring hole just using a jig saw after making the circle with a compass. We originally hoping to use a hole saw drill attachment, since that makes perfectly circular holes, but that would have cost $40 just to make two holes. Also, Brian made a pretty nice cut on a test piece of wood using the jigsaw, so we gave him the job. Turned out great. Thanks, Bri.

As for the legs, the design called for fixed-but-detachable legs. Greg had modified his set by making folding legs instead. We opted for that route. By putting each of the frames on a table, and lifting one end to the proper height, we were able to hold the wood for the leg in place, and then scribe the angle against the side of the table. Then we cut the wood along the scribe line to make one leg. To make the other leg, we simply placed our new leg back on top of the wood we just cut it from, and cut again. Since the angle was the same, just reversed, that gave us two identical legs from only one angle cut and one straight cut.

At the top of the leg we traced a semicircle to cut off, so the leg could fold up once it was in place. At the center of the semicircle, we drilled a ¼" hole for the bolt. Then, using a circular saw, I cut out the semicircle. The original plan was to use the jigsaw again, but the blade bent on my first attempt. The circular saw didn't make a very pretty cut, but it worked. And as a plus, due to the "angularness" of the circular saw cuts, the legs now "lock" into place (although not uniformly) when folded up or down. I'm sure that will fade as the friction wears down the angles, but for now it's a cool unexpected feature.

Next comes painting, and the bags. Here's the design we're going with for the painting:

We'll most likely get the bags off ebay, but I'm toying with the idea of making them.

I'll post any further updates here. I bet you can't wait.

Making the bags

I was debating whether to just buy the bags online (about $25 for a good set, plus shipping), or try to make them myself. We were already over budget with the game boards, so I was leaning toward making them. So while Amy was searching for yarn for her next knitting project (we're a crafty couple, apparently) at JoAnn's crafts, I went searching for "Duck Cloth," which is supposedly the best material for this game. From what I've read, it can take a beating. Unbelievably, they had it, and in the colors we were looking for (blue and gold), no less. I took it as a sign, so I got some.

It came in 60"-long strips, so I got 14" wide bolts of each color, since that would give me enough for 12 7"x7" squares (4 bags, two spares) of each color, with some material left over. I also picked up 12 lbs. of popcorn, since each bag will be a pound (roughly 2 ¼ cups).

After a quick sewing lesson from my mother, I was off. It was like I was a villager from Santo Poco. I sewed like the wind, doing three-and-a-half sides of each bag. I triple stiched each bag for strength, and put even more stitching at each corner and at the ends, by alternating the machine between forward and reverse. Here's the finished product. Note how crooked the seams are. That's for, uh, strength.

Next, I turned the bag inside out, which was a bit tricky, considering how stiff the fabric is. Then, I filled it with popcorn. I still haven't figured out how to close it yet, so for now I just safety-pinned the whole thing together.

Between the measuring, cutting, and sewing, the whole operation was taking hours, so I stopped after sewing all the blue bags. Next, I'll do yellow, and try to close the things up somehow.

---------------
A few days later

I managed to sew the bag closed by hand by using a backstitch (look! I learned a sewing term) on the inside "flaps" of material. Then I reinforced that with two rows of "normal" stitches. If you keep everything tight, the stitches will be hidden when finished, which is important to prevent snagging.

Sadly, my homemade set couldn't hold up to the demands of our incredible skills, and they all eventually burst open in corn-tastic explosions. So I got a new set from cornholesupplies.com, and it's been smooth sailing ever since.

Painting
Bill and Casey came by to help paint the cornhole set on Saturday, and we got even more done than I thought we would. The set is basically complete now.

Using an ND logo off the Internet, we created a stencil (well, the outside of it, anyway), and taped it to the painted surface. We completed the inside of the stencil by using Amy's brilliant suggestion of transferring the cutouts from the stencil to painter's tape. We used lip balm to keep the inner border of the outer stencil against the wood. Then with a quick spray of gold paint, we had our logo.

Unfortunately, either the lip balm didn't work, or we didn't use enough, because the edges came out a bit blurry. Also, we didn't use enough tape on the newspaper (not pictured) that we used around the stencil, so gold paint got between the layers of paper and ended up on the board. So Bill and Casey, being crazy, painted over the fuzzy sections of the logo with the blue paint, using Q-tips. They really did an awesome job.

With the second board, we were much more detailed in our taping and sealing of newspaper seams.

And that one came out great on the first try.

Next, we applied the stripes by lining up seven rows of tape, and then peeling up every other one, thereby assuring three straight rows of even width. After laying down more newspaper and appying another spritz of paint, we were done.

I think they turned out great.

We have a few bells and whistles we'd still like to add (handle, drink holders, etc) , but I'm not sure we'll get around to that in time. If we do, I'll post another update.

Here are some tools I found helpful in making this project. I get a bit of cash if anyone actually uses these links, so if you think you might pick any of these items up, perhaps you can help me out along the way?

And something I wish I had (for cutting out the circle). Easier than doing it with a jigsaw, and more flexible than buying the specific-sized circle cutter drill bit:

Hey, since Cornhole and tailgating go together like Mac & Cheese, why not check out the Tailgate T-Shirts I made while you're here?

But the opportunity came up to do some whitewater rafting with some college friends over Labor Day weekend, and Amy and I thought it sounded like fun. Plus, we don't get together with these friends too often, so we couldn't pass it up.

On Saturday afternoon, we arrived at Ace Adventures, in Oak Hill, West Virginia -- a 1400 acre campground and adventure company. And let me tell you, we were roughing it. Here's a shot us us at the bar while we waited for housekeeping to finish cleaning our cabins before checkin.

They only had two kinds of beer! Can you believe that?

The cabins were okay, considering we had decided to really cut back on the frills so we could really maximize the outdoor adventure experience. The hot tub really only fit four or five people.

What a pain! But we were all committed, so we toughed it out somehow. That night we took part in some of the classic American camping activities: Beer, burgers, board games, and watching Notre Dame football on Satellite Television. After a poor ND showing, it was off to bed. I thought I might have trouble sleeping in such rough conditions, but the gentle whirring of the air conditioning got my mind off of things long enough for me to fall asleep on the kingsize bed.

The next morning we were up bright and early for our rafting trip on the lower New River. Our guide was Mr. Rick O'Shea, a truly classy man who can be seen here. He tried to flip the bird in this shot, but I had already snapped the pic:

His courtesy and genteelness are only matched by his mastery of the white water. Here his is taking a header into the lunch cooler:

Actually, Rick (actually short for "Eric") O'Shea (actually short for "Crowley") was a great guide. Sure, he may have told some off-color jokes. And sure, he may have held Casey's head underwater for about 10 seconds in order to tell a joke. And okay, he may have made us swim a quarter mile so he could go drink a beer. And sure, he might have intentionally driven us into a rock to show why he's named "Rick O'Shea." But he defintely made the trip better than it would have been with a guide who used "instructions" or a "helmet."

After rafting, it was back to roughing it at the cabins. We had a traditional camping dinner of salad, barbequed chicken, mac & cheese, and red wine, while we recounted the funnier stories of the day. Then we finished off the night with some s'mores by the fire and another dip in the hot tub.

After a weekend like that, I feel like I've really conquered the outdoors. Let's hope I never have to see it again.

For more photos from the weekend, check out the Ofoto Gallery.

Oh, and there's a video as well. (Please right-click and select "Save Target As..." to save me some bandwidth)

Amy's parents are on a cruise this week that left out of New York, so they drove their Prius up from Virginia, and left it with us for the week. Now we have the exact car we're waiting for (except theirs is white, not silver) sitting in our driveway, but it's not ours. Bummer.

I haven't driven it yet, nor have I decided if I'll even do so. First off, it might be even more torturous, since I'm sure I'll like it. Second, I think that it would take away some of the "magic" once ours comes. If it comes. I hope it comes.

So, without further ado, I present to you: My website, circa 2000. (Actually, most of the content is from '96, with a few updates throughout school). It's good for a laugh.

Of particular note: The awesome animated "K" on the Homepage (animated gif's are always cool in my book), the "SME" page, and "What's in my wallet?"

Feel free to make fun of it/me.

P.S. The spinning "K" here is from my first home page while at Notre Dame. It still makes me dizzy.
P.P.S. Yes, it was probably a bit risky for me to put my license and credit card online (it probably still is). But no harm came, and everything is expired now, anyhow.

Actually, I really had a good time. I was expecting to see 400 men dressed up like Gandalf and some embarrassed-looking actors who were desperately hoping not to be recognized by their high school friends. But I was actually surprised that everyone (well, almost everyone) was pretty normal, even the ones who were dressed up. And I even ran into my friend Brian.

Oh, and I figured out pretty early on that if you tip anyone serving beer, they yell out "Huzzah!" So I tipped everybody.

I put a few Renaissance Faire Pictures up in my photo gallery, if you're curious.

So, all in all, it was fun. I even got a +2 consitution and 200 Experience Points for going.

Sometimes I struggle for things to write here. Other times, ideas arrive on my doorstep via international mail.

Yesterday I received a letter in the mail from my sister-in-law, Katie. She lives in France (o-la-la!). Actually, it wasn't a letter, it was two postcards in an envelope, along with some magazine clippings. I'm not sure why she chose postcards, since she used two, and ended up using an envelope anyway. I like to think it's because sheets of 8½ x 11 paper don't fit in her tiny French apartment. Or, since it is August, perhaps all the big paper is on vacation in the Riviera working on their tans. Anyhow, here is the first postcard:

Note that it's a Ralph Lauren postcard. Apparently even her mail is preppy. (Actually, she used to work for Ralph. Now she works for another clothing line)

To save you some eye strain, here's a typed version:

I was looking through an ELLE
(American Version) I had bought
and came upon an article about
Beck. Brice pointed out (Brice
always seems to appear when
I buy these magazines... could
it be the scantily clad ladies
in the lingerie ads? No, the
articles) to me that in the
picture of Beck there is a
striking resemblance to Kevin.
Yes, Kevin. It's crazy! Please
see Exhibit A for your reference.

Katie + Brice
(Brice is innocent)

Clearly, this woman will not be babysitting my future children.

But I thought it was nice of her to take the time to write me a letter, disturbing though it may be. So as a sort of "thank you" to Katie, I've made a "Cut + Paste Katie" game for you all to enjoy.

Have a blast.

I guess that's okay, but what's really bothering me is that our dealer, Joe, is not being very helpful about the whole thing. He never answers his phone, and only calls me when I call him first. I'd like to think that a four month delay would be worthy of a call, but apparently not. I had to call to get ticked off.

So I don't recommend "Toyota North" in Mt. Kisco. I'd switch dealers, but I don't want to start on a whole new list, nor do I want to have to try to fight for my deposit back.

I don't know what, if any, course of action I have. Maybe I can get my geek friends to help me get my complaint to the top of a Google Search for "Toyota North" or "Prius Westchester". But I doubt they'd take that threat too seriously, nor am I sure I can even do it, since I can't even get my site to come up when searching for "Kevin Cooney."

Any suggestions?

They put up a player so you can get a preview of a few songs. They add one more track each Tuesday.

I recommend "Dime" -- it's got a funky background thing going on, and it's named after the inappropriately-sized coin.

Note: This post was originally written on August 5th in anticipation for the riches that my new stock purchase would bring me. I wrote it ahead of time, since I would be too wealthy to bother posting to my website.

This is the revised edition.

As you may remember, I bought stock back a while ago for a company called GamezNflix. You've obviously heard of them by now. They rent dvds and video games and movies through the mail like Netflix. I bought several hundred shares for the measley outlandish price of $0.065 a share! I bet you wish you were pity me now!

I've created a chart that shows how much money I've made between then and now

Amazing, isn't it?

Here are all the things I plan on buying with my profits the pile of pennies that I have left:

	A fabulous mansion!
	A plaid puppy!
	Rhode Island!
	A year's supply of Eggo waffles!
	Alex Trebek!

I've also started a charity that will spend some of my raise money for people less fortunate than myself.

I like to think that this investment shows that any one can succeed, you just have to take the plunge! So get off your butts and invest just go to work as usual!

The problem is that there's only a payoff if someone notices. I can't call attention to the "joke" (that's a stretch), since that ruins it. I just have to wait.

Eight months ago I changed my computer background to this:

Looks familiar, right? It's the default background to Windows XP. It's called "bliss," presumably because it's such a serene scene. So I thought it would be freakin' hysterical to add this (click for full effect):

Oh, man -- Godzilla on a rampage in the background of the "bliss" wallpaper. My sides hurt just thinking about it!

But it's been eight months now, and NO ONE HAS NOTICED. It's up there all this time. Co-workers walk by, stop by, sit and talk, but still no one sees it.

I guess those nine minutes of Photoshop magic were just wasted.

Another great perk of this place is that they leave crayons on the table, which has a paper tablecloth, so the kids can play around and so the waitress can fish for bigger tips by doing cute things like write her name on it and use hearts for the i's. Our waiter was a mexican Elvis impersonator (I kid you not. He even had an Elvis tie. I would have gotten a picture, but I'm not sure he would have appreciated it), so he skipped that step. Elvis wouldn't be seen dead using a crayon. But I'm getting off topic.

After they cleared our plates, Casey decided to do a quick sketch of Bill, which then somehow led to all three of them doing sketches of me. (I was then too busy holding my "crazy handsome, yet approachably charming" pose to do any sketching of my own). Here are the results:

Casey:
By far the artist of the group, Casey's drawings are pretty good crayon renditions, especially considering they each took her a grand total of three minutes.

If you couldn't tell, that's me on the left, and Bill on the right. Here are some actual photos for comparison.

Bill was kind enough to add realistic battle scars and pitchfork action. I gave Bill a good Pirate "Aargh!" to match the scar, and some extra hair for Bill authenticity.

Bill:

Continuing the Pitchfork theme, Bill gave me a devil and angel on my shoulders -- perhaps symbolic of my nice-guy facade covering my danger-loving personality. That boy really knows me.

Amy:

I'm not sure why she labeled me "Cooney," considering that's her last name now, too. I'm also not sure why I'm wearing a 1920's Yankees' uniform, or why my left hand is a propeller. Or why I'm smoking. But I do appreciate the continuing of the fork theme with the right hand, and the scar that Bill added. As for the uni-brow... well, that's just accurate, unfortunately. Nothing escapes her artist's eye. Also of note are the rays of power escaping from my sleeve and the lines of, umm, justice, escaping from my feet.

Apparently, my friends are quite artistic, and I had no idea. And apparently I have a thing for pitchforks.