Weeing game consoles.

Who was the dumb ass that came up with the idea of calling a game console the Wee?

Do we really want kids asking their friends if they want to play with their wee? Or people walking into stores asking for a wee?
“I’m sorry we don’t have public toilets sir.”

“Grandpa, come and look at my new wee.”
O_O “New? wee? I can’t even find my old wee.”

Imagine Santa’s surprise when kids sitting on his knee tell him they want a wee for Christmas.
“What would like from Santa this year little boy?”
“I’d like a wee.”
O_O “Now!? Get this kid off me he’s gonna wee!!.. oh you mean Wii.. Ho Ho Ho.. silly Santa”.

*shakes head*

They call the software for the console wiiware. Wee Ware? The first thing I think of when I hear that is a raincoat and rubber boots.

What a ridiculous name.

Yes I realize that the name is suppose to represent that we all can play it and it’s an easy word to be said in all languages, but come on.. Wee??.. really??

Wouldn’t ALL be a better name to represent that it can be played by ALL people of ALL generations in ALL countries? Imagine the advertising they could get from ALL as a name.

“it’s ALL you’ll ever need.”

“Made for ALL.”

“Even if you combined ALL our competition into one, they still wouldn’t be ALL.”

“Be ALL you can be”

You could have a lot of fun and inspiring slogans with it.

If only they had put some more thought into the name instead of weeing all over it.

Home-made Hockey Stick

home made hockey stick

There’s a couple of reasons I decided to try making a hockey stick…

1. Because ice/inline hockey isn’t very popular in this part of the world, the equipment is harder to come by, and quite expensive.

2. I only want it to skate around on my own up at a local old outdoor roller skate area. (or on week-ends down at the school with my kids)

So I decided that all I really needed was something that resembled a hockey stick which I could dribble and hit a ball around with while I got some exercise on my roller blades.  Skating around in circles is pretty boring; chasing a ball around with a hockey stick is much more fun.

So after doing some research (via my good friend Google); I found the various measurements of standard hockey sticks, and set about looking for suitable materials to use.

I figured it was going to be all wood, and didn’t’ take long to find a piece of long thin wood for a handle and a small piece of compressed plywood for the blade section.

Blade cut out of compressed plywood

First task was to draw out the shape of the blade and lower shaft and cut it out using an electric jigsaw.

The piece of wood used is considerably thicker than a normal hockey blade, but this will (in time) give me the chance of developing a curve in the blade.

Although old hockey sticks never use to have a curve in the blade, it does make for better control of the ball or puck.

metal used to attach blade to handle

My next big problem was how I was going to attach the blade to the handle. Normal sticks are glued, but also made so one section partially slides inside the other to make for a firm attachment. I don’t have the equipment required to do that, so I decided to look at bracing the two pieces together.

I found a piece of angled aluminum from an old dead BBQ I had dismantled last summer; the metal was a bit too wide, but I decided to cut it in half (jigsaw fitted with a hacksaw blade made quick work of this) and use it as a splint brace to join the two pieces.

I was a little disappointed to find that the angled aluminum wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped it would be, so I needed to add a second strip on the other side of the join area for a bit of extra support, which worked out well.

So the end product is understandably heavier than a professional made stick due to the thickness of the blade and I guess the kind of wood used. But in time I’m hoping to get around to thinning the blade down and adding a curve to it, although I’m not sure of the woods strength so I’m a little hesitant to make it too thin.

home made hockey stick

I gave it a good work out this afternoon with a bit of one-on-one roller hockey against my son with his home made stick down at their school. It worked well and stood up nicely to the riggers of the game.

Facebook, a tool of change.

It would seem that some people have finally found a use for Facebook, as a tool of change.

What better way to start a partition or get your case out in the public than doing it where potentially millions of people will see it in a very short time?

That’s exactly what happened to Television New Zealand when they launched a new idea of using TXT styled language in their new promos for upcoming shows.

Some industrious person who didn’t like the idea started a group on Facebook called “I hate TV2’s new abbreviations”, it rapidly gained more than 6000 members and came to the attention of the bosses at the TV station. They said that along with the “dozens of emails and letters” has caused them to stop using the idea.

And so we see Facebook becoming the modern day equivalent of the old underground communications network.

Read the news item here

An inconvenient truth

It looks like Al Gore has half a rain forest worth of paper stored in his office. Or mayby this is his version of recycling.

Either way after seeing that much wasted paper, you have to ask yourself what the real inconvenient truth is.