It’s been almost a year since I’ve been at Carabar. I’ve forgotten how much I love the place.

Tonight I bought almost 10 beers for people, had a basket of sweet potato fries (best in the city IMHO), a killer gyro, and a Meat splash (small meatball sub). After a generous tip, my total was $18. HOW AWESOME IS THAT!?

Sure you might get herpes by using the bathroom. Sure it’s dark and kinda hard to see if the tables are clean. Sure the live music is not my thing, and sure it’s full of hipsters.

On the plus side, the food is fantastic (it’s a secret menu, you need to ask, and it seems that they only have one to go around), the atmosphere is unique, you’re free to write on the walls, and hipsters are courageous people. You need to be when you decide to all wear the same clothes.

Every person in the place looks like this

This image is not mine. I'm a criminal.

I know very little details about what these bills are all about, but I’ll tell you what I think is the jist of it. This pic that I used for this post came from a site that I found while Googling “sopa pipa”.

Even though I gave credit to the source, if there is a perceived violation of the content creator’s IP (intellectual property) by someone (or anyone I think), then the full force and weight of the federal government will come down on my hosting provider and make them close brumblog.com. Without any way for me to correct the issue or contest the accusation.

What’s worse is if the site that I just linked above links to something that contains copyrighted materials (which is perceived by someone as a violation) they will be taken down too. Then this site will be taken down as well for linking to them.

Pull on one thread and the whole thing comes apart.

Check out this video for a summary. Btw, this video isn’t mine either. I deserve to be shutdown.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

For some reason I can’t get enough of the GOP primaries. WTF is the matter with me?

I don’t vote in primaries (because I refuse to pick a party, and in Ohio that means that you can only vote on a non-partisan ballot, e.g., issues only) and I rarely vote for republicans. I find myself on realclearpolitics.com at least once every few days to see how the polls are running. I get a real kick out of Mitt Romney doing well.

It’s not because I like Mitt. I just love to hear of conservative pundits and personalities hate the fact that he’s going to be the nominee. I love that Ron Paul is probably not going to give up and be a republican Ralph Nader, taking away votes. I love that when Gingrich and Perry open their mouths, they tend to make things worse. I love that Santorum is still in the race letting his freak flag fly. I kind of miss Bachman, and Cain.

I think that Mitt will be candidate, and that he’ll lose to Obama. It seems like a win win situation for democrats. If Mitt is the guy, a subset of republican voters won’t vote for him because he’s not conservative enough, or because he’s Mormon, or because his not a person you can have a beer with. All dumb reasons.

If Mitt is not the guy, and say Santorum is the candidate, oh man…what a circus that would be.

Define: schadenfreude – Noun. Pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune. Of course it could all go sideways and then my enjoyment is now my nightmare. We’ll see what the next 10 months will bring.

Super bright, modular, and controllable.

Check out what’s coming in the mail in a few days! These are modular LED aquarium lights from AquariumIllumination.

They are easy to install (we hope), give great light for the fish and coral in the tank, are modular (easy to add more), controllable, and best of all…pull only 130 watts. Our current setup for lighting is 4 VHO bulbs at 120 watts a piece. A piece people! We’re going from 480 watts, to 130. I know that it doesn’t sound like a lot, but it adds up.

The wife wanted to get these because it will provide better lighting for the corals, and also allow us to setup more realistic sunrise/sunset cycles. These will even simulate lunar cycles. I wanted to get it for the power savings.

Oh, and I also wanted it so that I can play with the thunderstorm simulations.

The best damn remote $50 can buy

People have told me that the Logitech remotes are one of the best remotes on the market. I thought, “I spent over $100 on an old Sony universal remote, and I’ll never spend money on a remote ever again.”

What a fool I was.

I got the Logitech 650 for Amazon for about $50. The reviews were very good, however, the mentioned that setup was a pain. They were right. I spent a few hours playing with the config and changing button layouts. When I was all done, I had the best remote for me.

It controls everything that I have, flawlessly. Switching between inputs is a breeze. If you want it to do something, it’s just a matter of configuration. I’ve run out of positive things to say.

I’m not very creative. Great remote. Really…really…great.