As I have mentioned several times before on Gibberish, motorcycle gear is a compromise between comfort and safety. In general, leather offers the most abrasion resistance compared to textile fabrics (Kevlar, Cordura, etc), which in turn is better than denim or cotton. The problem is that leather is often the least comfortable in the cold or in the rain. Leather gear is also the least “usable” from a day to day perspective. If you compare a typical leather street jacket to a textile “touring” jacket, the touring jacket has tons of pockets and nifty accessories. One of the things I like the most about my Tourmaster Transition 2 jacket is the tiny key pocket. It is a lot easier to grab my keys from there instead of fumbling about in a giant storage pouch.
Read the rest of this entry »

I found these in a round-about way, as I do with most things on the Web. Toy blog Millionaire Playboy reported on the recently-announced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures by toymaker NECA.

The figures are right out of the original comic book — back when the storyline and art was gritty and grim. Before they had different-colored headbands, craved pizza, and said “cowabunga.”

The Millionaire Playboy article has a great review on the set’s articulation and attention to detail. Give the article a read as it is very interesting. In the meantime, here’s a shot of the regular edition set:

There is also an ABSOLUTELY sick looking black and white version of a turtle, presumably Leonardo.

Tanga.com has implemented a new ranking system for their nightly products. This is an interesting approach to the phenomenon of these “deal a day” sites: initially a site will bust out onto the scene with niche products, only to have to diversify later to make more money. Some sites, like Woot.com, completely lose focus. Woot used to have extremely good deals on electronics and computer equipment, with sellouts happening frequently. Now they have a lot of upscale items from all sorts of genres.
Read the rest of this entry »

Help me help a friend. An online buddy of mine is looking for the Micro Machines Titanium Series Pegasus, from the television series Battlestar Galactica. Apparently, the second-fiddle Battlestar has been hard to find ever since its release a month ago. You can find them on eBay for an insane markup ($20+ shipping for a $6 item). My online friend would rather not give the devil their due, so to speak.

If you happen to be at a Toys R Us, Target, Wal*Mart, or similar and can stroll by the toy aisle, please see if they have any Pegasus in stock. If so, please pick two up — one for my friend, and one for me. You know I’m good for it. A picture of the product packaging is after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

One of my longtime hardware dream projects is a RAID 5 file server for the home. My current setup is a mish-mash of different disks and capacities. I have no backup or failover options except for the external drive onto which I back up my digital photos.

As the years ticked on, drive sizes got larger. A one terabyte array seemed absurdly too big; now single drives store up to 750GB of data. One thing that stayed the same was the need for a big case that had enough room for an array of drives and the ability to cool them.

Enter the Yeong Yang W201 server case. The W201 can hold up to twelve 3.5″ drives by utilizing optional drive cages and the W201’s stock two 3.5″ bays. The case also features some options I won’t take advantage of, such as a hot-swappable SATA 2 five-disk hard drive cage. Standing seventeen inches tall, twenty-four inches deep, and almost nine inches wide, the W201 towers (lol) over my current Chieftech case.

The W201 is a touch over $200 with the two drive cages before shipping. Shipping won’t be cheap: total shipping weight is 42 pounds, the case weighs 37 pounds alone.

There aren’t any immediate plans to build my dream file server. I have enough debts to pay down before I start buying more toys. :)

This would be a lot higher on my “eventually buy” list if it had a hatchet/machete blade on it somewhere, but the Stanley Tools FUBAR is a multi-purpose tool that has a prybar end, a hammer head, and a grippy-thingy head.

This would come in handy during a zombie outbreak, except for the lack of a damn blade surface. Oh well, a cheap $6 Cold Steel machete would take care of that, but I just hate the idea of packing two tools instead of one.

I love, love, love the online music service Pandora.com. I listen to the station for a few hours a day at least. One thing I have wanted, however, is to play my Pandora station when I am downstairs, either playing cards with Lady Jaye or cooking, whatever. Short of running another PC downstairs, however, we are going to be sans Pandora, or any streaming music, or any tunes from our MP3 collection.

That is, until I saw the Squeezebox offered by Slim Devices.

This attractive device connects to your home stereo and wireless streams music from audio sources. It features all sorts of nifty tech, such as the fast 802.11g wireless network protocol, high-tech (but unusable to me) A/V outputs like Digital Coax and Digital Optical, and a remote control. It also plays just about any audio format under the sun, including FLAC, WAV, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and WMA. When you purchase a Squeezebox you get three months of Pandora for free.

I am really digging on the Squeezebox concept. There are other competing devices, but none of them are integrated with my beloved Pandora. Too bad it’s $300, and I have other things to spend my money on.

Squeezebox, I pine for thee.

Aftermarket tuning company Hahn Racecraft updated their Turbo Solstice page today, noting that they will offer a 300HP turbo kit. The stock Solstice has 177HP. The car’s Ecotech engine has been proven (on other cars) to scale as high as 500+HP, but that requires a lot more investment on internal parts, etc. The Hahn turbo kit should not require any additional upgraded parts. I wonder how much additional power could be squeezed from an ECM tune after adding the turbo.

The kit has an estimated paper launch date of later this month. I am guessing the real street launch date will be in April. The guesstimated cost is around $4500 - $5000 installed.

No, I’m not talking about yours truly, I’m talking about the Dell 20″ Widescreen Ultrasharp 2005FPW, on sale for about $350 after tax and free shipping. This monitor normally goes for $579. It’s on sale, plus you can throw on another $100 off coupon by using this code: 63C1JBV4XV1VMD

If you’ve been waiting to get a bad boy monitor, this is your chance! Make sure your video card can support 1680×1050.

[edit]
For clarification, the monitor is on sale for $434.25. You have to add the coupon (code given above) to get the monitor down to $334.25 before tax. Also, Dell defaults you to the overnight shipping option. Select the free 3 - 5 business day shipping option!