So, The Beach and Stuff Like That

Actually, no stuff like that. So I was at the beach the other day, as you do. It was McCorrie point. Its a little dinky beach. Your typical Portsmouth beach full of shells and rocks and seaweed and weeds and shit. It's shit for swimming but it's great for finding stuff or just hangin' out thinking. So I was thinking while picking up various pretty rocks for my grandmother searching for an epiphany of some kind when the question hit me: Why the fuck are there so many bricks on the beach? Seriously, I finds them all the time on the beaches I go to and they're nice, all smoothed out by the ocean and shit. But why are there so many of them? One or two every once in a while I can understand, like seaglass, but there's way more of them all over the place if you look. so where did they come from? Is there a natural explanation? Are they just red rocks that look like bricks? Cuz I took Earth Science freshman year of high school and the only thing I learned (from crazy talks-to-walls-no-really-he-does Mr. Rutkewitz) was how to tell brick or cement from a real rock. Was there some giant Titanic-sized tanker full of bricks that sank a hundred tears ago? and the bricks were just washed ashore now because they were all defective and floated a bit or something? I did some reasearch and it turnes out that already happened in the little island of St Maarten. but that looks very different from our beaches. I mean, what the fuck! Where did all these fucking bricks come from! Did there used to be some epic fort or something by the New England beaches but some secret government-covered-up-war happened and it got owned? So as soon as I got back, I asked, and... not even Google knew why. NOT EVEN FUCKING GOOGLE KNEW!!! That's when I realized I had uncovered a true mystery of the universe. I'm trying to make peace with the fact that I may never know why the bricks are there, but it's something I'll wonder about for the rest of my life. I have a feeling it's going to come back to haunt me one day. Like I'll be kidnaped or tortured and all they'll want to know is why, and I won't know, and I'll die strapped to a chair in a basement somewhere all because I didn't know where the bricks came from. Or some government agency will come to me and tell me there's a nuke in Amherst and the only way to stop it is to tell them where the bricks came from, and I won't know and thousands of people will die, because I lacked the curiosity to find out why. But what If I dedicate my life to finding out why? And it turns out to be some part of a secret experiment that went horribly wrong and I'm killed for knowing to much? Or what if it's some mundane answer and I realize I've wasted my life for nothing? Those goddamned bricks. Another one of the universe's unsolvable mysteries.

A List Of Those Currently Riding The Fail Train

Without further ado, a list of those people currently riding The Fail Train are (by alias): 1. "Jersey" (conductor) 2. "Rouge" (bartender) 3. "The Gatekeeper" (drunk passenger) "Juggernaut" is currently running alongside The Fail Train since he's posted, once, and drafted once. THE ONLY ONE FULL OF WIN IS ME!!!!!!!!! MEEEEEEE!!!! If you guys don't want to do it, that's totally cool with me I don't care. I just don't want to do it by myself waiting for someone else to post something, anything. Just email me if you don't want to and I'll close the blog. If you guys aren't into this that's fine just tell me we'll stay in touch the boring way.

Lulz Of The Time

So I'm recycling another idea from the past. I had a section I called Lulz of the Day where I would post some lulz......daily (duuuuhh). The problem was I never really posted daily so it was all a lie. However, I've learned my lesson and like a good counselor have adapted accordingly. I bring you Lulz Of The Time! So without further ado (and I know its old but)....

yes. yes it is.

Get Quality: FileHippo.com

So I was thinking about my tech support grumbles while drafting a posted rant about, when I thought more people should know about filehippo.com. It is without a doubt the single best resource for software on windows. People always ask me how to do this or that with this or that software. Filehippo only adds software if they deem it to be popular enough or of good enough quality. So when you need a piece of software to do X, just look on filehippo and they'll have the best option for you. They also have an update checker which scans your computer for updates and will give you a webpage with a list and download links for updates. It's the one place I go when first I install windows or need to download software in general. The layout of the site is simple and effective, no bs or five links to click through before you get a download. They also host older versions and betas, along with filters for only freeware and stable versions. The downloads are fast. I love just browsing through looking for new softare to try. Truly a great resource, next time you need an app, check it out. For more info, check out thier about page.

Never Really Cought On Did It? Convinceme.net

Anyone know Convinceme.net? It opened about a year ago as a place for people to argue on the internet, as if there wasn't enough of that already. It does bring some fun and interesting things to the table though. The format is brilliant and allows you to clearly see both sides of the issue. There's different modes that include open debates, 1-on-1, and king of the hill style where you may only add one argument, so it'd better be good. There's even a news section where debaters post articles and subsequent debates can be made about them. So with a cohesive and organized place for all the internetz pplz to go and spew opinion to thier heartz content, you'd think the site would be filled. but with only around 5,850 registered members, counting inactive accounts that's not nearly as much as expected. That's not even that much at all. You still get a bigger debate on any given front page digg story or gawker post. When I originally saw it I thought it could be used as a way to, "take the flamewar outside," leaving the other sites and forums with some peace and quiet. But that never happened. The upside is, with the small commuty and even smaller active community it has, most debates are fairly cohesive and non-flamey. You actually get some interesting stuff reading it. Of course the most popular debate after over a year is still Ninjas versus Pirates. I like following this guy, he's always interesting. So why did it never catch on? Are people afraid of change? Is the Post format more easy to debate with than this two-column approach? I have no idea, but why sounds like a good debate topic to me. Anyway here's ConvinceMe. Have fun.

Review: The "Master Chef" Part 1

My crazy Panamaniac greasemonkey weightlifter uncle decided it was due time his soon-to-be-12-year-old son got a computer for himself. New generation huh? Anyway I convinced him that building a computer from scratch would be a better option than getting one from a store or company. The system would later be named the "Master Chef." The simple reasons you should build your own computer versus buy one are as follows:

• You get WAY more power for WAY less price (usually 2x or more).
• The build will be more stable and the hardware is less likely to fail.
• There are many more configuration options without the worry of breaking a warranty.
• The cool factor, it's a computing codpiece.

Sure you don't get tech support, but when was the last time Dell or HP tech support actually helped you? Don't answer that, it was rhetorical, I know the answer to that, it's never because you motherfuckers call me all the fucking time when you can't find the start menu or can't figure out fucking iTunes. It's FUCKING ITUNES!! GOOGLE IT! .......anyway maybe I'll save that rant for another post. So the short is you should always build your own desktop instead of buying a new one. Yea yea so my cousin was getting one and I offered to build it for him. So I hunted for a lil' bit and came up with this list of parts with which I made a public wish list on Newegg Including the rebates it comes to $803.92. without the monitor thats $633.93. Pretty sexy considering if you want to buy a computer with similar specs and video card it'd cost you around $1,750 with a monitor and $1,300 without. The parts simply explained are as follows: A sexy Cooler Master RC-690 case that came with a 550 watt power supply: I chose it for it's good looks, price (at the time it was $99), included power supply, trusted brand, and good reviews. A decent MSI P7N-SLI motherboard: I probably would've gone with this ASUS model instead, but the price was just a little too high. Wasn't a bad decision though, and I'm a fan of the 750 chipset. 4Gig of OCZ Gold RAM: I haven't had much personal experience with OCZ, but the price was right and I wasn't building a computer for myself. I'd heard good things and this was a good time to check it out. An Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 running at 2.53Ghz: This is where I saved my money. Had I more to spend I would've gone with the E8200, which has a 1333mhz FSB and runs at 2.66Ghz, but it was just so much more money. A Western Digital 250Gb Hard Drive: I don't skimp on hard drives, I've bought this drive before for my builds and have always found it to be rock solid stable, whisper quiet, and blazing fast. I buy exlusively Western Digital because thier drives have never ever ever given me a problem as opposed to other companies. An EVGA GeForce 8800GT 512: I spent a little more for the trusted EVGA brand, but thier customer service is outstanding. A friend of mine busted his from stupid overclocking and they replaced it no problem, with free shipping. This thing hauls ass too, about the 3rd fastest card you can get without going SLI, and for $115 after rebate, I couldn't resist. A BenQ G2000WD 20.1 inch widescreen LCD monitor: It was cheap, had good reviews and color depth, and a decent 5ms response time for gaming. Can't go wrong with BenQ either. And finnally a LITE-ON 20x SATA DVD burner: Honestly it was the cheapest SATA DVD Burner on Newegg. The reviews were fine. I Don't have too much experience with burners and ussually just buy the cheapest no-name brand I can find. I've never had a problem with any drive I've bought. This time though, the cheapest drive was a name-brand LITE-ON. So I guess God is telling me it's time to get a name-brand disc drive. That's enough for this time, next time I'll go through the building process and start detailed reviews. As well as rate the system as a whole and compare it to other...things. Till next time. BOO! scared? Are you ready? Are you ready for this? Are you hanging on the edge of your seat?

Wiki of the Week: Uncyclopedia

Uncyclopedia, is a direct parody of Wikipedia. It was started in 2005 by Johnathan Huang and a Netizen known as "Stillwaters," which is pretty ridiculous. It's pretty durn cohesive and spans over 100,000 pages worth of funny content. Think of it as a more refined (i.e less lulz, more comedy) Encyclopedia Dramatica, which will be covered later. The Wikipedia article about Uncyclopedia and the Uncyclopedia Main page

The Tartar Sauce Endorses A Candidate

Figured everyone would want this. Barack and Biden FTW.

Wiki of the Week

Ok, so I'm recycling the idea from my older blog, I like it and I can do it if I wanna. Don't judge me! This week I'm posting a new kind of wiki you may have heard of since it's been gathering media attention. It's called Citizendium. It was started by Larry Singer, the guy who co-founded Wikipedia back in 2001. Think of it as a Wikipedia but with valid information. Everyone who signs up to write articles must reveal their full name as well as credentials to write on their subject. There is significantly less articles (only about 8,000), but all of them cite valid sources, so if you're doing some research you need not fear. here's the Wikipedia article about Citizendium and the Citizendium main page.

And now for something completely different...

There is a growing fear in today's society. The thoughts from the darkest corners of our collective psyche's, staining ignorant bliss with shadows of oblivion. We all know what it is, but so few of us will accept the reality of the situation.

Zombies.

That's right ladies and gentlemen, Zombies. Our undead friends from the realms of crappy 70's and 80's horror movies, and the hordes of nasties from the more recent 28 Days Later and Resident Evil. Now the possibility of something like a massive outbreak of some strange disease, or a government experiment, or something of that sort may seem ridiculous to many people. So it may be ridiculous, but wasn't the thought of the Titanic sinking thought of the same way? Given that anything is possible, Zombies are a threat that should be addressed, even just at a personal level, so that when "Z-Day" comes, you can stay calm, stay collected, and most importantly, stay alive.

Now one of the first things to take into consideration is where you may be when Zombies strike. Make a map in your head of all of the places you frequent often. Your house, a friends house, work, the local supermarkets and any store like Home Depot, Menards, Wal-Mart etc. Having at least some idea of the lay out of these places will give you the upper hand when you have a horde of zombies around, or following you. Next it is best to make lists of supplies.

What does one need in their fight to stay alive in the Zombie ridden future? The basics are simple. You'll need food, and water, friends, and weapons. Now choose your friends carefully, you don't want someone becoming a weak link in the group, this sounds harsh, but your lives are literally going to be in each others hands. As for weapons, look around the house. Anything you have that is blunt and heavy would probably be best, at least for the moment. If you have a gun or rifle, that's great, but this isn't like the video games where you pick up ammo everywhere. You're going to want to find anything that could easily bash in a head or cause some sort of blunt force trauma.

Think on this, and ask yourself, are you ready?

More Various Geeky Web Clippiings

Here's a great post on The Escapist forums talking about cartoons, in particular the short film "Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue." A film about a whole ton of cartoon characters joining forces against the evils of drugs. The film, ironically, gets pretty trippy. And of course the ever popular huge list of things that have happened since Duke Nukem Forever was first anounced. Crazy Japanese people playing the mario theme with an rc car and bottles filled with water. "I Spy" In Hell from McSweeneys. Slow motion bullet Photographs. The smallest 3d video game ever coded to date (only 96k!!), hit the download link, unzip and double click the .exe file, windows only. And finally, your next Halloween costume. There, enough? Happy? So bugger off!

Geek Reads: Doom_Rpg.odt

Just going to link to this wonderful short narrative written by a friend of mine our first semester of college. He's a geeky-gamer-hippie-hampshire kid if you need context. It's really well written, and definitely worth a look at.

Review: Logitech Dual Action Game Pad

So I would've reviewed a converter to plug my PS1 controller into my computer, but Radio Shack didn't have any, so instead I bought the one of two gamepads they had in stock (the other pad being an xbox 360 wireless controller, $60? no thanks). The pad rang in at 21$ and came in a nice plastic start-with-scissors-but-then-you-get-too-pissed-off-and-just-tear-the-fucking-thing-open package.

The contents of the package are minimal (as they should be, it's a gamepad) consisting of the gamepad itself, directions, and a mini-cd with drivers and crapware. I popped in the cd, and proceeded to install the drivers for the pad. I'll give props to logitech for making the crapware optional, many "driver" cd's install a bunch of other crap without asking. It installed fine, no issues. A driver and a settings application called "logitech profiler" was installed. So I figured I'd try out some games.

First was Codemasters, Race Driver: GRID. This game comes with gamepad support so I wouldn't have to use the profiler to assign keys like in an emulator or older games. I went to GRID setup and selected the buttons I wanted to use for whatever, pressed enter, and boom, all set up. Racing was fantastic. The controller is almost identical to a PS2 controller, something I felt pretty comfortable racing with. The analog sticks were a bit stiff, even for me, but the buttons were very responsive and the rubber grips reduced the sweat on my palms. After two weeks of fairly heavy use the buttons show no real sign of imprint or wear. Great experience there.

Then came Beyond Good And Evil, an old platformer for pc that I suggest you all play. This had no gamepad support, so it was time to fire up the profiler and assign the keys to my gamepad. This is where everything falls down a massive well of fail.

The "Profiler" is one of the single shittiest pieces of software I have ever come to use. Maybe I'm spoiled being a geek and all, but it was terrible. I'd go through the cryptic process of assigning key combinations and directions, only to find that they simply didn't work. I did some googling and found that the version of the profiler I'd been using (the version on the cd) was FROM 2006!!! Seriously? That's my dead great-grandmother's age in software years. Did I just get a ridiculously old gamepad, or is logitech just too lazy to update its cd's? Whatever the answer, I downloaded new software and drivers from thier website and installed them, only to then find the EXACT SAME piece of shit excuse for a profiler that had been only minimally updated, and still didn't work.

It was time... to ask the third parties.

Some more research told me that Xpadder was the best (and close to only) choice. I downloaded the small 1mb executable that came in a 450kb zip folder. It set itself up quicky and I stumbled through the quick setup wizard. Before I knew it I was playing Beyond Good And Evil and all my favorite emulator games as if sitting in front of the SNES. Xpadder is so easy to use. It has unobtrusive little tips and hints that enable you to figure out how to use it without having to go to a guide (though guides are out there if you need them, unlike the Logitech Profiler).

so, 10 is best, 1 is worst.

With Xpadder Using my Logitech Dual Action was a pleasant experience. I'd give this controller a solid 8, maybe even a 9 if Xpadder came with it, but it doesn't.

As a gamepad alone This controller gets a 6.8, it's a little too stiff, but it can compete with a lot of the other gamepads out there and it was dirt cheap, so what were you expecting? It's also the closest you'll get to a PS2 controller, which was a pro for me, others might feel differently.

As it came in the package, the gamepad gets a 3. However good or inexpensive the gamepad is, it can't offset how terrible and old the software that came with it was.

Bottom line, if your looking for a cheap gamepad, buy it, you get more than what you pay for and what more do you want? it's a gamepad. But don't even bother installing the software, just use Xpadder.

Another Blog Rides the Fail Train

Here we go again, me trying desperately to keep up and do a blog. I always thought it would be cool to blog, to have a blog. It's like having your own virtual soapbox with your own little following of people you don't know. All of them reading your thoughts and ideas as if they mattered. Putting your ideas in a feed reader or refreshing the page hoping you've come up with some new ones. The problem is I don't have that many ideas. It's more than that, I guess. I'm a pretty lazy guy. No really I swear. I do a find and replace to capitalize my I's because I'm too lazy to hit the shift key. There's a lot of other examples, but listing them would be too much effort. I also do stuff (despite my laziness), and what with college classes, parties, rehearsals, jobs, and general life, I'd often rather blow up shit in Call of Duty or San Andreas than spend time writing and thinking, even though I'd ultimately be happier if I wrote. Whatever. I've had two blogs before, the first was Back Door Life. I started it after High school during the summer. It actually did pretty well and I might recycle a few posts from there if this blog ever takes off. That one remains my most successful one. I knew what I had to do and I was pretty consistent with writing daily. After a while I had a decently devoted following and was keeping up with around 3 posts a day. I had some cool content. But then college hit and with all the new things I was experiencing along with seeking and making new friends, I just couldn't keep it up. So it faded away. My next blog was The Daily Century. Aside from this it is my latest. I still might update it if I come up any other funny ideas. The premise was once a day I would write a fake article about something in the tech world. Sort of like a geek-oriented onion, though I'd like to think I'm more original than that. Problem was I'm not that funny, and ran out of ideas really quickly. I still post to it every few months, but for the most part it's dead. It got no traffic. So I've tried and failed to write blogs. So why try again? Aren't I supposed to be lazy? Don't I suck at this? Well yea, but blogs are friggin' cool, and this time it's different. This time, I have four other people who have agreed to blog with me as a means of keeping in touch when we all part this fall to our respective colleges and dance tours. That means there are five chances for this blog to do well. And if other people are doing it with me then I'll be more motivated to keep up with it. It's also a great way to keep in touch since there's no official theme of this blog. We're all just gonna write. Though It'll probably have to do with multimedia or something since everyone blogging is the artsy fartsy type, but it doesn't really matter. As long as we have enough posts. well I've rambled enough, I'm exited about this and hope it stays a frequent and sweet way to stay together. And with a name like "The Tartar Sauce," what could go wrong?

About

Welcome to The Tartar Sauce, a mystical, chunky, high viscosity mixture of various geekery.

There's five of us, and with our powers combined, we cover a range of topics, including, but not limited to:

Video games Oh yes, we do love our video games. PC games, web games, consoles (mostly Nintendo or JRPGs), deals, news, reviews, essays, insights, opinions, and rants. We love 'em and we love writing about them.
 
Technology and internet culture Whether it's a killer Firefox extension, the history of lolcats, a neat Wiki, or rants on the industry, you'll find our fascination for the wonderful world of technology and the culture surrounding it here as well.
 
Music, movies, and TV We're media whores, and proud. We feature monthly movie reviews, along with with (often belated) reviews of albums and collaborations, as well as rants and essays on TV shows, old and new.  

Whatever the fuck we want Yup, we reserve the right to post whatever drivel pops into our tiny brains. Language insights, travel adventures, web clippings, videos, pictures, appropriation, WTF moments, and personal essays. If we think you should know about it, we tell you.

So here we are, a saucy mixture of all things our geeky multimedia brains can think of. Enjoy over chicken, with fried fish, or in your RSS reader.

Contact The Team: We're all working on getting profiles and descriptions together, which should provide more info, but for now if you'd like to contact us please feel free to leave a comment, or our emails are below. And we're @thetartarsauce on twitter, if you're into that sort of thing. You can email all of us at tips@thetartarsauce.com Or individually to:

Jake "The Fortress" Kolpas
jake@thetartarsauce.com

Andrew "BackDoorAngel" Katzman
andrew@thetartarsauce.com | @andrewkatzman

Cameron "Bobbicus" Kingsley
cameron@thetartarsauce.com

Pat "Apollo" King
pat@thetartarsauce.com

Julian "Juje" Suhr
julian@thetartarsauce.com