Samwise rides again

Domoic acid in algae is the likely cause for inebriated seabirds

In primary school, there is always one kid who eats glue, no-one knows why, they just do. On a side-note, no, that wasn’t me, cheeky fucks.

So a friend introduced me to Strawberry Mochi yesterday. It is basically a fresh Strawberry wrapped in a Mochi dumpling.

Mochi is made from a Glutinous Rice flour, and as a result is very sticky, the Mochi we ate was dusted on the outside with flour.

Apparently it is often enjoyed around Japanese New Year, and apparently around that time many elderly japanese people die as a result of choking on Mochi. I find this quite easy to believe as due to it’s stickiness it would be almost impossible to unlodge from the wind-pipe, even with the Heimlich Maneuver.

Rabbits living on the Moon produce mochi using pestles and mortars, so now you know.

As long as you are not prone to choking, I highly recommend trying Strawberry Mochi, if you haven’t already.

I own a Daewoo DVR06 DVD player, it’s pretty cool, it plays and records most formats of DVD ( eg. DVD+-RW, ) also it appears to be region free, at least I can play both US and European DVDs without issue, well almost ….

Today I attempted to play a new DVD that I had bought locally, and when I attempted to play it all I got was a message saying “This Disc Is Not Formatted to Play In This Region.”

I was quite confused as the player, as I have said, can play multiple regions without issue. I also had no problem playing said DVD on my computer that only plays US and region-free discs.

The trick appears to be to restore back to the default factory settings, this is in the initial setup screen.

UPDATE :

Forget what I said about the DVR06 being region-free, after restoring factory defaults it locked into region 1, however I was able to find an article on t’internet that tells you how to change regions.

On the system information screen type in 1, 1, 0, 1
This should bring up the hidden option for the region selection
Hit 0 to make it multi-region or 1-6 to set to a specific region

This should work for the following models

DF-4100
DF-4150
DF-7100
DF-7150
DF-8100
DF-8150
DH-6105
DH-6100P
DR2100P
DRX-1105
DVR-06
DVR-S05

Courtesy of the Wayback Machine, we have some archives of retro SamWise from back when it was hosted at Binary Ape.

Let the good times roll

UPDATE : http://optimist.geekisp.com/retro/ now has the archive hosted on this site. It needs some work fixing links and resourcing images, but now you can get your ancient Samwise fix without having to trawl the Wayback machine.

Good times.

Here in Hilo, we have a zoo, and in that zoo lives a White Tiger called “Nameste”.

“Nameste” is the main attraction, mainly because White Tigers are so rare.

Now I don’t particularly like zoos, some of them are really good of course, and do great things, others are small and feel like an animal prison. The zoo in Hilo feels like it is of the latter variety.

I went there one day a few months back, it is one of the things to do here, of which there are not many, well not by comparison to some bigger towns and cities, and I felt so depressed there, I left soon after arriving.

I saw “Nameste”, and it made me really sad, he just walked round and round in circles, he had even worn a groove in the grass. I felt really sorry for him. I didn’t even post my photos to Flickr ( gasp! )

Today I read an article on White Tigers, apparently White Tigers can only exist in captivity by continual inbreeding with close relatives, with all the problems associated with such practices.

Poor “Nameste”.

News via the BBC

An area greater than 140,000 square miles is to be protected under the 1906 National Antiquities Act.

The area comprises more than 7,000 species, a quarter of which are unique. Species present include endangered species such as Green Sea Turtles and Hawai’ian Monk Seals.

I think this is great news, but it will probably piss-off many of the locals who fish there, fishing on the whole is a BIG thing in Hawai’i

For the juration of the World Cup, I’ll be hosting the English national anthem here. I’ll try and keep the hooliganism to a minimum.

UPDATE : For those of you living on the Big Island who have cable the listings for first round games can be found here.

England vs. Paraguay Channel 12 KITV Sat 6/10 6:00 AM

England vs. Trinidad & Tobago Channel 21 ESPN2 Thu 6/15 5:55 AM

England vs. Trinidad & Tobago ( RPT ) Channel 23 ESPNCL Thu 6/15 11:00 AM

England vs. Sweden Channel 22 ESPN Tue 6/20 8:55 AM

England vs. Sweden ( RPT ) Channel 23 ESPNCL Tue 6/20 8:00 PM

Ecuador vs. England 12 KITV Sun 6/25 4:30 AM

Big mahalos to Christine and Blacky for inviting me round to watch the England Ecuador game

England vs. Portugal 12 KITV Sat 7/1 4:30 AM

England vs. Portugal 22 ESPN Sat 7/1 9:00 PM

Once again, Big mahalos to Christine and Blacky for inviting me round to watch the England Portugal game, see you again in 4 years, with a new manager, a new captain, and a winning attitude.