Michael's Blog

invisibleSHIELD by ZAGG

micpen — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:27:22 +0000

This blows my mind. I just ordered one of these. I’ve been using a rubber skin for my iPhone made by Belkin, and it works great. I don’t have to take it off to plug it in, though if I had a dock, I would need to remove the bottom portion. But I haven’t had anything protecting my screen. Enter the invisibleSHIELD!!

“The invisibleSHIELD™ is created from an ultra-tough, patented film that is exclusive to ZAGG for covering consumer electronics. Transparent and amazingly thin, the invisibleSHIELD™ is designed to precisely match the contours of every device, providing unbeatable scratch protection. ZAGG’s invisibleSHIELD is the world’s first and best solution of its kind, and the patent-pending application process will keep gadgets looking great.” – From the ZAGG website

And! Guess what! It’s not just for the iPhone. Check out this info video, and all the things you can cover with it.

Obviously you won’t get protection from drops, or pressure cracks on your screen or physical mutilation of that kind, but scratches? No worries!

Plants vs Zombies

micpen — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 10:36:41 +0000

This has got to be the funniest thing I’ve seen so far this year. Plants vs Zombies!!

I’m totally getting this game when it comes out. I wonder if it’ll come out for the iPhone.

The Bacon Bowl Adventure

micpen — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 10:09:31 +0000

Alright. So for my very first post, I thought I’d do something special. I got the idea from Rachel Baker at the PC/Mac Smackdown to make a bowl out of bacon. I asked her how she did it and she linked me to her blog, which, sure enough, had pictures of bowls made of bacon. Well, they were more like cups. I wanted a full-sized bowl (or at least moderately sized).

Armed with the info I needed, I took a bowl from my cupboard, like so…

A plain bowl from my cupboard. Microwave safe!

Now, this bowl is large enough to hold an entire pot of macaroni & cheese, which is the future contents of my bacon bowl. I needed quite a bit of bacon to do it. Probably 2/3rds of a package to cover the bowl the way I did (info on why my method wasn’t perfect below). So I turned the bowl over and covered it with bacon. YUM!

Weave the bacon strips around the bowl.

I was really hungry, so I laid out some extra pieces around the bowl in places I knew would cook faster, so I could snack while waiting for my bowl to cook. Meanwhile, I’m also preparing my mac & cheese to go into the bowl.

Put it in the microwave! The oven would work too, but you gotta what kind of bowl you put in there.

One thing to remember is that bacon generates a LOT of grease when it cooks. I put my upturned bowl on a plate with MANY layers of paper towel so that there was something to absorb the grease. It would have been an awful mess otherwise.

I put my bowl in for 10 minutes, initially, but it needed extra time for some parts to cook fully, so I was just adding minutes until it all looked edible. The only problem was that the “bottom” of my bowl cooked a lot faster than the rest of it, so by the time the rest of it was cooked, the bottom was fairly inedible. The rest of it was fine though!

Be careful when taking stuff out of the microwave. I learned this lesson the hard way. The plate was hot. The bowl was definitely hot. Oven mitts are a definite plus here.

Mmm... bacon... mac & cheese... bacon...

It was beautiful, I tell you. Two of the most wonderful foods in the world becoming one. Delicious. I ate my macaroni, and then ate the bowl! It doesn’t get any better.

A job well done... Delicious!