A Bequeathment

Posted on March 6, 2010 by Kip

I am now the proud owner of an oil painting on wood canvas by John Opie of my great-great-great-granduncle, Thomas Stewardson, who was portrait painter to Queen Caroline

It turns out that of all our possessions, this is one of the most valuable ones. Several of Opie’s works hang in the National Portrait Gallery in the UK, as well as several of Stewardson’s works.

This comes down from my mother’s side of the family (which also, unfortunately, gave me the “crazy Hinchman blood”). I’ve spent hours sitting in front of that portrait, being comforted by it, thinking grand thoughts, while Thomas Stewardson smiles down a cryptic smile at me.

Now it will hang over my bed on Cape Cod, because my parents refuse to put it anywhere else, as it “doesn’t fit” with the decor of our Cape Cod house. Phooey on them, huzzah for me, is what I say. It’s a great portrait, even if the years have made everything but the face barely legible. I’m honored to have it, and to keep it in the family.

Best of all, my annoying cousins don’t get it. 🙂

I’ll try to take a photo of it and post it on here at some time. We simply call it “The Ancestor”.

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Open Call for Guest Bloggers

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Kip

I’m interested in anyone who’d like to post a guest piece, on anything, really, if they want. Of course the best-case scenario would be someone with a differing political viewpont from mine. 🙂

Reply to this post if you feel like contributing to kiplange.com! Any and all posts welcome! I’ll even edit them for you.

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Saving money on Electronic Cigarettes by using your own “E-Juice”

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Kip

I’ve learned, since starting use of my Blu e-cig, that it’s a lot cheaper to refill your own cartridges with liquid nicotine juice than to continue to buy the refill cartridges over and over again.

I have not tried this method myself yet, but I just ordered some E-Juice today from: http://www.electriccigarettestop.com/index.php?cPath=4

I’m hoping to be able to follow this step-by-step guide to refilling Blu cartridges in order to save some money on cartridge refill orders (scroll down the page to a bit to find the step-by-step guide).

I’ll keep you updated in the next month or so, when the E-Juice comes, as to how it works out, if it works out at all.

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PS3 8001050F Error Resolves Itself

Posted on March 2, 2010 by Kip

It’s safe to turn on your Playstation 3 again. The 8001050F errors are gone, and you can connect to the PSN without any trouble.

The problem was, as previously posted, a “leap year” bug which resolved itself.

Happy gaming!

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Advice from the Gamer Advisory Panel on the Sony Playstation 3 8001050F Errors

Posted on March 1, 2010 by Kip

The consensus seems to be to just wait for 24 hours.

The following was taken from the Gamer Advisory Panel forum, which I belong to; Sony’s “elite” group of gamers:

Hope it helps

Everyone READ THIS PLEASE.

Here’s what’s going on right now: something with the PS3’s internal clock has borked in some pre-slim models. This is not a PSN issue; it has to do with your PS3’s clock. This clock is NOT related to the OS clock. It seems to be a leap year bug. Setting your clock ahead will do nothing. All PS3s around the world were affected at the exact same time.

Does this affect me?

-If you have a Slim PS3, you’re good to go. Continue playing it as normal.
-If you have a “fat” PS3, you may be affected. Some fat PS3s have worked ok, but it seems a good majority have been bugged.

What does this bug mean?

-If affected, your date and time has been set to a random past date. This prevents you from signing into PSN, playing any PSN games, or using any DLC. Your trophies will also not display correctly or be able to sync.

How do I fix it?

-You can’t. Even if you don’t sign into PSN, it won’t help. This is a hardware issue.

So, what do I do?

-Wait 24 hours. Other products that have had similar bugs have corrected themselves after the “bugged” day. On Monday around 8pm central time, all PS3s will automatically correct themselves…maybe.

-If that doesn’t work, we’ll need a firmware update from Sony, which should be a pretty important priority for them right now.

Did I lose my data/themes/etc?

Your save data/games/dlc/themes are fine. They’ll be fixed when the PS3 is fixed. Trophies are uncertain right now, but they’ll be fine if you’ve synced them before the PS3 was bugged. Unsynced trophies are an unknown right now.

If I have a bugged PS3, can I still use it?

It’s probably not a good idea, as I have no idea what will happen to the trophies you earn during the bugged time. Movies/media will work fine.

So there ya go, my handy FAQ.

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Sony PS3 PSN Error 8001050F

Posted on March 1, 2010 by Kip

Okay. The Playstation 3 and the Playstation Network are having some issues today.

Here’s what happens: UNLESS you own a PS3 “slim”, when you start up your PS3, and try to log into the Playstation network, you get the message: “An error has occurred. You have been
signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)”.

When you try to start a game, you get the message: “Failed to install trophies. Please exit your game.”

Apparently Sony knows about this and is working on this. Again, the “slim” model is not affected (like there’s more than 3% of us who own frickin’ slims). Anyway, you can follow the status of the problem by going to Sony’s twitter page, which is giving a painfully slow drip of information, or you can go to the Sony PSN blog, where you’re also going to get painfully slow information.

Hang in there. They’ve got to fix this thing relatively soon. I hope. Jesus Christ, Sony, come on.

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Stamp out the PACT Act

Posted on February 28, 2010 by Kip

Washington has come up with another way to screw the middle class. It’s called the “PACT Act”, and “PACT” stands for “Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking”.

The idea behind it is to stop people from being able to order their cigarettes from online vendors or from Indian reservations, or any place other than your local retailer, where you’re probably paying $10 a pack these days (versus as low as $2 a pack through the Indian reservations).

Of course, this is a regressive tax that targets blue-collar people and people earning UNDER the coveted “250k” mark, because most smokers are middle to lower-middle class.

There’s one exemption for tobacco products in the PACT Act, and guess what it is? Cigars. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. Politicians and rich people smoke cigars. Therefore, cigars will be exempt from the PACT Act.

It stinks to high heaven. Read the bill here, and tell me it doesn’t.

Now cross your fingers and hope this thing doesn’t pass. Not only does it hurt the average tobacco consumer, it also hurts the Indian reservations making money off of tobacco sales, which is why the Seneca Nation is urging Congress to vote against it. I smoke Senecas myself, and I get them cheaply, but if the PACT Act goes through, I’m going to be spending a few thousand dollars more per year to get my cigarettes.

People have the right to smoke, as stupid as it is. People have the right to be stupid, frankly, as long as there stupidity doesn’t infringe upon someone else’s personal liberties. So give it a rest, Congress, eh?

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Orangutans or Chimpanzees poll back up…

Posted on February 26, 2010 by Kip

The all-important Orangutans or Chimpanzees poll has been put back up at the very bottom of the page (only place I could really think of putting it). Get your vote in now!

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Heavy Rain for the PS3: Review

Posted on February 25, 2010 by Kip

Adventure games are few and far between, so it’s a welcome sight to see Sony Computer Entertainment Europe release a brand spankin’-new PS3-only adventure game.

This review is going to be rather brief, as I can’t really tell you much about the game without giving away massive spoilers. Suffice to say the plot involves missing children and a serial murderer.

You take on several different roles as you play this game; father of the missing child, private detective, FBI agent (with a really neat VR tool called “ARI” at your disposal), and a few others. Gameplay consists of using the various buttons and analog sticks in different combinations to reveal clues, study objects, or even just reveal what your character is thinking (holding down L2 at any point will show the thoughts floating around in your character’s head).


It’s raining. Heavily. Is that surprising?

Visually, the game is stunning, although I would expect no less from Sony. The downside is the interface. Walking around is a bit of a cludgy process, and using the buttons to do what you’re supposed to do can, at times, be extremely annoying, especially since the game uses SixAxis controls (and I have yet to find a way to shut off the SixAxis features). Personally, I hate SixAxis, but that’s just me. Leave that kind of stuff to the Wii, you know?

Also, another downside is that while the game promises that “every decision you make” will affect the story, that’s not really entirely true. The story unfolds in a rather linear fashion, with you simply going through the various motions of button pushing and stick-moving while not really giving you any “sandbox” sort of feel. That’s slightly disappointing in an adventure game, but, I suppose, a little bit to be expected.

The game is rated M for Mature, with plenty of violence, nudity, drug abuse, well, you name it, it’s in there. Admittedly, it does not rise to the level of Grand Theft Auto violence, but the “M for Mature” edge is definitely there. It’s a gritty, noir game, and you’ll find yourself drawn into it, I promise you.

This would be a solid A all around were it not for the clumsy interface. Also, I’ve had two instances of the game freezing and crashing on me, which I’m not particularly fond of.

So, to sum up:

Graphics: A
Story: A
Gameplay: B
Replay Value: C
Overall: B+

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RSS feed should be up and running

Posted on February 25, 2010 by Kip

After a little fiddling, you should be able to subscribe to my RSS feed again. Happy hunting!

It’s available at: https://kiplange.com/feed/

Kip out.

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