Jim Washkau Jr.

I finally caved in and bought myself the new generation of Apple’s Macbook pro series. With the brand new integrated battery and aluminum unibody case it just seems to overshadow all other laptops on the market. I believe I got a decent deal on it too with the student discount as well as a free iPod touch and $30 printer (after mail-in rebate) which I plan to sell on eBay anyway. I made a HD unboxing video of the Macbook Pro you can watch below too.

A few days ago I upgraded my Canon Rebel XS to the Rebel XSi. While there is really little difference between the two models getting the Rebel XSi ($600 retail) for $50 less than the XS($500 retail) is one hell of a deal I could not pass up. I may have even bought the last XSi on clearance in all of NJ too! The XSi has 12.1MP compared to the XS 10.2MP in addition to a larger screen, a few extra shooting modes, and a faster FPS.

It’s true, the Free 4 pack of Amp energy drink coupon works, well some of the time. The coupon is valid until December 2009 or until some kid ruins it for everybody by cleaning out an entire store. I do not know if these are real or fake so use them with due diligence.

Update: Coupons removed, seems like Pepsi is cracking down hard on this one.

Here is my success and failure list.

Target: Worked no problems. Only had 1 box left.
Wal-Mart: Had to get manager: Worked. Dropped off in car and bought 2nd pack.
Walgreens: Worked, still had to pay $1.50 though.
Shop-Rite: Had to get manager. Said coupon was fraudulent. FAIL
AP&P: None in stock.
Rite-Aid: Doesn’t stock them.

Just got my new Canon Rebel XS DSLR 10.2MP camera today via UPS overnight. I used whats left of my Amazon gift cards so I got a pretty good price on it too. I don’t know much about photography however I have heard that this is a great camera to learn on. Now I just need to buy different lenses and all that shizz. I will probably be making a new page on my site with some of the pictures I have/will be taking.

Sample Pictures:
Update: Gallery http://jimwashkau.com/photography/

So I was just going browsing my Amazon associate account stats when something strange caught my eye. Now I, of all people, realize that the internet is a strange and pathetic place where morals, ethics, and simple common sense are completely meaningless but I can honestly say that for the first time in awhile this caught me by surprise. If you take a close look at the screen capture you will see that not only did somebody actually buy a bottle of fresh, warm, and apparently lucrative bottle of Wolf Urine but they bought 3 of them. That’s a grand total of 96 ounces of Wolf Urine. What possible use this so called product can actually serve is anybody’s guess, but I am really not going to complain as I have a feeling he will be buying more in the future.

Consider this a fair warning; this isn’t anything particularly spectacular, interesting, or exciting  but I know your probably going to read it anyway for some reason. Anyway, Yesterday I managed to fix both my somewhat older Asus S96j laptop and my 1995 Mitsubishi Montero. After sitting in the driveway all winter my Montero needed a few hoses replaced which was causing both a lack of power steering and brake pressure. It’s an easy fix…if you have the parts. After going to global Mitsubishi all the way down ‘22 3 or 4 times I finally got all the parts specially ordered.My father and I installed them with little problems. Now I just need to sell it, anybody interested?

In addition to that, I also fixed my Asus 15.4″ S96j Laptop. Even though it’s an almost 3 year old laptop and I have already had to replace the screen, keyboard, power adapter, and battery I’m not giving up on it yet. With a core 2 duo processor, x1600 dedicated graphics card, and a 7200rpm hdd it rivals most modern day performance laptops; it gets a 4.9 rating in Windows 7, that’s damn good! Through normal wear and tear the ac power adapter tip soldering directly onto the motherboard stopped working after becoming loose so I could no longer power or charge it. My first attempt to fix this failed after I bought a new power tip but ended up doing a horrible solder job and screwed up the pins that hold it into place. So I ordered a new power tip again last week and hoped I could figure out a way to make it work. I ended up getting a drill and actually drilled through the motherboard in order to reseat the power tip. It was risky because if I scraped one trace line on the motherboard it would be ruined. I then filled the holes with some solder and to my surprised it powered on flawlessly. Now if I only had a use for 3 laptops…

Here are the various drafts of my sister’s head on a Left 4 Dead Boomer body. The crappy version was my attempt at it but John’s version was clearly better.

Sister + Boomer + McDonalds = Win

Just got my new 22″ Acer X213w yesterday for $99. I’m glad I jumped on this deal as early as I did because they sold out within the first hour. The Acer looks very nice but the default brightness level is so bright it may actually give you a headache . I also had some trouble adjusting the colors to match my Samsung. Im satisfied overall though.

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Just a random project I decided to do yesterday out of boredom after getting back from Philly; Wardriving through Bridgewater NJ. I guess I should of had some way of mounting the camera to the dashboard as it would fall after most turns.

Well I ordered some new tea from a shop directly in China. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about an aged tea called Pu-Erh. This tea that I ordered was a small sample pack of Pu-Erh tea aged since 2000. Of course there are much older pu-erhs that probably taste even better but I don’t want to spend a lot on my first purchase. The pu-erh I bought came in small bricks that when hot water is poured over it crumbles into a bunch of leaves. The pu-erh leaves are actually a bit harder to brew than other teas I have because with this you have to rinse the leaves first, then steep it for a different amount of time depending on how many times you have steeped it already. The good thing about it is that you can re-steep the same leaves for up to about 5 cups and it has a really nice light red color to it. The taste is not as strong as i expected it to be but after a few sips it really grows on you.

I have been drinking a lot of loose leaf tea lately so I thought I would post about it. Loose leaf tea has many more benefits over bagged tea mostly due to the quality of loose leaf. Most people don’t know that tea bags don’t actually contain tea leaves and actually is just tea “dust”. Tea leaves contain chemicals and essential oils, which are the basis for the delightful flavor of tea. I started loose leaf with a Green Tea sampler pack from Adagio teas which came with the IngenuiTEA strainer thing.

Since I’m in the blogging mood here is a review of my latest home theater addition, the Logitech Harmony 550 Universal Remote. Since I have a bunch of Amazon.com gift cards I grabbed the the Harmony 550 refurb for $50. It was a pretty good deal as they retail for almost double that. I got it about 3 days after I ordered it and it came in a huge amazon box for this small remote (tsk tsk Amazon, that’s not green at all! – still a great company though). Anyway I connected the remote to my computer via USB, typed in all the equipment I had and loaded on the files in about 10 minutes. Very easy to install and use. I really like the LCD screen as you can completely customize what buttons you want easy access to. Also the blue backlight its really nice for at night. The range on it is great, I can actually change the volume of my Z-5500 speakers without having to go into crazy positions just for the receiver to read the standard remote. The only downside I see about the remote is that it uses 4 AAA batteries and the LCD screen is always on. I have a feeling I should invest in some rechargeable batteries as I may be replacing them often.

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[tune-library]

I’ve had my EEE 1000HA for a few months now and have been really enjoying it. It is a big step up from the 701 and the atom cpu really does live up to the hype. I easily put Mac OSX Leopard 10.5 after a simple BIOS flash for comptability. Battery life is decent at 5 hours normal usage with wifi and bluetooth on at 70% brightness and dynamic cpu switching. I also got my S96j running again with Windows 7 after soldering on a new power tip on the motherboard.

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I just started IM marketing but my results so far are pretty good. So far I have recieved payments from Amazon, Linkshare, and XY7