Bivy my bivy, oh oh my bivy

Originally submitted at REI

Leave the heavy tent behind! With its waterproof, breathable design and meticulous details, the REI Minimalist Bivy sack is perfect for use in snow caves and as an ultralight shelter .

REI Minimalist Bivy Sack - Regular

Buy the larger one

By Alexinawe from Redding, CA on 5/31/2011

2out of 5

Pros: Lightweight, Packs Small, Easy To Setup
Cons: Too Cramped
Best Uses: Backpacking, Mountaineering, Hiking
Describe Yourself: Avid Adventurer
Was this a gift?: No

First of all, buy the larger one. I bought this online and the specs said it had an 82in length. I haven't measured it but when I lay down in it, I fill the bag.. I'm 69 inches tall and 145lbs with a 30 inch waist.. And there's no hood btw, so if you're in the rain, you have to fold over the hood (one "clasp" included, should have had at least two or three). Then when you do that, you're really fitting in snug and you don't have any room. I've found that if you encounter rain, the best thing to do is clasp the "hood" and then roll the bivy on it's side, that way rain won't come in and you can breathe through the vent. It's actually pretty comfortable.

There is some extra space on the sides of the bivy, maybe for your boots, a change of clothes for the morning, not much else. You're going to have to find something else for your bag/gear.

Waterproofing is good, didn't notice any leaks. About the condensation thing, if you lay like I do, mouth facing the bug vent, the moisture from your breath will escape. To the people saying that their bags are soaked.. I'd wager your sleeping bag is rated too low for your conditions (remember the bivy adds extra warmth too) and you are probably sweating in your sleep. Try picking up a "woobie" aka wet weather poncho liner from your local military store and use it while laying on top of your opened bag). You'll sleep much better in warmer weather and you can use it to line your sleeping bag in colder weather.

All in all the bivy is good for the money, but I would highly recommend going for the larger sack even if you're average or shorter height than me. The extra space/room will be worth it, believe me. if you have more money, invest in something better, but if you don't want to spend too much, get this one, it's worth it.

(legalese)

Android Photo Opportunity

Have an Android phone? Read this.

Add your phone number as a contact in your phone. Add a picture of yourself to that contact and save it.

Now your photo will show up in text message chat logs.

Consider your mind blown.

Android Appetizers

Here's a quick list of apps I use and love on my Android phone (ALL FREE!), sorted and followed by a short description. Enjoy!

Cosmetic/Functional displays (widgets, wallpapers, etc)

Mulitcon Widget - Allows you to make mini icons and different sized shortcuts on your page. Super helpful.

Simple Calendar FREE - Calendar widget, best I've found, professional, simple. takes up 2x4.

Fallout 3 Wallpapers - To give your phone that "wasteland feel."

Brightness Level (by CurveFish) - Allows you to drop the brightness lower than 0%, thus saving more battery.

SilentMode OnOff (by CurveFish) - Button tap to vibrate, and silent.

Multimedia (Media Players, Editors, etc)

Adobe Photoshop Express - Powerful and lite photo editing tool.

Top Secret Picture - Stop people from seeing your private photos with password protection.

Ambling BookPlayer Lite - Audiobook player/downloader. Great for long trips, most books are free!

Skyfire Web Browser 3.0 - Best Browser on Android. Has separate media player for flash, way better than browser.

msnbc.com - by the Zumobi Network. Visually stunning, great news app.

Financial

Mint.com Personal Finance - Balance every account, track every purchase, help save money.

Games

Pocket Legends (3D MMO) - Yes this is a real MMO for your phone. Saps battery power, so it's best to play when you have a dedicated power source, but hey, its fun.

Market Millionaire Enhanced - Play the stock market with play money. Buy real stocks with your fake $100,000 and check the leaderboard for your progress.

Miscellaneous

Dropbox - 2GB storage online accessible via computer, web browser, and android phone. Great Doc/Pic folder.

KeepTrack - Record numbers, stats, text, and more. Graphs data and yields statistics like sum, mean, avg, etc. I track my vital stats, Heart Rates (sat mornings), weight, and how long I can hold my breath so I can see if I'm improving.

Promising New Ideas

Unified Remote - DL the program on your computer and now control your computer from your phone like you would a remote. Great if you connect your computer to a large tv like I do. Some connection issues.

AutomateIt - Set up rules and your phone reacts for you. (ex. when I plug in my phone it automatically turns on silent so I get an uninterrupted sleep). cuts battery life by maybe 10%, still works all day, easily.

FREE Webcam and IP Cam Viewer - set up your computer's webcam as a remote camera accessible by your phone. Needs tons of work, but way worth following the updates.

There are many other apps I use, but these are some that may not be in your arsenal. I'm using a Motorola Droid (1), Android OS 2.2.2. Nothing lags so on a more powerful phone these apps will be great. In fact, Mulitcon speeds up launcher load times because it's just one app and not tons of shortcuts like you would have displayed otherwise.

Hope you enjoy!

Saturday Night Laugh-track

I was watching the latest Dana Carvey SNL and I have to say it was pretty good. They brought out some of the old favorites like Church Lady and Wayne's World, while bringing back old cast members like Mike Meyers and John Lovitz. It was really good to see actual comedy on a show that has basically been living in a cesspool mostly devoid of comedy.

John Lovitz said it best in the opening song, the difference with every other cast and theirs was "acting." That's the problem with the current cast, they don't act. They pull what I call a "Tracy Morgan," they play themselves. Hardly anyone acts anymore, puts themselves into a role and loses themselves. That doesn't sound fair to the current cast. Even if they did act, it wouldn't be funny because the current cast isn't funny.

Sure, Seth Meyer is pretty good. Jason Sudekis has some pretty excellent moments and Andy Samberg can be funny if kept somewhat contained, but everyone else is pretty weak. If comedic talent was a measure and 1000 was the top, I'd rate this cast around 250. That's the bottom 25%. That means 3 in 4 jokes fail. That means 3 in 4 skits are not funny. That means 3 in 4 shows just plain suck. And that's not far fetched, it's a reality.

Survival of the Smartass

I got a hypothetical the other day.

"You are going to survive. It could be anywhere (Icy mountains, arid desert, deserted island, anywhere). You have on you:
*Boots and Socks
*Cargo Pants/BDUs and underwear
*Long Sleeve Shirt
*Lightweight waterproof jacket (with hood)
You can pick three items, and they must fit in your pocket. What do you bring?"

Obviously I'm not going to have a cell phone nor would I want one. I'm in a survival situation so it's realistic that I don't have a GPS or Map. Time to do some thinking.

First of all I'm Choosing a knife.
For a cheap starter I'd recommend a Traverse by Gerber.

You can pick one up at your local Target for $19.99. It's a really well made knife for its price and it has a nice grip. The serrated edge is perfect for cutting tougher objects like vines and animal hide. If you have more money you can get yourself something longer which will be more useful but regardless of type, Gerber is the manufacturer to go with.

The Second Item I'm choosing is 550 Parachute Cord.

There's a lot you can do with 550 cord. From building shelters to catching fish. From Repelling down a mountain to repairing clothing, this cord does it all, and with my knife from the first item, I'm set to make some serious survival gains.

For my third item I'm torn, I kept thinking I wanted a compass, but knowing the direction of the sun you can pretty much guesstimate everything come navigation time. Ultimately I chose a little more advanced of an item. A jar of Amoxicillin Antibiotics.

Sure it's kind of a cop out, but hey, they didn't specify what items I could take, just the size. I chose Amoxicillin because of it's strength against pneumonia specifically. I imagine the chance for that would be high, but regardless of the situation, in a jungle or foreign environment, one cut could kill you. That's where the antibiotics come in handy. I also chose this over the far more popular penicillin mainly because of penicillin resistant bacteria. It's a growing concern in healthcare today, and why not take a better version of the classic bacteria killer?

My basic survival kit would be the above. hope you enjoyed my little list.

Cook Week!

I started a new blog this January and have been writing in that more frequently than I have had a chance to write in this one. Feel free to browse on over to that one at http://cookweek.blogspot.com

It's about cooking new and interesting things each week and each post goes in depth with something in specific about the recipe whether that is one of the ingredients or a chef or anything worth researching.

Check it out and let me know what you think! Thanks!

Transformers: Revenge of the Nerds

In the recent Michael Bay explosion, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, the boundaries of moving picture entertainment (and boredom) are pushed yet again.

The basic plot of the movie is this: Megatron's mentor known as The Fallen (voice: Todd), is exacting his revenge on the six primes who thwarted his plan to destroy the sun and obtain a vast amount of energon. To do this, Megatron (voice: Weaving) is brought back to life with a remaining piece of the Cube shard, and is in search of the machine and 'key' to harvest the energon. Meanwhile Sam (LaBeouf) is having psychotic breaks after coming into contact with another shard of the cube, and Mikaela (Fox) is pestering Sam to say the three words no guy ever wants to say.

The movie operates under the premise that two years after the events of the original movie, the audience would still want to follow Shia Labeouf. In actuality many went to catch more of the tatted canvas known as Megan Fox. To our satisfaction, and later dissatisfaction, there is more of her in the film.

Her first appearance is that of the trailer, sitting on a bike with a bit of side ass flesh through jean shorts. That's all well and fine, only it's spliced in the middle of a dialog and seems almost completely random, as if by mistake. Next we see her changing, from a leather motorcycle outfit into a short white dress in the middle of yet another conversation. As fan service, the audience gets a 0.3 second or so blast of camel toe through some white undergarments. Also, later in the film there is a David Hasselhoffian slow motion Baywatch boob bounce run scene. Many of her scenes are out of place and appear to be extra footage that was shot and had no place in the film, or were not needed. Most scenes came off as tasteless, and were only trumped by her increase in poorly executed lines. As my grandfather would say, "she's not fit for talkies."

I talked with a couple hard-core Transformers fans (and perpetually single guys) about what they thought of the film. "I can't believe what they did to Jetfire," one says in exclamation! One of the most loved characters from the series is now a SR-71 Blackbird and portrayed as an absent-minded old man upon being revived by a shard. He tells Sam and crew of the energon harvester and states that it's somewhere in the Middle East. Then, almost randomly, he teleports them all to Egypt. "Did they even explain the Space Bridge teleport?" says another Transfan. The movie in fact didn't, and the scenes are poorly meshed together.
The general consensus I gathered from the Transfans was that the movie was worth the watch, even on opening day at 1:30am (getting out around 4:00am), but was not much more than a revamped Transformers 1. A constant complaint was that the battles were often too short, but that the forest battle was the best, a scene that gave homage to the final battle in T1. My only gripe on the battles was that the movie should have shown the 'bots a little more prior to the fight scenes because the battles were gaggles of detail that I had nothing to 'lock on' to when they fought. Both bots, for me, meshed together and I couldn't follow it like I could with a martial arts/action film. That has to be the only drawback to CGI with extraordinary detail in HD.

The movie incorporated many sad attempts to diversify the franchise's fan base. Several setbacks ended up ruining whole scenes of the movie. One such inclusion was the pair of autobots where one was obviously ghetto black, and another street latino. The caricature was intended to bring humor but turned out to be offensive. One African American male I talked to referred to them as just plain "stupid." Another setback was the inclusion of Sam's paranoid conspiracy theorist college roommate, Leo Spitz (Rodriguez). The character was perhaps a replacement for Turturro's character, Agent Simmons, in the first film (who ends up appearing later anyways). Leo is an abomination to the film and appears as a sniveling spineless latino who annoys more than entertains. However none of that compares to Sam entering Robot Heaven and having a conversation with the dead primes...The large culmination of negatives is slightly overshadowed by moments of pure awesomeness held up with fantastic explosions, excellent CGI, bot on bot action, and stunning locations. Overall, my rating comes as a 7/10 and I would say this: Think of T:ROTF as Transformers 1 revisited, with bigger explosions, more fights, and worse acting.