It’s heavily based on Tarski, with a few local tweaks. Tarski worked out great as a base, and I highly recommend it.

I don’t normally review other websites on here, but this site is screaming for a post. Two friends from Michigan recently launched The Kegulator. Input the number of people coming to your party and how drunk you want them to be, and it tells you how much beer you need. Not only that, it does it in convenient case/pony/keg increments. And accounts for beer loss. And tells you how many cups and how much ice to buy.

Best use of AJAX ever.

Update: Has anybody else noticed that lately all I seem to be posting about is beer?

Apparently I’m not the only one that finds that funny…

Update: I’ve fixed the permalink redirection. Thanks for the heads-up Stuart.

I’ve spent the last couple months accumulating new furniture and I’m pretty happy with the results. The crown jewel was a great brown leather couch I picked up on Craigslist last weekend that really pulls the whole thing together. And I got a great deal on it.

You can view the rest of the photos in one of my Flickr photosets.

Pretty pimp, eh?

I whipped up a Wordpress Widget for the new Del.icio.us “Tagometer” badge. No need to thank me, its probably the simplest widget ever written.

Download Del.icio.us Tagometer Widget (.gz file)

Super-simple install. Just download and un-gzip in your “wp-content/plugins” directory and enable it in the control panel. You can then add it like any other Wordpress widget. No configuration necessary (or possible).

You can see an example at right, under “Tagometer”.

For those of you who are old fashioned, you can also call the functions directly from your Wordpress templates to customize where the badge ends up.

It turned out I didn’t have a “single.php” file for formatting the display of individual posts, so it was using the main template instead. And that template was missing a single critical tag (that I didn’t know I needed to have) that plugs in the comment form.

So now you really can tell me how much I suck.

This past summer I snagged a Burton RED helmet off of Steep and Cheap for the low low price of $70. That was the beginning.

I’ve recently realized that I may be the geekiest guy on the ski slopes. And thats hard here in Washington:

• Burton RED Tantrum Audex Helmet. Primarily to protect my precious noggin. Its got all the standard helmet features like fleecy ear covers and goggle-gap seals. But the real benefit comes from the Motorola Audex Bluetooth headphones, which I’ll explain later.
• Apple iPod Photo, 60 gig. She’s starting to show her age, but I don’t really see the need for a new iPod yet.
• T-Mobile BlackBerry 8700g phone. Yes, its just your standard BlackBerry, but recently they’ve started putting in towers near the ski resorts here in Washington, so I can finally get reception. Not only can I get reception, but I can get EDGE wireless broadband access from the ski lift…
• Jabra A125s iPod Bluetooth Module. This is very cool. It supports the both the Bluetooth audio/control protocols for my iPod as well as the headset profile for my BlackBerry. And it has its own battery so it doesn’t drain my iPod battery.
• CamelBak Scorpion hydration pack. I got a great deal on it on Steap and Cheap. Its a great bag for skiing, with padded pockets for my gadgets and enough room for lunch and other goodies. And its got a 70oz water bladder that’s specially insulated to keep it from freezing in the dead of winter. All in a package compact enough that you don’t have to take it off to sit on the lift.

The real fun happens when you hook it all together. So the Audex headphones on the helmet support both the AVRCP/A2DP Bluetooth headphone profiles and the standard headset profile. So I can connect them simultaneously to both my BlackBerry and my iPod.

The Jabra Bluetooth module streams music wirelessly from my iPod to the headphones (which are open so I can still clearly hear things going on around me). The earpieces themselves have big mitten-friendly buttons also big rubber rings on the outside that act like big knobs. So you twist the left earphone to turn the volume up and down and the right headphone to change the track forward and back. Very cool.

And then when a call comes in on my BlackBerry, the headphones automatically pause my iPod. When I answer the call (using another big, mitten-friendly button), they act as a cell phone headset, allowing me to talk without taking my phone out of my bag.

Do I really need all these gadgets? No, not really. But its convenient and fun :)

Overall, we were all incredibly impressed. The “unconference” format was excellent - short 5 minute presentations, all on very interesting topics, kept things flowing quickly and you never got bored. Plus, easy access to beer never hurts.

Some of the excellent presenters included:

• RealityAllStarz (freaking sweet, I already have an account)
• Biznik, business social networking
• The Darfur Wall (Go. Donate. Now!)
• Scott “The Closer” Ruthfield from Amazon.com, on how Amazon doesn’t suck as much as you think
• Rob Flickenger with HackerFriendly, on “book sprints” and print-on-demand

I’ll be at the next one. For sure.

I’ve just returned from my first Washington surfing adventure and, despite its best efforts, the ocean didn’t manage to kill me. But I think I’ve caught the bug. Any sport in which beer drinking and campfire making is so integral is a winner in my book.

Update: I’ve also uploaded my first YouTube video… a short clip of the break from this morning.