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Review: EON Deck Tiles by sadd3j

So on Monday night I had the urge to go find these deck tiles. Back up a day, on Sunday, I had the urge to go find these deck tiles. Sam and I went to go find these snap-together deck tiles at the Canadian Tire on Major Mac (website said they had stock) but couldn’t find them in store, we left and I was kind of disappointed.

On Monday after work, we were supposed to go grocery shopping but I decided to quickly check the CT on Highway 7 (also had stock) but we found nothing there either. We asked the guy to check the computer and while he said there were 2 in stock (we needed 9 packs of 4 tiles each), he found a few other stores with stock. Now quite driven in the hunt, we ended up at CT at Yonge + Steeles and finally found a stack of the tiles. We debated on them for a little while, and eventually were on our way home, extremely hungry, with no groceries, and a trunk full of plastic deck tiles.

I started installing them at around 7:30pm and the first 31 tiles went down in about 20 minutes. The last 5 took about 2 1/2 hours, after a dinner break. We had to cut them with a handsaw and also used a dremel to cut the plastic underneath which is used to keep the tiles off the ground to allow for drainage.

By around 11pm I was pretty cranky at these tiles and all the little things which cropped up, like the side of the building at the edge of the balcony required extra modification, and then the drain comes in about a half inch so I needed to cut a little slit in one tile to allow for that. Eventually I jammed the last tile in (it could probably use 1-2mm clearance) and was done with it. After all was said and done, I vowed the first thing I buy if and when we get a house, is a table saw. It would have cut down the whole install into under an hour for sure.

Anyway, fairly happy with the end result, makes it walkable and a little more pleasant. A good, fairly cheap investment which upgrades the balcony from “tiny concrete-slab-write-off” to “tiny-balcony-garden”.

It was also actually fun to pick up a camera again.

4 comments

Roomba Mod by JasonC

So, after a little while of using the roomba, I found a problem.
This model suppose to slow down before hitting something to lessen the damage.
But it does it by infrared, and dark objects absorbs it. Hence all my dark furniture gets bumped full speed.
So here’s my solution, seems to work good.

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Flatwire installed [updated] by sadd3j

Tonight is paint, I don’t think its going to be perfect, the lower speaker wire was too close to the baseboard to get a real nice feather. But there’ll be stuff along the wall eventually anyway. I’m also too lazy to keep plastering/sanding it. The dust is driving me crazy, and with no proper vacuum.. it’s a real pain to clean up. I need to call the blinds people for final confirmation on some measuring correctly, then I’ll order shades tonight. Really hoping the living room is done before Christmas.. but who knows when the shades will make it here.

Here’s a (dark) photo of where it stands now, after about 3 coats of plaster and sanding. SO much dust. My house is the new dustbowl.

I also installed the Powerbridge.. and ran into problems flushmounting the speakers, so I ended up sticking a bit of wood about 3mm thick on one edge of the existing speaker mounts, so at least they’ll mount a lot less angled than before (should be almost completely flat).

It’s now 1:11am, I’ve spent the past roughly 6 hours doing:

final sanding
wiping down the walls
taping off all the outlets, trim, ceiling, plasma mount
painting the whole living room (edging, then rolling)
waiting for it to dry
removing all tape
reinstalling outlet covers, speaker mounts
mounting tv and speakers
sweeping, mopping, swiffing and now Roomba is doing the final pass

And here we are (both photos taken with the 35f2 on the 5D (notice the lens distortion in the second):

I’m so tired, but will hook everything up (not the rears.. still contemplating how to convert the wire in a less ghetto fashion) just to sit there and be able to see.. cable-less theatre!

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DIY: iPhone Stand by teewee

It’s been just about 4 months since I got my iPhone. Really not trying to be Apple-fan-boy-biased, but I can say the experience thus far has been great. It really is the perfect companion, not having data is ok, since there’s WIFI at school and at home so I’m connected most of the time. (side note: shazam, the music tagging application has previously required internet so it sends your recorded tag for analysis immediately, not supports offline in that you can record the clip without internet and it’ll do the song lookup next time you’re connected) So it’s pretty nifty having these apps on the phone, another one being iTalk by Griffin, which can record anything, the quality is surprisingly great straight off the built in mic, no processing and all.

But I digress, the point is that the iPhone has really lived up to all the hype (IMO). With exam studying and what not, I’ve really tried to remove all distractions mainly by not bringing the macbook out. But I do take a break once in a while, sometimes its playing games, other times its the mad texting with sadd3j, but more often than not, the best break is to watch a TV show off the iPhone.


Preface: I have to admit, when I got my new wallet from Sarah, I was hesitant as to whether I’d like it or not. Traditionally, I’ve liked 2-fold wallets more than 3-fold because I don’t like my bills having 2 bends instead of 1. I think my first response when I got it was: “You know I like 2-fold wallets right?”. But the 3-fold wallet was good because it was smaller than my old one, so I just started using it and haven’t switched back since.

So after trying to hold the iPhone while watching a TV show and finding it getting tiring (or when I’m eating) i finally solved it with the perfect iPhone stand: my wallet.

Instructions: 1. Open one flap; 2. Place iPhone in
It’s pretty sweet, theoretically, I’ll always have this stand with me, and the display angle is dead on. haha

1 comment

The Shire by sadd3j

Just in case you haven’t seen the ridiculousness that is my elder sibling.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=940105

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