1. Open a new instance of Chrome (you may need to have only 1 instance open, but I’m not sure, I started with a fresh one just in case).
2. Resize/position how you want it to open by default
3. Instead of hitting the “X” to close the window, exit Chrome using the wrench > Exit.
4. Reopen Chrome, confirm it saved your position and size and rejoice!

One thing that always seemed to be mentioned in reviews for the CS2 was that it was enormous. This thing means business, when opening the box I was in shock from it’s sheer size.  It’s specs have it listed at 21.5″ w, 8″ tall and 11″ deep, which is nearly four times as large as the speaker it is replacing, but that didn’t truly set in until I had it out and could compare the two.  The size of the speaker made finding a location to place it a problem as well.  My old speaker was small enough to sit in front of the television unobtrusively, while this one covers the IR port and about 2″ of picture for the entire length of the speaker.  On my set, this made the ESPN news ticker about 6″ long, or about 2 or 3 words at a time.  None of the shelves in my console are wide enough to accommodate it  and to further complicate matters, I rent an small 1920’s era house with plaster and brick walls  This ruled out attaching a big enough shelf or mounting the set on the wall.  I searched for stands that the TV could sit on so I could place the speaker underneath, but there was always some glaring issue that would make me pass, such as cost, not being sturdy enough for the weight of the TV, or not wide enough to accommodate the speaker.

The fix

Finally, right as I was making plans to build a custom shelf myself, I came across this post where an ingenious user had attached a shelf directly to the television.  He mounted (2) 12×10″ L-brackets directly to his set using the built in wall mounting holes used to bolt the TV to the wall mount. EUREKA!

Since my speaker looked to be slightly larger than his and I was concerned about the weight on the set, I decided to tweak his idea a tad.  Instead of using the L-brackets, I decided to go with rails used for custom shelving systems.  It was slightly more expensive then the brackets, but I felt more comfortable since it would spread the load across both sets of bolts along the back of the set.

What you need

I have a 54″ TC-P54V10 and these are the parts I used.  Of course, adjust the parts based on the size you require for your set.

• (2) 12″ Shelving brackets (link)
• (2) 30″ Shelving rails (link)
• (4) 8mm x 40mm bolts, please note the size of the bolt depends on your set, so please consult your owners manual for the size of the mounting bolt.
• (4) 8mm washers
• (1) wood plank or shelf

Tools: ratchet, drill and bit large enough to drill another hole for the second mounting bolt (if needed).

Instructions

I attached a shelf bracket to one of the rails and lined up where the shelf would lie with the top of the set, luckily, the top pre-drilled hole on the rail lined up nearly perfectly with the top mounting hole on the set.  Since I would have to drill the second hole for the lower mounting location, I employed a trick to line up the two bolt holes on the rail.  I got a piece of wax paper and placed it over the back of the set.  I was then able to use it like tracing paper and marked where the mounting holes were.  Laying the wax paper on the rail I lined up the top hole with the marked dot on the paper, and drilled the second according to the other mark. Viola!  Perfectly aligned holes

Once both rails are completed all that is needed is to attach the rails to the rear of the TV using the mounting bolts.  I ratcheted the bolts down to semi-hand tight and added the brackets and the shelf.  Here are my finished results:

The Motley Crew

Another year nearly gone, another season finished. No, I’m not talking football this time, but rather kickball. That’s right, organized frickin’ adult kickball! One of every one’s favorite school yard pastimes, but for drinking professionals. In fact, the real only difference between what you remember is you get to enjoy the game with a Bubba Keg full of the frosty cold beverage of your choice instead of juice boxes and community water fountains. Intrigued yet? Well, it gets better. If you manage to string together enough wins and take the regional cup (yeah, there’s a cup trophy!), you get to make a trip out to Vegas to represent your region in the finals. In addition to the awesome kickballin, you also get the chance to participate in several social events though out the course of the season such as pub crawls and bar gatherings.

If you’re looking for a fun sports league to play in that isn’t the same boring volleyball or softball leagues give kickball a shot if you have what it takes. If you want more information, make sure to check out the Waka Kickball site. Solo players and groups are welcome!

Without further adieu, check out the Los Locos highlight video of this season:

This past Saturday marks the official* start of the 2008 college football season. Those of you who weren’t watching the 56-3 lashing of Fort Valley St by Valdosta St. in the highly touted Division II match up, that means your season probably officially begins for you on Thursday around 6pm EST. Cable service provides quite the buffet of games for your enjoyment, and for most, the creme of the crop 7:30pm EST showdown between North Carolina State and South Carolina on ESPN.

The only problem was the game I needed to see was only being shown on ESPN360, ESPN’s online video streaming site. This presented quite a problem since ESPN360 isn’t your typical subscription based website where a user can simply sign up. Instead, it is more akin to a premium cable channel where your provider must first agree to pay to carry the service before it is ever offered to the customer.

Unfortunately for me, Bright House Networks, our local cable and internet provider here in Orlando doesn’t have an agreement in place to offer ESPN360. This leaves me stuck without being able to watch my beloved Hurricanes take on Charleston Southern in their season opener on Thursday night.

Getting Access to ESPN360

Not one to back down until the fat lady sings, I started scouring Google for a solution. Interestingly enough, I came across this tidbit on the ESPN360 Wikipedia article:

Beginning in 2008, ESPN360.com is also offered free to all high-speed college (.edu) and U.S. military (.mil) IP addresses.

Yahtzee! Having attended the University of Central Florida, I remember that students and employees used to be able to access the schools VPN. A small form and a couple of emails later, I was up and running with VPN access which I was able to connect to and obtain the coveted .edu IP address. As a test, I fired up Firefox and pointed it over to ESPN360.com and was able to access the system and watch a little bit of the Little League World Series they were currently showing!

If that wasn’t enough, the Wikipedia also mentioned this about the ESPN360 and the Gameplan package:

…ESPN has rolled over its online ESPN GamePlan package to ESPN360.com as of September 1, 2007. On-line viewers that do not have an ESPN360.com affiliated ISP will be unable to receive the Gameplan content online. However, individuals who do have an ESPN360.com affiliated ISP will get the ESPN GamePlan or ESPN Full Court content online for free.

Checking the upcoming weeks’ football listing, I am happy to confirm that you do indeed get their Gameplan lineup. Finally, college is starting to pay off!

Of course, your mileage may vary. I’m not the least bit knowledgeable of the VPN policies for other universities so I’m not sure if this will work for everyone. If all else fails you can always go hang out in the school’s library or a buddies military dorm. In either case, here is a list of some of the local Universities’ VPN pages that I could find online if you wished to try the same setup.

• University of Central Florida: http://www.noc.ucf.edu/VPN/
• University of Florida: http://net-services.ufl.edu/provided_services/vpn/
• Florida State University: http://us.fsu.edu/index_vpn.html
• University of South Florida: http://www.net.usf.edu/vpn/

Update 8/27/2008:

I’ve added a Greasemonkey script I wrote to the projects page that will allow you to open more than one instance of the 360 media player a little easier.

Update 6/14/2010:

At long last it looks like ESPN has given us what we’ve all wanted.  They re-branded their ESPN360 service as ESPN3 and they’ve decided to make it free for everyone to boot!  Thanks to this, the monthly cable bill just inched a little closer to irrelevancy.  Now to wait out the other major networks that broadcast games to follow suit.

How to Make your Wedding more Mantertaining

The first thing I would do would be to change the traditional wedding ceremony music to something a little more appropriate for this century. I would find an organist that wouldn’t mind stepping outside the box and playing something a little more modern, say Guns & Roses some guns and roses. Now, I realize that’s about 20 years old at this point, but when compared to Handel it’s practically a baby in the music world. It doesn’t really need the lyrics, just the music. Just trying to figure out the songs being played on a non-traditional instrument should provide at least 5 seconds of entertainment to someone.

This one won’t really apply for my wedding since I will have one single rule that must not be broken: No weddings between August 15th to February 28th. The NFL and NCAA football seasons have been good to me for many years, and it just wouldn’t be right trying to compete, it’s the least I can do. In fact, there have been at least two weddings I’ve skipped just for this reason alone, so I came up with a compromise for you selfish bastards planning a wedding between those dates. Put some big screen televisions in front of the pews and broadcast a game. If you’re dragging your buddies to see you get married, the minimum you can do to say thanks is to have something to fill those first 30 minutes you expect us to be sitting there before the service even starts.

If you have one of those bitchy brides that must have everything her way, here is how you get around it. When the actual ceremony starts, go picture in picture and show the live wedding video streaming from the Skycam. You heard that right, save the thousands of dollars the flowers would cost and rent a Skycam to shoot the wedding video. Shaky cam shot from the 13th pew suck. Make the video more fun to watch for the 500th time with the addition to some pan, scan and zoom action. Since Skycams are able to take Monday Night Football, which is already in the upper echelon of awesome, to the next level, then it should have no problem elevating the monotony that is a traditional wedding service. This being shown on those large format HDTVs up front would defiantly help out granny see the “I do’s”.

My final suggestion? Cut that crap down to 15 minutes or less. If you can’t walk down the length of a rug and repeat after somebody in less time that it takes to change tire then count me out. This last wedding was over an hour long and I was ready to slit my wrists before we even had the bride on the stage.

So there you have it, some sure-fire ways to guarantee a nice memorable wedding that would rock and not bore everybody before the real party begins.