I've been playing around on Twitter for a few months now and thought I'd set up an official Newgrounds Twitter. I wanted twitter.com/newgrounds, but someone already took it. Maybe they will hand it over, but my repeated attempts to have Twitter support get it for me have failed. Maybe they couldn't confirm I was who I said I was. They just seem to ignore my requests now.

So I set up http://www.twitter.com/newgrounds_com

What is Twitter? Basically it's micro-blogging. When you post something it is called a Tweet. You might post something like "Playing COD5 on XBL!" or "Check out this cool website, newgrounds.com!" etc. You can follow people who you find interesting, and people can follow you. CNN, Foxnews, etc, have used Twitter to successfully build up a large number of followers. They can bounce questions off their followers, inform their followers about upcoming broadcasts, etc.

I'm not sure what all we will do with a newgrounds_com Twitter. Probably post links to cool content, maybe some behind the scenes info, or whatever. People can also re-tweet a tweet. So if newgrounds_com tweets a cool link you can re-tweet it to your followers and so on.

Many people use Twitter from mobile devices like iPhones, blackberrys, or any cell phone that can text. Or you can use the web browser interface.

If you are already on Twitter feel free to follow newgrounds_com, and I will set it to follow you. If you aren't on Twitter, check it out as it is easy to set up a new account.

Some of the NG staff have Twitter accounts. Well, at least Mike and I do. If you want to follow me, I'm http://www.twitter.com/wadeng. I just post about the stupid stuff I'm up to.

You can also attach pictures to Tweets, at least I can with my iPhone. So I may take a picture of what I'm doing, etc. There are some cool iPhone/iTouch Twitter clients such as Twinkle, Tweetie, Twitterfon, etc.

If you are already established on Twitter feel free to spread the word that we have an official account there now. :)

There is a lot more chatter now about Global Cooling. If we are actually going into a period of global cooling it would be bad for all of us. Shorter growing seaons, more energy needed to heat homes, etc. This is an interesting bit about how the Russians believe we are going into a period of global cooling and how they are taking advantage of it:

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articl es/2009/20090106201017.aspx

Click the little video player, it's just an audio stream with a still image.

Joe Bastardi is a very talented meteorologist and has been on many of the major cable news networks to discuss weather events, usually Hurricanes. He's one of the best long range forecasters out there and has an excellent grasp of our weather history. I'd believe him over Al Gore any day.

We are looking to form a NG Digg Team. If you are interested in joining the team, apply in the NG Digg Team topic in Clubs and Crews:

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/10 14356

I'm also working on setting up a NG Twitter. For now you can follow me at http://www.twitter.com/wadeng until I get the official Newgrounds Twitter feed up.

Well, it happened, my 5 year old is now in Kindergarden and it didn't take him long to get exposed to Pokemon. So I picked him up some basic pack of Pokemon cards to play with. Seems like it might be fun to play with him. One our mods, Jonas, generously offered to mail me some of his old Pokemon cards for my kids to play with. So I was thinking, if anyone has any Pokemon cards they don't want, and want to say "Wade Fulp's kids play with my Pokemon cards" you can send them to:

Wade Fulp
PO BOX 480
Perkasie, PA 18944

USPS only, UPS, etc, won't deliver to a PO BOX.

In other news I saw Twilight the other day with my wife. She has read the books so she just had to go see it. It was okay.

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who is sending cards. Include your username with them so I know who to thank. :)

I don't buy many video games these days, but Gears of War 2 is one I will be picking up at 12AM. :) Who else is excited for GOW2 and will be online after picking it up at 12AM?

Will you first play the story mode? Or will you go right into online multi-player? I'd rather go straight to online multi-player but it sounds like a lot of people I know will do the story mode first. If that's the case, anyone want to play story mode co-op with me?

It's kinda of early for snow, but we got some today! Just a heavy wet snow that mostly melted on the ground, but after while it did start to accumulate on some surfaces. My road had a nice slushy coating on it. Here's a video:

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Well, if you haven't noticed I like to play around with flashlights. I've always been into gadgets, but lately flashlights have grabbed my attention mainly because it is a way to play with the latest and greatest in LED technology. Something about the fact that these new LED's can generate so much light, while using far less power than incandescent bulbs, is interesting to me. It is fun to keep up with the technology and realize we are getting closer to the point where LED's will light our homes, our streets, replace our car's power hungry headlight bulbs, etc.

For now flashlights are still a useful thing to have around the house, on your keychain, in your car, etc. I would be surprised if people didn't have a flashlight or two around their home somewhere, incase the power goes out, etc. Take the recent events with hurricanes. Millions of people were without power, and some probably still don't have power from Ike. What kind of flashlights are these poor souls stuck with? Battery hungry incandescent flashlights that start to dim minutes after turning them on? Maybe they are lucky enough to have some form of LED flashlight, but unless they have something with cutting edge technology it probably isn't that bright and may not last as long as something newer.

So I thought I would recommend some basic flashlights that use cutting edge LED tech which are very efficient and provide long run times, more light, etc.

For those who want a keychain style flashlight, I recommend the Fenix E01. This light will run off any 1.2v-1.5v AAA battery and it will run at full power for 10-12 hours before dropping to a dimmer mode that will still put out useable light for an additional 10+ hours. I have one and I got over 40 hours of light out of a single battery. Now this light isn't extremely bright, it's about 8-10 lumens. The light it puts out has a purplish tint to it. This is designed as an emergency light that will give you enough light to get around in the dark.

It's available in a bunch of colors here:

Fenix E01

It runs $15 shipped (free world wide shipping). It's a tough little sucker too, with a hard anodized coating, water proof, etc.

For those who want something a little more exciting with a lot more output check out the Fenix LOD, which is listed on the same page. I keep one of these on my key chain, and our forum mod Osamarama (Sanjay) also picked one up and has been having fun with it. At $46.50 it may not be for everyone, but it's a fun little flashlight that will impress people when you fire it up on TURBO (high). You can run rechargeable NiMH AAA's in it. You can read the specs here:

Fenix L0D-CE

There are some special batteries available that can turn this 75 lumen flashlight into a 200 lumen flashlight, but it will void the warranty and you do run some risk. If someone gets this light and is interested in super charging it with a 3V lithium ion AAA, PM me. :)

There are all kinds of other cool flashlights on that site as well, but I just wanted to point out these two as they are small and easy to carry on your keychain and may help out when you find yourself in the dark. :)

This isn't intended to be a sales pitch. I am simply trying to pass along some helpful suggestions from what I've learned in the world of flashlights. After hearing about some of our users going through Gustav, Ike, etc, I wish I had done more to recommend things like this that may have helped them out.

Well, the other day it happened, my big dorky wireless headphones broken beyond repair. Well, at least beyond my repair, or beyond what I'm willing to try and fix. If anyone has seen me on cam on Paltalk you may have seen me wearing these giant cans on my ears. I've had them for years now, use them pretty much everyday. They allow me to listen to all the horrid things on Newgrounds, Opie and Anthony, XBL, etc, while not allowing my family (kids) to hear. I patch my XM radio into them, my computer's output, my TV's output, XBOX output, etc. Over the years they have broken from time to time and I have been able to super glue the broken plastic parts back together. The other day however they broke again, but this time the wires got snapped. I was rushing to the phone and sat them down. Probably when I tore them off my head I cracked them where they were previously broken and killed them. At first I was going to solder the wires back together, but soon realized there were very thin individual wires inside the casing of what I thought was a single wire. These wires are so fine and thinly shielded I didn't bother trying to repair them.

Considering I use these on a daily basis I needed to replace them, even though right now money is tight. So I went looking for the same pair, but Best Buy no longer carried them, even though I saw them still there within the past year. So I found a pair of Sony's that are similar, hopefully they'll work out as well or better.

RIP giant dorkey wireless headphones.

UPDATE: Looks like this won't be happening. The storm should stay out to sea and not impact the USA.

Some computer models are showing a Hurricane hitting New York City this weekend. Obviously it's far to early to be certain, but this developing situation should be paid attention to by those living on the Eastern Coast of the USA. New York City can sustain significant damage from a Hurricane depending on the strength and track. It's not a matter of if it can happen, but when it will happen. That's all we need right now, so hopefully this system will stay out to sea.

If this happens, it probably won't be above a Cat 1 Hurricane, but powerful Hurricanes have hit New England in the past. Here is a graphic showing some stats on the 1938 Hurricane:

Thanks to everyone who educated me about the International aid that was sent to the USA to help those that were hit hard by Katrina. After seeing all the aid we received I wouldn't be surprised if we saw similar aid for those hit by Ike, but the fact that we received so much aid for Katrina from other nations is enough to prove me wrong about my views. Part of the reason for my rant was that we have Newgrounds users who were hit by Ike, may have lost their homes, jobs, etc. We hope that they get the support they need to pick up the pieces and get themselves back on track.

Here are some photos of the storm and the aftermath:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/
09/the_short_but_eventful_life_of.html