49 Useless Facts

If you know me, you know that I'm full of useless knowledge. That is one reason I have a blog. Well, here's a whole bunch more useless knowledge to add on to that I've already given you. Here are 49 useless facts. There are 50 on the page, but one of them is false (that's very odd). The sad part is, I knew a few of these already :).

PS. Laugh more

Nutcracker on a Bike

When I read the title, that doesn't sound good, but it's not what you think. This guy played the Nutcracker Suite using only bicycle parts. It's pretty amazing. The site states there will be a video up soon, that'll be really cool. Merry Christmas!!!

Guess the Logo

Here's a quick fun link to try. You guess logos of things you see everyday. I did really poorly on this one with only 41.37%. Just to give you an idea bout what it is. You go to this site and you see 6 different versions of the logos and you must recognize which one is correct. The differences may be the colorations of the lettering or maybe even the shape of the font. You're timed and for every wrong one you get it adds two seconds to your time. Someone actually got these in 8 seconds.

Put Those Extra Hotdogs to Work

If you're ever bored, have some extra weiners and need to know how to calculate Pi without your calculator.... try throwing some food. Based upon the Buffon Needle Problem, here's a how to on calculating Pi by throwing an object that is somewhat straight. I would think this has to be cool even if you're not a nerd god.

Not Fighting Fair

Talk about good ideas. Whoever thought up the idea of withholding "luxary items" from North Korea until they cooperate was really onto something. Take away their iPods and their plasma TV's and they'll come around to our way of think'n. Of course there will be access to these things from other places and the black market, but it will create a scacity making these items rare. Sometimes you just gotta hit'm where it hurts.

How Things Have Changed

I found this website the other day that shows how our GUI's have changed throughout the years. I know, I know, I'm blogging a blog, but it's some pretty neat stuff. I've seen pretty much all of these and remember when quite a few of them came out. Windows 95 changed it all though. Go ahead and take you a trip down memory lane!

Jackson Gets Hobbit Movie

A few weeks ago it was rumored that Peter Jackson was not going to be getting rights to make the Hobbit, the prequil to "Lord of the Rings". There were petitions signed and once again, I started to mention it on here, but didn't, so now is an even better time because it looks like he will be making it. According to a New Zealand newspaper, the rights to the Hobbit will fall back to him next year and he should be able to start production. This is great, he did such a wonderful job on the other three movies, and strangely enough, I read the books in the same order the movies are coming out.

Christmas Gift Idea???

I've always been interested in RC things, what guy isn't really, so that is what attracted me to this video of the Storm Launcher. It looks too good to be true and wicked fast, so I thought if you needed an extra Christmas present for someone, it may not be a bad idea, especially for only $80 from Amazon. It's not something that I'd particularly want because I'd probably break it, but hey, I'd take it :). I've heard these things are really good, but the downside is they have 7-10 minutes of battery power (even though it's rechargable) and when they run out they don't glide too well. So, there ya go, a Christmas gift idea from Brian's Blog.

Toronto Cover Song Catalog

I saw this page of the Toronto Cover Song Catalog and thought it was fairly neat mainly because of the "Straight Up" cover. These people are just really talented, they take the songs people have sung in the past and make them soo much better. Really cool site and my hats off to the performers.

Chad Vader

I know this is kind of an old internet video, but it's still funny. It's Chad Vader!!! There are several episodes on Youtube, so go through the list and check'm out. So far I've watched episodes 1-3 and like episode three the best. The summary of the story is Darth Vader's brother Chad Vader's daily dealings in his job as manager of a grocery store. Pretty funny stuff.

92 Year Old Lady Killed in Shootout

I know, this is an older story and I was going to blog about it last week when it happend, but more has now developed. A 92 year old lady opened fire on police wounding three when they broke down her door on a drug raid, and was shot down by the officers.
Things like this are just shocking!!! You break into someone's house (especially in a bad neighborhood) you shouldn't expect a warm welcome. I know it's sometimes for a good cause, but it seems like something went really wrong in this situation. John C. Dvorak blogged about this earlier as well and has a few more arguments to add if you're interested. I have the feeling we haven't heard the last of this

Slasher School

Here's a skit that G4 did on Attack of the show called Slasher School. First of all realize, I'm not a fan of AoTS, I don't like what they turned Screen Savers into. I just had to shart this video, I mean, really, a pilgrim??? that's not scary. And what's the deal with the clowns fingers, that's not scary, it's just odd. I will also let it be known that I don't like what G4 has done with their channel, but that's another blog entry.

Why Doesn't this Program Work?

Here's a list of the top 20 responses of programmers when their programs don't work. I've used most of these several times. My favorites are number 20 and number 3. Also, the "it's not a bug, it's a feature" line should be added.

No More Stolern USB Drive

Have you ever had a USB drive stolen or lost? Well, it's not too cool. Fortunately, with this cool invention, we may no longer have to worry about that. It's a USB bowling ball. Now, next time the Dell guy comes to fix a bad motherboard, you won't have to worry about your USB drive being stolen unless he has a really big bag (yes, mine was stolen by the Dell guy). It wasn't stated how much memory this thing has. I think this would be perfect to plug into my car's USB FM modulator, wonder how bad it'd break. I did see in the fine print that for best effects you should weare those really cool gloves with holes in them.

Transformer Photos

With the new Transformer movie coming up and all, I thought it'd be cool to post these Optimus Prime pictures. These are not from the movie, but I guess it may give us a little of what to expect being that there have not been many official pictures of the movie release yet (no actual transformer pictures that I've seen). This guy did an excellent job with his 3D renderings!! For more information about the movie, you can check out the preview if you have not seen it yet at http://www.transformersmovie.com/. This'll probably be a really cool movie, but I'm doubting it'll live up to all of our transformer memories, but then again what could.

Look Around You

Got an extra nine minutes of your life to waste? Well, watch this video and see what you think. What is that even about??? The British are so weird :). If you want to know a little bit more about this video, you're welcome to check out the Wikipedia article on Look Around You, but apparently, it was done in two series of ten minute shorts. This is just one of the shorts.... actually, the second one about water is much better. Once you figure out that it's a really stupid video, it's worth a good chuckle or two. I really love the code at the begining of the show.
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU "
20 GOTO 10
RUN

Confusing Christmas Terms

Around Christmas when we are singing our Carols or just out shopping, we come across many different words that we don't usually hear, don't really know the meaning of, but don't really take time to consider. I have scoured the interent looking up common Christmas terms I could think of that may be a little confusing/misunderstood.

Advent - From the Latin Adventus (coming) the four week period preceding Christmas which serves as a time of reflection in preparation for the celebration of the Nativity.

Carols - Originally secular songs to accompany dancing during communal celebrations, Carols have evolved to become religious songs sung at Christmas.

Figgy (duff) Pudding - a traditional Newfoundland bag pudding. It typically contains butter, flour, sugar, and raisins, and is boiled in a bag. Click here for a recipe.

Mistletoe - A semi-parasitic plant that grows on certain types of trees, typified by the sticky substance surrounding the seed which helps it to attach to a potential host when excreted by birds. Mistletoe is used as a Christmas decoration.

Noel -the Christmas season; yuletide. (lowercase) a Christmas song or carol.

Wassail - From the Middle English "Waes Haeil", meaning to be in good health, the custom of toasting to each others health, a custom that has woven itself into Christmas traditions.

Yule - Ancient pagan festival celebrating the Winter Solstice and the coming spring around the 21st of December. Later it merged with, and became synonymous with, the Christmas celebration.

With the Christmas season just starting you'll now be ahead of the game knowing what all these confusing terms mean.

Catdog

I know most of us have seen the cartoon Catdog (which wasn't a bad cartoon) but now a Brazil couple is reporting that their cat had puppies. They are currently taking blood samples to tell what the animals are, but they are most likely just regular puppies. According to their report the cat had 3 kittens and 3 puppies.

Currency from the Mushroom Kingdom

Here's a funny video of a guy trying to buy merchandise at various places with coins he and Mario retrieved from the Mushroom Kingdom. I really don't think the guy wanted him to get Mario out of the car, especially if he had an extra fire flower.

Saving Their Necks

It would seem like some turkeys decided to make a break for it to escape the Thanksgiving cutting board on Wednesday. The turkeys found at a train station in New Jersey and it appeared like they were waiting for the train. Unfortunately, they couldn't find enough money for tickets and their plan was thwarted.

Best Spaceships

There is a controversy over an article about the Top 10 Movie Spaceships that I feel is worth mentioning. The controversy??? Well, it is because nowhere in the list is the spaceship Serenity!!!! Wired couldn't be silent about this either. I've mentioned this before, but Firefly is one of the best Sci-Fi television shows I've ever seen. I saw the movie first and thought it was pretty cool then, but then bought the DVD season, and was just blown away by it. With that said, the ship was like one of the characters on the show, much more than any other ship on other series (kinda like the Tardis from Dr. Who). Anyway, I'm with Wired. It really deserved a spot on the list.

More Old Games -- DOS

I know we long for the games of the past, so that's why I do these posts. Here's a link to some of the great DOS games of the past. It's hard to find good quality games like this anymore, back when designers actually cared. I tried Wolfenstein last night and it worked great.

Pretenders -- Part Two

I believe I did a post not too long ago about people pretending (I think the one I did was on Bush) to know about something when they really don't. Here's a really good example. He sure does know an awful lot about comptuers "128 MBs". Hmm, maybe that's what makes NASCAR computers so fast they must have "128 MBs".
If you really want to catch someone pretending to know what someone is talking about show them this Retro-Encabulator video and let them pretend to tell you what it is about. Of course they won't act like they know every word of it, but they'll try to make a good explanation of it.

Buying a New Computer -- Good Idea/Bad Idea?

With the Christmas season coming up, some may be hoping for a new computer for Christmas, but there are a few things to take into consideration. The main thing to take into consideration is the upcoming Vista OS. You must ask yourself, are you going to be an early adopter or a later adpoter? If you plan on waiting a long time until the adotion (1 1/2 to 2 years) I would say go ahead and buy a PC if you are in the market, but if you are planning on upgrading to Windows Vista sometime soon, I would suggest waiting at least five to six months before your purchase. I say this for two reasons. One being the massive hardware requirements/recommendations that it has. The other is that Windows Vista claims to be the most secure OS Microsoft has made yet, but in order to take advantage of this you will need a 64-bit processor and software is in the process of adapting to this.
If you wait to buy a newer PC and then adopt to Vista, some of the bugs will be discovered, you'll have better and cheaper priced hardware, and more software will have been ported over to the 64-bit platform. Vista is releasing with a network stack that is being built from the ground up so many of the bugs that were taken care of years ago in other Operating Systems have been rediscovered in the beta releases. Currently Vista has many terms for how your hardware relates to it from Vista capable to Vista ready, so chances are if you are going to be an early adopter and assuming your computer is fairly "up to date" then if you're brave enough, go ahead and try it for awhile with your old hardware. If you end up liking it, buy a new PC with better hardware that'll make it run better and it'll then seem more like an upgrade, if you don't reformat, put back on Windows XP and it'll still feel like an upgrade.
One other thing to take into consideration and I can't believe I'm saying this, is to perhaps buy you a Macintosh. Since they have gone i386, there has been no better time to buy a Mac even though they are a bit pricier. You can use a VM or Paraells software to emulate your windows "must have" apps or simply do a dual boot with windows XP.
The reason I mention this, is that I'm asked from time to time about PC upgrades and the advantages and disadvantages, so I thought I'd give you my opinion. You can agree or disagree, doesn't matter, but I hope I gave you a few things to think about if you're thinking of asking Santa for a computer.

Picard Does the Alphabet

I found this video of Picard singing the "alphabet song" funny and very disturbing. It's not the traditional alphabet song that we all learned when we were kids, but it's the swing song that you'll sometimes hear on older movies. I believe this was an Easter Egg in one of the Next Generation's DVD sets. Man how I miss Star Trek.

Does a Body Good

This is a really interesting read. Chocolate Milk is now being tested as a sports drink. They are saying that it does as good a job as some of the much more expensive carb drinks. I know the carb drinks they use probably taste horrible, but to me milk doesn't seem like it'd be very good while you're excercising. I really do hope this sticks though, it'd be interesting (and funny) to watch a coach get chocolate milked as part of a victory celebration.

Bush Promotes Dell

This is a little bit of old news, but I thought it'd be funny for those who have not seen of it or heard of it. George Bush, in one of his press conferences, whether purposly or not, somewhat promoted Dell computers. I'm not sure of the end results of this, but I believe I heard that he said he had a slip up and meant to say something else. Check out the link and judge for yourself, keep in mind you've heard some of the things he's said in the past. He probably thinks Dell is the only computer company.... perhaps he should use "the google" to find out.

Things You Won't Buy for Christmas

When you're stinking rich, I guess some of these items may seem like a good idea. The Robbie the robot is really cool, but I'm wondering who would want the fortune teller. I will say, however, that I went to the site that sold the Robbie the robot and found something even better and much cheaper. A voice activated R2D2. It'd be really cool, except for it's only 15 inches high, but it does look highly detailed.

No Wii for Me -- Yet

So the only way there was to get a Wii this morning/last night seemed like camping out. Many hardcore gamers did just this. I, however, decided to wait until the next shipment as opposed to camping out. I did, however decide to check online last night at Amazon to see if they were going to sell it. I found some strange goings on there. About two weeks ago there was a place where you could sign up to not pre-order the Wii, but to be sent an email when it is being sold on Amazon so I did just that. Last night at midnight I got on there to check to see if they were selling them, however the site never changed. It gave a message about how it would ship on November 19.
At this point they had a message board set up and it seemed people were getting angry that it wasn't yet up. It was rumored that they would have it out around 3am when it turned midnight PST, but I had highly doubted that. Knowing this, I called it a loss and went to bed. I got up and there were still people posting waiting for the wii to become available. I still received no email about it being available for purchase.
Still there has been no word from Amazon about the Wii being for sale there, however, I got to thinking. Usually when you purchase a game from Amazon it goes through the Toys "R" Us site and makes the purchase. I checked that site and there were still Wii's available, but only through a bundled purchase which was around $580. Next step is to contact Walmart and ask when their next expected shipment of Wii's is.

Largest Paper Airplane

One thing that I've always found fun to do was make paper airplanes. You can learn methods of making them different ways in order to do different things. In Japan, one kids dream was to make the worlds largest paper airplane and he got to do just that. I find it odd that of all things he chose this as his dream, but hey, he was selected by the Dream Delivery Project to make it come through. It looks like it'd be kinda fun to drop it off a large building.

ChaCha

Here's an excellent idea called ChaCha. It's a webbrowser with additional help. It offers two kinds of searching. The regular search that we're all used to, and an assisted search. If you can't find something you're searching for you simply click on the "search with guide" button and it'll allow you to chat with a live person. It would take a lot for me to stop using google, so I don't see me switching anytime soon, but it'd be something to try out if you just couldn't find what you wanted. I also wonder if guys would be less likely to use this search engine than gals because we don't like asking for directions.

100th Blog Entry

It's hard to believe that I have had a hundred blog entries already. I guess I've been busy. Since I saw that I was getting close to my 100th entry I got to think'n well, maybe we can review some of our favorites. I've prepared mine in the order that I like them best.

5. The Nerd Test - it got a lot of feedback (thanks btw)

4. Peters Overlord List - you can laugh at it for hours

3. Ultimate Movie Preview - I just can't get this thing out of my head

2. Halloween On Warcraft - You can dance to the song all day and they still won't eat your eyes.

1. Male Restroom Etiquette - Everytime I go to a crowded restroom I make sure everyone follows the rules now.

These are just my picks. Go back through and if you have any that you like better, I'd like to hear about it. It's been fun so far thanks to all my readers.

It's official now -- VHS is dead

One may have expected to see this story a year or so ago, but VHS will be dead come January. With Satellite, DVD's, TiVo, Internet Broadcasts, and most recently HDDVD and Blueray, VHS is not in the picture any longer. All the other formats just seem so much easier to use. I can't remember the last VHS video I watched, but it was good while it lasted. On it's tombstone will be carved "Here lies VHS, I was better than Betamax". Farewell good friend.

PS3 Violence

I went to walmart last night to check the avaliability of the Wii and was told that I probably wouldn't need to worry about it too much, the worry was for the PS3. Not really thinking about the PS3 shortagae I asked what was going on. I was told that they were going to be getting 20 PS3's, but there were already 35 people in line and they had been there for two days already. I just had to go check out this crew. I went over to the layaway section where the line had formed and saw this crew.... food containers laying around, laptops open, and tired faces throughout. All I could think was that come release time theres gonna be a fight.
Speaking of fights I've heard several stories throughout the day about the violence that has broken in relation to the PS3 anticipation. In one case there was a robbery of a line. In another story there was a fight that broke out over line order when a Walmart store decided to move the line. This led to the entire store being shutdown. Closer to home, last night there was a drive by shooting of a line in Lexington, KY. Talk about eliminating the competition. So, do video games promote violence. The answer is, only if there is a shortage of consoles.

Duck Hunt Magic

With the excitement of the new Wii coming out, I've been thinking alot about video games. Let's go ahead and talk about a classic that came with almost every NES.... Duck Hunt. Remember shooting the ducks all day long and then getting angry when the dog laughed at you so then wasting your one extra bullet (because all u needed was 2) to shoot him in the butt as he jumped behind the bushes. Well, the magic of the Duck Hunt has been revealed. Apparently this is done by the TV shooting the gun, not the gun shooting the TV. Read the article for the full explanation, but this does explain why playing it on a black and white TV was a little bit easier than playing it on the color TV.

Digging an hole

So, I watched this commercial on TV where the Honda falls through the earth and ends up in china. This is possible, yes, but not plausible (unless you are driving in Chile). Here's why I say it. I found this website that shows you that if you dug a hole straight through the earth where you would end up. This is something fun to play with, but my question is, once you dig this hole, if you fell in, where would you fall to cosidering how gravity works and all(of course this is assuming that you didn't burn up from the heat of the core and weren't crushed by the gravitational pull).

Star Wars is Still Valid

Imagine if you could go back and watch Star wars for the first time. Wouldn't that be great, not knowing what to expect. I've known people who have never seen Star Wars before, but I always thought they were freaks. The above link takes you to a story about a guy who watched a "Star Wars Marathon" in order from Epidsode 1 to Episode 6 and had never seen them before. It is kind of a boring article itself, but the imporatant part is that he watched the movies and actually enjoyed them. He stated that the plots in Epidsodes 4-6 were much better.... that's probably because plot actually mattered back then. I was also pleased that he disliked Jar Jar as much as the rest of us. I just can't imagine watching the movies originally in order, it'd seem unnatural.

The Epic Battle -- Pirates vs. Ninjas

So it has long been debated on which is better pirates or ninjas. I gotta admit on this subject I am torn. All I can do is put out the evidence and let you decide for yourself. First of all, I believe what brought this epic battle to light of the non-ninja/non-pirate eye was the ultimate ninja power website. If you have no background on this battle, there is a whole bunch of stuff on there about the battle, go get caught up.
Ok, now that you're caught up, the next thing you need to check out is the representatives from each side. There is an example of a ninja at the ask a ninja site where you'll find some really cool videos. You will find an example of a pirate at the axe a pirate site (the ninja already took up the ask a pirate site being all stealthy that way). Also don't forget to take into consideration that there is an entire day on September 19th dedicated to talking like a pirate. I'm proud to say that our office even psuedo-participated.

Bait Taken Mr. John

What am I talking about you ask. Well, Elton John said yesterday that he would ban all religion. His reason was that it causes hatred toward gays. I suspect that he mainly said this to get publicity and have people talk about him..... well, I'll grab the bait and here goes. I couldn't disagree with him more. In Christianity, Jesus taught us to love our neighbors. That's a pretty hard thing to do if you are also being taught to hate the gays. Christianity doesn't promote the hatred of sinners (all of us have sinned), however it does teach what the sins are (including homosexuality) and one should repent of these.
In my opinion the cause of the hatred toward gays is the same as the cause of racism. It mainly stems from ignorance. People don't understand it, so they discreminate. Religion comes in as an excuse to try and justify their actions, but they really have it all wrong.
I don't mean to preach, but seeing something like this just makes me realize how our culture is moving away from values and morals. One thing Elton John does have right is that gays should not be hated, but banning religion is really not the key to resolution. This is a country where we have the freedom of religion, but it seems like that freedom starts to fade when the religion may offend people by saying what they do is not correct.

Are you Nedy???

Sure you find these tests on the internet alot, but I thought I'd post my results. When I found this, I didn't think that I'd get as high on the test as I did, but:



Who knew I was a nerd god, however, I do apparently look like Bill Gates. Feel free to post your results in the comments section... this should be fun :) but don't cheat.

Music Recommendation -- O.C.M.S.

If you know me, you know that I rarely ever recommend music. For the most part the music people listen to is mostly a personal thing. However, I do feel it worth mentioning a band I recently discovered.... Old Crow Medicine Show. Just because a friend of my wife asked us to go, I went to a Nickel Creek concert around six months ago and it just so happend that Old Crow Medicine Show was opening for them. Our friend let us use an OCMS cd a week prior and my first impression wasn't that great. I'm not really a blue grass music fan, so I didn't really give it a chance.
When I got to the concert, I was immediatly impressed. Their stage performance was great and it turned out their music wasn't just "blue grass" it covered all sorts of genre. Their music covered themes from cocaine habits to gospel themes, and will have you sing'n along very quickly. Needless to say, their performance was much better than the show Nickel Creek put on, and I was an immediate fan.
The reason I mention them now is they were on Conan O'Brien on Friday and did an excellent job and I feel like they're not too far from hitting it really big. They have recently put out a new CD and will actually be coming to Louisville at the begining of December. I don't yet know if I'll be able to go, but if you have a chance I would highly recommend attending any of their concerts. All around Excellent band!
Note: I know this isn't really a log of a website I've been to, but I feel it was worth mentioning. Also, if you would like to hear them, a few of their recordings are on the link I posted above, but if you want to borrow one of their CD's from me you're welcome to (that is still legal, right).

Shirt Guitar

For all of us pretend to be "rockers" out there, here is a new product that is a must have. It is a shirt that emulates your air guitar and even interacts you you jumping around. I see both advantages and disadvantages to this. First off, it's about time.... who hasn't played air guitar at some time, it's just fun. And to be able to produce sound from moving around and pretend rocking, wow!!! The disadvantage to this is that it'll probably be too expensive for real people to afford and it is unlikely that a T-shirt could make the high quality sounds that my air guitar makes. Half the fun is making your own sounds. Now all I'll need is matching pants for my legtar (leg guitar) for when I really rock it.

Really interesting Voice Mail

This is an actual voice mail I had on my work phone when I came into work last Monday. As you can hear, it was left around 11pm on Saturday night. I have no clue who this is or who Mike Jones is, but me and everyone in my office got a kick out of it. My guess is the guy either picked a random number and left it as a prank, or the guy was really drunk and trying to mess with his friend and dialed the wrong number. Either way, welcome to my blog my friend!!!

PS. Sorry about the poor sound quality, I had a really bad microphone held up to a speakerphone and used Audacity to record it and Lame to encode it, so during all that it lost some quality. You may need to turn up the sound a little to hear it. Also special Thanks to jmiker for your webspace to host the file.

Update, that link is broken, even though the href points to the right place, anyway, copy and paste this link to get it to work. http://www.geocities.com/kfflmike/vmail.mp3

Nascar Computer

I'm not too sure if you've seen this yet, but they have recently came out with a Nascar computer that is sold at Walmart. Nothing personal against Nascar fans, but I don't imagine that would be a good target audience for computers, but apparently it is. I do have to agree though, since it is a target audience, there is no better place to sell it. If it's not funny enough that there acutally exists a Walmart computer, I have a personal experience with one.
I had an hour + long cellphone call during a road trip troubleshooting one of these things for a family member. To make a very long story short, it turns out that on this Nascar PC there were 2 users that could be logged in; the guest account and an account with the username of "Nascar" for which the people who purchased the PC did not recall receiving the password. I had someone in the vehicle with me call the Walmart store from which it was purchased and they had no clue and said to go to google and look it up (which does not work). The makers of the computer do have a technical support number to call (imagine some of the calls they get), but they will not speak to you unless you have the serial number to the PC.
So, apparently, this computer was either some kind of display PC or this Nascar computer is being put out there with only limited user access. The issue is still at large so if you read this and you do have one of the Nascar PC's and know the password, please post it, if not, when I find out more, I will post it.
I leave you with a question for thought. If, for some reason, you were to cluster two of these Nascar PC's together as a server would they use the extra performance and draft off each other and be wicked fast or would they just crash because you know how those Nascars are when they get together, the just crash each other.

Car Guide

I'm not in the market for a new vehicle, however, I do like to check out what vehicle I would buy if I was. CNN posted a link to the Most Reliable Cars. This link also contains a link of the most unreliable cars as well, and yes, mine is the #2 on the list. It looks like Honda and Toyota have a really good thing going on. I do have to admit my wife drives a Honda Civic that is four years older than my Nissan Sentra and runs better. Just thought it to be an interesting article.... especially if you happen to be in the market for a vehicle.

Scardy Goat

Here is a video that proves that God has a sense of humor. The type of goat in this video has a built in "stop mechanism". Whenever they get excited or stressed their muscles tense up and they fall over, it's very funny, but kinda sad. You really have to see it to appreciate it.

Mess'n with Sasquatch

From time to time a genius advertising scheme will come along, the first I remember was the Budweiser frogs, then Quizno's Spongemonkeys, and next were the Geico caveman commercials (featured earlier this week in this blog), and most recently we have had the Jack Link's Beef Jerky Mess'n with Sasquatch commercials. These are the commercials that, even if you don't know how made them, you can't get them out of your head.
After the Blog about the Cavemen, I had several comments about the Sasquatch commercials, so I feel it is only appropriate to post them as well. Once again, not because I particularly endorse the product, but because I endorse their endorsement. Here we go, I'll try to get them in order.

First there was the old binoculars trick. This commercial was followed by the shaving cream while asleep trick. The two that I hadn't really seen were the salt shaker trick and the hand in warm water trick. I haven't been able to find any more if there are any, but they are very entertaining.

Wii Previews

Earlier today they on gamespot.com they had a live wii trial where you could watch people playing the wii to see some of the games. I breifly saw Mario Galaxy, Excite Truck, and the new Zelda game. If anyone can find the link to this preview, please post it as a comment. I first want to say that Excite Truck looked amazing, I thought it sounded really stupid, but once I saw it, I was wowed!!!
As I was looking for the videos I saw earlier, I ran across some previews of the Wii Sports package, and thought it looked interesting. This is the game that actually comes with the Wii. I thought it was a great demonstration of how the controller worked and also thought these grown men dancing around with a wii-mote in their hand looked funny. Every since the original NES we have (or at least I have) been using the control as a wii-mote. Think about it, how many times did you lean over with the remote to make Mario jump just a little bit further to make those long jumps. I find it also appropriate to bring up, if the wii-mote is going to cause us to throw the controller a little more. It wasn't uncommon to throw the controller to the original NES when frustrated, now we have something that is wireless and fits in one hand better. Sounds like the market for controllers will be high.
Only a little over a week to go!!!!

Worst Games

With all this anticipation for the Wii, I think it's about time that we go back and remind ourselves of the worst games of all times. Once again, this is another one of these lists that some people in an office sit around and make up, so I don't agree with all of the list entirely. I do, however, agree with the ET game, yes the game that single handedly took down the Atari 2600 and then was righteously buried in a landfill. Either way, it's entertaining stuff.

Classic Blogs -- More Cowbell

So, I don't know if you noticed or not, but I don't always post the most "breaking stories" sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. That's how most of us surf the internet and since this is a "Web Log" then I feel it necessary to sometimes put in some of the stuff I have surfed to in the past that I've found funny.
Here's a salute to two very funny men. Christopher Walken and Will Ferrell (one of the funniest men alive)... I'll leave you with this.... I have a fever and the only cure is more cowbell!!!!

Tastes Just Like .... Bacon???

Scientists have created a robot that "has taste buds" for wine, cheese, and certain hors d'oeuvres. Apparently it works by waving something in front of it's face and then it will identify what the object is. When one of the reporters waved his hand in front of it, it tasted bacon, on another, it tasted like prosciutto. Now we know that when robots get intelligent enough they'll eat us all, I mean, who doesn't like bacon and prosciutto.

A Grave Victory

Sometimes you just can't win. In this case even when running against a dead lady Merlin Feistner of South Dakota couldn't win. I bet his self esteem just dropped 1000 points. I could understand if she won unopposed, or even won if people didn't know she was dead, but according to the article people knew it and still voted for her. How bad of a politician do you have to be to lose to someone that the voters know can't perform the task.

They've Made a Burger out of Everything Else

So, most of you guys know I used to work at Burger King. During my three years there, it seemed like they made Burgers for every occasion. With that said, some officers were served some burgers that were never on the menu when I worked there. Apparently some workers thought it'd be a good idea to put marijuana on the officer's burgers. That seems like the worst possible people to get the burgers, so I'm wondering if that was planned. What the article didn't mention however, was that before the officers headed to the hospital the each ordered a large fry and an order of chicken tenders.

Boosehammer of Gaylan Busted!!!

It's probably not a good idea to call 911 to a Medieval fair, but that's just what Boosehammer of Gaylan did. I got to admit, he did a great job of staying in character up until he starts yelling for his Mom. I don't know if there was boose involved or not, it may not have even been real, but it was still real funny.

More Reasons to get the Wii

As if we didn't need more reasons to buy the Wii. Here's another article compairing why to buy the Wii over the PS3. My question is, was it ever even a contest??? I posted this mainly because of one of the sections
5. If you love old-school: The Wii will have 30 classics from Zelda, F-Zero, Mario 64, Sonic, Gunstar Heroes, Bomberman, Bonk’s Adventure and more. PS3 is expected to have two downloadable titles.

I'm really looking forward to the old-school games. Yes it does seem silly to pay $250 for an updated system to play your old games, but it's so hard to find the old games and you get a system that plays newer "up to date games". One thing I wish they'd do is to realease all the original games from the previous systems. They will probably eventually release most of them, I wonder how long it'll take though. Either way, it seems way better than the PS3.... could this be the end of Sony?

An Award well Deserverd

Time Magazine named the best invention of the year to be YouTube. This is a very well deserved, my blog would definitely not be the same with out it. Internet fans around the world have enjoyed endless hours of entertainment and copyright enfringed movies things to YouTube. It's hard to beleive that this time last year, YouTube was not even heard of. A big thumbs up to the invention of the year, without you, we couldn't post junk like this (this clip gets boring after 2 1/2 minutes) on our blogs.

For your Advertising Enjoyment

I just can't tell you how much I enjoy the Geico caveman commericials, so I thought I'd try to compile a list. I don't endorse Geico (not that I have anything bad to say about them either), just their commercials. Here we go:

The first one was the "so easy a caveman could do it" commercial making which just "wasn't cool man" (but really was).

Next was where they actually saw the commercial and got offended.

Third was the dinner and apology from Geico to the cavemen. The look on the caveman's face that lost his appetite says it all.

After that they have a news interview talking about the incident.

The descrimination continues with what appears to be an airport advertisement the caveman sees while on moving sidewalk.

The latest one I've seen is where the caveman is on the cellphone reporting the advertisement he just saw in the airport.

Lucas to Quit making Movies

It looks as though soon George Lucas (maker of Star Wars) may soon give up producing movies. The article statest that he is currently in production of a low budget movie, which if I recall from a previous interview I read, is what he always wanted to do anyway. He has had a great career, and maybe it is time to hang it up, but his excuse is horrible. He states that it costs too much money to market a blockbuster. WHAT??? It must be horrible to be as poor as him, he must be look'n under the couch coushins for change he's dropped. At least we'll get another Indiana Jones movie out of the deal.

Free Theology Course

If you've ever been interested in the basic concepts of Christianity, Moody Bible Institute is offering a free course in Doctrine. Other than getting some baisc knowledge, if you complete the class you can get some Bible Study software valued at $400 for free.
This has been started by Michael Easley's (president of Moody Bible Institute) in his morning radio show called Proclaim. I've enrolled in it to see what it's all about and because I enjoy the radio show quite a bit and because it's free.

School of the Future

Most people have probably already heard of the "School of the Future", but it is news to me. So, the story is, that instead of using textbooks, the school is going to get it's information from the internet (we all know if it's on the internet its gotta be true). It sounds like a great idea but I wonder how well its going to work out. I agree that textbooks are a little bit out dated and I also beleive that it is much easier to type your reports than to write them, but how many distractions will having computers in schools offer the children. As stated in the article people will be keeping an eye on this Philly school to see if the academics improve or not. I beleive they will, they'll probably also have an increasing amount of people from that school going into the "IT world" after graduation (however that'll work by then).
I can't help but to wonder what it'd be like to work in the IT department of that school. Imagine some of the problems you would encounter!!! They'd have to have the computers locked down pretty tight.
I know they're not the only schools in the US that are using computers, but it seems like they are trying to take it a step further. I've only been out of highschool now for eight years, but it seems like since then so much has changed. Most of the computers I worked with at school were out of date for their time and had the good ol' blue IBM screen on them and without internet access.

Kentucky Election Ballots

I'm not much of a political person, however I do have lots of complaints when politicians make stupid decisions, so I vote and believe everyone who can should. With that said, I also believe it is important to know who you're voting for and how they feel about situations that could effect you. If you live in the great state of Kentucky, I found a link to Tuesday's upcoming ballots. Check out what your ballot looks like and do a little research on the candidates. Sometimes, we don't have much of a choice in the matter, but we some choice nonetheless. I think that voting gives you the right to complain, if you don't vote, don't complain, and when I run for President of the World, I won't pave your road.

Potty Mouth

In Vienna there were some very tacky urinals that were removed and have been placed up for sale on ebay. The problem??? The were shaped like a mouth. They had been there for three years, but they apparently offended some people so now they are going to be cleaned up and sold. I looked on ebay for them to see if I could get a link up, but had no luck. I think it'd be interesting to see how much they actually go for. If someone finds them on ebay please link in the comments.

Embarrasing Sports Injuries

Fox Sports ran a story on the Top 10 embarrassing sports injuries. I thought this was very entertaining to go back and remember some of these. I'm not sure that they're in the correct order though.... I would think Gus would be the #1 with his victory headbutt.

Bush -- Pretending

From time to time we all like to play pretend, however, George Bush just isn't as good at it as the rest of us. Here he is pretending to understand Spanish. That's not too bad, it's usually a good idea to smile and nod though. This one is really good though.... he pretends to know about technology. How in the world can you not use email.... I find this really disturbing, at least he uses the internets with the google. It seems like politics and internet don't mix too well, just ask Senator Stevens.

Squirrel Goes Postal

On a normal day out delivering mail, a Pennsylvania lady was attacked by a crazy squirrel. Similar to the Ray Steven's video, the squirrel ran up her leg. Another funny part to this story is that it was killed by a BB gun. I would think someone had to be a pretty good shot to shoot a squirrel with a BB gun, much less kill it.... must have been a high powered one.

Farewell Fowl Friend

It's a sad day for lawns around the country. Our favorite lawn decoration may soon be extinct. Yes I'm talking about the tacky pink flamingos people put on their lawn. They are going to stop making them because the lack of demand for the bird (that's a shame). On the upside though, other companies are bidding on the right to produce these lawn creatures to keep them off the extinct list.... right now we'll list them on the endangered list.
These things make great pranks and could even be a potential fundraiser. Last year my church sold flamingo insurance as a way to raise money for a mission trip. If you didn't buy the insurance a good chance was that you would wake up with a yard full of pink flamingos, in which case you had to pay $10 to get the youth crew to come and remove them. However, you could also pay $20 to get someone's house who didn't have flamingo insurance flamingoed. Just an idea on how flamingos can help make the world a better place.

The Code

If you played Video games in the 80's "the code" is forever embedded in your head. Yes, I'm talking about the famous Konami code!!! For all you non-gamers out there, it is the magical series of buttons you press on the Nintendo control pad to get special items and extra lives on Konami games. The series goes thusly: ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A Select Start (the select ,of couse, is optional, for 2 players).
Why am I mentioning it, one because, if you didn't embed it in your head, you should, it's a good conversation piece, and also because there is a band that has named a track after it. I've never heard of the band called Saturday Night Wrist and they don't sound like a band I'd like much, in fact, I couldn't find any of their music on iTunes, and none of their tracks were avaliable for sample on Amazon, but they did name one of their songs after "the code" and a big thumbs up for that.
This goes to show what kind of music era we're in. A no named band can get big attention (they were on the front page of digg earlier) by their wits instead of their popularity, but that's a whole nother blog posting.

fyi-- of course the name of their song isn't the correct konami code, they have b and a mixed up

Brokeback to the Future

This video is about half a year old and has been going around the internet for a while, but it's still funny. There are several of these Brokeback Parodys out there, but I thought the one on Back to the Future was very cleverly done, or maybe it's because it's one of my favorite movies (no, not Brokeback mountain, Back to the Future) of all times.

Ready to Go

In Amsterdam a lady died next to where she was to be buried. She was to be buried next to her husband and her name was carved on the tombstone already and everything. Most likely she was visiting her husbands grave site when she experienced heart failure. To make matters stranger yet, she was carrying her will with her. It's as if she went there knowing she was going to die. How's that for the day after Halloween.

TWiT is back ... kinda

To update a previous posting, on Monday another TWiT episode was released. Just as I'd hoped, Leo was just frustrated with things and before starting the show he semi-apoligized and stated that he didn't mean for his statement to be taken so seriously, and then thanked everyone for their concern. The actual statement that he didn't mean what he said was posted on his blog on Thursday and I started to blog about it then, but I'm glad I waited because I have some stuff to say about the current episode as well. But first, let me say that I thought it was kind of inappropriate for him to use this "publicitiy" to plug his new show.
Well, with all that said, I'm still a TWiT fan and recommend that you check it out if you haven't already. This week's show is a great place to start. It is a "memories" show so pretty much he took the "best of" from some of the other shows and threw them together. This takes you back to all the developing news stories in tech throughout the year as well as sharing some great moments of TWiT. You get a great introduction to it at least. Leo didn't really have to do anything this week, in fact, the only part of it that was original was his statement that was given at the begining of the show so his work was done for him. TWiT is back, but it is kinda off this week. If you haven't listend to it before it's well worth your time and somewhat addicting.