Happy New Year

New year is seen as a time of getting rid of the old and coming in with the new, well, blog readers I have a special treat for you.
The way I prepare for my blog is to look for stuff, deem it "blog-worthy", bookmark it, think about it, then post it with my thoughts. Well, heres some stuff left over to flush out the new year. Stuff that made the "blog-worthy" status, got bookmarked, but I never got around to saying anything about. Some of these are old so, here we go, in no particular order.....

1. Bank of America video
2. Why NotFree Internet during Travels.
3. Bruce Lee Themepark.
4. Free Mozart
5. Bomb Emulator
6. Someone Ate a 7 legged deer!!! after they hit it.
7. Santa Run.
8. Star Trek Comic
9. Funny PS3 action Link on Ebay.... read the stuff in red
10. Star Wars Graphiti

And there ya go, there's 10 of my blog bookmarks to last you through the rest of the year. All of them should be good links to check out. Enjoy and Happy New Year.

The Digg Effect

Here is something that was kind of new to me that I saw develop on the internet the other day. I'm not sure if you've ever been to Digg.com before, but it is a site that has many many news stories about many topics. Anyway, the other day, one of the most "dugg" stories was about a guy who took his Corvette in for some very minor maintenance and an employee took it out for a joyride and wrecked it (story here) and the dealer was not going to offer any kind of repairs. Anyway, he posted this on Digg and the readers went crazy, some emailed the dealer, others called, but apparently it worked. I read about this initially and then went to check on it later and a new post had been posted about the reconcilement.
The term digg effect usually means that some site was posted on Digg and so many people clicked on the link that the webserver could not handle the traffic and shuts down (similar to a Denial of Service attack). In this case I am redefining it due to it saving this guys car. If it had not been for the support of the digg readers the guy probably would not have gotten his car fixed without a lot of trouble or a lawsuit.
This is just a great story of the internet doing good for someone and people pulling together when they knew someone was done wrong.

Wooden Highscraper

This story has been all over the internet for the past two days, so I find it worth mentioning. A Russian man has built a wooden "highscraper". This thing towers above this small village making for a really awkward skyline. To me it's an eyesore, to him it's a beauty, you decide for yourself. Maintenance on this thing must really suck.

Go on, admit it, you like the sweet picture of the guy without a shirt standing proud of his work.

Really Bad Typo

If you're a regular to this blog, you know that I make typos all the time (thanks for still ignoring them). I can relate to this guy who's typo landed him 8000 miles from his destination. This guy was suppost to fly from Germany to Sydney, Australia, but ended up in Sidney, Montana instead. Not only did it cost him lots of time, but close to $800 as well, and he had to endure the Montana cold unprepared.

Crazy Bare Foot Runners

It's hard enough to run a Marathon, but imagine running it in your bare feet. This story is not only interesting, but it has some great quotes. As I was reading it i had several good chuckles. I'll pick out a few of my favorites....

"Mr. Yoshino says he'll need to lance another 100 blisters before achieving his dream, an outer crust on his feet as hard as that of some Australian aborigines."
-- Yea, I've shared that same dream several times.... umm, aspire to something bigger, feed the hungry, world peace, saving the whales, whatever, but crust on your feet?

"When his blisters hurt most, Mr. Summers dons a running shoe with ballet-slipper like soles to mimic the barefoot experience."
-- Haha, that explains alot.

ok, these guys are crazy, I'm still not sure of the motivation... btw, my feet are wimps.

Snakes Predict Earthquakes??

It almost seems that we have the solution to every problem in nature it's just sometimes a problem finding it. In China they have found that by monitoring snakes, you may be able to predict an earthquake. Using animals for detection is not a new concept. Canaries used to be used in mines to detect harmful chemicals. I find it cool that there is someone in China that has the job of watching snakes on a webcam. That doesn't sound like much motivation to get up to go to work every morning. The title of their story is odd, I didn't see anything about head-banging. Maybe they were thinking of scorpions rocking like a hurricane.

Feldergarb!!!

My wife and I have been watching a lot of Battlestar Galactica (wonderful show btw) recently in order to catch up to the current season. If you're not familiar with the show one thing they have is their own made up curse word which is "Frak" used to replace the "F" word and be more decent for television (very inovative, I think). My wife was doing some reading about the show and this was mentioned and in the process she found a link to the word feldergarb. Apparently it's used in the state of Kentucky and the south, but I've never heard it. Theres your vocabulary word of the day, sorry for the long story leading up to it, hope I didn't include too much feldergarb for you.

Now We Know

Here's a list of things we know in 2006 that we didn't know in 2005. Now I have some more useless knowledge.... entertaining, but still pretty much useless. This is however really worth reading, very entertaining.

... and knowing is half the battle!!!

Cardboard Tube Samuri

Another silly, but cool thing I've found in the past and thought I'd share with you is the Cardboard Tube Samuri. He has become a cult classic on the internet.... you can even buy the shirt. Really cool concept.... he's a samuri who fights with a cardboard tube and seems to win even against people with swords. His cardboard tube has been called "the deadliest weapon ever forged". He was created in the Penny Arcade comic world and was actually featured today on the homepage.

Directly From Sci-Fi to Real Life

BBC News has ran a story about a new project about a telescope/satellite that will look for new planets. This satellite isn't something that is happening in the future, but now, it launched this morning and will monitor space for 2 1/2 years.
Theres no telling what kind of cool stuff we could find out there, it'll be an interesting thing to keep up with. Of course if they do find something, what do we do about it?

Vaporware Awards

Wired has announced their Vaporware Award winners for the year. The article doesn't really go into a thorough explanation of what Vaporware is, so you may wanna check out the dictionary.com definition if you're not already familiar with the term. I post this not only to make you aware of the winners this year, but mainly to ask you to keep a look out in 2007 for the vaporware of the year.
There's a lot to be said about the iPod killer but they said it best when they said the Zune didn't do the trick. It just killed itself.

Foot in Mouth Awards

Wired Magazine has compiled a list of the 2006 Foot in Mouth Awards. These are really well done... and of course they wouldn't be complete without some George Bush quotes. I guess that's the problem with being famous, everything you say is under the microscope.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Greens too all the my readers out there.

Sorry Star Wars Holiday Special

Here's a really boring and horribly made Star Wars Holiday Special cartoon. It's worth mentioning because it's Star Wars and because it's the first screen apperance of Boba Fett apperance ever.

Christmas Story House

So, all you people out there who enjoy the 24 hours of the Christmas story that airs on TBS every year, you may enjoy the fact that they're making the house from this movie a tourist place. This is a few month old story, but I thought it'd be appropriate being that you can watch the movie all nite and all day and think of this. The official website to this is here.

Gamers Don't Care About Advertising

Techdirt posted and article about how gamers are too busy playing their games to care about the in-game advertising. Advertising in games seems to be a weird concept, but the article does have a good point of them being more realistic. People like Burger King seem to have the right idea by giving out games for very cheap that contain their characters. I recall Kool-Aid doing this in the early 80's with their Kool-Aid man game for the atari. However, with the majority of the games with advertising in games, the gamer still has to pay $50 for the game and doesn't benefit by the "better quality" of the game. My question is, if you're going to force the gamer to look at your advertisements, why can't you at least provide some sort of benefit. Of course, in the games I've played with advertisements in them, I didn't really seem to care either.

Hate'n on Microsoft

We hear it all the time people hate'n on the big M$. You may have even heard it from me from time to time. A few weeks ago Slashdot did an article on why people hate Microsoft that I think posed and interesting question. I'll be the first to say that Microsoft has done a lot for computing and I really appreciate that, however, the reason I have negative feelings about them is all the bad ideas they've had.
I used to work as a technican for a company who outsourced their technical support for MSN internet access and I saw some really bad hardware (MSN Companion) and software. Many of their ideas that seem good, but they never seem to follow through with, and most are just "copy cat" programs that aren't as good as the original. Microsoft may have hit a low with their Zune product forcing people to place DRM's. Here's a good explanation on the bad parts of the Zune.
With all that said and many of the bad products M$ has came out with left unmentioned, I'd like to add some good stuff about them. For one, Microsoft Office is far superior in anyway to all its competitors, it's just a great product. Another thing is Bill Gates seems to know what he's doing. He is a business genius, however I'm not sure I understand some of the things he does. Lets take another example from the Zune. He recently stated his frustrations with DRM and encouraged buying cd's and ripping them. So, even though he understands that DRM doesn't work, he creates a product that seems to force it on people.
Conclusion.... perhaps Microsoft doesn't deserve to be hated, but they are very annoying at least. I will say their benefits do out weigh their annoyances. With that said, I would discourage jumping on the bandwagon for one of their new products.

You Too can Celebrate Festivus

About nine years ago, Seinfeld introduced a made up holiday called "Festivus" (this clip should explain it) for the people who feel like Christmas has become to commercialized. Now they are even selling the Festivus polls. This goes to show how much our culture is effected by the media. I mention this because of a news story I recently read, which mentioned it.

Will it Blend

Even though it is somewhat of a sales-pitch, the will it blend website is just fantastic. They have a super blender (which ranges from $400 - $850) that seems to be able to blend anything. They have cellphones, hockey pucks, an ipod, just all kinds of great things to put in a blender. My blender broke the other day, it'd be nice to get one of these.... hmm, I wonder if my old blender would blend.

Stress Relief Suggestion

Here's something that you probably need to do more anyway and it's also a stress reliever. Web MD has an article stating that if a woman holds her husbands hand it helps reduce stress. It seems like it would be obvious, but now we have science to back it up.... seems like science comes around from time to time to confirm what we all know.

Rocky Spoof

Here's a really cool rocky spoof video. I really enjoy the looks this guy gets even though it has to be a planned thing. The bicycle is the greatest.

An all Video Wednesday

I have found several really cool videos to share with you today. I could make different entries for each of these, but I'll just bunch them all together in this one. Here's what I've found.

Huge Nintendo Controller - This is a really cool nintendo controller, although a little over priced, still someone had to do it. I'm fairly familiar with the insides of this controller due to repairs made as a young gamer, but they did an excellent job with the reproduction. I also noticed in the extra footage that the actual console was in the controller.

Tony vs. Paul - When I first started watching this I thought, wow this is a big waste of my time, but I kept watching anyhow. It turned out to be "blog worthy" due to the amount of time and effort these guys had to put into it. The flying scenes had to be hard to make. I can't imagine how long it took to put this together. It starts out slow, but give it a chance.

Santa 24 - This is a great advertisement for 24. I'm not sure if this originally aired on Fox or if it was an original web advertisement, but I'm hoping that the networks are finally catching on... if you want your ads to be effective, make them entertaining to compete with other stuff that takes up the viewer's time. Anyway, this was well put together, and worth mentioning.

Kilt Shortage

The Scottish are having a shortage of kilts for their military. They are being forced to share their kilts among themselves. There is just something a little disturbing with that. I'm sure they wash them and all but .... well, draw your own conclusions there. Thought I'd share it with you.

Get Your own Airship

Ok, maybe it's not an airship, or even as cool as a Zeppelin, but you could perhaps be able to own your own hot air blimp. Now I know what I want for Christmas. Here's a another article about it. Seems like a lot of fun to me, check out the video of it too.

Lost Elevator

I'm a pretty big fan of Lost.... it's just a great show... lots of mystery and excitement. Anyway, I saw this SNL skit and thought it was great. It's something that could really happen, and the whole part about shutting up 'cause they hadn't seen the episodes yet is so true. I see this happening all the time. In fact, no one is allowed to talk about Battlestar Galactica around me right now 'cause I'm still in the middle of the second season :).

Never Too Late to Go Back

This seems like a story one would see in a movie. A guy went to college in 1929 and left one course short of graduation. Now, over 70 years later at age 100, he will receive his degree from Baylor due to taking a substitute class. The strange part of it is, he didn't even attend the ceremony. This is just a great story though, congratulations guy!!! Ironically the class he substituted in order to graduate was Life 101, if he couldn't pass that class, I'm not sure who could.

Turning Your Computers Off

According to Cannon, it is best to turn your computer off when you head out on your Christmas break in order to save some money. This is a pretty good idea, however, your IT staff may not like it too well, so you may want to check with them first just in case. This could possibly interfere with patch scheduling, or even imaging (if wake on LAN isn't enabled).
I just thought this to be an interesting concept, something most people don't think too much about, they just do what is habitual. Me, I leave mine on all the time, but that's 'cause I'm too impatient to wait on them.

Super Secure Passwords

I've mentioned it before, but I'm a regular listener to a few different podcasts including "Security Now" with Steve Gibson. Steve is just fantastic to listen to and really knows what he's talking about. However, there were two episodes that I enjoyed in particular and would highly recommend everyone listen to, which are episodes 4 and 5 from last year on "personal passwords" he gives great ideas on how to create and memorize really "strong" passwords. He later came up with a "perfect password" generator, which I use myself for my WPA key.
Security Now does an excellent job at cranking these great episodes out, and I'd recommend even the non-geek crowd to check it out, just for personal protection. Sometimes they do get kinda technical, but it's a great learning experience for anyone interested in getting into the networking side of comptuers.

President Clinton Anti-Santa

Who knew it, Christmas was almost ruined for children across the country because of former president Clinton. He tried to kill Santa, and claims he was very close to it. He's not the only one who has been after Santa Claus though... looks like both parties are into hate'n on Santa.

Spit Art

If you're think'n of taking up a new hobby, Spit Art may be the thing for you. What is it? Well, it's just as it sounds. You make art by spitting. This guy really gets into it, you'd almost have to have someone on the look out for you.... CAR!!!

Classic Blog -- Chuck Norris Facts

Here's a site that almost everyone has seen now, but it's still funny to visit from time to time. It's the Chuck Norris facts page. This is just all around funny!!! Chuck Norris is one tough guy, once you've read your facts. Here's a link to his response to it, it's really cool how he embraces it. Chuck seems like a nice guy.

Hidden Tank Discovered

This news story is a little bit old, but it'd new to me, and I would guess it is probably new to you too, since it is Russian news. That still doesn't keep it from being a really cool story even if it is over 6 years old (but it has really cool pictures). A 56 year old WW2 tank was discovered buried in a lake in really good shape. A historian was told about tank tracks that lead into a lake by someone who was just a boy at the time of the war and had observes this. The historian decided to act, and actually discovered the tank. The pictures in the article are great!!! My question is, what do you do with this thing when you find it.... He put it in a museum, but I'm sure there could be many other cool things to do with a tank :).

Special thanks to Lil Ra for the story.

Skype Out .... Out!!!

Skype has decided to discontinue their free SkypeOut service starting at the end of the year. They hinted they were going to do this when they made it free, so it's not so much of a surprise. I've been using SkypeOut pretty much since they offered it for free, and I gotta say, I'm highly impressed and plan to partake of their $15 yearly fee. $15 for unlimited long distance calls for a year is a wonderful deal, and it saves me from using my cellphone minutes when calling people during peak times. I've even used it for work related calls (getting paged to long distance numbers when I don't have long distance on my home phone and my cell battery is dead). I'm online most the time anyway, so it works out perfect.

Wii-Mote Hacks

With the popularity of the Nintendo Wii and it's revolutionary new style controller, many gamers have decided to take it into to their own hands to hack it to play other games and use it for other things as well. The Wii Linux website is dedicated to help gamers in their projects, check it out to help yourself to do this.

Read a Book

Just a reminder that with all this internet surfing, it's sometimes good to sit down and read a book. I mention this because of this interesting picture I saw earlier. I'm all about paperless, except for when it comes to books. With the exception of manuals, I just can't bring myself to approve of ebooks or audio books ahead of the classic paperback or hardcover book, if you need advice on something ask me :). Read a book, it's fun!!!

Rock'n Too Hard

For Tiger's pitcher Joel Zumaya, there will be no more Rock'n out on his "Guitar Hero" PS2 game. He had been been jamm'n down a bit too much according to his athletic trainers. His fake guitar playing was causing some pain in his wrist which was effecting his pitching. Another gamer thwarted by real life stuff....

Best Videos of 2K6

Here's a link that iFilm came up with that has the top Video's of 2006. Some of these I've blogged about and some have been up for a blog and didn't make the cut, but check'm out, they're pretty cool.

A Galaxy Not so Far Away

You Star Wars fans out there should love this..... A Star Wars set still stands today, and people are actually living there. In Tunisia (for the Geographically challenged, that is on the other side of the Mediteranian from Italy), in the Sahara, some of the houses from Tatooine are still there. In fact, Uncle Owen's house (Luke's childhood home) is being used as a hotel. This is now officially on my list of places to go, camels seem like fun anyway.

Taking Apart A Wii

A lady that I work with jokes around about me having the Wii and says I've ruined some poor kid's Christmas, but now I don't feel so bad. At least I'm putting mine to use, as opposed to this guy who took his apart to check out the hardware. It's not as impressive as playing the system, but kinda neat to see the innerds of it. There is also a link to the XBox 360 being taken apart, it's really neat to see how they have it sealed up.
I'm guessing the people that took this stuff apart are competant enough to put it back together and make it work, but I don't think I'd be brave enough.

Saddest Song Ever

I'm not making a music recommendation, but talking science. According to a British study, the song "The Drugs Don't Work" by The Verve is scientifically the saddest song ever. I had never heard of the Verve, much less this song until I read this article, so I had to find out what they were talking about, so I downloaded the song from iTunes. It's actually not such a bad song, but maybe I'm a sucker for sappy sad songs. Here's a link to the Lyrics.

Batman vs. Superman umm.... no

Ok, the ultimate debate of Batman vs Superman has been out there for years. I'm sure there is some sort of resolution for it, but this is not it. I blog this for 2 reasons, 1 is because this is very funny and very disturbing, but 2 because this is the perfect chance to get my reader's feedback on who may win, Batman or Superman.
Gauntlet thrown, would Batman or Superman win in a fight, and why? I know at least a few of my readers are comic fans, and it'd be fun to hear your comments. I don't want to ruin it by putting my opinion out there first so I'll wait for some responses to join in.

Language Barrier

Here's a list of Subtitles from Movies in Hong Kong that's pretty funny to read through. Talk about a meaning lost in translation. I often wonder if some of the subtitled movies we watch here in the US are as horrible subbed. Probably, especially some of the anime stuff.

50 Good Inventions

Here's another one of "those lists" that I don't agree with, but thought I'd post anyway. It's the top 50 Inventions of Our Time. Go through and see what you think, it's kinda boring, but, since they claim to be the top 50 inventions of our time, it's worth a look.

TelePresence by Cisco

This is something I thought was cool, mainly because a few months ago Cisco came to my company to do a sales pitch and mentioned this technology called TelePresence. It's really cool to see it in action, but I doubt very seriously if our company would ever even consider something like this especially considering both sides must invest $300,000 to get this to work, however, it is way cool.

Mr. T Wants You to Be Somebody!!!

I forgot just how cool Mr. T was. Sure I've watched some of the old A-Team reruns, but you don't really see Mr. T, just his character. Now here's the real Mr. T that has continued to inspire me to Be Somebody. I'm also reminded of just how cool the 80's were. What, you don't wear your socks like that still?

Christmas Lights Video

Earlier in the year, one of my blog readers mentioned this Christmas Lights Video. I posted this on the comments of the blog entry that it was originally mentioned under, but my friend pointed out that it deserved it's own blog entry and I agreed, but did not do it at that time because I felt it more appropriate to do around the Christmas season, so here we go. This was a light display that was put up by an animator by the name of Carson Williams. This light show became very popular and was even featured in a beer commercial. Last year, however, Mr. Williams took down this display due to some major traffic problems it was causing, however he is putting it back up this year, but putting it up in a park. He has also created a site somewhat dedicated to this, but also to some other custom animation projects. Way to go Mr. Williams!!!
Also, if you'd like to try to do something a little bit smaller than this, here's a small guide on where to begin.

Special thanks to Goyle for this blog entry.

Your Batman Equipment Guide

Someone had way too much time and has come up with a complete Batman equipment archive. I didn't read each individual item, however I did skim through it and I found the best part of it to be the very bottom where he goes through the items Batman should have. I'm not sure if anyone would ever need this info, but it's cool nontheless.

Coke Addict?

I have a friend who loves his Coca-Cola. He's been to the Coke headquarters in Atlanta and enjoys sampling the different "mixes" of coke from different areas (coke has a different taste depending where you are at in the World/US). I like me some Coke and other soda as well (Coke the best though), but I found this link that tells you the effects Coke has on your body. After reading this I may think twice when I drink a soda, but I've been drinking it for all these years, why stop now ... but I can stop anytime I want to. :)

Divide By Zero

No one has ever been able to divide by zero.... it's a common "no no" in the programming/math world, but now heres a guy who says he can. I gotta admit, I was somewhat skeptical, but also somewhat hopeful when I read the title to this article, but when I read/saw it, my hopes were replaced by more skepticism. The guy manages to do this by saying he's going "out of the number line". It pretty much seems to me like he does some factoring of numbers, but then when it comes to dividing by zero, he puts the answer as his "nullity" number and then pretty much say "well, there ya have it". I need more of an explanation than that. I spoke with my favorite Mathmetician earlier today and told him the guy is either a genius or crazy. His response "crazy". I tend to agree unless I can get a better explanation.

Computer Man Video

I'm glad this song never caught on. It's the "computer man" song based on the "Good Humor Man" jingle on the commercials of the 90's. I would say enjoy, but if you do, there's probably something wrong with you cause it's highly annoying, but I thought I'd share, + it features some really old computer shots (really old being 10 years ago :) ).

Everyone Armed?

You better think twice if you're gonna mess with someone from the town of Cherry Tree, PN, cause they're strapped. There is a proposed law that would ask all the residents of this city to own a gun and know how to use it. How do you spell bad idea?? I'm not against firearms, however, I do believe there are many people who do not need to own one. I understand the argument of self defense and all, but an entire city equiped seems a little overboard. Things may turn out well fro them, but it sounds a little scary to think about.

All Your Base

Oh man, this is the greatest. I've had this in my favorites for years now and it's always funny. It is the "All your base are belong to us" video. I know what you're saying "What?? another Brian Green gramatical/spelling error?" but no, this is for real. The story is in the link, I can't say it better than they did, check it out and enjoy. Then buy the shirt. There's really all kinds of stuff out there dedicated to this game, it's a gamer culture thing.

Not Too Safe

Recently on the Dave Letterman show they dropped a 300 lb safe off the top of a building onto a buick just for fun. It's funny how he didn't think of the possibility of missing the car. I'm not too sure which is better, the sound of the crash or the slow motion shot of it hitting. Dropping things and crashes are always fun.

Way to Go Dell

I gotta endorse Dell Computers here a little, not because they paid me, but because they did something that I believe was really excellent customer service and from what I can tell, this isn't a one time thing, it happends all the time.... allow me to explain.
Here's what happend, I posted a blog about 2 weeks ago (some of you regular readers recall I'm sure) about a USB drive in a bowling bowling ball where I mentioned a usb drive being taken by a Dell technician a year and a half ago. A guy named Neil from Dell found this entry and responded to my blog (you can see the full details in the link above) . I followed Neil's instructions and emailed Dell support an explanation of what happend, pretty much what I put in the blog comments back to Neil, just to see how it would go.
Before I got a response I did some research. I googled Neil, the email address he gave me, and "Round Rock REC" and found that this is something that he does very often (if not daily). I found several forums and blogs with situations that required special attention and he was there for them. Shortly after, I received an email from Dell letting me know they would ship me a USB key. Today, I got the package and it wasn't a 1gb USB drive like the one that was stolen, but a 2GB USB drive.
Special thanks to Neil and to Dell computers for their great support not only this time, but times in the past. Dell's service and warranties are superb. Mainly when you have a PC, it's a PC, nothing special, you run windows, windows may lock up, but hardware is hardware. If the hardware crashes, Dell is really excellent about fixing it (if it's under warranty of course). In this case however, they went above what it was called. Way to go Dell!!!

Smell O Vision

I remember hearing about this "Smell O Vision" once in about 1987 and then never heard of it again, so when this link came across my RSS feed, I had to check it out. The smell o vision I saw was one that had the scratch and sniff cards for the program. I don't know who handed them out, but some kids I was friends with gave them to me and told me when to watch the show. It was really a silly show and I didn't quite understand what this was getting at at the time. Once I read the article it's a technology that'd be really cool to have, but I still don't see it coming along anytime soon.

Punchout Reinactment

For all you old school gamers out there, I thought I'd include this Mike Tyson's Punchout video. I spent hours upon hours playing this game when I was a kid. This reinactment brought back a lot of memories. The best part is the bike scene.

Alright, Who Invited the Camel

I apoligize for having an animal story on here for the past three nights or so, but this had to be mentioned. A camel ruined an Irish party by not only eating the party's food, but drinking their beer as well. I've seen drunken dogs before, but not camels, that's gotta be a sight. Can you get a drunk driving ticket if the camel you're driving is drunk?

Hot Fuzz Trailer

I watched Shawn of the Dead when it came out and it was pretty good, but the makers of it are coming out with a new movie that looks even better called Hot Fuzz. It's a cop movie, but seems pretty funny so I thought I'd share it with you.

Bat in a Tree

Kind of a weird story out of California. A lady recently ordered a Christmas tree, only to find she had taken a bat's home. The evening she got it, it bit her, but she thought it may be the pine needles cutting her. It sounds like a good deal, you get a tree and a pet for the price of the tree.

Classic Blog-- Subservient Chicken

This is an old site that I thought was pretty funny. It's the Burger King Subservient Chicken. You type in a command and the chicken will actually do it. It's surprising how accurate it is, as though the chicken is really listening to you. It's worth about 5 minutes of fun then it gets boring.

Wii Safety Guide

This story has been all over digg.com today, but for those who don't check digg, I thought I'd share it with you. There is a Japanese Super Safe Wii Safety Manual that's pretty funny. Scroll down and check these out, it took me a few minutes to realize what some of them were. Here is a spoof of it (like it really needs one).
Anyway, speaking of Wii's I still haven't got one, gonna try again early in the morning and see what I can get, but my hopes aren't too high.

Better Late than Never -- but 15 Years!!!

Most of you know I'm a baseball fan, so a baseball story at this time of year had to be mentioned. This guy sent Phillie's pitcher Don Carman fan mail with a card and a pre-addressed envelope 15 years ago and just recently received a reply back. The story is though, that he is not the first person to have this happen to him, several other fans are now receiving similar letters. Apparently Mr. Carman misplaced an entire box of fan mail and is now responding to them. The article is great, check it out, Don Carman sounds like a really fantastic guy.

Yule Goat

When I read about this, I knew it was definitely blog material. There is a 43-feet tall goat statue in Stolkholm Sweeden that has been the victim of vandalism for the past 40 years. This goat has been through it all it would seem and most the time the vandals get away. This year they are saying "it's impossible to burn" well, if that isn't just a big "welcome to the challenge" sign. The goat was once their version of Santa Claus... the gift bringer of the Christmas season (here is a link of more history of it).
They have setup webcams and guards so it can be monitored to ensure that it will not be vanalised (even though this has not worked in the past). When I first heard this, I thought that it couldn't be real, but after reasearching it, it's hillarious!!!
If the webcam link doesn't work, try here .

Is that a Guitar in Your Pocket or...

Last week in Arkansas a man tried to steal an electric guitar by hiding it in his pants. How did he expect not to get noticed. He would have been better off to just walk out of the store with it in his hands. He could have done that in the time it took him to put it up his pants. The article describes it best. Humans can be so stupid :).

Rapping Their Way Out of a Ticket

This is a story that may be a little controversial. Two black men were stopped by a white officer for littering and then were given the option to rap to get out of a ticket. Apparently this has been seen as being racist, which I guess I could see a litte, but it could just be the officer trying to do the right thing also. I'm sure we don't know the whole story, he may have seen the guys rapping before, or maybe he heard their music and got the idea that they liked rap. I think if the guys in the car were offended by this, they wouldn't have taken the deal, they would have reported him and paid their ticket. They, instead made up a rap, and then talked with him about football. I'm not too sure I see too much to apoligize about in this case even though it seemed kind of inappropriate to say "You know why you say I'm right? Because I got a gun and badge. I'm always right. That's the way it works, right?".
I agree that racism is a horrible thing done by the ignorant, but in this case, I just don't see this officer being racist (of course I don't know the full story, and I didnt see the video).

8 Bit Hampster

Here's a funny video of a Hampster in a Metroidish game. This is a little disturbing but entertaining as well as cute. The hampster even takes time to stop and wash himself. I really enjoy the enemies as well. The music is great.... it takes me back to the days of the good ol' NES. Way to save the planet super rodent!!!

Weird Al Stuff

I really enjoy me some Weird Al. He's a very witty guy and always does a great job on sounding orginal. Just because it hasn't made it on here yet, I thought I'd include a link to White and Nerdy for all of you who have not seen it (btw, it hits close to home). But one of the things I hadn't heard until last nite was the Canadian Idiot song (based on the Greenday "American Idiot" song). I'm not sure if there is a real video for this out there yet, but I couldn't find it, so I thought I'd include a link with Voltron break dancing, I mean why not really. Voltron was great!!!

O yea, if someone knows of the link to the real video please post in the comments :)

Make Skype Quicker

Here is a link to a vlog (video or video podcast) that goes through a fairly detailed tutorial on how to make skype quicker by opening ports on your router. A few things before you watch the video. First of all for those who don't use skype, you should!!! It's a PC to PC or PC to Phone calling service when you can call anyone in the US for free. Go to their site, try it (it can't hurt) and see what you think. Second, this video is a little bit technical for you non-computer nerds out there, but it is still worth watching because it kinda explains some very basic concepts of internet routing and firewalls, and if you're reading this blog chances are you use the internet.

Note: Skype isn't so much slow, it's just that sometimes you have a somewhat broken connection similar to that of a cellphone. With that said though, I would rather talk Skype to Skype, or Skype to Lan line than cell to cell in many cases.

Are you Ready to be Old School

Here's a really cool video about being old school. Some of the stuff here I don't really consider old school (maybe because I'm gett'n older) and I wish some more things were on it. I had forgotten about the crossing of the straps, now that is old school and really cool. If I had straps on my shoes, I'd do it. They really need classes on the old school though :)

Update: Just an update.... upon further investigaton, this is just a teaser for an upcoming oldschool series from www.fishfood.com. This is a Christian student-ministry website, I couldn't find anything about being oldschool on it though, but it has a place to subscribe, but it's $50 per year. I doubt we'll see anymore "oldschool" videos soon, but I'll keep an eye out and let you know.

PC Guy vs. Mac Guy

I'm sure most of us have seen these Mac vs. PC ads onTV where the PC guy is the guy in the suit and he's talking to the Mac guy in casual cloths and he seems "much cooler", so Mac thinks. Apparently, the advertising campaign is having the opposite effect of what they'd like. People dislike the arrogant Mac guy and think the PC guy is funny and cute. Here's a somewhat recent article about how Mac is going to ditch the Mac guy.
I did see a new comercial of this last nite during the Raven's/Bengals game, but according to that article there was going to be another, maybe this'll be the last, but I kinda enjoy them personally.